
White House backs away from IVF coverage mandate despite Trump's campaign pledge, Washington Post reports
Reuters could not immediately verify this report.
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Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Jasmine Crockett unleashes tirade on Trump
Democrat Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett shared some choice words for President Donald Trump during her latest rabble-rousing stunt. Crockett called Trump 'a piece of [expletive]' during a Sunday stop on MoveOn's Won't Back Down Tour in Phoenix, Arizona . The Texas congresswoman's comments were in reference to Republican plans to redraw maps in Republican states to their advantage ahead of next year's midterm elections. MoveOn described the event as bringing 'the fire to key congressional districts where Republicans are taking away people's healthcare to make the rich even richer,' stating it was 'time to start organizing to vote them out in 2026.' White House Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Mail in a statement that 'Jasmine Crockett's low-intelligence comments aren't merely pathetic digs at President Trump, they're insults to the millions of Americans who elected him to Make America Great Again.' 'While Jasmine, the Democrat Party's chief spokeswoman, continues to double down on attacking the American people, President Trump is fulfilling his promises and ushering in America's Golden Age. With behavior like this from the left, it's no wonder Democrats are historically unpopular,' Jackson added. Last month, Trump grouped Crockett with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , calling AOC 'very nice but she's very Low IQ' and saying that 'between her and Crockett, we're going to give them both an IQ test to see who comes out best.' Crockett has made headlines numerous times in recent months as a key critic of the Trump administration, and the issue of congressional redistricting in her home state ahead of the 2026 midterms is the latest one she has spoken out on. Crockett called Trump 'Temu Hitler' in a recent interview with SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell, due to the president's involvement in the redistricting process. 'So what we have seen is, again, this rogue Department of Justice going out to do the bidding of this Temu Hitler,' Crockett told Maxwell in July. Crockett also added that in her view, Trump believes that the only way to 'ensure that [he] will have no checks on [him] is if [he] can ensure that those voices of color do not have representation.' Crockett faces being booted from Congress after Republicans proposed a heavily gerrymandered redistricting map that would mean she no longer lives in her district. She has slammed the Texas redistricting maps as a sham that silences minority voices and keeps power in the hands of the few, diluting the voting power of Latino and Black communities. The redistricting push in Texas was spurred by a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice sent to state officials in July, which argued that four of the state's congressional districts were racially gerrymandered. Democrats won all four of these seats in the 2024 elections. The Texas congressional maps were already redrawn after the 2020 Census, and they are typically edited every ten years. Trump then urged Texas Republicans to rethink their Congressional maps to give Republicans a leg up in next year's midterm elections. Texas Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican bill author, said four of the five new districts are majority Hispanic and 'trend Republican.' He noted that while 'political performance doesn't guarantee electoral success,' it gives 'Republican candidates the opportunity to compete in these districts.' After the Friday hearings on the proposed new maps, the Republicans on the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting voted to their proposal on a party-line vote. Democrats plan to stall a vote on the legislation by the full chamber by not showing up. A full chamber vote could happen as soon as Tuesday. 100 members of the Texas House are needed to conduct business, and Republicans hold 88 seats in the body. 62 seats are held by Democrats. Lawmakers could be fined $500 a day if they refuse to come to work, per a rule adopted in 2021 after Texas Democrats pulled a similar move to postpone another voting bill. Regardless of the creation of the new maps, Crockett's time in the U.S. House of Representatives may be coming to an end soon. In a July interview with liberal comedian and media personality Hasan Minhaj, Crockett noted that she already has her 'expiration date in mind for the House,' adding that she already has 'been eyeing people to replace' her. While she hasn't expressed direct interest in the U.S. Senate, Republicans seem interested in offering up her up as a radioactive option to Texas voters. Polling released by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) last month showed Crockett leading a hypothetical Democratic primary with 35 percent of likely voters, followed by former Rep. Colin Allred at 20 percent and former U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro tied at 13 percent. Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term, is facing his own Republican primary from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.


Channel 4
24 minutes ago
- Channel 4
Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak calls for end to ‘war of destruction' in Gaza
We spoke to Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister and IDF Chief of Staff. With 600 other retired Israeli officials, he signed an open letter to Donald Trump, calling on him to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.


The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
Noem wants ‘Alligator Alcatraz' detention centers near airport runways across US to boost migrant deportation ‘efficiency'
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem envisions more 'Alligator Alcatraz'-like immigration detention centers across the country, including near airport runways, to boost the 'efficiency' of Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda. The Florida facility is serving as a model for state-run detention centers, and 'the locations we're looking at are right by airport runways that will help give us an efficiency that we've never had before,' Noem told CBS News. Noem told the network she has appealed directly to state officials, and 'most of them are interested.' She added: 'Many of them have facilities that may be empty or underutilized.' The administration has reportedly sought out facilities in Arizona, Nebraska and Louisiana, which currently houses the only Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center on a tarmac. The Alexandria Staging Facility sits across from the Alexandria International Airport, which has emerged as the nation's deportation capital under the Trump administration. For more than a decade, ICE — which operates under Homeland Security — has turned to corporate shipping and logistics companies for inspiration for rounding up and deporting immigrants. Shortly after he was tapped to lead the agency in March, ICE's acting director, Todd Lyons, bluntly compared the movement of people to packages. 'We need to get better at treating this like a business, where this mass deportation operation is something like you would see and say, like, Amazon trying to get your Prime delivery within 24 hours,' Lyons told a law enforcement conference in Phoenix in April. 'So, trying to figure out how to do that with human beings,' he said. Lyons later expanded on his remarks about treating immigrants like packages in an interview with Boston 25 News that same month. 'The key part that got left out of that statement was, I said, they deal with boxes, we deal with human beings, which is totally different,' he said. ICE 'should be run like a corporation,' he told the outlet. 'We need to be better about removing those individuals who have been lawfully ordered out of the country in a safe, efficient manner,' Lyons continued. 'We can't trade innovation and efficiency for how we treat the people in our custody.' In a statement to The Independent, Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the agency is 'working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.' 'With the opening of Alligator Alcatraz, we expanded facilities and bed space in just days,' she added. 'We look forward to partnering with other states to open other similar facilities to house some the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.' Named Alligator Alcatraz by state and federal officials, a 3,000-bed detention center opened in south Florida last month within the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, roughly 43 miles from Miami in the middle of the Everglades. A federal lawsuit accuses the facility of blocking detainees from legal counsel and forcing people into 'overcrowded, unsanitary, and harsh conditions' with inadequate food, flood-prone cells, and 'excessive use of force' from guards that sent at least one man to a hospital. It's also unclear who is actually running the facility and who wants to take responsibility for it. Government lawyers could not immediately answer in court whether the federal government or Florida is responsible. In court filings, immigration officials claimed that the facility is operating through the federal 287(g) program, which allows local and state law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration law. ICE has inked nearly 800 such agreements covering 40 states. 'We need to get to the bottom of the interplay between the federal and state authorities on who's running this thing,' Florida District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II said during a recent court hearing in a lawsuit against the facility. The makeshift facility is expected to cost roughly $450 million within its first year, at roughly $245 per inmate bed per night, according to DHS. ICE spent roughly $187 per adult detainee per day in 2023. Still, Noem claims that the Alligator Alcatraz model is 'much better' than ICE's current arrangement with local jails and for-profit prison companies, which operate a vast majority of the nation's detention centers. Funding for Alligator Alcatraz largely comes from FEMA's Shelter and Services Program. The incoming wave of state-run detention centers is expected to tap into $45 billion in new funding for ICE as part of Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.' The bill also allocates $30 billion for an aggressive recruitment campaign to hire another 10,000 ICE agents. Altogether, the bill earmarks more than $170 billion for immigration enforcement — a boon to for-profit contractors and cash-strapped states looking to tap into billions of taxpayer dollars. Putting those new facilities near airports and runways will help ICE cut costs by 'facilitating quick turnarounds,' Noem told CBS. 'They're all strategically designed to make sure that people are in beds for less days,' Noem said. 'It can be much more efficient once they get their hearings, due process, paperwork.'