Legal Analyst: DNA collected from migrant children uploaded to FBI-run database, report says
CHARLOTTE () — Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future. Chief Legal Analyst Khalif Rhodes weighs in on the process and why CBP deems it necessary.
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Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters
The Trump administration has taken a more aggressive approach than its predecessor toward addressing the nationwide surge in antisemitic incidents, launching investigations, punishing elite universities, and intensifying its immigration enforcement practices. President Donald Trump, through his Department of Justice (Doj) and other agencies, is using law-and-order tactics that his deputies say are necessary, but that critics say could constitute overreach. Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ's assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, told Fox News Digital she has not seen any "close cases" when it comes to weighing antisemitic behavior against First Amendment rights of those who oppose Israel or Judaism. Biden Education Dept Put Priority On Pronouns, Left Backlog Of Nearly 200 Antisemitism Complaints: Official "Criticizing the government of Israel is not what I'm typically seeing here," Dhillon said. "I'm seeing an intifada revolution. I'm seeing blocking Jewish students from crossing campuses and destroying property on campus, which is a crime. … Quiet, polite conversation and disagreement with Israeli policy is not really what's happening here. It's literally people saying Israel shouldn't exist — and bringing the revolution to the United States." Dhillon added that "that type of violent rhetoric has led to violent acts in our country." Read On The Fox News App After Hamas's deadly terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the FBI's hate crime statistics showed a sharp spike in anti-Jewish incidents in the U.S. The data runs through December 2023. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) data from 2024 and high-profile incidents this year suggest the trend is continuing. An Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally in Boulder, Colorado, is facing state and federal charges for allegedly injuring 15 people, including elderly victims and a dog last weekend with Molotov cocktails during a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration in support of hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, stated to authorities "he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead," according to an FBI affidavit. During the attack he allegedly yelled "free Palestine," the agent said. In May, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., were gunned down outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in D.C. Suspect Elias Rodriguez of Illinois shouted "free Palestine" as he was detained, and Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said her office is investigating the case as a hate crime and act of terrorism. Suspect Charged With Murdering Israeli Embassy Staff Could Face Death Penalty In another incident, a man allegedly set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's residence on the first night of Passover. Emergency call logs released by local authorities revealed that the suspect, Cody Balmer, invoked Palestine after the arson and blamed Shapiro, who is Jewish, for "having my friends killed." Tarek Bazrouk, who identified himself as a "Jew hater" and said Jewish people were "worthless," allegedly carried out a series of assaults on Jewish New Yorkers in 2024 and 2025, according to an indictment brought against him in May. Bazrouk wore a green headband that mimicked Hamas garb and a keffiyeh during the attacks, and he celebrated Hamas and Hizballah on his social media, according to federal authorities. Trump warned in an executive order at the start of his presidency that foreign nationals participating in "pro-jihadist protests" would be deported, and he specifically highlighted college campuses as being "infested with radicalism." Unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration has since gone to war with elite universities, some of which have been roiled by disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that involve occupying academic buildings and installing encampments. Leo Terrell Says Trump Admin Willing To Take Harvard Antisemitism Fight All The Way To Supreme Court Harvard and Columbia, in particular, are now engaged in litigation after Trump moved to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding for the universities and ban Harvard's foreign students. The embattled schools have been successful in winning temporary pauses to Trump's sanctions through the courts, but litigation is pending and legal experts have said they face an uphill battle. The Trump administration has zeroed in on non-citizen students and activists who it has accused of supporting Palestinian causes in ways it deems hostile to U.S. interests. Amid Trump's pursuit of visa and green card holders, Mahmoud Khalil's case has become a flashpoint. Khalil was arrested in March and detained after the administration accused him of violating immigration laws by engaging in anti-Israel activism. This week, Khalil said in court papers the administration's claims against him were "grotesque" and that his activism involved "protesting this Israeli government's indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians." Civil rights groups have warned that the government's hardliner posture risks violating free speech and protest rights. A coalition of 60 groups issued a joint statement this week on antisemitic hate crimes in which it warned the Trump administration not to over-correct because it would "make us all less safe." "As we condemn these heinous [antisemitic] acts and those who perpetrate hate and violence, we also recommit to ensuring that these events — and the legitimate fear in the Jewish community — are not exploited to justify inhumane immigration policies or to target Arab Americans and those who peacefully and nonviolently exercise their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinian human rights," the groups said. Dhillon told Fox News Digital: "It's not my responsibility to balance free speech issues on campus. It's my responsibility to enforce the federal civil rights laws. And my opinion, there's really no conflict." When he took office, Trump vowed in a string of executive orders to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to "aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews." Trump appointees at the DOJ then moved quickly to convene an antisemitism task force. Dhillon said there is also frequent communication between the White House, the DOJ, and Jewish leaders about addressing antisemitism. Jewish Students Welcome Trump Admin's Crackdown On Antisemitism, Hamas Sympathizers On Campuses "We have heard from the Jewish community, and I've probably met with — I think there's at least two dozen rabbis who have my number on speed dial now. I literally sent three emails to rabbis in the last hour," she said. She said her division has opened several investigations involving land use for religious purposes under a law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), including five related to Judaism. The administration is also notifying Jewish communities of grants available for added security at synagogues, and she said campuses are a "significant focus" for her. After reports surfaced that Dhillon's shakeup in the Civil Rights Division led to a mass exodus of more than 100 attorneys leaving the division, she told the media she was unfazed by the departures and that her focus remains on launching the division's work toward combating antisemitism. Testing the limits of his subordinates and the courts, another top DOJ official, Emil Bove, launched an internal investigation into Columbia student protesters early this year. The probe caused concern among line attorneys, who felt it was flimsy and was also met with multiple reprimands from a magistrate judge, according to the New York Times. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement in May that the New York Times' story was false and fed to the newspaper "by a group of people who allowed antisemitism and support of Hamas terrorists to fester for years." Blanche confirmed the veracity of the investigation and said it involved, in part, a probe into a Hamas-linked image on Columbia University Apartheid Divest's social article source: Trump admin cracks down on antisemitism as DOJ official exposes 'violent rhetoric' of radical protesters
Yahoo
an hour ago
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Udall neighbors rattled after park restrooms set on fire — twice
UDALL, Kan. (KSNW) — You could smell it before you saw it — the charred remains of the city park restrooms, torched and melted from the inside out. Udall Police Chief Erik King is calling it arson and says it's unlike anything he's dealt with in town before. The damage is estimated at around $10,000. Loose tire injures two highway cyclists near Atwood 'This is where the trash can was right here in this corner,' King told KSN. 'Melted the alarms, melted the drains, melted the light switches.' Police say it happened Thursday around 4:30 in the afternoon. Then, just hours later, it happened again. 'The same person returned and, at about 8:40 at night, lit the boy's bathroom on fire, and that caused significant damage,' King said. 'It was on fire for 20 minutes before the alarm company notified us.' He says the timing couldn't be worse, with the Fourth of July just around the corner. Neighbors say the smoke drew their attention before they knew what was happening. 'I was doing yardwork and I had the boys, and a lady from out of town came up to the fence and asked if I had seen a person walking around,' said Skylar Kistler, who lives next to the park. That's when she noticed the smoke coming from the bathroom. 'It kind of made us, I guess, feel protective, like a little more protective, like kind of upset that anybody would do that,' she said. Her husband Tylor says the damage is personal. 'I've lived here my whole life, so it's kind of nice to have a park like this with a splashpad, and you know everything here for the boys right in our backyard, and it's just kind of bad. This is a good building, and it's terrible,' he said. Chief King says the person believed to be responsible has been arrested and is currently being held in juvenile detention. In the meantime, the city is bringing in port-a-potties, and repairs could take up to two months. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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an hour ago
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Failed Muni Bond Draws FBI and Sparks `Ponzi-Like Fraud' Claims
(Bloomberg) -- Before the lawsuits started piling up in courtrooms across Connecticut, before his employer accused him of running a 'massive Ponzi-like fraud,' and before the FBI showed up, Robert Cappelletti looked well on his way to pulling off one of the greatest muni-bond coups of all time. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. The plan Cappelletti had put together was so audacious it bordered on the fantastical. The housing agency he ran in Groton, a sleepy town of some 40,000 people along Connecticut's Thames River, would sell $750 million of bonds to jumpstart a $4 billion project to transform a bunch of run-down shopping plazas into a sprawling, up-scale development. There'd be a new train station, a hospital, almost 2,000 apartments and dozens of shops and restaurants. It would have been the biggest local bond issue in the state's history and expanded the tiny Groton agency far beyond its role managing two apartment complexes. And yet Cappelletti — a part-time employee with a mixed record running other housing agencies in the state — breezed through a series of crucial steps needed to complete the sale. He got approval from the five-person board that runs the agency; crafted a brief financial projections statement; scored an investment-grade bond rating; and started the process of lining up buyers for the debt. It was only when the bond sale collapsed this winter and Cappelletti was removed from office that the complex financial web that he had spun across Connecticut for years came to light. Cappelletti engaged in double-dealing, created shell companies and failed to disclose loans he took out, leaving, in the process, a trail of financial wreckage across the state, lawyers for the Groton agency alleged in the most high-profile case against him. In February, they sued Cappelletti for fraud, claiming he borrowed at least $3 million without the commission's knowledge through subsidiaries he controlled. In subsequent court documents, the authority alleged Cappelletti also took 'millions of dollars' from non-commercial lenders and other 'questionable entities' that were then transferred to others, including businesses owned by his brother, David, that received about $1 million. The housing authority's attorneys are working with the FBI, which is investigating, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. 'Everybody is disgusted,' said Ric Silver, who lives in an apartment in Pequot Village, a 104-unit complex managed by the authority. Cappelletti declined to comment through his attorney, Joseph Martini, who also declined to comment. Cappelletti's brother, David, who was named as a co-defendant in the suit last month, also declined to comment. On June 2, in court papers filed in connection with the Groton case, Ivan Ladd-Smith, another lawyer for Cappelletti, said he intends to deny the allegations. A press official for the FBI declined to comment. Robert Frink, the chair of the Groton Housing Authority, said the board has opened an investigation but is 'unable to go into greater detail at this time.' That Cappelletti drew so little scrutiny as he pushed ahead with the deal is a testament to the vulnerabilities in the vast network of government agencies struggling to provide affordable housing to low-income families across America. To finance new projects and try to address the housing crisis, the local agencies routinely sell municipal bonds, a loosely regulated corner of the securities market where deals are often just rubber-stamped. Many of the agencies have been plagued by mismanagement, poor oversight and corruption. Since 2023, prosecutors have brought bribery and fraud charges against housing authority officials in Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Montana and New York, where 70 former and current New York City Housing Authority officials were ensnared in a historic case. In Connecticut, the events in Groton are drawing fresh scrutiny to the more than 100 independent housing agencies across the state, which only has enough affordable rental homes to meet the needs of about one-third of the lowest-income households. 'Until we fix the regulatory disconnect,' said Robert Boris, chair of Groton's economic development commission, 'bad actors will continue to exploit it and working families will continue to the pay the price.' Cappelletti, 58, has worked in public housing for two decades. A graduate of Assumption University, a Catholic school in Worcester, Massachusetts, he joined the housing authority in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2002 to run the city's Section 8 voucher program, according to his LinkedIn profile. In 2009, he became the executive director for the Meriden Housing Authority and five years later tacked on a similar part-time job for the Waterbury Housing Authority. Just before starting at Groton in 2016, he left the post in Waterbury. There, an investigation found he had used $56,653 of public funds to buy a Chevrolet Silverado for business and personal use even though he wasn't entitled to a vehicle, had slid someone onto the payroll without the agency's approval and allowed a contractor to live rent-free in an apartment managed by the agency in exchange for painting work. Cappelletti and Waterbury reached a separation agreement that included no admission of wrongdoing. The Groton job was a relatively modest one — mostly the oversight of 174 rental units — that Cappelletti could do while still running the agency in Meriden some 50 miles away. Cappelletti, though, envisioned much bigger things for Groton. A manufacturing hub just off the Long Island Sound, best known for its naval base, General Dynamics Corp.'s submarine factory and the sprawling research facility for the drugmaker Pfizer Inc., the town had a relatively strong economy. But that had left it with a shortage of affordable housing, and its main commercial corridor was lined with aging, strip-style retail. Cappelletti called his development project Groton 2030. It'd reserve 20% of the 1,925 apartments for lower-income residents, a key selling point to the authority's board, which approved the project in June 2023. Per the plan, Cappelletti would oversee the project himself through a development arm of the housing authority instead of hiring an experienced developer or soliciting bids. One of the housing agency commissioners who signed off on the plan, Joe Greene, soon had regrets. In an interview, Greene said he had reluctantly approved the bond during a last-minute video call but had doubts after asking for details. Cappelletti never presented a real business plan, Greene said, and the town had not received formal notice that one of its agencies was planning a massive bond sale. At odds with the rest of the board, Greene resigned that September. Two years later, he remains mystified by it all. 'I still don't know how you're going to pay off a $750 million bond in a five-year timespan when you don't own the property and when there was no business plan,' he said. 'People were amazed at the amount of money.' With the approval in hand, Cappelletti put the deal in motion. He had the Groton authority pay $25,000 to a New Jersey-based investment banker, according to a check register obtained under a freedom of information request. The authority also hired Connecticut law firm Pullman & Comley as bond counsel and obtained an 'A' rating from Egan-Jones based on a few financial projections it turned & Comley declined to comment. Eric Mandelbaum, general counsel for Egan-Jones, said the firm can't comment on particular transactions but 'stands behind its work and record, which are based on methodologies that are publicly available.' Related Story: A New Ratings Game: 3,000 Deals, 20 Analysts, Lots of Questions The sale bogged down after that. Month after month, its completion kept getting delayed. Then, in May 2024, it all started to unravel on Cappelletti when the Groton commissioners received subpoenas ordering them to travel across the state to provide sworn testimony. Months earlier, a lawsuit had been filed against Cappelletti's Meriden Housing Authority and a subsidiary, Maynard Road Corp., that had defaulted on a $16 million loan. The lender, Titan Capital, subpoenaed the Groton commissioners because Cappelletti had made $629,000 of loan repayments with funds pulled from their agency, not Meriden's. The Meriden agency is now on the hook for about $30 million — to repay the Titan loan with interest as well as $12.5 million owed to Citizens Bank for a project in Bristol, Connecticut. Back in a September 2023 board meeting, the Groton commissioners had asked Capelletti about the cash used to pay off Titan, which was recorded as an expense for the Groton 2030 project. They were assured they'd be reimbursed when the bond deal closed, minutes of the meeting show. But the Meriden lawsuit raised new questions, and when Groton commissioners started digging, they found that companies controlled by Cappelletti had bought properties in Winchester, Connecticut, and Fitchburg, Massachusetts to redevelop. Cappelletti also allegedly forged a resolution to approve $2.7 million of lease agreements for the authority, according to the February lawsuit filed by the Groton agency. 'This case involves the discovery of a massive Ponzi-like fraud,' lawyers for the agency said in a court filing. 'Over the course of at least seven years, Cappelletti accepted millions of dollars in funds from non-commercial lenders or other questionable entities.' In January, the agency suspended Cappelletti and canceled his contract. The FBI probe continues and the lawsuits are wending their way through Connecticut courts. 'Our focus now,' said Frink, the chair of the Groton Housing Authority, 'is to ensure a complete and fulsome investigation.' Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To What Does Musk-Trump Split Mean for a 'Big, Beautiful Bill'? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
