The Department of Homeland Security says agents are targeting those specific workplaces once again for deportation efforts, according to a report. The decision comes as Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and the architect of Trump’s immigration policy, is pushing ICE to make 3,000 daily arrests in order to increase deportation numbers.
Last week, Trump said business owners in farming and hospitality were warning that immigration raids were taking away longtime workers. He hinted at changes to enforcement. That drew the attention of even his biggest supporters, like Meriweather Farms in Wyoming.
“Just wanted to reiterate — we only hire US citizens on our farm and in our meat packing plant,” Meriweather Farms posted in part on X. “Most small operations like ours rely on family members, hire locals or, on the rare occasion, use legal and seasonal Visa programs. The recent order released by the Department of Homeland Security regarding ICE raids will only benefit the Big Packers and Big Ag, who exploit illegal labor.”
Senior ICE official Tatum King wrote to regional leaders earlier this week to halt investigations into the agricultural industry, including meatpacking plants, and also restaurants and hotels, unless they involve serious offenses such as human trafficking, money laundering and drug smuggling.
King also told agents to avoid arresting “noncriminal collaterals,” or undocumented people who have not taken part in those illegal activities.
Along with the reversal of the raiding of farms and hotels, ICE has launched a massive expansion of detention space. The agency has added more than 10,000 new beds nationwide to hold migrants through fast-tracked federal contracts. Many of them were awarded without competitive bidding.
In addition, ICE has also reopened shuttered prisons in Leavenworth, Kansas; Newark, New Jersey; California City, California; and Dilley, Texas, bringing online over 10,000 new detention beds through fast-tracked federal contracts, many awarded without competitive bidding.
Back in December 2024, Tom Homan, now Trump’s declared “border czar,” said the administration would need at least 100,000 detention beds and a major increase in ICE agents to carry out the president’s immigration crackdown. That plan is now taking shape, starting with one of the largest reopened facilities in Leavenworth, Kansas. The prison adds more than 1,000 beds and was previously described by a federal judge as “an absolute hellhole.”
The new deal is worth over $4 million a month to CoreCivic, the company running the site. Leavenworth has long been associated with incarceration — it’s home to one of the country’s most infamous federal prisons, which once held Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly
Just yesterday, the U.S. Border Patrol said it’s taking the lead on deportation efforts from DHS in Los Angeles. Statistics showed the agency was averaging about 1,600 apprehensions per day, which in part led to the change.
Brooklyn drivers who ignore alternate side-parking rules may soon face automated fines, as the City Council pushes for a state-approved pilot program to mount cameras on sanitation street sweepers.
The initiative, with sponsors including Brooklyn Council Members Mercedes Narcisse and Justin Brannan, aims to target persistent parking violators who prevent Department of Sanitation trucks from effectively cleaning streets.
“While street cleaning vehicles effectively remove debris and litter from roadways, drivers who refuse to move their cars for alternate side parking hours can prevent sweepers from cleaning portions of their route,” the council resolution reads. It also warns that uncollected litter can clog storm drains — an issue that has worsened flooding in Brooklyn during past tropical storms.
When sweepers cannot effectively drive their routes, litter collects on streets and in storm drains, the resolution reads. File photo by Lauren Rapp
Lincoln Restler, chair of the Council’s Governmental Affairs Committee and member of District 33, called the legislation “common sense.”
“We’re talking about cracking down on the worst offenders to ultimately facilitate greater compliance, which means fewer rats and better quality of life for New Yorkers,” he said.
The proposed enforcement system would operate similarly to the MTA’s Automated Camera Enforcement program, which equips buses with cameras to fine drivers blocking bus lanes.
Reaction among Brooklyn residents was mixed.
“I don’t think adding cameras to street sweepers is a huge leap, but I’m worried if whether those new funds will actually go toward productive city infrastructure solutions that improve other issues like parking, traffic, sanitation or public transit,” said Lisa, a Sunset Park resident who asked to be identified by first name only.
She added, “Hopefully, the money used by the city to pay cops walking around writing parking tickets all day can be used for something more impactful.”
An alternate-side parking sign in Queens. Photo by Barbara Russo-Lennon
Others voiced stronger objections.
“It feels like they’re turning the sweepers into ticket machines,” said Nick, a Gravesend resident. “Who’s going to want to leave their car parked, knowing a sweeper could roll by and automatically give you a ticket?”
According to data from Restler’s office, just 7% of vehicles were responsible for 30% of all alternate-side parking violations in 2023, which can signal that repeat offenders pose a major obstacle to cleaner streets.
The Council passed a home rule message last month to formally urge Albany lawmakers to advance the bill, but as of mid-June, the legislation remains in committee in both the state assembly and senate.
WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Donald Trump warned Tehran on Tuesday that the “gloves are off” if Iran targets U.S. interests in the Middle East. His comment came as Israel and Iran exchanged strikes for a fifth day and casualties mount on both sides.
“We’ll come down so hard if they do anything to our people — the gloves are off,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he returned to Washington a day early from the Group of Seven summit in Canada. “I think they know not to touch our troops.”
Trump is due to meet with members of his national security team in the White House Situation Room Tuesday to discuss the option of the U.S. getting involved militarily in Iran as the conflict rages.
The president said he is looking for something “better than a ceasefire” between Israel and Iran. When asked to clarify what he meant, Trump responded, “an end, a real end… a complete give-up” by Iran.
Trump added that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple.”
In recent days, the U.S. military has expanded its footprint in the region and deployed a “large number” of refueling tanker aircraft to Europe to be closer to the Middle East, a U.S. official told NewsNation. The move was intended to “provide options” to Trump and his national security team amid the escalating conflict, the official said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced that he “directed the deployment of additional capabilities” to the Middle East over the weekend to “enhance our defensive posture in the region.” Hegseth provided few specifics on those capabilities.
“What it looks like right now is that we’re vigilant. We’re prepared,” Hegseth said in an interview with Fox News on Monday night. “We’ve messaged consistently from the beginning that we’re in the region to defend our people and our assets.”
DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — The jury asked the judge three questions relating to charges and evidence Tuesday in the second murder trial of Karen Read, who is charged with killing her Boston police officer boyfriend.
Jurors began deliberations late last week, more than a month after the trial started. The second full day of deliberations began Tuesday morning.
Read, 45, is accused of striking John O’Keefe with her car outside a suburban Boston house party and leaving him to die in the snow in January 2022. She has been charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene.
Read’s lawyers say O’Keefe, 46, was beaten, bitten by a dog, then left outside a home in Canton in a conspiracy orchestrated by the police that included planting evidence against Read.
Read’s second trial followed similar contours to the first, which ended in a mistrial last year.
Jury asks judge to clarify evidence, charges
The jury asked the questions of judge Beverly Cannone, who oversaw the first Read trial and this one. The first question related to the time frame of an operating a motor vehicle under the influence charge.
Another question was about whether video clips of interviews constituted evidence.
Read has never been jailed for O’Keefe’s killing. She did not testify at her first murder trial or this one.
Defense argues Read was framed
Defense attorney Alan Jackson began his closing argument Friday by repeating three times: “There was no collision.” He told the jury that Read is an innocent woman victimized by a police cover-up in which law enforcement officers sought to protect their own and obscure the real killer.
He repeatedly attacked the lead investigator in the case, former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, who was fired after sharing offensive and sexist texts about Read with friends, family and co-workers. He said Proctor’s “blatant bias” tainted every aspect of the corrupt and flawed investigation and noted how prosecutors refused to put him on the stand, as they did during the first trial.
Proctor, he said, ignored leads, planted evidence and failed to consider anyone other than Read as a potential suspect.
“Michael Proctor went far beyond just insulting Karen Read. He dehumanized this woman,” he told jurors. “He betrayed her as a human being. He was fired for this blatant bias. If the Massachusetts State Police can’t trust him, how can you trust him with this investigation, with your verdict and with Karen Read’s life?”
Jackson was limited in this trial to arguing that someone other than Read killed O’Keefe. Rather than suggesting as many as three people could have killed O’Keefe as he did during the first trial, Jackson singled out Brian Higgins, a federal agent who worked in Canton and had exchanged flirtatious texts with Read. Jackson suggested Higgins was agitated at a bar after Read didn’t respond to his text and had coaxed O’Keefe over to the Canton house party where he was beaten up.
“What happened inside that house, that basement or that garage? What evidence was there for investigators to look into? What did they ignore?” Jackson asked, noting the “obvious dog bites” on O’Keefe’s arm and the head injury from his falling backward onto a hard surface.
Prosecutors argue Read chose to leave O’Keefe to die
Prosecutor Hank Brennan opened his closing argument Friday by saying Read callously decided to leave O’Keefe dying in the snow, fully aware that he was gravely injured. He argued that she made the “choice to let” O’Keefe die, going further than prosecutors in the first trial in spelling out a motive.
Karen Read is surrounded by media while departing with her attorney Alan Jackson as the jury deliberates at her trial at Norfolk Superior Court, Monday, June 16, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Brennan said Read’s blood-alcohol level was two to three times the legal limit, after the couple downed multiple drinks at two Canton bars. The couple, whose “toxic” relationship was “crumbling,” had an argument on the way to the house party that increased tensions and ultimately led to O’Keefe’s death, the prosecutor said.
“She was drunk, she hit him, and she left him to die,” Brennan said.
Pointing to data on Read’s SUV, Brennan said it showed Read starting to drive off before reversing and accelerating. He admitted they can’t say how Read hit O’Keefe, but that she left “tons” of pieces of her taillight behind in the front yard and that O’Keefe’s DNA was found on the vehicle. Data from O’Keefe’s phone, he said, showed O’Keefe barely moved after getting out of the SUV, challenging the idea that he made it into the house party.
He also pointed to Read’s own words — shown in a video interview for a documentary — and testimony from the scene in which she told first responders that she “hit him.” He said this evidence may not correspond to the idea that there was a vast conspiracy led by the “boogeyman” Proctor and “everyone setting up the girl,” but he said these witnesses should be trusted.
As for Proctor, Brennan said the jury shouldn’t be influenced by the fact he didn’t testify. Brennan argued he wasn’t needed and that there is no evidence that he did anything to corrupt the investigation.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be disgusted by the text messages. You should. They are not defensible,” Brennan said. “I don’t stand here and defend impropriety. I don’t. But that doesn’t change the physical evidence, the scientific evidence and the data.”
Read’s pink-clad supporters
Dozens of Read supporters, dressed mostly in pink, are camped out waiting for the verdict. They gather behind barricades and across the courthouse each morning to catch a glimpse of Read. Once she has passed, the crowd retires to beach chairs where they swap stories and details about the case.
The crowd, some of whom come waving American flags or posters supporting Read or denigrating the prosecution, say they are here because Read could have been one of them. The tight-knit group of mostly women argues the Read case woke them up to a corrupt justice system, and they hope their movement can reform it. Some of them have been out here long before the first trial started.
The once-boisterious crowd has mostly quieted down, fearful that any noise they make might hurt Read’s case. They have swapped chants and cheers for a hand sign for love that they flash to Read as she walks past. Read often smiles and acknowledges her supporters.
There are no opponents of Read outside the court or supporters of O’Keefe. At the end of the first trial, some supporters of O’Keefe came out to the court to support the family and argue for Read’s conviction.
What are the charges Read faces?
Read faces several charges, the most serious being second-degree murder. If she is convicted, she would face a maximum sentence of life in prison. She also faces manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
She is also charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; motor vehicle homicide, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison; as well as operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. They carry maximum sentences of 2 1/2 years and 15 years, respectively.
Editor’s Note: This story contains discussions of rape or sexual assault that may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find help and discreet resources on the National Sexual Assault Hotline website or by calling 1-800-656-4673.
In a June 17 filing, lawyers say that after the R&B singer was put in solitary confinement and given an “overdose quantity” of sleep and anxiety medication, which led to his being hospitalized.
Kelly’s team says he was put in solitary confinement after an emergency motion was filed calling for him to be moved to home detention.
Lawyers say Kelly woke up on Jun. 13 feeling dizzy, with black spots in his vision and unable to get up without falling. The filing says he crawled to the door of his cell before fainting.
Kelly was then taken to the hospital by ambulance and hospitalized for two days.
The filing also says Kelly was removed from the Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, where he had been treated against medical advice.
“Then, they took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention,” the filing said.
Kelly, 58, is serving a 30-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, for racketeering and sex trafficking. He faced accusations from multiple women who say he sexually abused them, some of them when they were underage.
Progressive stalwart US Sen. Bernie Sanders is throwing his considerable weight behind mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani and comptroller candidate Justin Brannan a week ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary.
Mamdani, a Democratic socialist Queens Assembly member who is polling in second place, has been surging in the final weeks of the Democratic contest, posing an increasingly serious challenge to the frontrunner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is attempting a political comeback after resigning in 2021 under a tide of scandal.
Sanders’ stamp of approval for Mamdani’s campaign comes shortly after the Queens lawmaker was endorsed by US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens), another progressive powerhouse. Sanders, a Vermont independent who grew up in Brooklyn, and Ocasio-Cortez have been traveling the country on their “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” protesting President Trump’s policies.
Sanders, in a statement, framed the mayoral primary as a part of a broader “fundamental choice” between “corporate-dominated politics” and building a “grassroots movement” that will fight “oligarchy, authoritarianism and kleptocracy.” He said Mamdani is the candidate of the working class, while Cuomo is the one backed by moneyed corporate interests, referring to a list of deep-pocketed donors who have given to Cuomo’s campaign and a super PAC supporting it.
“Zohran Mamdani is running an inspirational grassroots campaign, centered on the construction of 200,000 new affordable housing units, a rent freeze, free public buses, cutting fines and fees for small businesses, investing in citywide mental health services, city-owned grocery stores, universal free child care and a minimum wage increase,” Sanders said, naming several key components of Mamdani’s campaign platform.
Cuomo, meanwhile, has often countered criticisms that he is the candidate of the wealthy by pointing to his vast support from the city’s powerful labor unions, including 32BJ SEIU and 1199SEIU, which support tens of thousands of working-class New Yorkers.
Sanders also praised Mamdani for pledging to fund his agenda by raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and for bolstering his campaign mostly through small-dollar donations.
“At this pivotal and dangerous moment in American history, status quo politics is not good enough,” Sanders said. “We need the kind of visionary leadership that Zohran is providing in this campaign.”
Mamdani, in his own statement, called Sanders the “single most influential political figure in my life.”
“As mayor, I will strive each and every day to live up to Senator Sanders’ example, making New York affordable and hopefully making Brooklyn’s own proud,” he said.
The late-in-the-game backing from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez has solidified Mamdani’s status as the progressive choice in the race and shows that the contest is capturing national attention. Sanders’ support also comes a day after the New York Times Editorial Board urged New Yorkers not to vote for Mamdani due to his experience being “too thin.”
When it comes to Brannan, Sanders sang a similar tune — lauding the southern Brooklyn City Council member as someone who will use the comptroller’s office to fight for the working class. Brannan is currently behind in the polls against his main rival, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, but many voters have not decided on any candidate.
Sanders, in a statement, pointed to Brannan’s record of combating Mayor Adams’ wide-ranging budget cuts during his time as the council’s Finance chair over the past three-plus years.
“From corrupt politicians to greedy corporations, Justin Brannan is not afraid to take on the powerful and fight for the working class,” Sanders said. “As Comptroller, Justin will crack down on corruption and invest in early childhood education, universal child care, parks, libraries, and public schools.”
Federal judges around the country have blocked the Trump administration’s executive orders, policies, and dictates dozens of times as unlawful and even unconstitutional. Now Republicans are trying to use the massive budget bill, which is currently being overhauled in the Senate, to limit the judiciary’s power to curb presidential abuses.
The bill passed by the House of Representatives last month along party lines included a provision that would limit judges’ ability to hold government officials in contempt for violating court orders. Some Republicans who voted to approve the bill later expressed regret over the contempt provision, and Senate Democrats vowed to fight it.
Draft bill text released last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee shows Republicans in the upper chamber are taking a slightly different approach. Instead of focusing on courts’ contempt power, Senate Republicans revised the provision to limit judges’ authority to issue injunctions and restraining orders against the U.S. government in the first place.
“At a time when the President is violating the Constitution as never before seen in American history, it makes no sense to make it harder for courts to issue injunctions,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley School of Law, by email. Last month, Chemerinsky decried the House provision as unconstitutional.
“Republicans are targeting nationwide injunctions because they’re beholden to a President who is breaking the law — but the courts are not,” said Josh Sorbe, spokesperson for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., by email. Durbin, who spoke against the House contempt provision on the Senate floor last week, is the Democratic whip and ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Their newfound frustration is ironic, given they cheered and even asked for nationwide injunctions themselves during the Biden Administration.”
“This would preclude many asserting constitutional violations from getting injunctions.”
The Senate version would prohibit judges from blocking the White House via a preliminary injunction or restraining order unless the plaintiffs can put down money as a security bond in case the court order is later reversed as “wrongful.”
Plaintiffs would have to put down “an amount proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by the Federal Government” under the proposed provision, and courts could not consider if the plaintiff — whether an individual challenging their unlawful deportation or a civil liberty group challenging a broader policy — has sufficient funds.
“This would preclude many asserting constitutional violations from getting injunctions,” Chemerinsky wrote.
Chemerinsky noted that the Senate bill was a slight improvement over the House contempt provision, which was retroactive and would have affected an untold number of court cases. The Senate Republicans’ proposal would only apply prospectively and to cases involving the federal government.
But Chemerinsky and otherlegal scholars across the ideological spectrum warned against restricting courts’ discretion to block executive abuses and tying legal remedies to plaintiffs’ financial means, particularly under the current administration.
“If this provision passes, the government could impose even blatantly illegal and unconstitutional policies for long periods of time, unless and until litigation reaches a final conclusion,” explained George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin. “That could inflict grave harm on the victims of illegality. Consider media subject to illegal censorship during a crucial news cycle, illegally deported immigrants, people imprisoned without due process, and more.”
Like many provisions floated by Republicans, the Senate budget bill’s proposed restriction on federal courts is vulnerable to procedural challenge because of its tenuous link to fiscal matters. Under the so-called Byrd rule, named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and applied by the Senate’s parliamentarian, Congress cannot use the budget reconciliation mechanism to legislate about matters that are “extraneous” to the budget.
Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress who has studied reconciliation and the Byrd rule, told The Intercept that both provisions face long odds under the Senate parliamentarian’s review.
“I would be deeply surprised if this makes it past Byrd,” Kogan wrote in an emailed statement about the draft provision to limit judicial authority.
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with revenue, so it would not be a proper provision in a budget reconciliation bill,” wrote Chemerinsky.
Following passage of the House bill last month, a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, implicitly conceded there were Byrd rule issues with its contempt provision. Grassley’s office did not respond to questions about how the Senate version fares any better.
Senate Democrats vowed to “work to remove these unnecessary provisions from the Big, Ugly Bill,” as Durbin’s spokesperson put it.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who is also on the Judiciary Committee, also has “serious concerns on the substance of the bill, particularly the provision that strips courts’ power inappropriately, disrupts the separation of powers, and tries to put the administration above the law,” according to an emailed statement from Padilla’s office to The Intercept.
“The Senator strongly believes that the updated bill text released by the Senate Judiciary Committee does not follow the Byrd rule and will get removed,” Padilla’s spokesperson wrote.
BSE Global, the parent company of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, will open a multi-court youth basketball training facility on Flatbush Avenue near Barclays Center this fall.
The nearly 19,000-square-foot Brooklyn Basketball Training Center will be operated by BSE’s program Brooklyn Basketball, which offers basketball clinics, summer camps and community programs for local youth.
“We are excited to further enhance the area surrounding Barclays Center with our Brooklyn Basketball Training Center available to all, right in the heart of Brooklyn, as we continue to help grow the sport across the borough,” said Marissa Shorenstein, Chief External Affairs Officer at BSE Global, in a statement. “This initiative is about more than just basketball — it’s about creating a safe, inclusive space where young people can learn, grow, and connect – and by continuing to invest in our community programming, we’re building a stronger foundation for the future of the game and the neighborhoods we call home.”
The center will be across the street from Barclays Center, home of the New York Liberty and the Nets. File photo by Gabriele Holtermann
The new facility will be outfitted with two full courts, a half-court “shooting lab,” auxiliary baskets, and “cutting edge technology” to help young players develop their skills. It will host all of Brooklyn Basketball’s existing programs — like after-school programs and daily basketball clinics — plus a new after-school program for kids ages 6-14, which will launch this fall, at the start of the new school year. Every Wednesday, that program will be dedicated to all-girls training.
The Training Center will also serve as a space for kids to do homework and care for other needs before and after training, and will have an area for parents.
“The Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is a game-changer, not just for basketball, but for the entire Brooklyn community,” said Sandy Brondello, Head Coach of the New York Liberty. “It’s about giving the next generation a space to learn the fundamentals, be inspired, and create a sense of community that basketball so brilliantly provides. We aim to build the future of the game and empower our community, especially young girls, to dream big. Who knows? Some of them might be playing across the street at Barclays Center for the New York Liberty one day.”
Sandy Brondello, head coach of the New York Liberty, said the youth facility could be a “game-changer.” File photo courtesy of Brandon Todd/New York Liberty
Brooklyn Basketball reaches around 40,000 kids each year, according to BSE, including hundreds at local schools where Brooklyn Basketball, in partnership with the Department of Education, hosts in-school basketball clinics. Earlier this year, the Liberty announced it will open a new player training center in Greenpoint in 2027, and will host some community clinics on the new courts there.
Registration for fall programs at The Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is now open, as is sign-up for the program’s summer camps and clinics.
A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site New York Family.
