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In the news today: AP reporting provides the first comprehensive account of the men killed in recent U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats; the Supreme Court supports Trump's efforts to block transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers; and a federal judge orders the U.S. government to fully fund SNAP benefits. Also, striking video of a woman rescuing a shark. |
(AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin)
| Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced
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AP reporting provides the first comprehensive account and identifies some of the men killed in recent U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats. In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela's northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists, as alleged by the Trump administration, or leaders of a cartel or gang. Read more. |
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- The residents and relatives interviewed by the AP requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals from drug smugglers, the Venezuelan government or the Trump administration. They said they were incensed that the men were killed without due process. In the past, their boats would have been interdicted by the U.S. authorities and the crewmen charged with federal crimes, affording them a day in court.
Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.
- So far, the U.S. military has blown up 17 vessels, killing more than 60 people. Nine of the craft were targeted in the Caribbean, and at least three of those had departed from Venezuela, according to the Trump administration.
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Supreme Court lets Trump block transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers
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The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump's administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity. Read more. |
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| The decision is Trump's latest win on the court's emergency docket, and allows the administration to enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out. It halts a lower-court order requiring the government to keep letting people choose male, female or X on their passport to correspond with their gender identity on new or renewed passports.
The high court has sided with the government in nearly two dozen short-term orders on a range of policies since the start of Trump's second term, including another case barring transgender people from serving in the military.
- In a brief, unsigned order, the conservative-majority court said the policy isn't discriminatory. "Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth," it said. "In both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment." The court's three liberal justices disagreed, saying in a dissent that those passports make transgender people vulnerable to "increased violence, harassment, and discrimination."
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Federal judge orders Trump administration to fully fund SNAP benefits in November
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A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday to find the money to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for November, a decision that the administration promptly appealed. Read more. |
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The ruling by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. gave President Donald Trump's administration until Friday to make the payments through SNAP, though it's unlikely the 42 million Americans — about 1 in 8, most of them in poverty — will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries nearly that quickly.
The order was in response to a challenge from cities and nonprofits complaining that the administration was only offering to cover 65% of the maximum benefit, a decision that would have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.
- Vice President JD Vance told reporters the ruling was "absurd." "What we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP," Vance said at an unrelated White House event. "But in the midst of a shutdown, we can't have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation."
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A fragment of a Roman milestone that was erected along the road Via Nova Traiana in Jordan. (Adam Pažout/Itiner-e via AP)
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All roads in ancient Rome stretched far longer than previously known, study shows
As the saying went, all roads once led to Rome — and scientists now say those roads stretched 50% longer than previously known. A new study combines information from historical records, ancient journals, locations of milestones and other archival data with newly available satellite imagery to create the first major atlas of ancient Roman road networks in 25 years. |
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