>no callsign
Isn't the callsign of AF1, AF1?
Israeli troops get prison for desecration of Virgin Mary statue in Lebanon
Israel’s military said the soldier posing with a statue of the Virgin Mary would get 21 days in military prison and the soldier who took the photograph would get 14.
Two Israeli soldiers will spend weeks in military prison for desecration of a Christian object after one stuck a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in southern Lebanon and the other photographed it.
The photo of the soldier, a cigarette dangling from his own mouth, went viral and sparked widespread outrage. It was the latest act by Israeli forces to be denounced as anti-Christian in southern Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this year to target the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.
Israel’s military said the soldier posing would get 21 days in military prison and the soldier who photographed it would get 14.
The military “views the incident with great severity and respects freedom of religion and worship, as well as holy sites and religious symbols of all religions and communities,” spokesperson Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor wrote X.
The photo circulated days after images of an Israeli soldier wielding an ax against a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross in the southern Lebanon village of Debel was roundly condemned by foreign leaders, Christian leaders and Israeli politicians. The military sentenced soldiers who participated in the act to time in military prison.
Israeli forces took control of southern Lebanon as part of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, which began on March 2 when the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group fired missiles over the border two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their war with Iran. Israeli forces have remained despite a weekslong truce.
Also Monday, Israel’s military said a soldier who worked as a driver had been killed in combat near the border, marking the 18th to die in the area since the start of the Iran war.
Israel’s military says it only targets buildings that were used as outposts by the Iran-backed militant group. The scale of destruction has Lebanese officials and residents worried that large numbers of people displaced by the latest war will have nowhere to return if the fragile truce holds.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/lebanon/israeli-troops-get-prison-desecration-virgin-mary-statue-lebanon-rcna344640
Keir Starmer blocks 7 MAGA influencers from UK before Tommy Robinson's rally
Sir Keir Starmer has banned seven foreign far-right activists from travelling to the UK to attend a rally led by Tommy Robinson on Saturday, including a Spanish woman who has defended the Franco dictatorship, but police will allow the march to go ahead.
The prime minister used his major “reset” speech on Monday to reveal that “far-right agitators” had been barred from travelling to the UK before the Unite the Kingdom rally in London in an attempt to shore up support among left-wing Labour MPs worried about losing support to the Greens.
Metropolitan Police will not request a ban on the march, which is expected to attract more than 100,000 people in central London on Saturday, but will instead impose strict conditions on the timings and route of the march, which will end up in Parliament Square.
The same will apply to a pro-Palestinian rally happening the same day to mark Nakba Day, a day of commemoration of the Nakba, also known as the “Palestinian Catastroph”, of 1948 when there was a mass displacement of Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli war. The Met has also imposed strict conditions on the march, which will be separated from Robinson’s rally and end up in Pall Mall.
The Stand Up to Racism group is joining forces with the pro-Palestinian march to demonstrate against the far-right rally.
Among those who have had their travel authorisation cancelled are Ada Lluch, a Spanish anti-Muslim influencer who has defended the country’s Franco dictatorship.
Lluch, 26, from Tortosa in Catalonia, spoke at the last mass rally organised by Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, in September when she warned that western countries had been “completely invaded and terror has already been unleashed” and called for re-migration to undo the “mass migration of uncivilised people”.
She has said that the Franco dictatorship, which ruled Spain between 1939 until 1975, was preferable to democracy and has been a strong supporter of President Trump.
She revealed on X that she had been barred from travelling to the UK after the Home Office cancelled her electronic travel authorisation (ETA), which allows foreigners to visit the UK for up to six months without a visa. The same process was taken last month by the Home Office to stop the rapper Kanye West travelling to the UK to headline the Wireless Festival in north London in July.
Lluch accused the government of trying to “sabotage” Saturday’s rally as she revealed that she had received notice of her cancelled ETA a couple of days after she had confirmed with Robinson that she would attend the rally.
Other speakers who have been banned from travelling to the UK for the rally are Dutch far-right influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek, who also spoke at Robinson’s rally in London last year.
She has promoted conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement theory”, which claims that white European populations are being deliberately replaced by non-white immigrants, particularly from Muslim-majority countries.
Last month the Home Office confirmed that it had blocked Valentina Gomez, the US-based anti-Islam influencer, from the UK. She spoke alongside Robinson at September’s rally, telling the crowd of more than 100,000 people that “rapist Muslims” were “taking over” the UK. The US-based internet personality, who gained notoriety through stunts including burning a copy of the Koran, threatened to defy the ban and travel by small boat while suggesting the White House would intervene if the authorities try to arrest her.
Another right-wing American figure banned from the UK is Joey Mannarino, an online influencer who has also attended previous far-right rallies in the UK including one organised by the neo-fascist group Britain First calling for re-migration in March last year.
In his speech on Monday, Starmer condemned Saturday’s rally as an event “designed to confront and intimidate this diverse country”. Suggesting more visiting speakers could be barred, he added: “That is why this Labour government will block far-right agitators from travelling to Britain. We will not allow people to come to the UK, threaten our communities and spread hate on our streets.”
The Home Office confirmed that seven individuals had been barred from the UK on the grounds that their presence would not be “conducive to the public good,” a power that has been increasingly used by Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, to ban extremists from the UK, including Islamic hate preachers.
In January she cancelled the ETA of Shadee Elmasry, an Islamic preacher who has justified Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel and was due to hold three days of talks in Birmingham, Bolton and Ilford.
https://archive.ph/QNMPP#selection-2053.0-2111.8
Rand Paul
@RandPaul
4 days left for the DOJ to indict Anthony Fauci. He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history. The American people want Fauci behind bars.
https://x.com/RandPaul/status/2052477547422609846
Economic Fury Ramps Up Pressure on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Oil Operations
WASHINGTON—Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating 12 individuals and entities for their roles enabling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) sale and shipment of Iranian oil to the People’s Republic of China. The IRGC relies on front companies in permissive economic jurisdictions to obfuscate its role in oil sales and funnel the revenue to the Iranian regime. Instead of using this revenue to support the struggling Iranian people, the regime directs it toward weapons development, backing terrorist proxies, and funding security forces that suppress citizens’ freedoms.
read moar:
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0498
2012: DC locals react to Obama's $34 million renovation (nothing was fixed) of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
https://x.com/AlecLace/status/2053909812962853266
DoJ presses charges on those responsible for the Baltimore Keystone Bridge collapse
Ship operators involved in Baltimore bridge collapse charged with misconduct and obstruction
The Justice Department brought 18 charges against the operators and a manager relating to the 2024 accident at the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed and killed six people.
The Justice Department announced 18 charges Tuesday against the operators of the 100,000-plus-ton cargo ship that crashed into a Maryland bridge more than two years ago, causing it to collapse and killing six people.
Federal prosecutors said they were charging the international companies Synergy Marine Pte Ltd. and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd., as well as the ship’s technical superintendent, Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair. The charges included conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and misconduct or neglect of ship officers that resulted in death.
The two companies and Nair were also charged with willfully failing to immediately inform the Coast Guard about a known hazardous condition, obstruction of an agency proceeding and making false statements, according to a statement announcing the charges.
The companies were also accused of misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act and the Refuse Act, the Justice Department said. Those charges are related to the discharge of pollutants into Maryland’s Patapsco River, including the shipping containers, their contents, oil and the bridge itself.
Synergy Marine Group, which includes both companies, said in a statement that federal prosecutors were “criminalising a tragic accident” and that the allegations in the indictment were “baseless.”
“Synergy will vigorously defend itself against these inaccurate allegations,” it said. “Synergy and its employees have fully cooperated and have been transparent at all times during the NTSB’s investigation, and any allegations to the contrary are woefully inaccurate.”
“We are confident that the DOJ cannot and will not meet its burden of proof and that we will prevail at trial,” it said.
NBC News has reached out to Nair for comment.
The 900-foot ship Dali lost power twice and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge early March 26, 2024, as a work crew was fixing potholes.
Six construction workers died when the bridge crumbled into the Patapsco River. Another construction worker fell into the water and sustained serious injuries but survived, while an inspector working as a subcontractor for the Maryland Transportation Authority escaped without injuries. The nearly two dozen crew members on the ship survived, along with two pilots who were helping it navigate the harbor.
The construction workers were Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Carlos Daniel Hernández Estrella, Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, José Mynor López, Miguel Ángel Luna González, Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval and survivor Julio Cervantes Suárez.
Cervantes told NBC News in July 2024 that the men who died, who were all Latino, included his nephew and brother-in-law and friends he had known for years.
Jimmy Paul, a special agent in charge with the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said: “Alejandro, Miguel, Dorlian, Maynor, Carlos and José were making our roads safer when they lost their lives on that fateful day in March 2024. The collapse should never have happened.”
The collapse brought the critically important Baltimore port to a standstill for two months, and reconstruction of the bridge continues.
“The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the charges. “This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster. Six construction workers lost their lives, critical infrastructure was destroyed, pollutants were released into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay, and the economic damage now exceeds five billion dollars.”
“This Department is committed to securing justice for the victims and ensuring those responsible are held to account,” he said.
Synergy Marine Pte Ltd. is based in Singapore, and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd. is based in Chennai, India, according to prosecutors. Nair, 47, is an Indian national who was a technical superintendent for both companies.
Prosecutors said they believe the ship’s technical superintendent is in India and that they would use all available law enforcement tools to bring him to the U.S. to face charges.
A National Transportation Safety Board report determined that the 947-foot-long Singapore-flagged cargo ship was transiting out of Baltimore harbor when it lost power and propulsion before it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ship-operators-involved-baltimore-bridge-collapse-charged-misconduct-o-rcna344687
Brooklyn: Dead voters’ signatures appear on Dem candidate’s forms
The signatures of two dead Brooklyn voters appeared on a Democratic candidate’s nominating petitions — and now she’s at risk of being kicked off the primary ballot, The Post has learned.
State Assembly candidate Marie Mirville-Shahzada and her slate of Democratic district leaders can get axed from the primaries on Coney Island because a mind-boggling 90% of her 5,258 total signatures have been invalidated by the city Board of Elections.
Some 3,000 people who supposedly signed the petitions — which are required to run for office — lived out of the district or were not registered to vote.
A review of signature petitions by The Post confirmed that at least two signatures are of dead voters while a third signature is from a woman whose family said she wasn’t even in the Big Apple on the day she allegedly put her John Hancock on the form.
Despite records showing both voters would be over a 100-years old and that they passed away over a decade ago, fresh ink was signed last month to support Mirville-Shahzada’s bid to get into the party primary.
And 99-year-old Lucia Gelbfish’s family said she didn’t sign the petition either and that her “blood pressure would go through the roof” if she knew her signature had been used fraudulently.
“I was a little incensed only because years ago you didn’t hear things like this. This is our democracy nowadays. It’s very sad,” her daughter, Sharon Gelbfish, told The Post.
Attempts to reach relatives of the deceased voters were unsuccessful but social security records noted they both passed in 2010.
Mirville-Shahzada now has a meager 479 valid signatures which is 21 short of the 500 threshold to run for Assembly against fellow Democrat Chris McCreight, the chief-of-staff to the former lefty leaning City Councilman Justin Brannan.
“This is why people lose faith in government, because you have people running for office who are willing to lie and cheat because they can’t compete by following the rules,” McCreight said in a statement.
“It’s dead wrong and should not be tolerated when anybody, of any party, does it.”
Now, 34 of Mirville-Shahzada’s 479 signatures will also be examined by the Kings County Supreme Court to determine whether there any are forgeries.
Mirville-Shahzada denied that her staff “would have done anything” as they “knocked on every door” and that she would give an “official comment” later but did not respond to any follow up request for comment.
Sources told The Post she has filed paperwork to challenge in court the BOE’s decision to eliminate the signatures.
“We see signatures get invalidated in races on a regular basis but the fact that 90% of them have been invalidated is just a stunningly high number,” said Grace Rauh, executive director of good government group Citizens Union.
“This certainly strikes me as a case that merits additional investigation and some real scrutiny to see what was going on here. It’s bewildering because it’s so vast,” Rauh told The Post.
Alex Camarda, senior policy adviser for government watchdog group Reinvent Albany, said that a wider investigation should be launched.
“When you look a this collectively with all of these improprieties together, it certainly raises a lot of questions and should be investigated by the Board of Elections,” he told The Post.
A BOE spokesperson said that the board does not independently conduct investigations into fraudulent claims but did not comment on whether any potential investigation would be referred to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Shahzada has been an outspoken supporter of the controversial $3 billion Coney Island Casino proposal, which the former councilman voted against.
The district, which stretches from Coney Island to Bay Ridge, is currently repped by Republican Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny — who did not face any challenges for the GOP nomination.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio and registered independents outnumber the roughly 19,000 registered Republicans in the 85,000 registered voters in the district.
The Democratic primary will occur on June 23 and the November general election will be held on Nov. 3.
https://archive.ph/O4TfV#selection-2463.0-2501.102
Andrew Kolvet
@AndrewKolvet
A Somali grocer, Abdidwahid Mohamed, has been charged in a $1.1 MILLION SNAP fraud scheme in Minneapolis.
Investigators say he used other people's EBT cards to buy energy drinks and baby formula at Sam's Club and Costco, then resold the goods at his store.
The scheme netted him $1,141,082 between March and August 2021.
SNAP is supposed to feed needy families, not line the pockets of foreign criminals. They’ve taken Americans for suckers.
No more importing the Third World!!
https://x.com/AndrewKolvet/status/2054211990713709046
UVA continues identity-based graduation events despite DEI rollback
The University of Virginia (UVA) is continuing several identity-based graduation receptions during its 2026 final exercises, including events recognizing LGBT, multicultural, international, and black students.
The receptions, listed on the university’s official graduation schedule, include the Lavender Graduate Reception, Multicultural Graduate Reception, International Graduate Reception, and Kente Graduate Reception. The events are scheduled for May 14 and 15 at Newcomb Hall.
According to the university’s Office of Major Events website, the Lavender Graduate Reception will “honor LGBTQIA+ students and allies and celebrate their impact at UVA.” The Multicultural Graduate Reception will “honor students from diverse cultural backgrounds,” while the Kente Graduate Reception “honors Black students and celebrates their lasting impact on UVA.”
The receptions follow earlier identity-based graduation ceremonies previously reported on by Campus Reform in 2024. At the time, UVA hosted a “Lavender Graduation” and “Multicultural Graduation” through university-affiliated offices tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The continuation of similar events comes after the university announced changes to DEI-related programming. Earlier this year, The Cavalier Daily reported that Student Affairs no longer organized or funded identity-based ceremonies such as the Lavender Ceremony, Multicultural Recognition Ceremony, and Donning of the Kente Ceremony.
The university’s current graduation schedule states that the receptions are instead hosted by the University of Virginia Alumni Association.
Brian Coy, chief communications officer and university spokesperson for UVA, told Campus Reform that the university itself is “not sponsoring or funding these ceremonies.”
“It may be worth checking in with the Alumni Association, which is a separate 501(c)(3), to see if they have any information for you,” Coy said.
Beckett Smith, president of the Burke Society at UVA, argued that the receptions continue emphasizing identity despite the rollback of formal DEI initiatives.
“Yes, UVA has scaled back DEI admissions because of federal policy that has come down from the Trump admin and the SCOVA, but the identity-based graduation receptions are still an effort to bring diversity of ‘identity’ to the forefront,” Smith told Campus Reform.
Smith also criticized what he described as contradictions in modern discussions surrounding race and identity.
“I find it ironic that the side of the aisle that talks so much about the ‘myth’ of racial identity and the idea that race itself is a ‘social construct’ is so eager to bring racial categories to the forefront,” Smith said.
The Cavalier Daily previously reported that similar graduation events continue under different organizational structures even after changes to DEI-related administration at the university.
Campus Reform contacted the UVA Alumni Association, Multicultural Student Services, and the LGBTQ Center for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
https://www.campusreform.org/article/uva-continues-identity-based-graduation-events-despite-dei-rollback/29829
‘Put the legislature in the best possible legal position to draw a congressional map that favors Republicans 7-0’: AG Marshall reacts to SCOTUS ruling
Alabama was vindicated in a recent redistricting ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), according to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.
SCOTUS struck down a 2023 federal court-ordered Alabama congressional map on Monday.
The ruling could allow Republicans in Alabama to pick up at least one congressional seat in the 2026 midterms. Republicans currently have a narrow majority in Congress, and redistricting battles are happening in multiple states across the nation. A special master hired by a three-judge panel in Birmingham redrew the map for the 2024 congressional elections after Democrats and liberal groups were successful in their initial redistricting legal challenge. The court-ordered map resulted in Democrats picking up one seat in Alabama via U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Mobile) in Congressional District 2.
Marshall said in a statement on Monday, "For too long, unelected federal judges have had more say over Alabama's election than Alabama voters. That ended today."
"My job in this office was to put the Legislature in the best possible legal position to draw a congressional map that favors Republicans 7-0. My office has never taken the charge of our state motto lightly: We Dare Defend Our Rights. Stay tuned," Marshall said.
https://1819news.com/news/item/put-the-legislature-in-the-best-possible-legal-position-to-draw-a-congressional-map-that-favors-republicans-7-0-ag-marshall-reacts-to-scotus-ruling
Federal judge rules against ICE in Colorado
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must retrain its arresting officers in Colorado, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
In a 60-page order, U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in Denver also found ICE must beef up its documentation of warrantless arrests, turn more documents over to attorneys representing immigrants and pay for their attorneys fees.
Jackson found ICE agents in Colorado are violating his earlier order barring them from arresting people without a warrant without first determining they are a flight risk and living in the country undocumented.
“The Court finds that defendants have materially violated the Court’s (preliminary injunction) Order,” Jackson’s ruling said. “As discussed, ICE has continued to make warrantless arrests without individualized, pre-arrest probable cause determinations of flight risk in violation of (federal law) and the (preliminary injunction).”
The ruling is the latest development in an effort by immigration lawyers in Colorado to push back in court against the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy, which has resulted in a skyrocketing number of arrests and detentions, mostly of people who have no prior criminal convictions.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the Meyer Law Office and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC first sued the Trump administration in October with four original plaintiffs who had all been arrested and detained by immigration agents in Colorado.
One of the plaintiffs is Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old University of Utah student who was brought to the U.S. as a child. She was arrested by ICE in June, after a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over in Fruita and asked about her accent and immigration status. She spent 15 days in ICE’s Aurora detention center and paid $2,000 for her bond, according to the ACLU.
Jackson sided with the immigrants in November, when he put a preliminary injunction in place, recognizing people arrested by ICE without a warrant in Colorado as a class and limiting how federal immigration agents can make arrests in the state.
Lawyers for the immigrants asked Jackson to intervene in February, alleging ICE agents were still arresting people in Colorado unlawfully.
At a hearing in March, ICE agents struggled to answer basic questions about warrantless arrests and admitted they had not received training about how to comply with the court’s order limiting how they can arrest people in Colorado.
In his order, Jackson said ICE’s efforts to train agents on the rules of the preliminary injunction “have been insufficient,” and deportation officers have “an inadequate understanding of their obligations.”
Citing the case of Dionisio Castillo, 53, who ICE agents arrested at his construction job site in January while looking for someone else, Jackson said “arrests that ICE claims are made pursuant to field warrants are, in fact, warrantless.”
Castillo has lived undocumented in the U.S. for 30 years. Hehas no criminal history and has three children, who are U.S. citizens. He spent 48 days at the ICE detention facility in Aurora. His family had to pay a $2,500 bond for his release.
Now ICE must develop a complaint training program within the next two weeks, according to Jackson’s order. The agency must train every immigration officer currently authorized to make warrantless arrests in Colorado within 45 days. Arresting officers who are not trained within 45 days are prohibited from making warrantless arrests until they are trained.
At the March hearing, Gregory Davies, the then assistant field office director for ICE in Denver, said the Denver office has hired dozens of new officers recently and is making about 15 to 25 arrests per day even as training hours have been cut.
Each month, ICE must turn over to the lawyers representing the immigrants a list of officers who have been trained, training materials and a list of people arrested without a warrant, according to the order.
Jackson, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, declined to weigh in on the legality of ICE’s practice of allowing officers to obtain “field warrants” from their supervisors after arrests.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://coloradosun.com/2026/05/12/ice-must-retrain-arresting-officers-in-colorado-federal-judge-rules/
South Carolina Senate rejects effort to tackle redistricting despite pressure from Trump
Five Republicans defected and voted against a plan to extend their legislative session to carve up the state’s lone Democratic U.S. House district.
The Republican-led South Carolina state Senate rejected a measure Tuesday to take up a redraw of the state’s congressional map despite pressure from President Donald Trump.
A resolution that would have extended the state’s legislative session, set to end this week, to tackle redistricting fell short of the two-thirds support needed, with five Republicans voting against it.
The vote shuts the door, at least for now, on Republican plans to carve up the state’s lone majority-Black district, represented by longtime Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, before the midterm elections. South Carolina’s primaries are set for June 9.
Trump had urged the state Senate to pass the resolution, which the state House had previously approved, on Truth Social on Monday night.
“The South Carolina State Senate has a big vote tomorrow on Redistricting. I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country,” Trump posted. “South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week! Move the U.S. House Primaries to August, leave the rest on the same schedule. Everything will be fine. GET IT DONE!”
A major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that limited using race in redistricting has paved the way for GOP-controlled states with majority-minority districts represented by Democrats to consider redrawing their maps.
Tennessee passed a map last week that divides up the state’s only majority-Black district. And Alabama and Louisiana Republicans are taking steps toward new district lines that would result in additional seats for their party.
The court’s ruling turbocharged an already aggressive mid-decade redistricting battle as the parties vie for control of the narrowly divided House this fall. Based on the eight new maps that have been enacted over the past year, Republicans could gain as many as 14 seats, compared with six for Democrats.
Separately on Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a map Republicans drew last year to divide up the state’s lone Democratic district can go into effect for this year’s midterms, even as opponents are advancing a ballot referendum to repeal it.
But the South Carolina state Senate’s vote Tuesday is a setback for Republicans seeking to further expand their redistricting advantage heading into the midterms.
With the legislative session due to end Thursday afternoon, lawmakers needed more time to complete the multistep process of passing a new map. On Monday, Republicans in the House voted to extend the end of their legislative session, and the Senate spent all of its session Tuesday debating the same measure.
In an extensive floor speech, Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said trying to draw a new map would be short-sighted.
“I believe that our state is stronger with vibrant parties. I think we, as a whole, are stronger when we have a clash of ideas. I think that’s true at the national level. I think it’s true at the state level. We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas and we can discuss those policy goals,” Massey said. “Republicans are stronger when the Democrat Party is vibrant and viable.”
He also took on Trump indirectly, comparing his defiance of the president to South Carolina’s role in the U.S. Civil War.
“I have too much Southern blood in me to surrender. Indeed, as some of you will recognize, it is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid, to think and act for myself,” he said. “I’ve got too much Southern in my blood. I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.”
The next steps for Republicans pushing for redistricting in South Carolina are unclear, but they have options. One is the possibility that Republican Gov. Henry McMaster will call a special session for lawmakers to tackle redistricting.
In a post on X Tuesday evening, McMaster said the Legislature “still has two full days in which to finish its important work, including giving full consideration — as sought by the people — to the important question of redistricting.” But he did not mention a special session.
Several of the Republican candidates running for governor in South Carolina blasted the GOP state senators who rejected the resolution.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson called the outcome a “missed opportunity” for Republicans and said McMaster should convene a special session. Rep. Ralph Norman said “NONE of them should be in public office after the next election” in a post on X.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/south-carolina-state-senate-rejects-effort-tackle-redistricting-pressu-rcna344815
Longtime ICE official David Venturella chosen to head agency
A Department of Homeland Security official said Venturella has been picked to replace former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
Longtime ICE official David Venturella has been chosen to lead the immigration agency after its former acting director’s departure was announced last month, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Tuesday evening.
Venturella was executive director of ICE’s Secure Communities program, which deals with people in the country illegally who are in the custody of other law enforcement agencies.
He also served at the private prison company GEO Group as a senior vice president of client relations until 2023. GEO Group has over $1 billion worth of contracts with ICE, according to public records.
After he retired from GEO, Venturella was a consultant for the company, advising on new and existing contracts, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
President Barack Obama ended the Secure Communities program in 2014. Then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a memo at the time that the program alienated immigrant communities from local law enforcement.
Under the program, authorities shared digital fingerprints from everyone booked into jail with federal authorities, who used it to look for people in the country without authorization.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reinstitute the Secure Communities program in 2017, during his first term.
Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and replaced her with a Republican ally, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Trump campaigned for his second term in office by promising mass deportations. After he retook office, ICE was thrust into the national spotlight when federal officers, some of them from ICE, carried out immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities.
During the operation in Minneapolis, federal officers fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a critic of Trump’s immigration policies, objected to Venturella’s selection to lead ICE.
“Let’s be clear: his appointment is to ensure Trump’s corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities’ pain,” she wrote on X Tuesday night.
There have been signs that the Trump administration, faced with criticism, has tried to roll back some of the more aggressive and controversial tactics that resulted in protests over the actions of masked agents in American cities.
In April, two DHS officials told NBC News that ICE field offices have been instructed that ICE officers should no longer enter homes without judicial warrants.
Entering homes with only administrative warrants — which are different from judicial warrants signed by judges — was a departure from past procedures. The change was revealed in a 2025 internal ICE document that whistleblowers shared with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Venturella is set to replace Todd Lyons, who was the acting director of ICE but was never confirmed by the Senate and whose departure was announced in April. The last time an ICE director was confirmed by the Senate was in 2014, when senators confirmed Sarah Saldaña, who left the agency in 2017.
Lyons oversaw ICE during a tumultuous tenure characterized by mass immigration crackdowns in Democratic-run cities and public outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officials in Minneapolis.
Lyons’ last day was previously announced as May 31.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/longtime-ice-official-david-venturella-chosen-head-agency-rcna344856
Latest from Demi Moore.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
Name my band.