Police say the group is connected to a series of residential burglaries reported in Newport Beach over the past several months, as well as a suspected burglary plot in Irvine earlier this month. Details about the Newport Beach burglaries were not immediately available.

On Jan. 10, investigators observed the men traveling from Los Angeles County to the Shady Canyon area of Irvine, where they are suspected of conspiring to burglarize a home, police said. While under surveillance, the men were seen jumping over a fence while carrying backpacks. Detectives believe their plans were disrupted before a burglary could be carried out.

The men later traveled to the nearby Turtle Rock area of Irvine, where previous burglaries had been reported, according to police. There, detectives observed the men walking into an open space, crouching in nearby bushes and then fleeing the area at a high rate of speed in a vehicle, police said.

Police believe the group is part of a broader national trend involving foreign nationals who enter the United States to commit crimes, including residential burglaries, and then leave the country, Irvine Police Department spokesman Kyle Oldoerp said. All three men arrested were from Chile. They most recently lived in Reseda and Northridge and are ages 32, 32 and 22, police said. They were all booked on suspicion of burglary.

Investigators also recovered a significant amount of stolen property, including jewelry, and are working to return the items to their rightful owners, Oldoerp said. Detectives are continuing the investigation and are seeking at least one additional suspect.

Police are asking anyone who may be a victim or witness, or who has surveillance or other video footage related to the incidents, to contact investigators. Irvine Police Detective Mike Ward can be reached at mward@cityofirvine.org, and Newport Beach Police Detective Joshua Granger can be reached at jgranger@nbpd.org.

Following a multiday hearing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba rejected a defense motion to dismiss the case, saying she found “sufficient cause” for the case against Price to proceed to trial.

The 9th District council member is charged with five counts of grand theft by embezzlement of public funds, four counts of conflict of interest and three counts of perjury by declaration.

Price, who has represented the South Los Angeles/Exposition Park district since 2013 after previously serving in the Assembly and state Senate, has maintained his innocence.

He remains free on his own recognizance while awaiting arraignment March 13 at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

In a written statement released shortly after the hearing, Price’s representative said, “The testimony presented during the hearing, including from key witnesses, clearly shows that Councilman Price did not act with any intent to do wrong and that the case rests on speculation rather than facts.

“While the court’s ruling is disappointing, the council member remains fully committed to fighting these charges, clearing his name, and is confident the truth will ultimately prevail,” Angelina Valencia-Dumarot, executive director of communications for Price, said in the statement.

Price is accused of failing to list money that a company solely owned by his wife, Delbra Pettice Richardson, received from developers and failing to recuse himself from voting to approve certain projects.

He is also accused of embezzling nearly $33,800 in city funds from 2013 to 2017 to pay for medical benefits for Richardson, whom he allegedly falsely claimed was his wife while he was still legally married to Lynn Suzette Price, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

Defense attorney Michael Schafler had asked the judge to dismiss all the charges, arguing that “it’s our view that the evidence is insufficient.”

Addressing the conflict-of-interest charges, he acknowledged that the prosecution had established that “many mistakes were made.” But he said Price had a process in place in his office to determine potential conflicts of interest and was not notified unless his staff alerted him.

Price’s lawyer said there was “no evidence that Mr. Price acted with any wrongful intent,” arguing that the charges involved a “very isolated” section of Price’s voting and telling the judge that the council member’s votes involving those issues were not a deciding factor and that he had “nothing to gain.”

Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins countered that Price had blamed “everyone” but himself.

The prosecutor told the judge that the council member was “trying to create this wall around himself.”

He argued that two witnesses called during the hearing were “trying to jump in front of the bus” for Price, for whom they had worked.

Price pleaded not guilty to the initial 10 charges in December 2023, with prosecutors subsequently adding two additional counts of conflict of interest last August.

He could face up to 11 years and four months in custody if convicted, including up to nine years and four months in state prison and up to two years in county jail, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

“Public officials will not violate the public trust on my watch,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement last year shortly after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sean Coen rejected a challenge from the defense contesting the legal sufficiency of the complaint, a move that could have resulted in the dismissal of the case.

Price is the latest in a long line of L.A.-area lawmakers facing corruption allegations:

• A guilty verdict against suspended Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas on March 30, 2023, was returned for actions he took as a powerful Los Angeles County supervisor.
• -Former City Councilmember Jose Huizar pleaded guilty in January 2023, and on Jan. 26, 2024, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He took more than $1.8 million in cash, gambling trips and escorts in exchange for supporting a proposed downtown hotel project that was never built. FBI agents in 2018 confiscated documents from Huizars office. Four years later he admitted to corruption.
• Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor and high-ranking city official Raymond Chan was sentenced in October 2024 to 12 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud.
• City Councilmember Mitchell Englander resigned his post and was later imprisoned in 2021, convicted of obstructing an FBI investigation into his acceptance of lavish gifts in Las Vegas from a businessman who sought favors from him. Records show he was released on Feb. 3, 2022.
• In 2020, George Esparza, a special aide to Huizar, pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge involving billionaire developer Wei Huang, who sought to build a 77-story skyscraper in Huizars district.

City News Service contributed to this report 

Los Angeles will be keeping its controversial 'mansion tax' just the way it is, thank you very much.

Last Tuesday, L.A.s city council rejected an eleventh-hour proposal to place a rewrite of the citys 4-year-old tax on high value real estate sales onto the June local ballot.

The decision, made after a heated session brimming with arcane procedural objections and spirited public comment from tenant activists and union members, effectively quashes the hopes of real estate developers, commercial landlords and a growing caucus of housing construction advocates and Democratic state elected officials who see the highest-in-the-state transfer fee as both an investment killer and an urgent political liability ' both in Los Angeles and across California.

A sizable majority of the citys voters approved the tax, known as Measure ULA, in 2022. It places a 4% tax on property sales between $5 million and $10 million and a 5.5% tax on transactions above that. So far, the tax has raised more than $1 billion in revenue dedicated for affordable housing development and support for cash-strapped renters.

Any changes to the tax would require sign off from the electorate, which todays vote ensures wont come anytime soon. It also kicks a broader multibillion dollar debate over fees on property sales to state lawmakers.

Hanging over the debate is the specter of a proposed statewide proposition that would sharply cap municipal transfer taxes, while also restricting other local taxes. That campaign is being organized by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which campaigns for lower taxes, and is racing to gather signatures ahead of a late February deadline. If it qualifies, it would appear on the November ballot.

A growing caucus of Democrats and their political allies argue that local opposition to ULA has juiced political support for that more far-reaching anti-tax prop, one they see as a fiscal disaster.

Should a statewide anti-tax proposition qualify, many believe that lawmakers will be forced to offer up concessions, in the form of broader statewide restriction on transfer taxes, to persuade the backers of the Howard Jarvis measure to remove it from the ballot. That might include the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association itself, or perhaps The California Business Roundtable, a major business coalition that has ponied up most of the funding for the campaign so far.

Such grand bargains between state legislators and ballot measure backers are relatively common fare in the California capitol in the months leading up to an election.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, author of the motion, alluded to that possible outcome as she implored her colleagues to put the local measure on the ballot.

'There are real threats to ULA from statewide ballot initiatives that threaten to take away transfer taxes entirely across California, from planned legislative action in Sacramento and from local ballot initiatives, all of which are likely to make far deeper cuts to ULAs revenues,' she said.

Raman also noted that the measure, which she backed in 2022, has resulted in economically and politically disastrous 'unintended consequences.'

'Voters were sold a ‘mansion tax and ignoring the very real impacts on apartment construction ' apartments that people want and need and want to move into ' doesn’t protect Measure ULA; it weakens it,' she said.

Because the transfer tax doesnt distinguish between what types of developments are subject to the tax, it has also fallen upon large apartment, mixed-usd and commercial projects along with actual mansions. In the years since, apartment sales have declined significantly within the city compared to surrounding municipalities that do not have the tax.

The taxs defenders counter that claims of a Los Angeles real estate market implosion are overblown. Building permits, citywide, increased by 60% from the fall of 2024 to the fall of 2025, according to data analyzed by United to House L.A., a coalition of unions, affordable housing developers and private development skeptics.

Jesse Zwick, regional director of the Housing Action Coalition, a pro-development advocacy group that backed the measure and a Santa Monica council member, called that claim 'disingenuous,' noting that 2024 represents an historic low point for permits.

'Even a dead cat bounces,' he said. 'If you look at L.A. vis-à-vis other cities in L.A. County, we are still deeply in deficit.'

Ramans proposed ballot tweak would have exempted new apartments, condos, commercial and mixed-use projects from the transfer tax for the first 15 years after construction in effort to reduce the financial penalty on new development. State housing regulators have tasked the city with planning for an additional 456,643 new units through 2029 to make up for a chronic deficit.

The measure would have also exempted households affected by natural disasters, such as the Palisades and Eaton fires, and reduced some of the restrictions on how revenue generated by the tax can be used for affordable housing developments.

Defenders of the current tax decried the proposal, which was introduced Friday, as rushed and poorly considered.

'This motion represents tens of millions, if not over a hundred million dollars, in cuts to ULA revenue for homelessness prevention programs and affordable housing solutions,' said Joe Donlin, director of United to House L.A. Researchers at UCLA and the Rand Institute estimate that roughly 13% of the revenue generated in the tax’s first year and a half came from the types of new developments that would have been carved out by Raman’s proposal.

He also dismissed the idea that the city should preemptively rewrite its transfer tax to head off the Howard Jarvis-backed initiative. 'There have been many bogeymen trotted out to try to scare the public into giving tax breaks for developers,' he said.

Technically, the L.A. council did not kill the measure outright, but referred it to further debate in committee. But with the June primary ballot deadline rapidly approaching, the delay likely nixes the possibility of the city amending its own tax before a possible statewide measure goes before voters.

'It seems unlikely there will be more action on this issue locally this year,' Zwick said. Between the broader effort to severely cap transfer taxes by anti-tax advocates and the current policys supporters, he called Ramans proposed fix 'the best political compromise' that could be achieved this year 'absent increased leverage through the statewide tax measures.'

If the statewide tax measure does ultimately become law, it would cost cities between $2 billion and $3 billion each year, according to an analysis commissioned by the League of California Cities, a lobbying group.

If and when it qualifies, that may trigger a fresh round of negotiations over state transfer tax policy, said Mott Smith, a commercial developer and board member of the California Infill Builders Association.

'Right now the argument for transfer tax reform is that Measure ULA isnt working as promised ' which, by the way, is a very good argument,' he said. 'But once the Howard Jarvis initiative qualifies, and it looks like it probably will, it becomes a conversation about how we preserve $3 billion of local revenue across the state.'

Asked about the signature gathering effort, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, merely said that he was 'cautiously optimistic.' As for a broader deal, should the measure qualify, he insisted that he was solely focused on his own measure for now.

Shirley Raines, a social media creator and nonprofit founder who dedicated her life to caring for people experiencing homelessness, has died, her organization Beauty 2 The Streetz said Wednesday. She was 58.

Raines was known as 'Ms. Shirley,' to her more than 5 million TikTok followers and to the people who regularly lined up for the food, beauty treatments and hygiene supplies she brought to Los Angeles Skid Row and other homeless communities in California and Nevada.

Raines life made an 'immeasurable impact,' Beauty 2 The Streetz wrote on social media.

'Through her tireless advocacy, deep compassion, and unwavering commitment, she used her powerful media platform to amplify the voices of those in need and to bring dignity, resources, and hope to some of the most underserved populations,' the organization said.

Raines cause of death was not released, but the organization said it would share additional information when it is available.

Raines had six children. One son died as a toddler ' an experience that left her a 'very broken woman,' Raines said in 2021 when she was named CNNs Hero of the Year.

'Its important you know that broken people are still very much useful,' she said during the CNN award ceremony.

That deep grief led her to begin helping the homeless.

'I would rather have him back than anything in the world, but I am a mother without a son, and there are a lot of people in the street that are without a mother,' she said. 'And I feel like its a fair exchange ' Im here for them.'

Raines began working with homeless communities in 2017. On Monday, Raines posted a video shot from inside her car as she handed out lunches to a line of people standing outside her passenger window. She greeted her clients with warm enthusiasm and respect, calling them 'King,' or 'Queen.'

One man told her he was able to get into an apartment.

'God is good! Look at you!' Raines replied, her usual cheerfulness stepping up a notch. In a video posted two weeks earlier, she handed her shoes to a barefoot child who was waiting for a meal, protecting the girls feet from the chilly asphalt.

Californias homelessness crisis is especially visible in downtown Los Angeles, where hundreds of people live in makeshift shanties that line entire blocks in the notorious neighborhood known as Skid Row. Tents regularly pop up on the pavement outside City Hall. Encampments are increasingly found in suburban areas under freeway overpasses. A 2025 survey found that about 72,000 people were homeless on any given night across Los Angeles County.

Crushow Herring, the art director of the Sidewalk Project, said Raines was both sentimental and protective of the homeless community. The Sidewalk Project uses art and peer empowerment programs to help people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles.

'Ive been getting calls all morning from people, not just who live in Skid Row but Angelenos who are shocked' by Raines death, Herring said. 'To see the work she did, and how people couldnt wait to see her come out? It was a great mission. What most people need is just feeling dignity about themselves, because if they look better, they feel better.'

Raines would often give people on the street a position working with her as she provided haircuts or handed out goods, Herring said.

'By the time a year or two goes by, theyre part of the organization ' they have responsibility, they have something to look forward to,' he said. 'She always had people around her that were motivational, and generous and polite to community members.'

In 2025, Raines was named the NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Social Media Personality. Other social media creators lauded her work and shared their own grief online Wednesday.

'Ms. Shirley was truly the best of us, love incarnate,' wrote Alexis Nikole Nelson, a foraging educator and social media creator known as 'blackforager.'

'In shock,' wrote Upworthy. 'Thank you for lifting so many up. May you rest in peace and power.'

The aquarium celebrated the grand opening of its new sea turtle rehabilitation area on Wednesday. The new area, located next to the aquariums Molina Animal Care Center, will play a crucial role in supporting existing turtle rescue and rehabilitation efforts that have been ongoing there since 2000.

The new space doubles the aquariums capacity for caring for stranded, sick or injured sea turtles, officials said, and is now only one of two facilities in Southern California that have this type of dedicated space.

Rescued sea turtles from Los Angeles County and beyond will be swimming in an approximately 4,000-gallon rehabilitation pool. Guests will be able to learn more about how the aquarium helps turtles through an accompanying audio visual display next to the facilitys viewing window.

'Our jobs are to care for animals and to bring the stories of the ecosystem in the ocean to our visitors, and this one checks all boxes,' Nate Jaros, vice president of animal care, fish and invertebrates at the Aquarium of the Pacific, said about the new area. 'Its a story where people can contribute to making sure that these animals are healthy and that we share our environment with them. Its a program thats also lived behind the scenes for decades. This is a great opportunity to raise awareness for it, what we do, and our mission.'

The Aquarium of the Pacific announced in October 2024 that it received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to construct this on-site sea turtle rehabilitation area. The aquarium also received contributions from the Molina Family Foundation and the KM Shimano Family Foundation for this new space to help rescue sea turtles, officials said.

The aquarium has worked to rescue, rehabilitate and release sea turtles back into the wild for more than two decades in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Aquarium of the Pacifics veterinary staff members regularly help to rehabilitate ill or injured sea turtles for release back into the ocean, including green, olive ridley and loggerhead sea turtles.

A major part of that effort is the institutions Southern California Sea Turtle Monitoring Project. The effort brings together both professional and citizen scientists to monitor the creatures, who have taken up residence in the San Gabriel River.

Every week, a group of dedicated volunteers makes the 1.5-mile trek down the San Gabriel River bike path to participate in the program, which gathers crucial data thats used to build out scientists understanding of the species behavior, the health of the larger ecosystem they occupy and more.

'Our volunteers have been making a difference in the lives of sea turtles for over a decade,' said Cassandra Davis, volunteer services director at the aquarium, 'and their actions help to save the life of a special green sea turtle that you will meet today.'

In March, volunteers spotted a badly injured green sea turtle that was stuck in the river ' because one of its flippers had been tangled in fishing line and debris so badly that it couldnt swim away.

Aquarium staffers were later able to rescue the sea turtle. They brought it back to the aquarium for care, where they discovered that 90% of the turtles front flipper was dead from a lack of blood circulation caused by the fishing line tangle and that it had a fishing hook lodged in the back of its mouth.

Veterinary staffers were able to remove the hook from the turtles mouth, but the flipper was already dead and couldnt be saved. It was removed at the ball-and-socket joint by veterinary staff. After 11 months of rehabilitation and care, the turtle is fully recovered from its life-threatening injuries and will be released back into the ocean in the coming weeks, said Dr. Lance Adams, Aquarium of the Pacific veterinarian.

This turtle, swimming around with its three flippers, was the first to use the rehabilitation pool. It was also in the background as aquarium staff and donors cut the ribbon to the new area on Wednesday.

The aquarium rehabilitated and released both a green sea and an olive ridley turtle last year, and on Jan. 14, it rescued another one.

'This sea turtle was also entangled in fishing line and tethered to debris in the San Gabriel River,' Adams said. 'It has a similar but slightly less severe flipper constriction injury, and we are working to try to help this sea turtle keep a flipper. The second turtle is now resting behind the scenes as it continues its recovery.'

Aquarium veterinary staff are continuing to care for the turtle with wound care, physical therapy and cold laser therapy ' which is meant to reduce inflammation and increase circulation in the flipper '  so it has a better chance of healing, Adams added.

The new sea turtle rehabilitation area is an important addition to the work the aquarium does, Adams said, including being able to accept more turtles to help and making the work visible to the public.

'It makes it easier for us to be able to say yes to accepting a sea turtle that needs to be rehabilitated, because now we have a dedicated space for that,' he said. 'The public can see our conservation efforts with sea turtles in action. They can see us providing the daily care for the animals while theyre in this rehabilitation tank. Or they can see us working on the sea turtles for some of their advanced veterinary care in the Molina Animal Care Center just across the path.'

To learn more about the aquariums work with sea turtles, visit tinyurl.com/AOTPTurtles.

Moundir Kamil, 56, pleaded guilty in September to one count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, attempted bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in the scheme that netted nearly $1 million between April 2021 and December 2022, according to federal prosecutors. He will also have to pay restitution of $979,772.84, the loss prosecutors allege he caused to financial institutions because of the scheme, and will be eligible for one year of supervised release.

Kamils co-defendants Jordan Adams and Jennifer Pruneda previously pleaded guilty to the same charges. Further information about their cases was sealed from public view.

Through tears, Kamil apologized to victims of the theft ring and his family in court.

“I blame myself daily,” he said, adding that he thinks often of his wife’s medical issues and how he can no longer serve as her caretaker. He also said he hoped his children can forgive him.

“Thats eating at me from the inside out,” Kamil wrote in a letter to Judge Fernando M. Olguin. “The hardship that my family is going through lies solely at my feet and nothing can change what I did, but I am full of remorse and regrets.”

Kamil’s attorney, John Hanusz, argued in a sentencing memo that his client should face a custodial sentence of 40 months. The sentence, Hanusz argued, would be just part of Kamil’s punishment, saying he’ll likely be deported to Morocco after serving his sentence despite living in the United States for 40 years.

Kamil’s sentence, his attorney argued, also will keep him from his family, including his wife, who said in a letter to the court that she is dealing with major health issues that doctors are working to diagnose, including an autoimmune disease that paralyzed her for a year and has caused neuropathy in her arms, legs, hands and feet. Her medical problems have made it impossible to drive and difficult to shower, she wrote.

As part of the scheme, a member of the crime ring would watch surfers park their cars and put their keys away before hitting the water in Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, South Bay, Newport Beach, San Diego County and other parts of Southern California, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Another member would confirm once the surfer was on the water, so that their accomplice could steal the key, break into the car and empty the surfers bank accounts, investment holdings, crypto wallets and other money-holding programs, according to prosecutors.

When credit card companies inquired about possible fraudulent activity because of luxury purchases at stores like Apple and Chanel, the thieves would answer the stolen phones and give the OK for the charges, according to court documents.

The broader surf community learned of the scheme after the crime ring hit well-known surfer and filmmaker Logan Dulien.

Dulien was surfing in north Newport Beach when thieves stole his keys from the wheel well of his car, accessed his bank accounts through his phone and wiped out his savings, an estimated $150,000, he told the Orange County Register in April. They used his credit cards to buy Chanel bags and approved the purchases when fraud centers called.

Dulien lived near the beach and captured the thieves on a surveillance camera.

He showed the video to police and posted it online, where Dulien had amassed a large following, to warn fellow surfers. From up and down the coast, messages came in from surfers recounting similar stories, and a neighbor set up more surveillance cameras in hopes of catching the thieves, Dulien said.

Police made a break in the case when footage captured a license plate as a car was broken into, Dulien said, and Newport Beach Police made an arrest in late December. Three people were arrested in connection with Dulien’s case.

The thieves used stolen bank cards to buy expensive electronics and high-end luxury goods. Kamil then resold the items for cash, prosecutors said.

When he was arrested, Kamil had pictures of hundreds of stolen credit and debit cards, according to prosecutors.

Kamil was sentenced in 2015 to time served and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to federal bank fraud after prosecutors accused him of stealing a billionaires identity.

Federal prosecutors alleged Kamil opened a phony bank account in Irvine Company Chairman Donald Brens name in February 2010, drained $1.1 million from the account and obtained a nearly $1.4 million federal tax return check meant for Bren. After pleading guilty, he was also ordered to pay restitution of $1.1 million.

Prior to that case, Kamil was named the 'Give Me More Bandit' for his role in a series a bank robberies in 2003.

WASHINGTON (AP) ' An immigration judge on Wednesday granted asylum to a Chinese national who he said had a 'well founded fear' of persecution if sent back to China after exposing human rights abuses there.

Guan Heng, 38, applied for asylum after arriving in the U.S. illegally in 2021. He has been in custody since being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation in August as part of a mass deportation campaign by the Trump administration.

The Department of Homeland Security initially sought to deport Guan to Uganda, but dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill.

Guan in 2020 secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang, adding to a body of evidence of what activists say are widespread rights abuses in the Chinese region, where as many as 1 million members of ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghurs, have been locked up.

During Wednesdays hearing in Napanoch, New York, Guan was asked if his intention in filming the detention facilities and then releasing the video a few days before arriving in the U.S. was to give him grounds to apply for asylum. He said that was not his goal.

'I sympathized with the Uyghurs who were persecuted,' Guan, speaking by video link from the Broome County Correctional Facility, told the court through a translator.

Guan knew he had to leave China if he wanted to publish the footage, he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. He went first to Hong Kong and from there to Ecuador, where Chinese tourists could travel without a visa, and then to the Bahamas. He released most of his video footage on YouTube before taking a boat to Florida in October 2021.

Guan told the judge he didnt know whether he would survive the boat trip and wanted to make sure the footage would be seen. After the video was released, police in China questioned his father three times, Guan said.

The Chinese government has denied allegations of rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying it runs vocational training programs to help local residents learn employable skills while rooting out radical thoughts, and has silenced dissenting views through a range of coercive means.

Guans lawyer, Chen Chuangchuang, said in his closing statement that the case is a 'textbook example of why asylum should exist' and that the U.S. has both a 'moral and legal responsibility' to grant Guan asylum.

In making his ruling, Judge Charles Ouslander told Guan the court found him to be a credible witness and that he had established his legal eligibility for asylum. He said Guan was right to fear retaliation if sent back, noting that the Chinese government had questioned his family and inquired about Guans whereabouts and his past activities.

It was an increasingly rare successful outcome for an asylum seeker since President Donald Trump returned to office. The asylum approval rate dropped to 10% in 2025, down from 28% between 2010 and 2024, according to federal data compiled by Mobile Pathways, a California-based nonprofit that helps immigrants navigate the U.S. legal system.

Guan, however, was not immediately released because the lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security said the department reserves the right to appeal. It has 30 days to do so, but Ouslander urged DHS to make its decision soon, noting that Guan has already been detained for about five months.

WASHINGTON (AP) ' The Trump administration on Wednesday took a step toward rolling back a rule that limits smokestack emissions that burden downwind areas in neighboring states.

The so-called 'good neighbor' rule is one of dozens of regulations that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has targeted for reconsideration or repeal. The Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that the EPA could not enforce the rule, which is intended to block coal-fired power plants and other industrial sites from adding significantly to air pollution across state lines.

The EPA said Wednesday it is proposing to approve plans by eight states to regulate ozone air pollution as they see fit. If finalized, the states 'would no longer need to worry about another ‘Good Neighbor Plan' subject to approval by the federal government, the agency said.

The affected states are Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee. Under President Joe Biden, the EPA disapproved or proposed disapproval of ozone plans submitted by all those states. The state-specific plans did not sufficiently control ozone emissions that travel across state lines, the Biden-era agency said.

Zeldin said Wednesday that under President Donald Trump, the EPA is committed to advancing what Zeldin called 'cooperative federalism' that allows states to decide for themselves how to attain air pollution goals.

'Today, we are taking an important step to undo a Biden administration rule that treated our state partners unfairly,' Zeldin said in a statement. If finalized, the EPA plan will ensure that 'these states will be able to advance cleaner air now for their communities, instead of waiting for overly burdensome federal requirements years from now,' he said.

Zeldin criticized what he said was the Biden-era agencys 'heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all, federal mandate' to address air pollution from smog-forming ozone.

Under the proposal announced Wednesday, 'EPA finds that the eight (state plans) have adequate data demonstrating these states are not interfering with ozone attainment' required by National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the agency said. The action also indicates EPAs intent to withdraw proposed error corrections for state plans submitted by Iowa and Kansas.

In the near future, EPA intends to take a separate action to address 'interstate transport' obligations for the remaining states covered in the final, Biden-era 'Good Neighbor Plan,' the agency said.

Environmental groups said the EPA proposal would reward states for being bad neighbors. Air pollution from heavily industrialized Midwestern states such as Indiana and Ohio frequently reaches East Coast states such as Connecticut and Delaware.

'Once again, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are choosing to protect aging, dirty and expensive coal plants and other industrial polluters over strong federal clean air protections that address interstate pollution problems,' said Zachary Fabish, a Sierra Club lawyer.

'Letting states off the hook while their pollution continues harming air quality in neighboring states is dangerous,' Fabish said, and will make 'Americans sicker and pay more for energy while doing so.'

EPA will accept public comment for at least 30 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register.

WASHINGTON (AP) ' Elizabeth Kautz says she now carries her passport around the Minneapolis suburb where shes been the mayor since 1995.

'Those ICE agents dont know that Im the mayor of the city of Burnsville,' Kautz, a Republican who has occasionally diverted from the Trump administrations views, said Wednesday as the United States Conference of Mayors opened its meeting in Washington. 'I could be coming out of a store and be harassed so I need to make sure that I have credentials on me.'

Her comments reflected a sense of frustration and exasperation hanging over the gathering of mayors, which would typically be a venue for leaders to strategize over issues ranging from affordable housing and transit to climate change and addressing urban violence.

But much of that was overshadowed by the fallout from the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti by two federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, reigniting a national debate over the Trump administrations aggressive law enforcement tactics, which have often focused on cities.

'There has been no more urgent challenge facing all Americans these past few weeks than the chaos in Minnesota stemming from an unprecedented surge in immigration enforcement,' said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, a Republican who is the conferences president this year.

Multiple mayors said they appreciated President Donald Trumps nod this week toward deescalating the federal governments operation in Minnesota, adding that they agreed with the administrations goal of deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes.

But they also described a dynamic in which theyre facing pressure from constituents to evict federal agents from their cities ' something they cant do ' while struggling to align with federal counterparts.

The surge has had a notable impact even in cities that havent faced the brunt of the federal governments pressure like Minneapolis.

'When trust is lost in how laws are being enforced in one city, we feel the risks to our police officers and to our residents in all cities,' said Leirion Gaylor Baird, the Democratic mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Asked about the mayors concerns, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin responded: 'Have they seen the plummeting murder rates? Its not a coincidence when you remove tens of thousands of gang members, murderers and known and suspected terrorists from the country who were here illegally.'

Holt said the White House hasnt invited the mayors for a meeting while theyre in town this week. Trump has repeatedly put the onus on local officials to cooperate with federal law enforcement, saying Wednesday on social media that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was 'PLAYING WITH FIRE' for saying his city wont enforce federal immigration laws.

Jerry Dryer was the police chief in Fresno, California, for 18 years before he was elected mayor in 2020 as a Republican. He said he wasnt in Washington to 'bash' ICE or the administration and expressed appreciation for Trumps work to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

But he criticized the way federal immigration enforcement has been implemented and said ICE was 'being rejected' by communities across the U.S. In the process, he warned, trust in law enforcement is in peril.

'In order to gain that trust, we have to police neighborhoods with their permission,' he said. 'We cannot be seen as an occupying force when we go into these neighborhoods.'

Jim Hovland, the nonpartisan mayor of Edina, Minnesota, a suburb just south of Minneapolis, described 'external forces' that are tearing 'at the very fabric of our communities that were responsible for shepherding.'

'Its really hard to figure out how to deal with it,' he said.

The recall includes 5.5-ounce packages of the biscuits, often given to teething babies, with best-by dates between Oct. 16 and Dec. 16, 2026. The plastic and paper pieces came from a supplier of arrowroot flour, who initiated the recall.

No illnesses or injuries have been reported. Consumers should check the back of the packages for the codes of affected lots. The products can be returned to the place of purchase for a refund, Gerber officials said in a statement.

No other Gerber products are affected by the recall.

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