Judge orders senior Border Patrol official to meet her daily to discuss use of force

North Korea said Wednesday it has fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, in another display of its growing military capabilities as Trump travels to South Korea for a regional summit.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency described Tuesday’s test as a success and claimed that the weapons would contribute to expanding the operational sphere of the country’s nuclear-armed military.

South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm whether it had detected the tests.

The North Korean report came hours before an expected summit between Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the city of Gyeongju, where South Korea is hosting this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.

Nvidia has been shut out of the Chinese market, and has taken China out of its quarterly forecast, CEO Jensen Huang said Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

“We are currently completely shut out of China,” Huang said. “Our market share has gone from 95% to 0%, which is very, very, very disappointing.”

Earlier this year, Huang had persuaded the U.S. government to allow Nvidia to sell its H20 chips to China, but Beijing reportedly banned the AI chips in September due to alleged security concerns.

Washington does not allow the sale of the most advanced American chips to China, while China has vowed to achieve self sufficiency in semiconductor production to power its tech race with the United States.

The Trump administration is reassigning roughly half the top officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices around the country, say two people familiar with the matter.

There’s 25 ICE field offices around the country. A current and former U.S. government official told the AP that at least field office directors at 12 of them were being reassigned.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity either because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter or to discuss information that was not intended for public release.

The officials said half are to be replaced by existing or retired Customs and Border Protection staff. The other half would be replaced by ICE officers.

The former official said on top of the 12 reassignments, leaders in another four cities were being swapped out through retirements or other circumstances.

Homeland Security and the White House did not comment on the reassignments. Instead, spokespeople for each stressed that the administration’s immigration enforcement agencies were working as one team.

▶Read about the shakeup

That was the word from California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who told supporters in an email this week that his campaign has met its budget to approve revamped districts to favor Democrats in the fight to control the U.S House.

“We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need” to pass so-called Proposition 50, Newsom wrote, saying he’d raised $38 million in online small-dollar donations for the push to erase up to five Republican House seats in the state. “You can stop donating.”

Voting concludes Nov. 4, but there was a hitch. Newsom signaled that he’d be appealing for money to funnel to House political battles in other states, after President Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to redraw districts ahead of next year’s elections set off an outbreak of unexpected jerrymandering in state legislatures.

Indeed, the email was followed a day later by a solicitation for donations to help Democrats in Indiana, where Republican Gov. Mike Braun has called for a special legislative session on congressional redistricting to begin Nov. 3.

“If Democrats take back the House, we effectively end the Trump presidency in November of next year,” Newsom wrote.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats will introduce a bill that would extend funding during the government shutdown for two food assistance programs used by millions of low-income Americans.

The Department of Agriculture has announced that no SNAP benefits, formerly food stamps, will be issued Saturday. Money is also set to run out early next month for another aid program known as WIC that supports millions of low-income mothers and young children.

The legislation is unlikely to get the unanimous consent needed to pass the Senate on an expedited basis.

Schumer said the focus of the bill is “to make sure no child goes hungry, no family goes without food.”

He said SNAP was funded during a lengthy shutdown in Trump’s first term and questioned why it was different now, saying Trump was “choosing to have kids go hungry.”

The Senate Democratic leader showed no signs of ending the government shutdown without a fix for the skyrocketing premium rates.

Americans will be “aghast, aghast” once they see the new insurance rates at the start of open enrollment Saturday.

That, he believes, will put pressure on Trump and the Republicans to negotiate with Democrats.

The vice president didn’t bring up the funding cliff for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, during a closed-door luncheon, according to Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.

The Trump administration has said funds will run out for the program Friday, potentially leaving millions of Americans struggling to cover their grocery bills.

After the meeting, Vance told reporters that “we are trying as much as possible to ensure that critical food benefits get paid,” but did not offer assurances that the administration would actually reconfigure funding to cover the program. The administration has already rejected the use of more than $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits flowing into November.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz emerged from a Senate GOP lunch saying that “beef was a major topic of discussion” with Vice President JD Vance.

“There was unanimity in the room that we should be standing strongly with our cattle ranchers,” said Cruz. He said it was a “vigorous discussion” and that Vance listened to the “strenuous views” from senators.

Trump’s plan to bring down record-high beef prices by boosting imports from Argentina has seen pushback from GOP lawmakers.

Asked if the topic was discussed at the lunch, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley chuckled and said that “there were thoughts on it.” Hawley said that in response, Vance “just reiterated what the president has said.”

“Which is that they’re big supporters of farmers,” said Hawley.

A federal judge in San Francisco has indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from firing federal workers during the government shutdown.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction that bars the firings while a lawsuit challenging them plays out. She had previously issued a temporary restraining order against the job cuts that was set to expire Wednesday. Illston, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, has said she believes the evidence will ultimately show the mass firings were illegal and in excess of authority.

The Republican administration has been slashing jobs in education, health and other areas it says are favored by Democrats. Lawyers for the government argued personnel issues should be heard in a separate venue.

Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday he believes U.S. military members will be paid at the end of the week, but did not specify how the Trump administration will reconfigure funding in the second-longest government shutdown.

The funding fight in Washington gained new urgency this week as millions of Americans face the prospect of losing food assistance, more federal workers miss their first full paycheck and recurring delays at airports snarl travel plans.

“We do think that we can continue paying the troops, at least for now,” Vance told reporters after lunch with Senate Republicans at the Capitol. “We’ve got food stamp benefits that are set to run out in a week. We’re trying to keep as much open as possible. We just need the Democrats to actually help us out.”

Vice President JD Vance’s comments were the first from the Trump administration after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered strikes in Gaza Tuesday.

“The president achieved a historic peace in the Middle East. The ceasefire is holding,” Vance told reporters on Capitol Hill after he left a meeting with Senate Republicans. “That’s doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” he said.

That was the vice president’s message behind closed door at the Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch, on day 28 of the government shutdown.

Senators said the message was well received as the GOP tries to hold the line and Democrats push for healthcare funds.

Lunch was the standard Senate fare of fish, vegetables and dessert.

The administration says it will appeal a ruling that it must release millions of dollars in grants meant to address a shortage of mental health workers in schools.

The Education Department said in a statement Tuesday that it is working with the Justice Department to appeal the Monday ruling by a federal judge in Seattle.

U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson ruled the administration’s move in April to cancel school mental health grants starting in December 2025 was arbitrary and capricious. The ruling applies only to some grantees in the 16 Democratic-led states that challenged the decision.
Congress funded the mental health program after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The administration opposed aspects of the grant programs that touched on race, saying they were harmful to students. The department said in its statement Tuesday the grants, which were first awarded under the Biden administration, were used “to promote divisive ideologies based on race and sex.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sharply criticized the strikes on Tuesday, and Mexico’s government said that a rescue operation is underway in search of a survivor of the strike around 400 miles southwest of the Pacific city of Acapulco.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement they were carrying out the operation with an ocean patrol vessel and a maritime patrol aircraft “in compliance” with an international human rights convention “with the aim of safeguarding human life at sea.”

Sheinbaum has asked her foreign affairs secretary and the Navy to meet with the U.S. ambassador in Mexico to discuss the issue because “we do not agree with these attacks.”

“We want all international treaties to be respected,” she said.

Mexican security analyst David Saucedo said Sheinbaum frequently invokes sovereignty saying there will be no American intervention.

“That’s the discourse, the narrative, but in reality Mexico’s government has aligned with the interests of Washington,” he said. “What I see is a total and complete collaboration between the Mexican and American government in this.”

Arriving for a lunch with Senate Republicans, Vice President JD Vance ignored shouted questions from reporters about what could end the shutdown standoff between the parties.

Vance is expected to discuss tariffs during the meeting, ahead of votes on the issue later this week. His visit to the Capitol comes as the shutdown stretches on and Trump remains abroad in Asia.

Nvidia will partner with the Department of Energy to build seven AI-powered supercomputers, its CEO Jensen Huang announced Tuesday in the nation’s capital city.

Huang, speaking at Nvidia’s developer’s conference, said the partnership will help advance the country’s science and technology research.

The United States and China are chief rivals in an economic race that bets on tech innovations as a chief driver of growth. An AI supercomputer can be used to train large and complicated models needed in developing artificial intelligence capabilities.

Democratic officials across the U.S. filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to force the Trump administration to replenish benefits in the SNAP food assistance program.

The Department of Agriculture said last week that the debit cards used by beneficiaries won’t be loaded in November due to the government shutdown.

A group of attorneys general and governors for 25 states and the District of Columbia contend in the filing in federal court in Massachusetts that the administration is legally required to use a contingency fund to pay for continuing benefits. They focus on a contingency fund with roughly $5 billion — enough to pay the benefits for more than half a month.

About 1 in 8 Americans use SNAP to help buy groceries. Beneficiaries, food banks and states have been scrambling to figure out how to make sure they’ll have access to food even if the program is paused.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis on Tuesday ordered a senior U.S. Border Patrol official to meet with her daily “to hear about how the day went” after weeks of confrontations between immigration agents and the public in the Chicago area. Ellis also asked Greg Bovino to submit by Friday all use of force reports from Border Patrol agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz from Sept. 2 through Tuesday.

The courtroom Tuesday gave the feeling of a principal’s office as Ellis detailed examples of incidents where she felt her previous order restricting use of force, including tear gas, was not being followed.

She spoke intensely about weekend reports that Border Patrol agents disrupted a children’s Halloween parade with tear gas on the city’s Northwest side, saying one of the reasons she called Bovino to court is “so that kids can feel safe walking to the store or walking to school.”

“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday,” Ellis said. “And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.”

Democrats insist that before they agree to fund the government, Republicans must agree to extend federal subsidies for health care plans offered through the Affordable Care Act marketplace — otherwise health insurance costs will soar for millions of Americans next year.

The window for enrolling in ACA health plans begins Saturday. In past years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has allowed Americans to preview their options about a week before open enrollment.

As of Monday, Healthcare.gov appeared to show 2025 health insurance plans and estimated prices, instead of next year’s options. CMS was expected to temporarily bring back all its workers furloughed during the shutdown, in part to manage the ACA open enrollment period.

Twenty-eight senators, mostly Democrats, signed a letter urging Trump’s administration to let ACA enrollees start previewing their options.

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wants lawmakers to vote for closure on H.R. 5371, which would end the federal government shutdown for roughly three weeks.

“As president of the largest federal employee union, I cannot countenance the sight of workers I represent standing in food lines. It should trouble the conscience of every member of Congress and indeed every American,” Kelley said in his letter to lawmakers.

“Whether they are declared excepted workers or are furloughed – a designation they do not choose – federal workers are for the most part not being paid. Yet their obligations remain to pay mortgages and monthly rents, credit card bills and childcare, and gasoline and automobile loans.”

Bovino admitted that he himself has not received a body worn camera or received the four-hour training for using them.

“I suspect if you asked for one, you could probably get one easily,” the judge told him. She asked him to get a camera and complete the training by Friday.

A federal judge in Chicago began her questioning of Bovino on Tuesday by detailing examples of what she called excessive use of force in recent weeks, including during a weekend children’s Halloween parade on Chicago’s Northwest side.

Ellis said she has seen video recordings of agents using force without giving proper warnings to protesters beforehand, and carrying out operations without wearing badges.

Bovino said he has “instructed all agents under my command to place an identifier conspicuously on their uniform.”

A federal judge in Chicago on Tuesday morning began her questioning of the senior Border Patrol official who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown by reading aloud her own oath, and his, before they each took their positions.

“Even though the words of the oath we each took is different, it’s the same oath,” U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said. “We both agree to support and uphold the Constitution.”

Bovino took the stand Tuesday to answer questions about the federal enforcement operation in the Chicago area, which has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force. Bovino himself is accused of throwing tear gas canisters at protesters.

Congressional leaders are pointing to the shutdown’s impact on many Americans, but there’s no movement toward negotiations as they try to blame the other side.

“This week, more than any other week, the consequences become impossible to ignore,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, chair of the House Republican Conference.

“Now government workers and every other American affected by this shutdown have become nothing more than pawns in the Democrats’ political games,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the Trump administration made an intentional choice to pause Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, calling it an “act of cruelty.”

Trump has justified the killings in air strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has called it an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority the Bush administration used to declare a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But as the air strikes continue, a debate in Congress has escalated over the limits of presidential power. The attacks have happened without any legal investigation, hard evidence or a traditional declaration of war from Congress. Meanwhile, the unusual U.S. naval buildup off South America has stoked fears that Trump could invade Venezuela and try to topple President Nicolás Maduro, who faces U.S. charges of narcoterrorism.

▶ Here is a timeline of related events

A Department of Homeland Security statement says Border Patrol agents were “impeded by protesters” during a targeted enforcement operation in which one man was arrested.

“Operation Midway Blitz” has masked, armed agents in unmarked trucks patrolling Chicago neighborhoods. Residents have protested in ways big and small against what they see as their city under siege.

DHS says its agents are being terrorized: “Our brave officers are facing a surge in increase in assaults against them, inducing sniper attacks, cars being used as weapons on them, and assaults by rioters. This violence against law enforcement must END. We will not be deterred by rioters and protesters in keeping America safe.”

Parents and teachers in Chicago saychildren were traumatized when immigration agents threw tear gas canisters just outside an elementary school this month.

Drivers were following their unmarked SUV, laying on their horns to warn people that immigration agents were present in the historically Hispanic Logan Square neighborhood. Parents and caregivers rushed to protect the kids in the chaos.

Now, even U.S. citizens and people with permission to live or work in the United States say they’re living in fear, questioning their children’s safety and their future.

▶ Read more about the impact of the ICE crackdown on entire communities.

“I don’t see a path for that,” the Republican speaker said at the Capitol.

Johnson said the country doesn’t allow it, and amending the Constitution would take a decade and be too time consuming.

Mike Johnson chided Democratic senators, saying they backed themselves “into a corner” over what’s now Day 28 of the second longest shutdown.

Johnson, who has refused to call the House into session, said during his daily press conference at the partly closed Capitol that Democrats have “political cover” now that the largest federal workers union has urged them to reopen government.

Democrats are holding out until Republicans agree to preserve health care subsidies for millions of Americans who face skyrocketing insurance premiums.

Food banks and pantries were already struggling after federal program cuts this year, but now they’re bracing for a tsunami of hungry people if a pause in federal food aid to low-income people kicks in this weekend as the federal government shutdown persists.

They were already struggling after federal program cuts this year. Now, SNAP benefits are set to pause Nov. 1. It’s the latest in a string of hardships placed on charitable food services. Food banks and pantries across the country are concerned about meeting the growing need. Some states are trying to fill the gap, but others lack resources to help.

The Trump administration said it won’t use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to keep food aid flowing, and that it won’t reimburse states that temporarily cover the costs.

▶ Read more about how food banks are handling this crisis

Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person would stay in their custody or be handed over to the U.S.

Hegseth posted footage of the strikes to social media in which two boats can be seen moving at speed through the water. One is visibly laden with a large amount of parcels or bundles. Both then suddenly explode and are seen aflame.

The third strike appears to have been conducted on a pair of boats that were stationary in the water alongside each other. They appear to be largely empty with at least two people seen moving before an explosion engulfs both boats.

Hegseth said “the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.”

A longtime U.S. law enforcement agent secretly tried to recruit Nicolas Maduro’s pilot to join a plot to capture the Venezuelan leader and deliver him into U.S. custody to face drug trafficking charges. Details of the plot are emerging as the Trump administration exerts increasing pressure, deploying a naval strike force to the Caribbean and doubling the bounty for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.

The untold saga of how the agent tried to flip the pilot has all the elements of a Cold War spy thriller — luxury private jets, a secret meeting at an airport hangar, high-stakes diplomacy and the delicate wooing of a key Maduro lieutenant. More broadly, the scheme reveals the extent — and often slapdash fashion — to which the U.S. has for years sought to topple Maduro.

▶ Here are some key takeaways from the AP’s report on US plot to recruit Maduro’s pilot

Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military carried out three strikes Monday in the waters of the Eastern Pacific against boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing 14 and leaving one survivor.

The announcement, made on social media Tuesday, marks a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September spaced weeks apart. This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day.

A senior Border Patrol official who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago is due in court Tuesday to take questions about the enforcement operation in the Chicago area, which has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered uniformed immigration agents to wear body cameras, the latest step in a lawsuit by news outlets and protesters who say federal agents used excessive force, including using tear gas, during protests against immigration operations.

Greg Bovino, who has become a public face of the crackdown, is accused of throwing tear gas canisters at protesters. The judge has scheduled five hours of questioning.

▶ Read more about developments from the court hearing

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose country has clashed with China over competing claims in the South China Sea, as have other ASEAN nations, welcomed China’s signing of an expanded trade pact, but stressed that “this cooperation cannot exist alongside coercion.”

The Chinese foreign minister said China and the ASEAN members — Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam — are “good neighbors and good brothers that are close in geography, culture and sentiment.”

Marcos, who becomes ASEAN’s chairman next year, has vowed to accelerate a Code of Conduct to govern behavior in disputed waters. He urged China to “commit to cooperation and meaningful engagement, especially in the South China Sea,” and said it’s “regrettable” that Philippine vessels and aircraft continue to face “dangerous actions and harassment” over a hotly disputed shoal.

After China signed an expanded version of a free trade agreement Tuesday with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Premier Li Qiang pitching expanded economic ties with Beijing as an alternative to Trump’s protectionist policies.

Li Qiang told an ASEAN-China summit meeting that closer cooperation could help overcome global economic uncertainties. “Pursuing confrontation instead of solidarity brings no benefit” in the face of economic coercion and bullying, he said.

China is the world’s leading producer and processor of rare-earth minerals and related technologies critical for fighter jets, robots, electric vehicles and a host of other high-tech products. In a show of strength and of the leverage it brings to the negotiating table, the country has limited exports of the elements, crippling U.S. and other foreign companies. Most recently, they tightened the restrictions Oct. 9, just ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.

“Rare earths are now the most effective lever that China can pull,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The rest of the world does not have readily available or affordable productive capacity.’’

Toshimitsu Motegi held a telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Tuesday and expressed “serious concern” over Beijing’s rare earths export controls.

Their talks came hours after Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signed a rare earths cooperation agreement, showcasing the coordination between the allies amid the U.S.-China rare earths dispute ahead of Trump’s expected talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a regional summit in South Korea.

The United States and China are not going to resolve all the issues that divide them before presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet Thursday in Busan, South Korea.

But they are likely to make enough progress on China’s stranglehold on strategic minerals, American export controls and other nettlesome problems to calm financial markets and prevent their rivalry from doing much more economic damage for now.

“They’re trying to get to some kind of détente,” said Jeff Moon, a former U.S. trade official and diplomat who now runs the China Moon Strategies consultancy. “There’s no pretense that they’re going to reach a grand bargain that solves everything in the relationship.’’

▶ Read more about what’s on the table — and what’s not — for the U.S.-China meeting

He’s scheduled to fly to South Korea for his last stop on his Asia trip, where he’s expected to see President Lee Jae Myung and speak to business leaders Wednesday at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million. The cuts announced Tuesday amount to about a 4% reduction in its corporate workforce, which doubled during the pandemic as millions stayed home and boosted online spending. The company previously cut 54,000 jobs since 2023 and the downsizing may not be over.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in a statement that the layoffs “represent a deep cleaning of Amazon’s corporate workforce.”

Many retailers are pulling back on seasonal hiring this year due to uncertainty over the U.S. economy and tariffs. Amazon Inc. said this month, however, that it would hire 250,000 seasonal workers, the same as last year’s holiday season.

▶ Read more about how Amazon is changing it’s workforce to accelerate AI investments