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Donald Trump is absolutely, finally, paying E. Jean Carroll.The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the president’s emergency motion to temporarily suspend the court-ordered payment late Wednesday.The decision came shortly after Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the release of $5 million in court-held funds to the beleaguered columnist, more than three years after Trump was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store in late 1995.The last-minute stay was a Hail Mary thrown by Trump’s legal team, who had tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court earlier this week. But the nation’s highest judiciary ultimately rejected the request on Tuesday.Despite the high court’s decision, Trump’s legal team wrote to Kaplan asking him not to release the funds, claiming that the president’s Supreme Court petition for a new hearing was still pending.By Wednesday morning, the SCOTUS docket had been updated to reflect that it was anticipating a corrected petition from the president’s team. But hours later, it appeared that Kaplan had gone ahead and ordered the release of the funds to Carroll despite Trump’s pending filing, anyway.In a six-page memorandum penned Wednesday, Kaplan noted that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.” “It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” Kaplan ordered.The Second Circuit Court of Appeals clearly agreed.Carroll has a long and grim history with the president. After the 2023 civil case, Trump tried and failed to sue Carroll for defamation. Kaplan later ruled that Trump had continued to defame the advice columnist by denying the rape on the basis that she wasn’t his “type,” and by accusing her of making up the sexual assault allegations against him for the benefit of her book. A jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in that case, though Carroll has not yet seen any proceeds from that decision, either.Late last month, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the New York–based judge) asked a judge to implement an expedited payment schedule for the sum that Trump owes Carroll, noting that by this point, the president owes Carroll interest on the original amount.“It is time for this case to come to an end,” Carroll’s attorney wrote in a Tuesday legal filing.

ICE is making people’s worst fears a reality. The family of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who was shot and killed Tuesday by immigration enforcement agents in Texas, is calling for a full investigation into his death.Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, Ronaldo Salgado, the deceased’s son, gave an emotional account of how he learned of his father’s death. “I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. I recognized him immediately,” Ronaldo said, his voice breaking. “Not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street, bleeding out.”Salgado set off for the area where his father was working construction in North Houston, and remained on the site for hours looking for answers. League of United Latin American Citizens Representative Conchita Reyes connected him to Texas Representative Sylvia Garcia to locate his father at Ben Taub Hospital. “With all the hope in the world I drove to Ben Taub Hospital, the hospital that I was born in, my brother Lorenzo Jr. was born in, and my youngest was born in. I went to Ben Taub Hospital, demanded answers, but no one could give them to me,” Salgado said.“I learned of my father’s passing from a news report on social media, not the hospital, not law enforcement,” he continued.Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was undocumented, but his three children are U.S. citizens. His son said his father had completed the paperwork for a legal work permit, submitted good character affidavits and fingerprints 18 months ago, and was awaiting a response.In the hours after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the officer had fired in self-defense after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo refused to comply with orders and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.” But that’s a familiar refrain used by ICE agents to skirt legal issues, as the agency’s use-of-force policy bars agents from firing at a vehicle unless there is an imminent threat to their safety. DHS made similar claims about the shooting of Marimar Martinez and the fatal shooting of Renee Good. The claims about Martinez quickly fell apart when her lawyer showed footage of immigration agents steering their vehicle into Martinez’s truck. While the investigation into Good’s death has gone nowhere, DHS’s claims are highly disputed.His family believes that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who had no criminal record, would have complied with orders if he’d known that the officers pursuing him in unmarked vehicles were federal immigration authorities. The family even had a plan in place in the event that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was picked up by ICE. “He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican Man Shot and Killed by ICE.’ He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” his son said.Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s death marks the tenth fatal shooting by federal immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s lavish spending spree and misuse of government planes has now attracted Republican ire.Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Patel asking for information about his use of FBI jets and the bureau’s purchase of BMW cars, MS NOW reports.“For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records,” Grassley wrote in his letter.Grassley wrote that while Patel is required to use FBI planes even for personal use, Congress needs the information to make an “independent and objective review.” The senator also asked Patel to explain “why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans.”Grassley has defended Patel in the past against accusations that he misused government resources, telling the press in April that “I’ve never had an FBI director cooperate with me as much as Kash Patel has cooperated with me on my request for information, my request for documents. In fact, most FBI directors have been an impediment to my investigations.”Now, though, Grassley is joining Democrats, such as Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Dick Durbin, who wrote their own letter to Patel Wednesday saying that they “appreciate Chairman Grassley raising these concerns, which mirror those raised repeatedly by House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats.”Raskin and Durbin’s letter raises concerns about Patel’s travel as FBI director, referring to an incident last year where the military allowed Patel to snorkel at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii around the wreckage of the USS Arizona, which sank during Japan’s attack on the base in 1941.“Your VIP snorkeling experience in Hawaii was not an isolated incident,” wrote Raskin and Durbin. “You frequently demand special perks on ‘official’ trips around the globe, such as a taxpayer-funded helicopter tour during your multi-country jaunt across East Asia and other recreational activities like jet skiing.”The letter added, “Your jet-setting and the lack of justification for these trips are ‘out of control,’ and the new attaché office you established in Wellington, New Zealand, may have been opened in part to justify a sightseeing trip you took there.” Grassley’s words may mean that Patel will now face bipartisan scrutiny for his actions on the job. In the past, he’s had support from Republicans in Congress, not to mention President Trump. But with the midterm elections approaching, Grassley and others in the GOP could be gearing up for a stronger Democratic presence in Congress that demands more oversight of Trump’s appointments, especially those that like to party on the job.

The family of Geraldo Lunas Campos is suing over the 55-year-old Cuban immigrant’s death at an ICE detention center in Texas earlier this year, with a local coroner ruling his death a homicide from asphyxia. The Department of Homeland Security said Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, but witnesses said he died after being restrained by multiple guards. The family’s lawsuit names four guards and multiple private companies overseeing the jail. Perla Trevizo, a reporter with the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit, says Lunas Campos had a history of mental health issues and that he had complained before his death about lack of access to his medication. “Witnesses say that they believe he was shackled. There were several guards. They took him down,” Trevizo says.

Immigration and civil rights advocacy groups are demanding an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three who was killed by ICE agents in Houston on Tuesday morning. Salgado Araujo, who had been living in the United States for nearly 35 years, worked in construction and was starting his day by picking up other workers in Magnolia Park, a historically Latino neighborhood, when ICE agents targeted him. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle” and attempted to ram agents, a claim made in previous ICE killings that has fallen apart under scrutiny. This latest death comes exactly six months after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances. We speak with Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the Houston-based civil rights organization FIEL, Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight. He says the community is demanding answers, including the release of any available video of the incident. “Everything is hush-hush,” he says of the Homeland Security response. “They don’t want to release anything. We don’t even know if there’s bodycam footage.”

James North, Mondoweiss. The U.S. media is covering up the crime. Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya has been detained by Israel for a year and a half without trial and says his jailers are trying to kill him. His case has made international headlines, yet it is being ignored in the U.S. Why? By now, editors […]