Partial shutdown seems increasingly likely as Democrats demand ICE changes

With a partial government shutdown looming, Senate Democrats laid out a list of demands Wednesday for the Department of Homeland Security, including an enforceable code of conduct for federal agents conducting immigration arrests and a requirement that officers show identification as the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. It remained unclear if President Donald Trump and Republicans would be willing to meet those demands, even as funding for DHS and a swath of other government agencies was at risk of expiring Saturday. Irate Democrats have pledged to block a spending bill unless their demands for reforms are met. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the legislation won’t pass until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “reined in and overhauled.” “The American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said. With an uncertain path ahead, the standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies, a dispute that closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate. That shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans, but Democrats are more united this time after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents. There’s a lot of “unanimity and shared purpose” within the Democratic caucus, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith said after a lunch meeting Wednesday. “Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does,” Smith said. “There has to be accountability.” As the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge goes on, Schumer said Democrats are asking the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants. Democrats also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies. The Democratic caucus is united in those “commonsense reforms” and the burden is on Republicans to accept them, Schumer said. He has asked Republicans to separate out the Homeland Security bill from the others to avoid a broader shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he was waiting for Democrats to outline what they want, and he suggested that they need to be negotiating with the White House. He indicated that he might be open to some of their demands, but encouraged Democrats and the White House to talk and find agreement. It was unclear whether Trump would weigh in, or how seriously the White House was engaged — or whether the two sides could agree on anything that would satisfy Democrats. The White House had invited some Democrats for a discussion to better understand their positions and avoid a partial government shutdown, a senior White House official said, but the meeting did not happen. The official requested anonymity to discuss the private invitation. With no serious negotiations underway, a partial shutdown appeared increasingly likely starting Saturday. The House passed the six remaining funding bills last week and sent them to the Senate as a package, and that makes it difficult to strip out the homeland security portion as Democrats are demanding. Republicans could break the package apart with the consent of all 100 senators, which would be complicated, or through a series of votes that would extend past the Friday deadline.

Maduro Pleads Not Guilty, Claims Capture in U.S. Drug Case

A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela. “I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom interpreter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” Maduro’s court appearance in Manhattan, his first since he and his wife, Cilia Flores, were seized from their Caracas home Saturday in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicked off the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. She also pleaded not guilty. The criminal case is unfolding against a broader diplomatic backdrop of an audacious U.S.-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country. Maduro, 63, was brought to court under heavy security early Monday — flown by helicopter to Manhattan from Brooklyn, where he is jailed, and then driven to the courthouse in an armored vehicle. He and Flores were led into court just before noon. Both were in leg shackles and jail-issued garb, and both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish. As Maduro left the courtroom, a man in the audience denounced him as an “illegitimate” president. As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person charged with a crime in the country — including the right to jury trial. But, given the circumstances of his arrest and the geopolitical stakes at play, he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique. That was made clear from the outset as Maduro, who took copious notes throughout the proceedings and wished Happy New Year to reporters as he entered the courtroom, repeatedly pressed his case that he had been unlawfully abducted. “I am here kidnapped since Jan. 3, Saturday,” Maduro said, standing and leaning his tall frame toward a tabletop microphone. “I was captured at my home in Caracas.” U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old jurist who was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by Bill Clinton, interrupted him, saying: “There will be a time and place to go into all of this.” Hellerstein added that Maduro’s lawyer could do so later. “At this point in time, I only want to know one thing,” the judge said. “Are you Nicolás Maduro Moros?” “I am Nicolás Maduro Moros,” the defendant responded. Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he expects to contest the legality of his “military abduction.” Pollack, a prominent Washington lawyer whose clients have included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Maduro is “head of a sovereign state and is entitled to the privileges and immunities that go with that office.” Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection. Flores, who identified herself to the judge as “first lady of the Republic of Venezuela,” had bandages on her forehead and right temple. Her lawyer, Mark Donnelly, said she suffered “significant injuries” during her capture. A 25-page indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted. Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, the indictment said.

California delays revoking 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses until March

A week after immigrant groups filed a lawsuit, California said Tuesday it will delay the revocations of 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses until March to allow more time to ensure that truckers and bus drivers who legally qualify for the licenses can keep them. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the state may lose $160 million if it doesn’t meet a Jan. 5 deadline to revoke the licenses. He already withheld $40 million in federal funding because he said California isn’t enforcing English proficiency requirements for truckers. California only sent out notices to invalidate the licenses after Duffy pressured the state to make sure immigrants who are in the country illegally aren’t granted the licenses. An audit found problems like licenses that remained valid long after an immigrant’s authorization to be in the country expired or licenses where the state couldn’t prove it checked a driver’s immigration status. “California does NOT have an ‘extension’ to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads,” Duffy posted on the social platform X. The Transportation Department has been prioritizing the issue ever since a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people in August. California officials said they are working to make sure the federal Transportation Department is satisfied with the reforms they have put in place. The state had planned to resume issuing commercial driver’s licenses in mid-December, but the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration blocked that. “Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy — our supply chains don’t move, and our communities don’t stay connected without them,” said DMV Director Steve Gordon. The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the California drivers. They said immigrant truck drivers were being unfairly targeted. The driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikhs. Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses immigrants can receive only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses or about 200,000 drivers. The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license, but a court put the new rules on hold. Mumeeth Kaur, the legal director of the Sikh Coalition, said this delay “is an important step towards alleviating the immediate threat that these drivers are facing to their lives and livelihoods.” Duffy previously threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota after audits found significant problems under the existing rules like commercial licenses being valid long after an immigrant truck driver’s work permit expired. He dropped the threat to withhold $160 million from California after the state said it would revoke the licenses because the state was complying. Trucking trade groups have praised the effort to get unqualified drivers who shouldn’t have licenses or can’t speak English off the road. They also applauded the Transportation Department’s moves to go after questionable commercial driver’s license schools.

Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for $40 billion stablecoin fraud

Onetime cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison after a $40 billion crash revealed his crypto ecosystem to be a fraud. Victims said the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponized their trust to convince them that the investment — secretly propped up by cash infusions — was safe. Kwon, a Stanford graduate known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” apologized after listening as victims — one in court and others by telephone — described the scam’s toll: wiping out nest eggs, depleting charities and wrecking lives. One told the judge in a letter that he contemplated suicide after his father lost his retirement money in the scheme. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said at a daylong sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court that the government’s recommendation of 12 years in prison was “unreasonably lenient” and that the defense’s request for five years was “utterly unthinkable and wildly unreasonable.” Kwon faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. “Your offense caused real people to lose $40 billion in real money, not some paper loss,” Engelmayer told Kwon, who sat at the defense table in a yellow jail suit. The judge called it “a fraud on an epic, generational scale” and said Kwon had an “almost mystical hold” on investors and caused incalculable “human wreckage.” Kwon pleaded guilty in August to fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Terraform Labs, the Singapore-based firm he co-founded in 2018. The loss exceeded the combined losses from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood’s frauds, prosecutors said. Engelmayer estimated there may have been a million victims. Terraform Labs had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable “stablecoin” — a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was an illusion backed by outside cash infusions that came crumbling down after it plunged far below its $1 peg. The crash devastated investors in TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, triggering “a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.” Kwon tried to rebuild Terraform Labs in Singapore before fleeing to the Balkans on a false passport, prosecutors said. He’s been locked up since his March 2023 arrest in Montenegro. He was credited for 17 months he spent in jail there before being extradited to the U.S. Kwon agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of his plea deal. His lawyers argued his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation. Engelmayer rejected his request to serve his sentence in his native South Korea, where he also faces prosecution and where his wife and 4-year-old daughter live. “I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done different and what I can do now to make things right,” Kwon told Engelmayer. Hearing from victims, he said, was “harrowing and reminded me again of the great losses that I have caused.” One victim, speaking by telephone, said his wife divorced him, his sons had to skip college, and he had to move back to Croatia to live with his parents after TerraUSD’s crash evaporated his family’s life savings. Another said he has to “live with the guilt” of persuading his in-laws and hundreds of nonprofit organizations to invest. Stanislav Trofimchuk said his family’s investment plummeted from $190,000 to $13,000 — “17 years of our life, gone” during what he described as “two weeks of sheer terror.” Chauncey St. John, speaking in court, said some nonprofits he worked with lost more than $2 million and a church group lost about $900,000. He and his wife are saddled with debt and his in-laws have been forced to work well past their planned retirement, he said. Nevertheless, St. John said, he forgives Kwon and “I pray to God to have mercy on his soul.” A prosecutor read excerpts from some of more than 300 letters submitted by victims, including a person identified only by initials who lost nearly $11,400 while juggling bills and trying to complete college. Kwon had made Terra seem like a safe place to stash savings, the person said. “To some that is just a number on a page, but to me it was years of effort,” the person wrote. “Watching it evaporate, literally overnight, was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.” “What happened was not an accident. It was not a market event. It was deception,” the person added, imploring the judge to “consider the human cost of this tragedy.” Kwon created an “illusion of resilience while covering up systemic failure,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Mortazavi told Engelmayer. “This was fraud executed with arrogance, manipulation and total disregard for people.”

Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. studio and streaming business for $72 billion

Netflix has struck a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, the legacy Hollywood giant behind “Harry Potter” and “Friends,” to buy its studio and streaming business for $72 billion. The acquisition, announced Friday, would bring two of the industry’s biggest players in film and TV under one roof and alter the entertainment industry landscape. Beyond its namesake television and motion picture division, Warner owns HBO Max and DC Studios. And Netflix is ubiquitous with on-demand content and has built its own production arm to release popular titles, including “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game.” “For more than a century, Warner Bros. has thrilled audiences, captured the world’s attention, and shaped our culture,” David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. “By coming together with Netflix, we will ensure people everywhere will continue to enjoy the world’s most resonant stories for generations to come.” The cash and stock deal is valued at $27.75 per Warner share, giving it a total enterprise value of approximately $82.7 billion. The transaction is expected to close after Warner separates its Discovery Global cable operations into a new publicly-traded company in the third quarter of 2026. Shares of Warner Bros. rose nearly 3% in premarket trading while shares of Netflix and Paramount fell more than 2%. Gaining Warner’s legacy studios would mark a notable shift for Netflix’s, particularly its presence in theaters. Under the proposed acquisition Netflix has promised to continue theatrical releases for Warner’s studio films — honoring Warner’s contractual agreements for movie releases. Netflix has kept most of its original content within its core online platform. But there’s been few exceptions, such as limited theater screenings of a “KPop Demon Hunters” sing-a-long and its coming “Stranger Things” series finale. “Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix said in a statement — adding that merging with Warner will “give audiences more of what they love.” Critics say a Netflix-Warner combo could have negative consequences for movie theaters worldwide. Cinema United — a trade association that represents more than 30,000 movie screens in the U.S. and another 26,000 screens internationally — was quick to oppose the proposed deal, which it said “poses an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business.” “Netflix’s stated business model does not support theatrical exhibition. In fact, it is the opposite,” Michael O’Leary, CEO of Cinema United, said Friday — urging regulators to look closely at the impacts. “Theatres will close, communities will suffer, jobs will be lost.” Netflix had previously steered away from tapping into other parts of the legacy entertainment landscape. As recently as October — when Warner signaled that it was open to a potential sale of its business — Netflix’s Sarandos reiterated on an earnings call that the company had been “very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks” and that there was “no change there.” “We believe that we can be and we will be choosy,” Sarandos said at the time, without fully ruling out a potential bid for Warner. Friday’s announcement arrives after a monthslong bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. Rumors of interest from Netflix, as well as NBC owner Comcast, starting bubbling up in the fall. But Skydance-owned Paramount, which completed its own $8 billion merger in August, had also reportedly made several all-cash offers backed heavily by CEO David Ellison’s family. Paramount seemed like the frontrunner for some time — and unlike Netflix or Comcast, was reportedly vying to buy Warner’s entire company, including its cable business housing networks like CNN and Discovery. Warner announced its intention to split its streaming and studio operations from its cable business in June — outlining plans for HBO, HBO Max, as well as Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, to become part of a new streaming and studios company. Meanwhile, networks like CNN, Discovery and TNT Sports and digital products such as the Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report would make up a separate cable counterpart. The Netflix acquisition of Warner’s streaming and studio arm is expected to close in 12 to 18 months — after the company wraps up the spinoff of its cable business. That is now expected in the third quarter of 2026. The merger has already received approval from shareholders of both Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, but it faces significant regulatory hurdles. The size of the transaction could draw antitrust scrutiny. Beyond TV and movie production, the merger would bring two of the streaming world’s biggest names — Netflix and HBO Max — under the same roof.

S. Carolina lawmakers look at the most restrictive abortion bill in the US

A bill that would allow judges to sentence women who get abortions to decades in prison and could restrict the use of IUDs and in vitro fertilization goes before a small group of South Carolina senators Tuesday. This would be the first of at least a half-dozen legislative steps for the proposal that includes the strictest abortion prohibitions and punishments in the nation. The subcommittee of the state Senate’s Medical Affairs Committee can change it Tuesday afternoon and even if it’s approved, its prospects are doubtful at best. But even at this stage, the bill has gone further than any other such proposal across the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, opening the door for states to implement abortion bans. The proposal would ban all abortions unless the woman’s life is threatened. Current state law bans abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which is typically six week into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Current law also allows abortions for rape and incest victims up to 12 weeks. The proposal would also do things that aren’t being done in any other state. Women who get an abortion and anyone who helps them could face up to 30 years in prison. It appears to ban any contraception that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which would ban intrauterine devices and could limit in vitro fertilization. Providing information about abortions would be illegal, leaving doctors worried they couldn’t suggest places where the procedure is legal. Republican Sen. Richard Cash, who sponsors the bill and is one of the Senate’s most strident voices against abortion, will run Tuesday’s subcommittee. He acknowledged problems last month with potentially banning contraception and restricting the advice doctors can give to patients. But he has given no indication what changes he or the rest of the subcommittee might support. Six of the nine members are Republicans. Abortion remains an unsettled issue in conservative states and how much more to restrict it is fracturing anti-abortion groups. South Carolina Citizens for Life, one of the state’s largest and oldest opponents of abortion, issued a statement last month saying it can’t support Cash’s bill because women who get abortions are victims too and shouldn’t be punished. On the other side, at least for this bill, are groups like Equal Protection South Carolina. “Abortion is murder and should be treated as such,” founder Mark Corral said.

Man pleads not guilty to sparking deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles

A 29-year-old man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges. Jonathan Rinderknecht appeared in federal court Thursday afternoon after arriving in Los Angeles from Florida earlier in the day, his attorney Steve Haney said. A judge ordered that he remain in custody ahead of his trial. Federal officials said Rinderknecht, who lived in the area, started a small fire on New Year’s Day that smoldered underground before reigniting nearly a week later and roaring through Pacific Palisades, home to many of Los Angeles’ rich and famous. The fire, which left 12 dead in the hillside neighborhoods across Pacific Palisades and Malibu, was one of two blazes that broke out on Jan. 7, killing more than 30 people in all and destroying over 17,000 homes and buildings while burning for days in Los Angeles County. Haney told the judge he took issue with the fact that Rinderknecht was facing charges for the Palisades Fire when he allegedly started the smaller fire beforehand known as the Lachman Fire. “My client is being charged with a fire that started seven days after,” he said. Rinderknecht was staying at his sister’s house in Orlando when he was arrested by federal officials on Oct. 7. He made his first court appearance the next day in Florida on a charge of malicious destruction by means of a fire. A week later, a grand jury indicted him on additional charges including one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and one count of timber set afire. If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in federal prison. Rinderknecht’s trial is set for December 16. On Thursday, he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver wearing a white jumpsuit. His attorney argued that he should be released on bail, based on the evaluation of court officials in Florida. Rinderknecht has no documented history of mental health issues, drug use, or prior criminal activity, Haney said. However, the judge in Florida who ordered Rinderknecht to be detained said he had concerns about the Rinderknecht’s mental health and his ability to get to California for future court hearings. He appeared agitated when the judge in Los Anglees again ordered that he remain in jail, interjecting into the microphone, “Can I actually say something about detainment?” Haney said they planned to return to the judge with additional evidence for why Rinderknecht should be released on bail. “He’s a frustrated young man,” Haney said after the hearing. “He doesn’t know why he’s in jail right now.” Haney said they plan to argue that even if Rinderknecht was the cause of the initial smaller fire on New Year’s Day, there were several “intervening factors” in the week between that day and when the Palisades Fire ignited, mainly the Los Angeles Fire Department. Rinderknecht made several 911 calls to report the fire, according to a criminal complaint. Federal officials called the Palisades blaze a “holdover fire” from the Jan. 1 fire, which was not fully extinguished by firefighters, the complaint said. The city’s interim fire chief said such fires linger in root systems and can reach depths of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to over 6 meters), making them undetectable by thermal imaging cameras. “They had a duty to put the fire out,” Haney said. “I do think he’s a scapegoat.”