Politics

ARLINGTON, Iowa (AP) — Farmer Tim Burrack had concerns about the Republican nominee for Iowa governor — and he wasn’t the only one.

The conservative voter from northeast Iowa said he didn’t know Zach Lahn before the political newcomer “came out of nowhere” with a surprise GOP primary win over the candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump. So when Lahn came to his farm last week, Burrack questioned him on his approach to agriculture.

“I hit him pretty hard,” said Burrack, who was considering whether to vote for Lahn in November or not vote at all.

It wasn’t the first skeptical audience for the self-described “change candidate” in the state led by Republicans.

Lahn won the June primary even though an “entire establishment was set up against me,” he said. He criticizes politicians in both parties, accusing them of being bought by corporate interests. His bid for governor will test how an anti-establishment conservative fares with a general electorate — and with traditional Republicans — a decade after Trump’s own brand of populism reshaped the GOP.

While Iowa Republicans have an electoral advantage, Lahn entered the general election with a lower public profile than his Democratic opponent, state Auditor Rob Sand. Democrats see an opportunity to win this cycle in once-competitive Iowa, where high costs, health clinic closures, manufacturing job losses and a struggling agricultural economy weigh on voters.

Lahn talks about bringing a “different message” to Iowans who aren’t satisfied with the trajectory of Iowa’s small towns, public education or cancer rates, even after years of Republican control of state government. But only three months before Election Day, Lahn acknowledged he needs to keep getting out in front of people to address their questions and concerns.

“I think, for the most part, a lot of people just have never heard my message,” Lahn said after the event at Burrack’s farm in Arlington. “The more we’ve met with people, the more they understand where our priorities lie, the more they say, ‘We are with you.’”

Some of Lahn’s ideas challenge the Republican Party’s status quo. Among them is his approach to agriculture and embrace of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has prompted questions in the state that’s among the nation’s top producers of corn, soybeans, red meat and ethanol. Lahn promotes regenerative farming; emphasizes a link between high nitrate-loaded water and cancer; and questions the safety of agrochemicals.

Before Lahn took the stage in Arlington to talk agriculture, farmer Lance Lillibridge, a former president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told the couple hundred Iowans there that the goal was to “get the air clear.”

In front of a huge American flag and sandwiched between two freshly washed John Deere tractors, Lahn said, “We farm a bit weird” on his own Iowa acres, growing oats, alfalfa and einkorn along with corn and beans.

But he told the crowd he wants to fund farmers’ efforts to diversify their operations, not force Iowans to farm like him. He said targeting “big ag” means filing antitrust lawsuits against corporate conglomerates that sell seed and fertilizer and taxing out-of-state investors consolidating Iowa acres, not stepping on family farms. He wants to see more incentives to improve water quality but wouldn’t try to outright ban agrochemicals.

Burrack, like Lahn, says that they won’t agree on everything. But after talking with Lahn, he called himself a supporter.

At another stop, a few dozen faces crowded at the back of a coffee shop in Hampton, Iowa, just after the lunch rush. Many of them were familiar with each other but less so with the candidate they came to see. Among them were Jay and Sally Van Wert, retired farmer and teacher, who said Lahn seemed like a nice guy, but they didn’t know much else.

Several Iowans attending some of Lahn’s first publicly advertised events since the primary said they only knew what they’ve seen in advertisements from Sand’s campaign. The ads call Lahn a “part-time Iowan” and reference dozens of occasions where Lahn piloted his private plane to and from Kansas since launching his campaign.

“Is he going all the time to Kansas?” asked Larry Streicher, 84, a Republican farmer in the front row in Arlington. “We don’t know anything about him.”

Lahn said he left Iowa for college like so many others but wanted to come home, amplifying a nostalgia for Iowa culture and heritage that resonated with voters, not unlike Trump’s “Make America Great Again” message.

He left Iowa again to start a private school funded by the Koch family, which opened in Kansas in 2018. He co-founded the school with his now-wife, Annie, who had been married to Chase Koch, son of conservative billionaire Charles Koch.

Lahn told the crowds he and Annie moved into their Belle Plaine, Iowa, homestead in 2023 after finishing renovations. Lahn bought the farm that had been in his family for a century but sold it after his great-grandmother died.

Douglas Puffett, a farmer from Strawberry Point and member of his county’s GOP central committee, said Lahn’s story is like so many other Iowans’ and his vision for Iowa is driven by what drew him back.

“That’s how you inspire the next generation,” said the 40-year-old, who appreciates that Lahn, also 40, is young and has young kids.

Lahn has explained that trips to Kansas are due to his blended family, which includes children from his and Annie’s previous marriages. He doesn’t comment on whether he would travel or use taxpayer resources to do so if elected governor, saying it would not impact his ability to govern.

Puffett, who attended Lahn’s Arlington event, thinks 10 years of Republican trifecta have given Sand an opening to appeal to people who might be unhappy with the “Republican establishment,” he said, but Lahn “stacks up really nice” with his calls for reform.

“I think it’s time to kind of roll over the leadership of the Republican Party here in Iowa,” he said.

Gov. Kim Reynolds’ decision to not seek a third term gave Republicans their first wide-open primary since 2010, and five candidates were on the ballot. Lahn overtook U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra by less than a percentage point, or about 1,650 more votes.

Lahn told crowds that he only met Reynolds after the primary, a signal of his distance from Iowa politics. Speaking at the state party’s fundraiser in July, he joked about all the donors who “haven’t been returning my calls” all being in one room.

Since his primary win, Lahn has met with party leaders and Iowa’s prominent industry groups. His campaign spent the summer ramping up fundraising, staff and organizing infrastructure.

State Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, who is the majority leader of House Republicans, said there may be some differences of opinion or “curiosities, not concerns” about Lahn’s positions, but added that’s always the case.

Kaufmann met Lahn earlier this year, voted for him in June and said there’s been a “full embrace” of the nominee. He said Lahn is not a traditional candidate, but that’s what makes his campaign energizing for Republicans who are “constantly craving new leadership.”

“I think it began back in 2016 with President Trump,” Kaufmann said. “Republicans don’t rest on our laurels.”

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By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is set to showcase falling violent crime rates on Friday as evidence that his law-and-order agenda is working, seeking to shift attention away from economic concerns that have dented his approval ratings ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump will visit the Nassau County Police Academy in New York to unveil 2025 data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a White House official says will show the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime on record.

FBI Director Kash Patel and newly sworn-in Attorney General Todd Blanche are expected to join the president at the event with police.

The appearance comes as Republicans look for issues that resonate with swing voters amid concerns about inflation and the economic fallout from the war with Iran, while casting Democrats as out of step on public safety.

“President Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.

According to excerpts from the FBI report shared by the White House before its publication, murder and non-negligent manslaughter decreased an estimated 18.1% in 2025 while robberies fell an estimated 18.5%.

Some violent crimes, including homicides, surged at the end of the first Trump administration during the COVID pandemic to the highest levels in decades. But the data shows that the subsequent fall predates Trump’s return to office, with homicide rates plummeting in 2023 and 2024 to pre-pandemic lows.

The decline has occurred in cities big and small, in places with officials touting both aggressive policing and progressive police reform and with both a high density and low density of police officers, suggesting no single policy explains the nationwide trend.

Trump has long complained of a “crime epidemic,” particularly in Democratic-run cities, and used that message to justify aggressive federal intervention, including last year’s deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops to Washington.

Trump’s touting of the crime decline comes as he has also sought in recent months to make socialism and communism a defining theme in the midterms. He has recently intensified attacks on self-described democratic socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other progressive candidates.

Democrats say Republicans are overstating the role of federal policy in a crime decline that began before Trump returned to office, and progressives have largely backed away from supporting the “defund the police” movement that emerged after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

They now say policing should be reformed while arguing that immigration officers, who have killed two U.S. citizens, have made communities less safe.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Brad Heath; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Stephen Coates)

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LEESBURG, Fla. (AP) — Cyn Doyle is a self-described political cynic. So when David Jolly, the Republican-turned-independent who is now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, swung through this town dotted by lakes and Spanish moss, she had doubts.

“How can you assure us,” the 71-year-old pressed, “that you won’t become another John Fetterman?”

As the crowd in the clubhouse of a manufactured home community for seniors jeered the mention of the contrarian Pennsylvania Democratic senator, Jolly, who once critiqued politicians as an MSNBC pundit, made the case for himself.

“Change is part of my journey,” he responded. “What I can tell you is that the values I speak of — that the economy should work, that government can do a little bit to improve our lives and that everyone should have the right to be protected — those are the guideposts for how I’ll serve as governor.”

Doyle, an independent who said she’s a registered Democrat mostly to participate in primaries, left impressed.

“I believe him,” she said. “I don’t believe many.”

Florida spent a generation as America’s prized political battleground, where the interests of big cities, agricultural towns, freshly arrived retirees and diverse Latino communities collided in elections often decided by fractions of a percentage point.

Jolly is bent on proving those days aren’t over.

In the course of a single day last weekend, he rallied a chandeliered ballroom in The Villages, a wealthy Republican-leaning retirement community. Then it was off to the fluorescent lights of the Leesburg clubhouse before ending with a rousing speech to Democrats in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, which backed a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 20 years in 2024.

President Donald Trump’s rise has coincided with a Democratic collapse in Florida. He won here three times, with ever-expanding margins. The 19-percentage-point win by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 cemented a GOP supermajority in the legislature.

Jolly’s path to victory could be blocked by both math and money in his likely race against Rep. Byron Donalds, the Trump-backed candidate in Tuesday’s Republican primary. Donalds, who would be Florida’s first Black governor, has raised more than $100 million compared to Jolly’s $10 million.

Donalds has cast Jolly as an out-of-touch liberal, blanketing the state this week with an ad featuring Jolly referring to “gender-affirming care” and backing communities painting rainbow crosswalks to show support for LGBTQ people. Jolly countered that Donalds is ignoring pressing economic issues.

In an interview over an Outback Steakhouse lunch while his wife and two young children busied themselves with coloring, Jolly acknowledged “there’s not going to be the political will” to reverse the state’s ban on transgender girls and women participating on female teams at public schools and universities.

He said he didn’t think governors should decide who plays in what sports even as he described himself as a “girl dad” and noted “I don’t think we should have biologically born men playing in competitive sports.”

“But look,” he added, “if a 10- or 12-year-old soccer league in the community has a coed team, I don’t think the governor should be throwing a flag on the field.”

For all the headwinds confronting Jolly, Republicans may encounter their own turbulence.

The culture wars that have raged under DeSantis, including a feud with Disney and fights over gender and sexual orientation, have left some exhausted. Karen Kuhn, a 72-year-old resident at The Villages, described herself as in “despair.”

Democrats have won a string of special elections from Miami to Palm Beach and Tampa, adding to their optimism. Former GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo said Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 might not support Republicans again, in part because of the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

“I definitely can see a scenario where it’s a closer race, where it’s a competitive race,” said Curbelo, who narrowly lost his reelection bid in 2018, the last wave election year for Democrats.

Jolly is telling that to any Democrat who will listen, including those with potential presidential ambitions such as Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. If Florida can change, he argues, the national political landscape would change with it.

“All of a sudden the road to the White House looks dramatically different,” Jolly said. “It reshapes the House of Representatives. The structural change from winning Florida is a generational opportunity for Democrats.”

It’s a point echoed by other Democrats, including state Rep. Emily Gregory, who flipped the Palm Beach district home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

“To abandon Florida was deeply, deeply unwise,” she said. “I hope that investment is coming back because it is a purple state and I feel very confident going into November.”

Nikki Fried, the Florida Democratic Party chair, acknowledged “the bottom fell out” for Democrats. She has spent the past several years rebuilding the operation. Democrats charged with winning back state legislative and congressional seats are prioritizing some Florida races this year.

But Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, isn’t making a financial commitment yet.

“David’s working really hard,” he said in an interview. “He’s a good candidate, and we’re watching it closely.”

Donalds’ campaign remains confident. His communications director, Gates McGavick, said: “Florida voters will reject radical liberal David Jolly because he will make life more expensive.”

“Byron Donalds will make life in Florida more affordable,” he said. “Our campaign will make that case to voters every single day.”

Jolly is an unlikely figure cajoling Democrats to think about their future.

He first gained national attention in 2014 as the GOP winner of a Tampa Bay congressional seat that was seen as a bellwether. In a Democratic Party that emphasizes diversity, Jolly regularly refers to himself as a “53-year-old white former Republican with salt-and-pepper hair.” His time in Congress runs counter to voters elevating fresher voices this year.

During stump speeches, he says he was a “Bush 41” Republican. He left the GOP in 2018, spending several years as an independent before registering as a Democrat in 2025.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who challenged Jolly until suspending his campaign in June and announcing he had prostate cancer, acknowledged Florida Democrats have to appeal to independents. But he also said “people don’t want a chameleon.”

“That’s the big challenge that he’s had, is convincing people that he has stepped away from the Republican policies,” Demings said.

Others were more forgiving.

Sylvia Rieger, a 70-year-old resident at The Villages, said Jolly’s evolution showed “moxie.”

Steven Slyter, an 81-year-old retired handwriting expert, said it was “courageous” for Jolly to leave his party. “He made a decision about what he stands for,” Slyter said. “I like that.”

Florida’s last Democratic candidate for governor, Charlie Crist, was also a former Republican. After his drubbing by DeSantis, several Democrats said Jolly was campaigning more effectively.

Facing minimal primary competition, Jolly has largely avoided debates over the party’s ideological future. He’s won support from progressives including Rep. Maxwell Frost while shoring up his centrist credentials by picking former Rep. Gwen Graham, the daughter of longtime Sen. Bob Graham, as his running mate.

Some Jolly supporters are hoping that his poly-party background will be an asset.

Jeff Adelman is running for a nonpartisan seat on the Coral Springs City Commission in Broward County. As he left a recent meeting of the Coral Springs Parkland Democratic Club, he described Jolly as a potentially unique fit for the state.

“We live in Florida,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to get somebody like Bernie Sanders to run for governor in the state of Florida.”

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Former Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is scheduled to be the featured speaker at a Labor Day rally in what may be one of his first public appearances since ending his campaign.

Platner won Maine’s Democratic primary for the right to challenge veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins, but he dropped out in July after Politico reported that a former girlfriend said he sexually assaulted her. Platner denied the allegation but said at the time he left the race that he was stepping aside because of the importance of defeating Collins.

Platner will appear at an event organized by Hancock County Activists called “Labor Day Rally for Labor” at Ellsworth City Hall, near his hometown, organizers said. Hancock County Democrats posted a notice about the event on the party’s website, but removed the reference to Platner on Thursday afternoon.

“The rally will kick off a series of events leading up to the primaries, with musical performances and featured speaker Graham Platner, who will talk about the history of unions and the important role organized labor has played in our communities and our country,” the notice initially stated.

The event is not being hosted or organized by the Hancock County Democratic Committee and it has no affiliation with the Maine Democratic Party, a party source said. Posting information about the event online was consistent with Hancock County Democrats’ past practice, said Marcia Myers, chair of the county Democratic committee.

“We felt people should be aware of it, and informed about it,” said Myers. “It’s certainly notable that Graham Platner is a person scheduled to speak. We post this as information for people and they can decide whether to attend or not.”

Platner spoke at the rally last year, said Carol Leonard, who works with the community organization group Acadia Action, which is also helping to host the event. He’s not expected to talk about the campaign, but instead will focus on the history of the U.S. labor movement, she said.

The state party hastily called a special convention and nominated former state Senate President Troy Jackson after Platner dropped out.

Platner has kept a low profile since dropping out of the race and did not respond to requests for comment.

Jenny Racicot, who has accused Platner of sexual assault, and Lyndsey Fifield, who has accused Platner of domestic abuse, said in a joint statement Thursday that Platner is “trying to sweep the truth under the rug and pretend things are back to normal.” The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of abuse, but Racicot and Fifield came forward on their own. Platner has denied the allegations.

The Maine Republican Party also criticized Democrats for the event.

“If Graham Platner is still a heroic leader for Maine Democrats, as this speaking event indicates, their party is out of touch with Maine,” said Maine Republican Party spokeswoman Kristina Parker, adding that Maine voters were “disgusted” by Platner’s actions.

Platner, 41, is an oyster farmer and combat veteran who filled theaters around Maine with his booming voice and progressive politics. He has no experience in elected office, but fashioned a campaign focused on working-class issues such as the high costs of housing and healthcare.

Platner’s campaign was beset with controversies for months. Among them, media reports emerged that the candidate had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women while he was married. He also had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn’t realize until he was several weeks into the campaign. He later had it covered up with a different design.

Platner grew up in Sullivan, a tiny town near Ellsworth and about 170 miles up the coast from Portland.

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Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

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(Refiled to correct the spelling of a last name in the third paragraph)

By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Brad Heath and Kristina Cooke

WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) – The Trump administration has repeatedly said the fight against sex trafficking is one of its top priorities.

But investigations have stalled and prosecutions declined in the past six months because of staffing shortages, funding cuts, immigration enforcement and growing distrust of the government among victims, according to Reuters interviews with 25 former prosecutors, current agents and victims’ advocates, and a review of federal court records.

“You can’t say something is a priority and then not provide the resources to make that happen,” said Jacqueline Kelly, a former federal prosecutor in New York who led the prosecution of rapper and actor Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was accused of sex trafficking and was convicted last year on two counts of transportation for prostitution.

Federal sex-trafficking charges have dropped this year to the slowest pace since 2010. The Justice Department charged 73 people through June, about 22% lower than the number of people charged during the first half of the past three years, court records show.

Charges for related crimes also declined. The DOJ charged 1,230 people child pornography violations through June, 3% less than average for the same months over the past three years. It charged 318 people with violating the Mann Act, which targets interstate prostitution, 18% less than average.

These drops reflect a larger shift in federal law enforcement priorities under President Donald Trump, who has slashed agency budgets and mandated a focus on deportations. People charged with crimes unrelated to immigration – everything from tax evasion to drug trafficking – dropped 7% through June to about 22,000, according to the court records.

The findings come just as Congress has confirmed Trump nominee Todd Blanche as Attorney General in a 50-to-49 vote with two Republicans defecting. His candidacy faced a bipartisan backlash over the handling of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a transfer to a minimum-security prison granted to his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, shortly after Blanche personally interviewed her.

Blanche recently told Congress combating human trafficking “remains a Department priority given the gravity of the harm it causes.” The administration also appointed a new national coordinator for child exploitation and human trafficking, Alessandra Serano, a career prosecutor.

Serano said in statements to Reuters that the department was committed to combating sex trafficking. She said the drop in prosecutions might have resulted from prosecutors and investigators spending time litigating a large number of ongoing cases that have pulled those officials away from opening new ones.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Katherine Currie declined to comment on the Reuters review of sex-trafficking cases. She said in a statement that the department is committed to both immigration and sex-crimes enforcement and touted its “unwavering dedication to dismantling human-trafficking networks.”

AGENTS PULLED AWAY, SEASONED PROSECUTORS GONE

Sex-trafficking cases are among the toughest to investigate and prosecute, requiring the untangling of psychological abuse, tracking illicit finances and securing the trust of traumatized victims.

Dozens of veterans with experience prosecuting sex-trafficking cases have recently left the department, according to seven former prosecutors who have worked such cases. During part of last year, the majority of all HSI agents were assigned to immigration, according to current agents and previous Reuters reporting.

In some U.S. attorney’s offices, the shortage is so acute that the remaining agents working sex-trafficking cases can’t find prosecutors to pursue their cases, agents and former prosecutors say.

Serano said attrition is normal in these jobs because working sex-trafficking cases “takes a toll on people more than other types of cases,” though the recently departed prosecutors said more people had left than is typical. Serano added that the department is actively hiring to fill these roles.

To measure the department’s sex-crimes enforcement effort, Reuters obtained the dockets of every publicly-filed federal criminal case over the past two decades from Westlaw, a Thomson Reuters legal research service. In some cases, Reuters used artificial intelligence to help classify charges. A review of a random set of records showed its assessments to be 98% accurate.

The Justice Department said its own data showed a smaller decrease, but it declined to explain how it reached those conclusions or to provide case numbers correlating to the prosecutions it counted. Reuters could not replicate the DOJ’s results using a public version of its database.

The data examined by Reuters, from court records, showed a long-term trend of declining sex-trafficking cases over the past decade. Sources attributed the trend in part to the Justice Department’s increased focus on more time-consuming cases against higher-profile offenders.

But under Trump, such prosecutions have been hampered by the focus on immigration, the departure of agents and prosecutors and cuts to grants to groups supporting sex-trafficking victims. One veteran federal agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said sex-trafficking has not been a priority since Trump took office and launched his mass-deportations campaign. With fewer agents dedicated to sex-trafficking, many active investigations are essentially frozen and new files are rarely opened, seven former prosecutors and three agents told Reuters.

“The administration is throwing sand in the gears in 10,000 different ways,” said Martina Vandenberg, president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, whose organization worked with partners to file a petition for the release of a cooperating trafficking victim from detention.

One former prosecutor in the southern United States said her office’s sex-trafficking investigations were crippled when several Homeland Security Investigations agents working them were reassigned to other priorities, including immigration raids. In other jurisdictions, people familiar with federal enforcement operations said supervisors were forced to bargain for the few remaining agents available for sex-trafficking probes.

When agents get reassigned, sometimes to new cities, it disrupts fragile relationships with sex-trafficking victims and witnesses, who often don’t have phones or stable housing. That means cases can fall apart, said one federal agent.

One trafficking survivor in New England saw her case languish after agents said they’d been diverted to immigration enforcement, according to a staffer at a local advocacy organization who had been working with the survivor.

Such reassignments send the message to victims that their cases and their safety are not a priority, said the advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity to ensure confidentiality for the sex-trafficking survivor the advocate had been helping. The survivor was subsequently forced back into sex work but no longer wants to involve federal authorities, the advocate said.

An FBI spokesperson said agents who had been shifted to immigration had been working on areas including sex-trafficking but that the transfers didn’t change their responsibility to investigate these crimes. The official did not comment on whether the transfers contributed to the decline in sex-trafficking prosecutions.

GRANTS DISAPPEAR, TRUST ERODES

As personnel have vanished, so has the financial safety net designed to keep victims stable enough to testify.

The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs typically distributes roughly $90 million annually in grants to support trafficking victims. These funds flow to nonprofit organizations providing emergency housing, food and mental health counseling.

But grantees said some of these grants have been delayed or frozen in Trump’s efforts to cut federal spending. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement that most grants from last year have been awarded, without providing figures, and the department is reviewing the remaining applications to ensure they align with administration priorities.

Alan Smyth, the executive director of Los Angeles-based Saving Innocence, saw two federal grants totaling $700,000 delayed for nearly a year. While the organization survived, other groups told Reuters they have been forced to end some programs or stop providing services because of lost grants.

Historically, federal prosecutors have offered so-called T-visas, granting legal immigration status to trafficking victims as an incentive to cooperate with law enforcement.

The administration approved 354 T-visas in the first six months of the current fiscal year that ends in September – or about half the typical pace over the past decade, according to Department of Homeland Security data. More than 71,000 T visa applications are pending.

Two former prosecutors told Reuters their respective U.S. Attorney’s offices halted the practice of supporting T-visa applications. Serano said prosecutors and paralegals across the country still work with DHS to verify victims’ cooperation but that DHS ultimately decides on their visa applications.

Several immigration attorneys also said that clients actively cooperating on sex-trafficking probes had been detained by immigration authorities, halting criminal investigations. In Michigan last year, a Chinese woman who had been sex-trafficked in California was detained by ICE despite having a T-visa application pending since 2022, said her attorney, Laura Berger.

“If I can’t guarantee a victim won’t be locked up, how can I ethically tell them to cooperate with federal agents?” Berger asked.

The loss of that trust, as well as staffing, funding and expertise, could have long-lasting consequences, said Jean Bruggeman, co-executive director of the anti-trafficking organization Freedom Network USA.

“It’s hitting that tipping point where important pillars are starting to fall, which will bring down the entire anti-trafficking structure,” she said. “Rebuilding it could take years.”

(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Kristina Cooke and Brad Heath; editing by Michael Learmonth, Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — It’s been 20 years since a Republican won a statewide race in Minnesota, but some in the party think a fraud scandal that has engulfed state government will be their ticket back to relevance in the state.

Their enthusiasm was buoyed by Tuesday’s primary, which saw former sportscaster Michele Tafoya win the Senate nomination and state House speaker Lisa Demuth win the primary for governor. Both women defeated rivals seen by some GOP strategists as too extreme for Minnesota’s left-of-center electorate.

And the newly minted GOP ticket wasted no time before hammering Democrats over the fraud. Dozens of people have been convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide food, shelter, healthcare and childcare to people in need.

“We have seen now what all of these years of single-party rule has done to this state,” Tafoya said Wednesday. “And it is mobilizing voters in a way that I think is new and refreshing and exciting. And that’s what we’re going to tap into.”

Republicans are mostly playing defense as they look to hold onto their narrow House and Senate majorities. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and voters have a negative view of the state of the economy and the country’s direction.

In the fight for Senate control, most of the competitive seats on the ballot this fall are held by Republicans and in states that Trump won by healthy margins in 2024, such as Texas and Iowa. Minnesota presents one of the GOP’s few opportunities to go on offense.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee, is emerging from a contentious and expensive primary, and as the state’s No. 2 Democrat, Republicans think she’s uniquely vulnerable to attacks over fraud. Demuth faces Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has easily won other statewide races.

Minnesota isn’t as blue as the GOP’s two-decade losing streak suggests.

Republicans have come close to winning in the recent past — Trump lost the state by just 1.5 points in 2016. The Legislature is nearly evenly divided, with 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans; the state House is tied and has a Republican speaker under a power-sharing agreement between the parties.

“The Republican party has just really struggled to field good candidates, to run strong campaigns, and as a result, it’s withered,” Amy Frederiksen, a Republican strategist and former minority leader in the state Senate, said in an interview before the primary.

Frederiksen said backlash to the fraud scandal gives Republican candidates a chance to reach new people. Republicans say the state’s Democratic leaders should have caught the fraud, which unfolded over years as organizations with state contracts to provide social services stole hundreds of millions of dollars through various means, including faking clients and billing for services that were never provided.

Amid the outcry, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection campaign.

“There’s an opening for Republicans to make the case that even though Tim Walz isn’t running for re-election, it’s not enough to just replace Tim Walz with another Democrat,” said Brian McClung, who was deputy chief of staff for former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the last Republican to win a statewide race in Minnesota.

Still, winning GOP converts will be hard. On top of the headwinds Republicans face nationally, in Minnesota they will also face Democrats galvanized by last winter’s immigration operation in the Minneapolis metro area. Citing fraud, Trump surged federal agents into the city for an aggressive enforcement push that led to tense and deadly confrontations.

Tafoya has caught the attention of Republicans in Washington, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee supported her early.

A well known sportscaster who reported from the sidelines of NFL games for years, she has a profile separate from politics and doesn’t have a lengthy voting record that Democrats can mine for ammunition to use against her.

She supports abortion rights up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, a position that put her out of step with many GOP primary voters but could help neutralize a potent Democratic line of attack.

Democrats immediately previewed their plan to beat her — they will link her to Trump.

“We are not about to give Donald Trump another loyal soldier like Michele Tafoya to take his orders and do his bidding,” Flanagan said in her victory speech Tuesday night.

Flanagan has suggested Republicans are disingenuous to focus on fraud in Minnesota when she says Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself.

“They’re going to have to answer for that corruption,” she told reporters at a campaign event last weekend.

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By Timothy Gardner and Curtis Williams

WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said he was “deeply disappointed” that a bill to advance a pipeline for the Alaska LNG project to export natural gas to Asia stalled in the state legislature.

Dunleavy said in a post on X late on Wednesday that the legislature’s decision not to reconvene this session to vote on a tax change needed to advance the $50 billion pipeline and terminal project would send a “negative signal” to investors and potential partners.  Legislators cited insufficient support for the bill, local news station KTUU reported.

The project would also increase access to gas for domestic use.

“Alaska is running out of affordable, reliable natural gas,” Dunleavy said. “This is a long-standing issue that has grown more urgent over decades of inaction. Delaying action only increases risk, raises costs, and limits future options.”

KTUU reported Dunleavy was now urging lawmakers to reconvene on August 20 to vote.

The Trump administration has promoted the Alaska LNG project as a way to boost national security and trade with partners and allies, including Japan.   

The White House and the Department of Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  

Glenfarne, the lead developer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  

The war ​in the Middle East is spurring interest in Asia for gas from Alaska LNG, Glenfarne executives said in March. They said at the time the company aimed to make final investment decisions this year and next, and start shipping liquefied natural gas in 2031.

Japan’s two biggest LNG importers, JERA and Tokyo Gas, have signed preliminary deals to buy a combined 2 million metric tons a year from Alaska LNG.

Final approvals for the project’s pipeline and export terminal are delayed as Glenfarne has yet to reach its ​target of signing binding offtake deals for 80% of the planned export capacity of 20 million ​tons a year of LNG.

In March, Glenfarne executives said they had lined up commitments for 13 ⁠million tons a year. It needed agreements for another 3 million tons, and to make all commitments binding to line up financing, they said.

(Reporting by Curtis Williams and Timothy GardnerEditing by Rod Nickel)

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats are gathering to finalize their 2028 presidential primary calendar this week, setting the stage for a wide-open contest to succeed President Donald Trump and chart a path ahead as the party’s voters oscillate between progressive and more moderate candidates.

The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote at its summer meeting in Austin, Texas, on the new order that frontloads states with more diverse populations.

The meeting comes ahead of bitterly contested midterm elections that will decide control of Congress later this year. Democratic voters have delivered mixed messages on the direction they want to see the party go — backing candidates viewed as more left-wing as well as moderates in consequential primaries across several states.

The group also is convening at a time of internal turmoil, with some members calling for DNC Chairman Ken Martin to be replaced. Critics have questioned Martin’s leadership decisions and the party’s fundraising, which lags well behind that of Republicans just months before the crucial midterms.

Martin had his defenders, though, on Thursday. William Owen, a committee member from Tennessee, pointed to the victories in special elections that Democrats have won under Martin.

“I think all of us are working as hard as we can to elect Democrats across the country,” Owen said during a resolutions committee hearing. He added later: “I’m tired of people criticizing Ken Martin and criticizing the DNC.”

Martin himself addressed the spotlight he’s been under during remarks on Thursday.

“There’s all these stories about ‘Democrats in disarray’ and ‘Ken Martin this,’ ‘Ken Martin that,” he said, adding an expletive. “You know, who’s not focused on that? Me. You shouldn’t be either. I want you to focus on power and support.”

The party is expected to give final approval to a calendar that has South Carolina’s primary first on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia would round out the early states, voting throughout February.

The overhaul shows Democrats’ effort to give greater influence to states reflecting the party’s coalition, particularly Black and Latino voters. It follows years of a calendar led by Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with overwhelmingly white electorates.

The proposed calendar would cement South Carolina at the start of the calendar, reflecting a change former President Joe Biden pushed for after that state revived his struggling 2020 campaign.

South Carolina has long been the first Southern contest and has served as a key test of candidates’ support among Black voters.

Iowa and New Hampshire officials have expressed disappointment with the decision after the early approval at a committee meeting in July. Rita Hart, the Iowa Democratic Party chair, said it was a sign the party is “out of touch with voters.”

New Hampshire congressional leaders, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, said the decision was wrong for their state and the country. New Hampshire’s secretary of state is required by law to schedule its presidential primary at least seven days before any other state holds a similar contest, setting up a potential conflict with the DNC calendar.

The GOP still needs to draw up its calendar. Republicans are expected to stick with their traditional early-state lineup led off by Iowa and New Hampshire.

Democratic primaries already have been testing which direction the party is headed in, through races in states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

While there’s been a split between more progressive candidates who buck the party’s establishment and those with more moderate views who have backing from party officials, the common thread is that Democratic voters have been looking for change.

Republicans, confronting high prices and the president’s sagging approval, have been eager to cast the party as moving too far to the left.

Meanwhile, the DNC’s leadership and financial concerns continue.

The gathering also coincides with financial struggles confronting Democrats, including lackluster fundraising and carrying debt. The DNC reported about $16 million in cash on hand in its most recent Federal Election Commission filing, along with more than $18 million in debt. The GOP, meanwhile, reported nearly $129 million cash on hand in its latest FEC filing.

Martin isn’t expected to be replaced before the midterms, as the party has no clear alternative to take over. But members have said the most likely time for a leadership change may be the DNC’s winter meeting after the November contests — and before the 2028 presidential primary process begins in earnest.

Martin, desperate to save his job, has been avoiding media appearances, monitoring his critics’ social media posts and refusing — at least so far — to make any substantive changes at his troubled organization. He said in a recent Substack post the Democratic Party “will be ready to win — everywhere, at every level, in this election and for the decade ahead.”

___ Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.

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By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Closed aircraft window shades. A ballcap pulled low to hide the president’s face. Seized cellphones. Strict warnings against leaks.

These are all hallmarks of secret, unannounced trips made by American presidents to war zones and high-risk areas, a decades-old practice that has drawn new scrutiny after President Donald Trump sneaked off the regular Air Force One jet to take a separate plane as he left Turkey on July 8.

The protocol has been that staff and members of the press pool accompanying the president were told in advance about the trips and sworn to secrecy. They could opt out if they wished.

A source briefed on the Trump trip said that was not done on this occasion because of the unprecedented nature of the imminent threat facing the president.

  Only a small group of officials was aware of the elaborate operation to transfer Trump from the presidential jet to a smaller government plane using a catering truck. Most of those left aboard, including cabinet officials and traveling press, were unaware that the plane they were on was a decoy under threat of a missile attack. 

Here is a look at some of the secret trips that presidents have made in the past.

BAGHDAD FOR THANKSGIVING 2003

Free-range turkey, corn-bread dressing, Prairie Chapel pecan pie  — these were all items on the menu published by the White House for President George W. Bush for his Thanksgiving dinner in November 2003 at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

But Bush was not there to enjoy the meal. Wearing a ballcap pulled low, he secretly flew aboard Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, leaving behind a large press contingent dedicated to covering his every move. The cover story for moving the plane was that it needed maintenance.

The plane taxied into the Air Force One hangar at Andrews, and Bush bounded aboard another plane that took off for Baghdad with lights turned off and window shades shut. Plane personnel took reporters’ electronic devices temporarily to prevent leaks.

On board were several staffers and members of a 13-person press pool who had been told about the trip a few days earlier and warned that if word of it leaked the plane would be turned around in midflight.

The trip did not leak.

Bush spent time with troops at a U.S. base in Baghdad. Reporters were finally allowed to report the news once Air Force One was on the way home and out of harm’s way.     

BILL CLINTON SWITCHED PLANES FROM INDIA TO PAKISTAN 

In 2000, President Bill Clinton was on a trip to India and Pakistan and was scheduled to fly Air Force One from Mumbai to Islamabad to meet with General Pervez Musharraf, who had taken power in a coup in Pakistan the year before. Security concerns about the trip arose amid tensions in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

A pool report from that day said Clinton stepped around the nose of a giant C-17 and proceeded to a pair of small military jets parked on the other side. The first was an unmarked white jet; the one behind had Air Force One’s usual USA markings. Clinton was seen boarding the white jet, which he took to Islamabad.

OBAMA’S SURPRISE TRIP TO AFGHANISTAN 

Many of the presidential trips were taken simply to thank troops in war zones.

On Memorial Day in 2014, President Barack Obama made a surprise trip to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, his fourth such trip there. The trip had been in the planning for several weeks and was kept secret for security reasons until his arrival. The White House put together a small press pool for the trip just a couple of days before Obama departed.

The president, wearing an Air Force One bomber jacket, seemed to relish the surprise, telling 3,000 troops he had been in the neighborhood and “thought I’d drop by.” 

TRUMP GOES TO IRAQ

At Christmas time in 2018, Trump and his wife, Melania, made a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq. It was his first trip to a conflict zone nearly two years into his first term and days after announcing a pullout of American troops from neighboring Syria.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency plans to buy electric shock gloves for officers in the field, alarming rights advocates who have condemned the action of ICE during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. 

• A note on the website of the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, says ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on CTG-5 Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, or GLOVE units.

• The electric shock gloves aim to disrupt an individual’s capacity to respond.

• The DHS described the gloves as “a Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device which will be issued to Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement Removal Operations officers and agents.”

• The American Civil Liberties Union said giving immigration agents “a concealed means of delivering terrible pain is a recipe for more harm to the public and less accountability.”

• ICE officers are trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive “ongoing use of force training,” the DHS said.

• “Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” a DHS spokesperson said.

• Fatal shootings by ICE agents of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota earlier this year and concerns by rights groups about conditions in ICE detention centers have led to nationwide protests against the agency’s tactics.

• More than 50 people have died in ICE custody nationwide since Trump ‌took office ⁠in January last year, according to the immigration agency.

• Trump says the aim of the immigration crackdown is to improve domestic security.

• Rights groups say Trump’s crackdown has violated free speech and due process rights and created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Lincoln Feast.)

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