Within hours, a Department of Justice attorney sent a revamped request for New Jersey’s unredacted voter database to Dale Caldwell, the Garden State’s lieutenant governor and secretary of state.
And the department’s Civil Rights Division launched an investigation and sent Sherrill a letter demanding, within five business days, information about the 6,600 people wrongfully registered as voters, and when and where up to 400 of them voted.
“Ensuring that U.S. citizens’ votes are not illegally diluted by noncitizens’ votes is of paramount importance,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote in the Tuesday letter to Sherrill.
For the last year, the Justice Department has been seeking the state’s voter rolls, which include each voter’s full name, date of birth, address, and driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number. But the requests have been rebuffed.
The Trump administration sued Caldwell in February, accusing him of violating federal voting and civil rights laws. Without the data, the suit said, the federal government could not ensure the state was in compliance with federal requirements for voter roll maintenance.
The Tuesday letter to Caldwell said the new information shared by Sherrill provides an “additional basis” to the request, wrote Jesus Osete, a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division.
“The Division must also verify that no other noncitizens remain on New Jersey’s voter rolls, in violation of federal law,” Osete’s letter said.
The roughly 6,600 people were improperly added to the voter rolls when applying for driver’s licenses and identification cards. Even though they checked “no” when asked if they were a U.S. citizen, they were registered anyway.
Fewer than 400 of these individuals voted, Sherrill said.
The erroneous registrations took place between June 2023 and June 2024, Sherrill said, “through no fault” of the noncitizens, who were registered due to a software glitch in New Jersey’s motor vehicle system, which processes the automatic registration when a citizen obtains an ID or license.
The Justice Department shared the letter it sent Caldwell with U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, who is presiding over the lawsuit.
“While it is currently unknown in which elections those noncitizens voted or whether the ballots those noncitizens cast affected the outcome of any race,“ the department said in a court filing, ”Governor Sherrill acknowledged in a press conference the seriousness of noncitizens voting in American elections.”
But the disclosure did not lead Sherrill, a Democrat who took office in January, to change her position about sharing the unredacted voter data with the federal government.
“The Trump administration has a long history of weaponizing the Justice Department for political purposes and attempting to overturn election results,” Sean Higgins, a spokesperson for Sherrill, said in a statement. “Governor Sherrill has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans’ personal information.”
The announcement came less than a week after Trump delivered a prime-time address in which he repeated his grievances over his 2020 election loss, and claimed without evidence that more than 250,000 noncitizens had registered to vote in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and Nevada.
Republican officials used the New Jersey revelation to make the case for the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
“This is why we must confirm citizenship before anyone registers. Only US citizens should vote in our elections,” U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) said on X in response to the Garden State’s news.
The Trump administration has also attempted to get the Keystone State’s voter rolls through litigation. A judge tossed out the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt last month. The suit, which is nearly identical to the one against New Jersey, is one of 16 similar lawsuits that have been dismissed by federal judges throughout the country, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
But this month, the Justice Department threatened to bring criminal charges against top election officials in all 50 states if they allowed noncitizens to vote. The letter threatening Pennsylvania officials was addressed to Schmidt, who again declined to share voter information.
“I take seriously the obligations under both federal and Pennsylvania law to ensure that only eligible voters have access to the ballot box and to see to it that Pennsylvania’s voter rolls are appropriately maintained and updated,” Schmidt wrote.
Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON — The House adopted a Republican-only $95 billion budget proposal Wednesday, a long-shot effort to fund the Iran war and other White House priorities over objections from Democrats and a few GOP holdouts in a final push before the midterm elections.
House Republicans were divided over the plan, with conservatives wary because there are no offsetting budget cuts. But Speaker Mike Johnson plunged ahead, viewing the go-it-alone process as the best chance to usher President Donald Trump’s priorities through the split Congress, despite skepticism in the Senate.
The vote tally was 216-214, with two Republicans and one independent joining Democrats in opposition.
“Just bullets and bombs to finish the job,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington (R., Texas), the chairman of the Budget Committee.
Democrats argued the money should be spent at home, particularly on efforts to lower costs for Americans.
“Republicans plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on Trump’s failed war in Iran,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, this week. “Think about what we could spend with these resources instead.”
Congress is at a standstill over the U.S. war against Iran — unable to stop Trump’s military strikes, but not having authorized the use of American military force — and politically torn over having to provide billions of taxpayer dollars to pay for it. Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s Iran strategy, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.
The budget battle comes as Trump attended the dignified transfer of four service members killed in the Middle East, bringing the military death toll to 18. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators at a fiery hearing this week that the Pentagon is running short of cash, despite a massive $150 billion one-time allotment in last year’s big budget bill.
Even as the House action advanced the resolution, Johnson’s strategy faces uncertainty in the Senate.
The package has $60 billion for the Pentagon and $13 billion for other national security needs, $12 billion for farmers struggling under Trump’s tariffs, and $10 billion for voting law changes aligned with the SAVE America Act and proof-of-citizenship requirements that are Trump’s top priority.
A once rare budget tool is now the norm in split Congress
Republicans are relying on the budget reconciliation process, which enables approval on a majority vote in Congress, bypassing the Senate’s ability to filibuster the measure t o stall or kill it.
Once rare, the reconciliation process is now Johnson’s preferred strategy for pushing proposals through Congress. It’s the way Republicans approved Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill last summer and funded Homeland Security this year over Democrats’ refusal to fund Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“No matter how you feel about current events, these funds are necessary to ensure our fighting forces remain ready, our troops are paid and our nation is safe,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
But House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Republicans have literally ripped food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans to sustain the Trump war machine.”
Among those opposed was Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, a former Republican turned independent, who said he felt any war funding bill should be bipartisan. He also wanted to ensure Congress had a “much higher level of involvement” in bringing the war to an end, and he said this proposal did not set that process in motion.
Republicans Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio also voted against.
This is the third time GOP leaders have relied on reconciliation, dubbing this version 3.0, and it’s a lengthy process. If the House approves the budget resolution, it next goes to the Senate for a round-the-clock session to consider politically tough amendments — something senators would rather avoid in an election year.
The budget resolution sets out instructions for the various committees to draft legislation, which Johnson hopes could be done this summer, with final voting on the package once lawmakers return after the August recess.
Senators pan House’s budget and have their own ideas
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been noncommittal on the House package that also divides his own GOP majority, with some Republican senators preferring more money for the military and others demanding the costs be offset with cuts elsewhere.
“We’ll see,” Thune said this week.
Thune’s focus, at the moment, is avoiding another government shutdown. He wants the Senate to approve a stopgap funding measure, called a continuing resolution, to provide routine government funding before lawmakers leave for the summer break.
If senators are unable to reach agreement on government funding, Thune has said he may hold onto the House’s budget resolution and use it later in the fall as a way to push the resolution through the Senate over objections. He wants to prevent a federal shutdown when current funds expire, Sept. 30.
“It’s a possibility that, if necessary, we could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government,” Thune said. “I hope that’s not necessary.”
Thune has also clashed with Trump over the president’s push for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voting. The measure, while popular among Trump’s most ardent supporters, does not have enough support among Senate Republicans for passage.
It’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and experts warn the proposed new rules could make it more difficult for eligible Americans to cast ballots.
Tropical Storm Bertha crawled into southern Louisiana on Wednesday, making landfall and packing strong winds far from its center after closing beaches from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi.
The National Hurricane Center said Bertha made landfall in the afternoon in St. Bernard Parish, about 40 miles east of New Orleans. At landfall, the storm’s maximum sustained winds were around 45 mph.
The wind and storm surge were the main threats for the Deep South states. Parks and piers were closed up and down the coast, as were some low-lying roads. A tropical storm warning stretched from Alabama to Louisiana, including New Orleans where extreme heat was adding to misery.
Tropical storm force winds were felt as much as 160 miles from the center of the storm, the National Hurricane Center said. A wind gust of 44 mph was recorded at New Orleans Lakefront Airport on Wednesday afternoon.
But the heaviest rains were staying offshore, reducing the risks of flooding, the center said.
The storm will weaken now that it’s reached land and is unlikely to leave behind widespread damage, Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes said. The impact should be manageable for coastal communities, he said.
Gov. Jeff Landry called the forecast “encouraging” but also warned residents to be prepared for some flooding.
Storm surges up to 3 feet were possible in Louisiana and Alabama, forecasters said. Rain totals were forecast between 1 and 4 inches, with higher amounts possible in isolated areas.
Bertha is expected to maintain tropical storm intensity until it reaches the Texas coast on Thursday, the hurricane center said.
Elsewhere in the U.S., a line of storms on Tuesday generated reports of tornadoes stretching from Cincinnati to New Jersey. Torrential rains caused flash floods that swamped homes, washed out bridges and led to water rescues in West Virginia, authorities said.
Rare combination of tropical storm and heat warnings
Southern Louisiana was under tropical storm and extreme heat warnings for much of Wednesday — a rare double dose of suffering, the National Weather Service said.
It was the first time in at least two decades that’s happened in the area, the weather service said, citing records that date back to 2005.
Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic season
Bertha could dump heavy rain on coastal areas of Mississippi that are still recovering from flooding brought by Arthur that destroyed and damaged homes.
Hurricane Fausto in the Pacific is far from land
In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Wednesday. The hurricane was hundreds of miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
It was forecast to gradually strengthen and the hurricane center said that ocean swells generated by Fausto were spreading along the Baja California coast and likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip tides.
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Donald Trump on Wednesday honored the lives of four U.S. service members who were killed in the Middle East and returned to their families at an air force base in Delaware.
The president saluted as four transfer cases carrying the service members’ remains were escorted off an airplane during the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base. The ritual is one of the most somber duties of a commander in chief. It was the third that Trump has attended since he launched the war in Iran in February.
Speaking at an event in Georgia hours later, Trump described the ritual as “the toughest thing I do.”
“I’ve been there many times before,” he said of Dover. “This was, in particular, something very sad.”
Earlier in the day, Trump said his message to families was simple: “We love you. We love your child,” Trump told reporters.
Trump was accompanied at the dignified transfer by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also present were Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.).
During the ritual, transfer cases draped with the American flag and holding the remains of the fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that transported them to awaiting vehicles to take them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the service members are prepared for their final resting place.
Fallen troops came from Hawaii, Texas, New York, and North Carolina
Two U.S. Army soldiers killed in Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan were returned during the dignified transfer. The remains of a third service member who is believed to be the soldier missing after the Jordan attacks were also returned, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in Iraq during a detonation of an Iranian drone.
The soldiers killed in Jordan were identified by the Defense Department as Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. The soldier who disappeared after the Jordan attacks is Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, N.Y., the Defense Department said.
The soldier killed in Iraq was identified as Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who lived in Spring Lake, N.C.
Trump said Feehan’s family accepted an invitation to join him on Air Force One on Wednesday as he traveled to an event in Georgia, where the family lives. Speaking at the event in Marietta, Trump described Feehan as a “flawless” person who was “going all the way — he was going to be a general.”
“We will carry Tyler’s memory in our hearts forever, and I just want to thank you,” he told Feehan’s parents during his remarks. “It’s an honor to have you here today.”
Trump previously said the soldiers died while protecting America and other nations from Iran.
“We feel very badly, but you know, those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting so that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. He added that the U.S. was striking Iran “in honor” of the fallen troops.
Trump vows to retaliate for each U.S. death
The U.S. has launched multiple retaliatory strikes against Iran as an interim agreement to end the war falls apart. Trump on Monday said that every time Iran kills an American soldier, “they will pay for that killing many times over!”
Since the war began on Feb. 28, 18 U.S. service members have been killed.
Trump on Tuesday said that while almost all the incoming fire in Jordan was stopped, some made it through.
“They did slip something through in Jordan,” he said. “If we had other operators, you know, it would have not happened, unfortunately.” He added that “we let other people do the job — and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.”
Trump did not elaborate on his comments, and it was not immediately clear who he was saying was responsible for protecting U.S. forces in Jordan.
Trump attended two previous dignified transfers since the outset of the war, most recently in March.
Soldier had planned to marry fiancée and attend law school
Feehan, a first lieutenant who was killed Saturday, will be posthumously promoted to the rank of captain and awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge. He was assigned out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
Feehan’s family said in a statement that their hearts were shattered by his loss. They remembered Feehan, who went by “Tivo,” as someone who “packed in more living” in his 25 years than most do in a lifetime.
“He chased adventure relentlessly,” the statement said. “He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character.”
He planned to marry his fiancée and attend law school after his deployment. The family said they’re starting a scholarship in his name.
Gonzales, who was killed Friday, was a private with the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany. She graduated last year from Hebron High School in Carrollton, near Dallas, school officials said.
Rampersad, a sergeant who was believed to have been killed in Friday’s attacks, was assigned to the 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.
In a brief statement, Rampersad’s family called her a “gentle giant” who “stood up for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.”
“She loved her family fiercely and will live on in the hearts of everyone she touched,” the statement said.
Deonne Jinkins, 22, a friend, said Rampersad “loved deeply, cared genuinely, and always made people feel seen and important.”
Swinton, a sergeant who was killed Sunday, will receive a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge, and will be promoted to staff sergeant. He enlisted in the Army in 2017 and was assigned to the 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, out of Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Trump administration is weighing military action in the West African country of Mali to target an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as JNIM, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
If approved, it would add an eighth nation to the list of countries where President Donald Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term — a chapter of his presidency that he initially said would be dedicated to ending global strife and redirecting U.S. resources to Americans.
There is disagreement, however, among senior U.S. officials over whether to proceed with attacking the militant group. A vocal advocate for using force is Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, said the current and former officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.
The militant group, whose full name is Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, has established a stronghold in Mali and increasingly launched attacks in coastal West African nations, establishing itself as the most well-armed militant group in the region and among the most powerful in the world.
A spokesman for Mali’s government did not respond to requests for comment.
Gorka did not respond to requests for comment.
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, has been a vocal advocate for using force.Alex Brandon
When the White House was asked for comment, an administration official would not disclose whether the president intended to move forward with military strikes but said the United States has been urging governments in North and West Africa “to purchase U.S. equipment and services to support their war efforts against the terrorists.”
The official said that terrorism in the Sahel, the vast semiarid region south of the Sahara, is a “multinational problem.”
“We urge regional partners and NATO allies to support the Alliance of Sahel States in their war against JNIM and ISIS,” the official added, referring also to the Islamic State, which rose to prominence in the Middle East before establishing affiliates throughout Africa.
The Alliance of Sahel States consists of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — all West African nations where military leaders have in recent years ousted democratically elected governments in coups, largely cut ties with the West and turned to Russia for security help.
But the administration official pinned the blame not on those governments but on their Russian partners, saying that Moscow “has proven to be an ineffective security partner for Mali.”
“We hope that other African nations take note of Russia’s terrible performance in combating terrorism,” the official said.
The Trump administration’s contemplation of military options in the country has not been previously reported.
Mali, a landlocked nation of nearly 25 million, has in recent years been plagued by violence by Islamist militant groups — and by Mali’s own junta government and the Russian mercenaries whom it hired to get the situation under control.
The militant groups, particularly JNIM, have grown increasingly powerful, turning Mali and its neighbors in the Sahel into the world’s center for terrorism.
Last year, militants with the al-Qaeda affiliate mounted a fuel blockade that paralyzed much of the country. This spring, they launched coordinated, nationwide attacks that included militants roaming the streets of Bamako, the capital; seizing a strategic city in the north from Mali’s military and the Russians; and killing the country’s defense minister in a suicide attack.
Meanwhile, IS Sahel — an Islamic State affiliate and a JNIM rival — has consolidated power near Mali’s border with Niger, where last year its militants kidnapped American missionary Kevin Rideout, who is believed to be held now in Mali.
To combat the violence, Mali’s junta government hired Russian mercenaries, first with the Wagner Group and now with Africa Corps, which is more closely linked with Russia’s defense ministry. The Russians have been accused of a string of atrocities, according to rights groups and the Washington Post’s previous reporting.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, said that Mali’s military and its Russian backers were responsible for killing hundreds more civilians than JNIM and IS Sahel combined. Last year, the Malian military and its Russian partners were responsible for 925 civilian deaths, according to ACLED, compared with 232 by Islamist militants.
“It is extremely problematic that a government like the U.S. or any Western partner would provide support to these regimes whose legitimacy remains contested, and which are incredibly fragile and repressive,” he said, referring to Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
Still, last year, as part of a push by the Trump administration to reengage with Mali, the United States ramped up intelligence sharing with Mali’s government, current and former American officials said at the time. The intelligence was used in strikes by Mali’s military, which had been largely shunned by the Biden administration for its refusal to set a timeline for a return to democratic elections and its work with the Russians.
But such cooperation has so far remained limited, nowhere near the scale of the U.S.-Nigeria security partnership that ramped up last year and has included U.S. airstrikes and a ground mission that killed one of the Islamic State’s top leaders in Africa.
Any direct U.S. military involvement in Mali runs the risk of hostilities with Russian forces in the region. It also could require deconfliction efforts between Washington and Moscow akin to ones that existed in Syria during that country’s civil war.
When asked if Secretary of State Marco Rubio supports military action in Mali, the State Department sidestepped the question, saying the U.S. “unequivocally condemns the terrorist activity in Mali.”
The department said the Trump administration is “committed to promoting regional ownership and cooperation against terrorist threats, and monitoring indicators and warnings of threats to our homeland.”
U.S. military action against JNIM would add Mali to the list of countries where Trump has ordered strikes: Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela. The administration also has waged a controversial military campaign against alleged drug runners in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that has resulted in scores of deaths.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, said that the U.S. could be most useful by getting involved instead in “conflict resolution,” forcing Mali’s junta government to talk with JNIM, which has focused not on global aims but on applying Islamic laws in local governance, and other political opponents whom the junta has largely silenced.
“Opting for the military solution one more time won’t get things resolved,” Nasr said. “The French tried that for 10 years. The Russians have been trying for five years. The situation has only gotten worse and worse.”
France launched its military intervention in the Sahel in 2013 at the request of Mali’s then-government. French forces quashed the insurgency in Mali and restored a measure of order. That initial mission was followed by a second, Operation Barkhane, that eliminated prominent militant leaders but ultimately failed to stop the spread of various armed groups.
Anger at France — fueled by its neocolonial missteps and by Russian disinformation — grew over the years, helping propel coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021 and in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. President Emmanuel Macron later withdrew French forces.
Nasr added that if U.S. strikes weaken JNIM, they conversely could help IS Sahel, whose growth has been limited by the rival al-Qaeda-affiliated group.
Peter Pham, a former Trump administration official, was less pessimistic about the use of military force but said a precondition should be reestablishing trust with the governments of Mali and Niger ahead of security cooperation efforts.
“While we may have very limited direct economic or other interests in these countries, we do not want jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda gaining a foothold there,” Pham said.
Gorka has long made aggressive counterterrorism policies a cornerstone of his ideology. But his impact on policy since the start of Trump’s second term has been modest, said a U.S. official — a source of relief for his critics, who object to his hard-line approach, and a disappointment to his supporters.
In the spring, Gorka engaged in conversations about becoming Trump’s next director of the National Counterterrorism Center following the resignation of Joe Kent, who left the administration embittered by the president’s decision to start the war in Iran. But those discussions have not materialized into a nomination for Gorka.
Current and former U.S. officials said that Gorka had been deeply involved with talks about how to bring home Rideout, the captured missionary. One key aim of the administration last year was to get “overflight” rights in Mali, a former official said, so that U.S. officials could fly airplanes and other surveillance technology over Malian skies to better track his movements.
That desire for overflight rights was behind the administration’s decision to lift sanctions on key junta members, including Defense Minister Sadio Camara, who was a key proponent of Russian intervention in Mali and was killed in the JNIM attack on April 25.
Gorka, current and former officials say, also was invested in an effort to kill Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, a leader in an Algeria-based al-Qaeda affiliate that has seen its influence wane in recent years. Although American officials were hopeful last summer that U.S. intelligence had been used in a Malian strike to take out al-Anabi, as the Post previously reported, his death was never confirmed.
Corinne Dufka, an independent expert on the Sahel, said that there is a risk that any U.S. strikes could lead JNIM to target the U.S. or Americans in the region — which it has not done so far — or to push the group closer to the main al-Qaeda organization, from which it has grown more autonomous in recent years.
“If the U.S. helps Malian authorities kill JNIM authorities, it could backfire,” she said. “And they could be squandering an opportunity to de-radicalize and demobilize one of the world’s most sophisticated jihadist organizations.”
BUNIA, Congo — More than 1,000 people have died in the Ebola outbreak in Congo, according to Africa’s top health body, a grim toll in the fastest Ebola outbreak in history, as conflict, community resistance and an uneven response fuel its spread.
Speaking at a health summit in Ghana on Wednesday, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said 1,031 deaths have been confirmed.
“These are people dying. They are dying because we don’t have vaccines, we don’t have medicine, we don’t have funding,” he added.
The latest update from Congo’s Ministry of Health showed that as of Monday, 2,473 cases had been recorded in the latest outbreak. At least 737 patients were in isolation or hospitalized, it said.
The outbreak, which was declared on May 15, is unlike most previous Ebola outbreaks because the Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments. It has also killed more people at a faster rate than any outbreak on record, including the 2013-2016 outbreak that is considered the worst on record with over 11,000 deaths out of at least 28,000 cases. That outbreak took about eight months from the first case to reach 1,000 deaths.
Conflict and community resistance are complicating the response
The World Health Organization has said that the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times larger than official figures indicate. Some communities at its epicenter also remain difficult to reach, mainly because of fighting involving rebel groups.
Ebola is rare, but highly contagious and can be contracted through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen. It can cause severe illness and is often fatal.
Officials have warned that 80% of new cases have emerged outside known chains of transmission, a sign the outbreak is spreading faster than health officials can track it even as they step up their response in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, and four other provinces where cases have been recorded.
Community resistance to Ebola teams, particularly those carrying out safe burials, has also hampered the response. Robert Ndjalonga, head of civil protection in Ituri province, said some communities have refused to allow burial teams to operate because they prefer traditional burials, increasing the risk of further transmission.
“The biggest challenge remains resistance from or outright refusal by some communities to accept response teams,” Ndjalonga said. ”On several occasions, burial teams have had to be escorted by security forces to ensure that safe and dignified burials could be carried out without incident.”
Shortages of burial supplies have delayed responses to reported deaths, while some affected health zones still lack operational burial teams, Ndjalonga said.
Attacks on health facilities and response teams have also forced front-line workers and aid groups out of some areas. Some health workers have gone on strike, saying they haven’t been paid since the outbreak started.
A member of a team carrying out safe Ebola burials was recently injured when assailants threw stones at the team’s vehicle following a burial in Bunia last week, according to provincial civil protection authorities.
The attack highlighted the challenges facing the response in eastern Congo. In Ituri’s Irumu territory, the local military administrator recently described Ebola as a greater threat than the Islamic State-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces insurgency and urged residents to support, rather than attack, health workers.
Containment efforts are faltering
A humanitarian worker involved in the response, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, cited poor coordination between response agencies, delays in transferring patients to treatment centers and waits of more than four days for some Ebola test results.
“At times, it’s unclear who is doing what and where,” the worker said.
The delays have led some patients to leave health facilities before they can be diagnosed, increasing the risk of further transmission, the worker said.
Africa CDC head Kaseya called for intensified efforts to slow the outbreak on the first day of the health summit in Ghana on Tuesday.
“If we do not stop this outbreak today, it could become one of the worst Ebola outbreaks the world has ever documented,” Kaseya said.
Less than 9% of the contacts of confirmed patients who are expected to be traced are currently being monitored, far below the level needed to contain the outbreak, according to Africa CDC. More than 60% of deaths are occurring in the community before patients can receive care.
Pierre Akilimali, the Ebola response incident manager at the National Public Health Institute of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said the high number of community deaths suggests many infections are not being detected or isolated in time, allowing the virus to continue spreading.
“There’s never been an Ebola outbreak that started with so many cases because it was so late to be identified,” said Trish Newport, emergency program manager for Doctors Without Borders, who has been working in Congo.
“It’s like the outbreak is outrunning the response,” Newport said.
University of Pittsburgh epidemiologist Jean Nachega, who is advising African health authorities, said he does not expect the outbreak to reach the CDC’s worst-case scenario but cautioned that the challenges remain “huge.”
NEW YORK — Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife will go on trial on drug trafficking charges next June, a judge said Wednesday, as their lawyers continue to object to the U.S. military action that snatched them from power.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein set the June 1 trial date at the request of lawyers on both sides. Under the approved schedule, defense lawyers will begin filing requests in early September to challenge the indictment and the couple will return to the courtroom Nov. 17 for oral arguments on the motions.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.
Neither spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing as each sat separately at a defense table, surrounded by their lawyers. Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.
As he was led into the courtroom, the bespectacled Maduro greeted the judge’s staff and shook hands with lawyers for him and his wife. Noticeably thinner in a tan jail suit and with his thick mustache, he seemed upbeat, smiling and chatting with his lawyer. He listened to a Spanish interpretation of the proceeding through headphones and clasped his hands in front of him in a prayerlike gesture. He had a black pen wedged in his right fingers and sporadically jotted notes on a white pad.
As deputy U.S. marshals led him out, he waved to someone in the gallery.
President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid to capture Maduro as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.
U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.
“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Pollack said he will first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds because if that is successful, Maduro won’t have to continue litigating the case.
The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.
Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail.
Arizona voters on Tuesday gave President Donald Trump the candidates he wanted in primary elections and sent a mixed message to the Democratic establishment, choosing candidates for governor and the U.S. House that set up key races this fall.
Three Republicans who questioned or attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential contest won nominations for offices with influence over certifying 2028 election results in the pivotal swing state.
While Trump’s MAGA brand has stumbled in Arizona in recent years — as demonstrated by the failure of Kari Lake to win either governor or Senate races — voters went with the president’s choice of Rep. Andy Biggs for the GOP nomination for governor over the more traditional conservatism of Rep. David Schweikert.
On the Democratic side, one candidate favored by the national party held off a challenge from the left.
Here are some takeaways from the Arizona primaries, which tee up contests that could help determine control of the House in November’s midterms:
Trump-favored Biggs will carry Republican banner for governor
Biggs beat Schweikert for the chance to run this fall against Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs, who was unopposed in her primary.
As chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus from 2019 to 2022, Biggs has made a name as a prominent Trump supporter and MAGA activist who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. That hasn’t always played well in Arizona, and his staunch opposition to abortion sets up a stark contrast with Hobbs in the general election.
Arizona voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2024 that made abortion legal until the point of fetal viability, but many Republicans who control the state legislature continue to favor restrictions.
Hobbs, who promotes herself as a bipartisan politician, has said in interviews that she expects a close contest with Biggs. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, the election analysis site, rates the state as leaning Democratic.
Election deniers win key spots
Election denial is on the Arizona ballot this fall, with Republicans’ choice of Biggs for governor, state Senate President Warren Petersen for attorney general and state Rep. Alexander Kolodin for secretary of state.
Petersen has long made unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and, earlier this year, gave the FBI files from a 2021 state Senate investigation into claims of election irregularities in Maricopa County as part of Trump’s ongoing effort to question the results. That county investigation had confirmed that Democrat Joe Biden was the victor.
Kolodin is a lawyer who was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona and placed on probation for his role in filing the “kraken” lawsuit in 2020 that sought to prevent the state’s presidential electors from casting their ballots for the victor, Biden. The suit made false claims about election irregularities and was thrown out by a federal judge.
Kolodin has continued seeking to restrict voting in his role as a state lawmaker, introducing legislation to limit early voting. As secretary of state, he would be in charge of running Arizona’s elections, with the swing state poised to play a significant role in the 2028 presidential contest.
He defeated Gina Swoboda, former head of the state Republican Party, for the nomination and will challenge incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes this fall.
Biggs was among Republicans in the House who voted against certifying the 2020 election, which Trump lost. Trump attempted to pressure Arizona’s governor at the time, Republican Doug Ducey, into overturning the state’s election results, but Ducey resisted.
Former NFL player could join the House
Jay Feely, a former NFL kicker for the Arizona Cardinals, won the Republican nomination for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. If he wins this fall, Feely would join a select list of former NFL players who made the transition to Congress. Rep. Burgess Owens (R., Utah), a former safety who won a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders in 1981, is currently serving. Former Rep. Colin Allred (D., Texas), once a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, is seeking a comeback this fall after giving up his seat to run for Senate in 2024.
Feely played for seven teams over a career of some 13 years, then reported on NFL and college games as a television announcer until 2025. He earned Trump’s endorsement with a campaign based on what his website calls “faith, freedom and the fight to take back our country.”
Cook Political Report rates the open seat as a toss-up, though, and Democrats have the affluent Scottsdale-based district high on their list of possible flips to help them retake control of the House.
Establishment-backed Democrat lagging in swing seat
Former state lawmaker Amish Shah is leading in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the 1st District seat over the candidate favored by the House Democratic campaign arm, retired broadcast journalist and former Republican Marlene Galán-Woods. The Associated Press has not called the race as of Wednesday morning.
Some grassroots Democrats preferred Shah, an emergency-room doctor who beat Galán-Woods for the nomination in 2024, then lost the general election to Schweikert.
Galán-Woods is the widow of Arizona’s former GOP Attorney General Grant Woods, who had been a confidant of the late Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and renounced the Republican Party once Trump came to power. Galán-Woods says she switched around the same time. “I have always been pro-choice, pro-democracy, pro-climate. My values have never changed. What changed was the Republican Party,” she said in a 2024 debate.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign operation of House Democrats, and other party stalwarts such as EMILY’s List went to bat for Galán-Woods, who had a narrow fundraising lead over Shah as of July 1.
Galán-Woods would be the third DCCC-backed candidate to lose a contested House primary this year, including Jasmeet Bains in California and Joe Baldacci in Maine, as Democratic voters have expressed frustrations with their party’s establishment.
Challenger from the left fails to unseat incumbent Democrat
While left-wing challengers have had success against more centrist Democrats in some parts of the country, the trend didn’t hold in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District. Incumbent Rep. Greg Stanton easily won his primary against challenger Kai Newkirk, a self-described democratic socialist.
Newkirk won the endorsement of several national left-wing groups and attacked Stanton for supporting military aid to Israel, opposing Medicare-for-all and accepting corporate political donations.
Stanton, who has represented the district since 2019 and is a former mayor of Phoenix, far outraised Newkirk. The district includes parts of Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa, and has become more conservative since a 2022 redistricting.
PARIS — France recorded at least 5,700 more deaths than usual during a historic heat wave last month, the public health agency said Wednesday, sharply increasing its estimates of the feared toll from record-shattering temperatures.
Public Health France said regions hit by the heat from June 17 to July 2 recorded 21,674 deaths from all causes. But without a heat wave, those same regions would have been expected to have seen far fewer deaths, or 15,910, based on statistical modeling using data from previous years, it said.
The difference between expected and actual deaths — a total of 5,764 — are therefore considered to be “excess” deaths during the heat wave, the agency said.
It said the excess mortality, with 36% more deaths that would normally have been expected, was the highest from any heat wave since 2003. A historic heat wave that year caused an estimated 15,000 deaths in France.
France registered its hottest-ever days on June 24 and June 25 this year — with a national average of 86 degrees — as well as record heat at night and peak temperatures that soared well above 104 in many places.
Just over half of the unexpected deaths occurred during and in the immediate wake of that hottest period, over three days from June 25 to June 27, the public health agency said.
“This unprecedented episode, characterized by its early onset, intensity, and duration, exposed nearly the entire population to extreme heat during a period when school and work activities were still in full swing,” the agency noted.
All told, across Europe, extreme temperatures that hit exceptionally early and hard this year saw well over 10,000 more deaths at the height of the heat wave than would normally have been expected, according to figures that are still emerging across the continent.
In France, the Paris region appears to have been hardest hit, recording 1,999 unexpected deaths — around 80% more than would otherwise have been anticipated without a heat wave, the French health agency said.
Funeral service directors in Paris said they struggled to find places to store bodies before burial or cremation, with some mortuaries saying they were full and having to turn bodies away.
Nearly half of the more than 21,600 people who died passed away in hospitals, which wrestled with surges of patients suffering from heat-related ailments. About a third died at home and the rest were mostly deaths in care homes for older people, the agency said.
The latest estimated death toll, which the agency said will be updated later in the year with more complete data, was sharply higher than initial figures it had given. It had previously reported around 2,000 additional deaths from all causes for the week of June 22 to June 28, the peak in France of the heat wave that also broke temperature records in many other parts of Europe.
Experts caution that it takes awhile for a full picture to emerge, and that many heat-related deaths will never formally be recorded as such. For example, a heart attack, which can be triggered by extreme heat exposure, especially in people who are older or have underlying health issues, may be listed on a death certificate simply as a heart attack.
A modeling agent who introduced young women and teenage girls to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead at his home near Paris this week, French officials said.
The body of Daniel Siad, 69, was discovered Monday at his home in Colombes, a suburb of Paris, Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, said in a statement Wednesday. She said an investigation was opened that evening into the cause of death.
For roughly a decade, Siad corresponded with Epstein about young women and teenage girls, sometimes describing them by their ages and nationalities and then offering to send Epstein photos, according to emails that were included in the expansive Epstein files released by the Justice Department.
In a 2009 email, Siad described a woman from Latvia who was 5 feet 8 inches tall: “she is 20 years old but she looks younger,” Siad wrote to Epstein.
In a 2014 email, Siad discussed a 15-year-old French girl whose parents were excited for her to start modeling. He also mentioned 16- and 17-year-olds.
“This busyness I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick , some time no fish,” Siad wrote to Epstein.
In an interview last month with CNN, Siad pushed back on the suggestion that he should not have introduced aspiring models to Epstein because it was public knowledge that the financier was a convicted sex offender. Siad maintained that Epstein, who was released from jail in 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence, was a “free man” and had always been “very professional” with him.
“I never doubt that because I never heard anything from anyone who I introduced [to Epstein], who came back to me that they had a bad – a bad situation with him,” Siad told CNN.
In the same interview, Siad said he regretted meeting Epstein.
“Yes. I feel – it’s like a nightmare,” Siad told the network. “… He was such a powerful person. And how can I not trust him?”
The expansive Epstein files released by the Justice Department exposed the financier’s cozy relationships with high-profile and powerful associates, leading to cascading resignations and public shaming.
But a review of the files by The Washington Post also revealed how Epstein cultivated a network of lesser-known associates – including those from the modeling industry – who offered to bring women into his orbit in the years after he was released from jail.
The emails were often crude and sexualized, even if the purpose of the introduction was not explicitly stated. A Swedish modeling scout, for example, messaged about his efforts to find teenage girls for Epstein. A Russian model told Epstein by email that another woman would “be very easy” if he told her that she too had potential to become a model. Others sent messages to Epstein describing models he could meet, promising to send photos.
