The Brief

Updated January 30, 2026 at 15:45 PM ET

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and an independent Minnesota journalist, Georgia Fort, were among four people arrested by federal agents in connection to an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.

Journalists, press advocates and Democratic lawmakers accused the Trump administration of attempting to intimidate journalists conducting independent accountability reporting.

A federal grand jury in Minnesota has indicted the four on charges related to the interruption of a religious service at the church, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor.

Lemon had followed the protesters in as they demonstrated. In his livestreamed video, he says he is there as a journalist. He interviewed the pastor and others present, as well as protesters.

Some of President Trump's supporters argued he had participated in the disruption.

In a statement posted on social media, Lemon's attorney, Abbe Lowell, called the arrest an "unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration."

Amnesty International demanded the release of Lemon and Fort, calling their arrests "a critical threat to our human rights."

"Reporting on protests isn't a crime — its protected by the First Amendment," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "The Justice Department should drop these prosecutions or they should be thrown out."

Media executives and press rights advocates have been on heightened alert over a series of actions taken by the Trump administration: formal investigations of most of the United States' leading broadcasters, including ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR and PBS; threats by Trump to hold up big corporate transactions involving media companies; Trump's personal lawsuits against major news outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal; and, most recently, the FBI's seizure of computers and devices from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson without warning, said to be part of an investigation of the leak of national security documents. Typically prosecutors contact news organizations to give them a chance to identify relevant materials and to challenge the need to hand them over in court.

Justice Department celebrates Lemon's arrest

On Friday morning, Justice Department officials celebrated the arrest of Lemon in California after failing twice to secure arrest warrants for him in Minnesota.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took personal credit, posting on X that the arrests occurred at her direction "in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota." The two other people arrested early Friday are local activists.

"You have the right to worship freely and safely," she said in a video. "And if I haven't been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you."

Bondi's spokesperson Gates McGavick posted a meme of the attorney general with laser beams emanating from her eyes.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that the church was "a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service. You are on notice." Dhillon, who oversees the civil rights division of the Justice Department, also reposted a tweet referring to Lemon as one of "today's klansmen."

Three others were previously charged in connection with the church protest, accused of violating a law that prevents people from obstructing places of worship or abortion clinics.

A federal magistrate judge previously declined to approve Lemon's arrest, citing a lack of evidence. And the chief federal appeals court judge in Minnesota rejected a prosecutor's appeal of the decision, writing that there was "no evidence" of any criminal behavior in Lemon's work.

The Washington Post reviewed the videos of Lemon at the protest.

"The footage shows that he was with activists before the protest and followed them to the church, where he spent approximately 45 minutes and spoke with four parishioners and five protesters," the Post wrote. "In all but one instance, the exchanges appear to be calm. The footage does not show him participating in the chants that disrupted the service. A pastor at one point asks him to leave. Seven minutes later, he exits the church building."

"Pure authoritarian bile"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., denounced the arrest on the Senate floor, saying it "is a dark message to journalists everywhere: If you dare criticize this administration, watch your back."

"That is not democracy," Schumer said. "That is a police state, and that is pure authoritarian bile."

Friday morning, Fort posted a video on social media saying federal agents were at the door of her home in Minnesota. Fort said in the post that she was reporting when she filmed the church protest. She is a known quantity in Minnesota press circles. According to the National Association of Black Journalists chapter in Minnesota, Fort has won regional awards and served as an officer of the group.

Lemon, who now appears on YouTube, Substack and other social media platforms, left CNN in 2023 after 17 years at the cable network, amid criticism that he made sexist comments about women and aging.

CNN was among those outlets and institutions that weighed in against Lemon's arrest, saying it "raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment."

In the statement, shared with NPR by a spokesperson, the network said the Constitution protects "journalists who bear witness to news and events as they unfold, ensuring they can report freely in the public interest, and the DOJ's attempts to violate those rights is unacceptable."

CNN's parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is in the process of trying to sell itself to Netflix, though CNN and other cable channels would be spun off. Antitrust regulators at the Justice Department will get to review the deal if it is approved by shareholders. Trump has said he wants a say in who owns CNN next.

Copyright 2026 NPR

California Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra will take the reins during a delicate time for California.

He faces the prospect of deeper federal healthcare cuts, skyrocketing wildfire costs and a persistent cost-of-living crisis. But many of the specifics of his policies are still unknown after he ran a quiet race as a Democrat in a safe blue state, promoting few programs and avoiding making commitments.

Here’s what to know about what Becerra will tackle and how he’ll govern.

He’s open to new taxes

Becerra opposed the billionaire tax ballot proposition, saying he does not think taxing assets is a stable way to provide state revenues. And while he’s said he believes the wealthy should pay their “fair share” in taxes, he hasn’t explicitly endorsed any new income taxes.

But he has signaled that he supports the idea of taxing corporations whose workers are paid so little they qualify for public benefits, or potentially ending tax credits to those companies. The state Department of Finance is studying what that kind of tax would look like and is expected to deliver recommendations to lawmakers next year.

He has also said he’s considering a controversial proposal for the state to tax drivers based on their miles driven as a way to pay for road and highway repairs. The state collects that funding through gas taxes, but that source is expected to decline by $31 billion over the next decade as more drivers adopt electric vehicles.

“I take no pleasure in telling people taxes are for a purpose,” he told reporters last week. “I believe that users should pay for (roads).”

Big decisions on climate and energy

Becerra has emphasized the need to keep energy affordable while California continues its clean energy transition.

One program he’s pushing would give low-income households two hours of free electricity each day during daytime hours when solar energy is abundant and usage is low. The program, which he’s calling “power hour,” would be limited to utility customers who already qualify for assistance programs.

He’s said he wants to “continue the path toward clean energy, but while we’re on that path we have to make sure we stabilize the prices,” including by drilling more oil in-state and will decide whether to keep California’s 2030 deadline to ban the sale of new gas cars on the state of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

He’ll also face pressure from investor-owned utilities that have been pushing lawmakers and outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom to reduce how much they must pay to insurance companies and fire victims when their equipment sparks destructive wildfires.

If Newsom doesn’t resolve the issue in the next two months, Becerra will have to deal with it when he takes office; so far he’s declined to take a position, calling the debate a “food fight” between insurers and utilities.

Healthcare for undocumented immigrants

As a first-term congressmember from Los Angeles in 1993, Becerra caused a splash on Capitol Hill by arguing with an elder Democratic statesman over a plan to single out legal immigrants for social safety net cuts — he opposed it. He’s said he will seek to reverse restrictions to Medi-Cal that forced tens of thousands of immigrants who are in California illegally off the program.

Immigration has remained a key issue throughout his career. As governor, he’s promised to enforce new state laws that aim to curb immigration agents’ use of force and activities on state property.

Newsom had expanded immigrant health coverage gradually to all income-qualifying adults but he began rolling back some coverage last year amid a budget deficit and unexpectedly high healthcare costs.

“My values and my fiscal beliefs tell me that anyone who works hard in California should have access to the healthcare they need for themselves and for their family and they should be able to afford it, and that includes undocumented,” Becerra told KQED.

Continuing Newsom’s death penalty moratorium

Newsom placed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2019 when he took office, citing his moral opposition to executions, and during his terms he began to dismantle the state’s death row at San Quentin. Prisoners sentenced to death have since been moved to other prisons.

California has not executed any inmate since 2006. Newsom is considering whether to commute the death sentences of more than 560 prisoners to life sentences without parole but even if he doesn’t, don’t expect Becerra to resume executions.

As attorney general, Becerra defended death sentences and said he supported them in principle, but said during the campaign that he would continue California’s moratorium over concerns about racial bias and wrongful convictions.

He calls himself a ‘pragmatic progressive’

In a party undergoing a yearslong identity crisis over how far left to push its policies, Becerra chooses incremental change over progressive moonshots.

In his more than two decades in Congress, he had the ear of both progressive advocates and established Democratic leadership and was a close ally of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, though the pair had a testy moment in 2009 when Becerra wanted her to push harder for a public option in the Affordable Care Act.

This year, he backed away from his longtime support for single-payer healthcare, saying it’s a longshot for California with the Trump administration unlikely to give the state permission to launch.

Even before that, he said he valued experience over grand promises like Medicare for All. As President Joe Biden’s health secretary, for example, he said he focused on expanding coverage.

“When I was helping Hillary Clinton in 2016, my daughters wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders,” he said in an interview. “And I kept saying to them, I get it, I understand. I want Medicare for All … But we got to get (things) done, and I want someone who’s actually been in the thick of things.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California schools dodged a steep revenue cut on Tuesday as voters permanently extended an income tax on the wealthy.

Prop. 3, put forth by the state’s largest teachers union, won with 59% of the vote compared to 41% against. The measure makes permanent an income tax on the wealthy to fund K-12 schools and other services. Originally passed in 2012, the tax was renewed in 2016 and was slated to expire in 2031.

Supporters of the measure were thrilled Tuesday night.

“California voters reaffirmed the importance of sustaining investment in public education,” said Debra Schade, president of the California School Boards Association and a school board member in Solana Beach, near San Diego. “California students deserve this.”

Since it first passed, the tax has generated between $5 billion and $15 billion a year, up to 15% of schools’ overall revenue. If the tax hadn't been renewed, schools would lose that money beginning in 2031 and likely have to make deep budget cuts.

The California Teachers Association has made an aggressive push to pass the measure, spending nearly $60 million on advertising and sending members to knock on more than 200,000 doors around the state. Union president David Goldberg called the measure “vital” to protect schools and teachers’ jobs.

Goldberg said on Tuesday night he was happy, but not surprised, the measure won.

“On a nuts-and-bolts level, this means we’ll have secure funding for schools and students won’t have to be afraid their educator will be laid off,” Goldberg said. “On a deeper level, it shows that the people of California are willing to take a risk and support public education.”

The tax applies to individuals who earn more than $371,000 a year or couples who earn more than $743,000. With the passage of Prop. 3, those earners would continue paying an income tax rate of 12.3%, one of the highest rates in the country.

A bait-and-switch?

The state can’t indefinitely pile taxes on wealthy residents, opponents of Prop. 3 have said. Those residents, about 200 of whom might also face a one-time 5% tax if Prop. 40 passes, would only relocate to lower-tax states, leaving a big dent in state tax revenues.

Opponents also argue that the tax was intended to be a Band-Aid to get schools through the Great Recession, and making it permanent amounts to a bait-and-switch. Opponents also questioned whether the tax is still necessary, considering declining enrollment and increased government spending on schools the past few years.

Once the tax is collected, the money flows into the state’s complex Prop. 98 school funding formula, which guarantees 40% of state revenues go to schools. Of that money, 89% goes to K-12 schools and 11% goes to community colleges. Any extra money generated by the tax goes toward a rainy day fund.

Rising costs, declining enrollment

California funds schools based on how many students show up for class each day, a number that’s been declining for about a decade as families leave for less expensive states, immigration declines and families have fewer children.

At the same time, schools have faced skyrocketing insurance costs and expensive repairs on aging buildings, among other expenses. Although the state has boosted school funding the past few years, school administrators say the money hasn’t kept up with rising expenses.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts and Councilmember Gloria Gray are prepared for a runoff, each said after the first set of results came in for the city’s mayoral race Tuesday night.

Early results showed Gray with 34.51% and Butts with 29.88%, though counting will continue over coming days. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, Inglewood will hold a runoff.

Butts sat down to address supporters just after 9:30 p.m. at his election night watch party on Market Street.

He said that with more votes being counted, the election is far from over — but he’s ready for a possible showdown between himself and Gray, the leading challenger.

“If it is a runoff between myself and Ms. Gray, we’re going to crush her,” he said.

At her campaign headquarters on Crenshaw Boulevard, Gray told a crowd “it’s not done until it’s over.”

“But when you see the numbers,” she said, “we have a great chance because the mayor is very vulnerable.”

A possible runoff comes as Butts has led Inglewood for 15 years, presiding over what he has described as a renaissance that has brought world-class stadiums and venues to the city, which previously faced a financial crisis. Yet some question whether that development is actually helping longtime residents and business owners, and whether Butts and other city officials are being transparent in their decision-making.

This election season has been marked by big money from the stadiums — who gave Gray a $25,000 donation and whose relationship with Butts has soured — and a billboard company that’s working with the city. Most recently, an Inglewood High School student filed a claim alleging that Butts inappropriately touched her, which Butts has denied and said is part of the “political warfare” he’s facing.

Whoever ultimately wins the office will lead the city when the Olympics come to town in 2028 and will be responsible for reconstructing the city’s tattered financial relationship with SoFi Stadium. 

Butts said that Inglewood’s stadiums have spent the election season trying to take control of the city and pointed to the combined millions they’ve spent on ballot measure campaigns and the mayor’s race.

“They are so condescending. They’ve come to believe of us that all they have to do is drop six pieces of mail on your doorstep and you’ll vote against yourself,” he said.

Butts’ own campaign has pulled in support from billboard companies and developers.

Patsy Nimmers, an Inglewood resident and supporter of Butts, said it’s still too early to tell how the race will shake out. She said some voters are worried about change, but that she believes Butts has done a terrific job guiding the city.

“Nobody has done what Mayor Butts has done,” she said.

Meanwhile, Gray’s supporters cheered and clapped as she arrived at campaign headquarters, sharing the early results with her.

“You’re on your way,” one woman told her.

The post Inglewood mayor and the leading challenger say they’re ready for a runoff appeared first on LA Local.

Midterms coverage: Live results | What to know | Stories around the country
All the signs were pointing in Democrats' direction heading into election night.

But nothing indicated quite this level of a romp.

Democrats won the House and the Senate, and while that outcome was always a possibility, the depth and breadth of the Democratic victories were jaw-dropping.

Tuesday night was a reminder that the pendulum of American politics continues to swing, and politics is never permanent.

Here are six takeaways about what happened, why it happened and what it all means going forward:

1. President Trump wanted this election to be about him. It was, and that hurt Republicans

President Trump leaves after speaking at a midterm election campaign rally at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa on Oct. 22.

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President Donald Trump's unpopularity has been a glaring warning sign for the Republican Party heading into election night. Since the Iran war, Trump's approval ratings slid from 48% to as low as 36% in an average of the polls.

A whopping 62% of voters in this election disapproved of his job as president, according to the voter poll commissioned by the broadcast networks and the Associated Press, which mixes pre-Election Day polling of early voters and Election Day exit polls.

Three-quarters of voters said they are either angry or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. A plurality said the economy was the most important issue, and two-thirds said Trump's policies have made economic conditions worse.

In addition to the economy, corruption rose as an issue in the last several months. The voter poll showed that 62% said Trump prioritizes his own interests more than the country's.

For all of the things that will be written about this election, the bottom line is that Trump waged the kind of war he said he wouldn't get into — one that is dragging on, raising gas prices and piling on people who were already feeling the pinch — and now he is paying the price.

If Trump was supposed to be the kingmaker in the 2028 Republican presidential primary, think again. These midterms will have heavy reverberations for the presidential election. It will likely mean more GOP candidates will enter the race, and they will be more likely to present a wider view of what the direction of the party could be — rather than simply trying to carry the Trump torch.

2. Republicans tried to insulate themselves with redistricting, but it didn't work

The fundamentals of this election seemed to mirror the 2006 midterms amid the Iraq War — the last time the Democrats won back both the House and Senate. Democratic gains in this election, though, were seen as possibly being limited by structural disadvantages — primarily through Republican efforts to tilt the playing by redistricting.

Trump strongly encouraged conservative-led states to redistrict over the last year, hoping to gain more Republican seats in the House — but that backfired, particularly in south Texas. There was always the possibility that incidentally weakening safe districts could make them competitive. Now that that's happened, it's a true cautionary tale of the "dummymander."

3. Latinos are a true swing group in America now

The reason Texas Republicans' efforts to gerrymander didn't pay off is because Latinos did not vote in this election the way they did in the 2024 presidential election.

In 2024, Trump only lost the group by 5 points. It moved toward Trump at the time, in large measure because they were upset with inflation and believed Trump would bring down prices.

Not only did that not happen over the last two years, Trump also angered many in the community because of aggressive deportation tactics that targeted more than just hardened criminals, as Trump promised.

In a real indictment of the Trump deportation policies, roughly 60% of respondents in the voter poll said they disapproved of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Sixty-eight percent of Hispanics disapproved of how ICE is handling its job.

To be clear, Latinos are not a monolith. Latinos in South Florida have different backgrounds and priorities than those in South Texas or those in California or New York. But the fact that the largest-growing group in the country swung strongly away from the president and Republicans makes them very important electorally — a true swing group in the country that is underrepresented at the polls and has a lot of power.

4. Are Texas and other red states in play for Democrats, or was this election a giant asterisk?

Texas Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico speaks during a midterm election night event at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin on Tuesday.

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Democrats won in a lot of red states. That is important for the party heading into the 2028 presidential election. To have a real chance at expanding the presidential map, they need to figure out how to appeal to red-state and rural voters. They showed in this election they can do that, but they won't have Trump as their rocket fuel in this next presidential election.

The Lone Star State, for example, has been a majority-minority state for a while, and that demography had previously given Democrats false hope. So is Texas the new Georgia, or will it revert to its conservative roots?

The breadth of Democratic victories in Texas in this midterm is undeniable. They won up and down the ballot — Democrat James Talarico won by roughly 12 points, or 1.1 million votes, the first time Texas is sending a Democrat to the Senate since 1988; incoming Gov. Gina Hinojosa won by 7 percentage points, or almost 700,000 votes; they flipped two congressional districts, both of which were won by Trump in 2024 by at least 14 points; they won lieutenant governor; attorney general; railroad commissioner and more.

As they say in Texas, they beat 'em like a rented mule. But are Democrats renting power in the state or is it something bigger? There is going to be a lot of money spent in 2028 to see if the blue gains in Texas are more permanent. And a lot is on the line, because Texas has 40 electoral votes, and putting it in play legitimately for Democrats would reshape the electoral map in a way that would only be rivaled by the earthquake of a shift that was California going for Democrats starting in 1992. (Yes, California used to be a reliably Republican state, going for the GOP in all but one election between 1952 and 1988.)

By the way, a bonus lesson from this election is that money isn't everything. Republicans spent more than $413 million on the Texas Senate race — and lost.

5. The results of this year's elections don't mean the country is enamored with the Democratic Party

Voters cast their ballots in the Kern County Elections Office in Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday.

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Democrats have the opportunity to show they can authentically represent their states and try to hold onto these inroads they made in lots of red states and districts.

They were handed the keys to Congress, and people are going to expect results. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the once majority leader who may want to be in the job again, victoriously promised overnight that "relief is on the way."

But how? Even if Democrats have serious policy ideas to help fix economic problems in the country, they can't wave a magic wand. They won't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and they are unlikely to have an eager negotiating partner in congressional Republicans or Trump. Just before midnight on election night, Trump put out an image on his social media platform of a big red hat with the word "VETO" on it.

So Democrats are in danger of overpromising and underdelivering, which has become all too common in politics, and leads to voters becoming jaded. Democrats have to be careful with their messaging and how they govern. There will undoubtedly be more investigations and oversight of the Trump administration. But how far will they go? Another Trump impeachment attempt, for example, could be politically fraught.

No doubt, the GOP was soundly rejected Tuesday night, but Democrats aren't much better liked. The voter poll showed Republicans underwater with a 41% favorable and 59% unfavorable rating. Democrats were 47%-53%. Democrats had lower approval ratings earlier in Trump's second term, mostly because of disaffected Democrats. They rallied together to win in these midterms, but fissures on the left are simmering below the surface and are about to become far more apparent in the 2028 presidential Democratic primaries.

6. The polls got the direction right. If anything, they underestimated Democratic support

For a decade, polls have underestimated Republican support. In these elections, that was not the case. In fact, in some places they underestimated Democratic support.

For example, the national generic congressional ballot — the question of who people would vote for if the election was held the day of the poll — favored Democrats by about 8 percentage points. The voter poll looks like it turned out to be at least +18.

It's important to understand that it's hard to poll when the country has been going through as significant a political realignment as it has been in the Trump era.
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