ROGERS, Ark. (AP) — She was already separated from her husband, the family breadwinner and father of her two youngest children, and had lost the home they shared in Arkansas.
Then Cristina Osornio was ensnared by the nation’s rapidly expanding immigration enforcement crackdown just months after her husband was deported to Mexico. Following a traffic stop in Benton County, in the state's northwest corner, she was jailed for several days on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold, records show, even though she is a legal permanent U.S. resident and the mother of six children.
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A Springdale, Ark., police vehicle, center, pulls over a convertible vehicle, right, Nov. 18, 2025, in Springdale, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Immigration attorney Lilia Pacheco poses for a photo in her vehicle, which has a surveillance camera she installed on the windshield in order to record interactions with police should she be pulled over, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Cristina Osornio shows a photo, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark., from a recent trip to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where she took her two daughter to see her husband, Edwin Sanchez-Mendoza, who signed deportation papers after being held in an immigration detention center for several months. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Cristina Osornio and her 3-year-old daughter, Valentina, decorate a Christmas tree in their apartment, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Ernesto, an immigrant from Venezuela, poses for a photograph in his home, Nov. 18, 2025, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Best known as home to Walmart headquarters, the county and the wider region have emerged as a little-known hot spot in the Trump administration's crackdown, according to an Associated Press review of ICE arrest data, jail records, police reports and interviews with residents, immigration lawyers and watchdogs.
The county offers a window into what the future may hold in places where local and state law enforcement authorities cooperate broadly with ICE, as the Department of Homeland Security offers financial incentives in exchange for help making arrests.
The partnership in Arkansas has led to the detention and deportation of some violent criminals but also repeatedly turned misdemeanor arrests into the first steps toward deportations, records show. The arrests have split apart families, sparked protests and spread fear through the immigrant community, including people born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Marshall Islands.
“Nobody is safe at this point because they are targeting you because of your skin color,” said Osornio, 35, who was born in Mexico but has lived in the U.S. since she was 3 months old.
Her odyssey began in September, when an officer in the city of Rogers cited her for driving without insurance and with a suspended license, body cam video shows. She was arrested on a warrant for missing a court appearance in a misdemeanor case and taken to the Benton County Jail, where an ICE hold was placed on her.
After four days behind bars, she said she was released without explanation. She called it a “very scary” experience that exacerbated her health conditions.
More than 450 people were arrested by ICE at the Benton County Jail from Jan. 1 through Oct. 15, according to ICE arrest data from the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project analyzed by AP. That's more than 1.5 arrests per day in the county of roughly 300,000 people.
Most of the arrests were made through the county's so-called 287(g) agreement, named for a section of immigration law, that allows deputies to question people who are booked into the jail about their immigration status. In fact, the county's program accounted for more than 4% of roughly 7,000 arrests nationwide that were attributed to similar programs during the first 9 1/2 months of this year, according to the data.
Under the program, deputies alert ICE to inmates suspected of being in the country illegally, who are usually held without bond and eventually transferred into ICE custody. After a couple of days, they are often moved to the neighboring Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, which has long held detainees for ICE, before they are taken to detention centers in Louisiana and potentially deported.
ICE now has more than 1,180 cooperation agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, up from 135 at the start of the new administration, and it has offered federal payments to cover the costs of training, equipment and salaries in some circumstances. Arrests under the programs have surged in recent months as more agencies get started, ICE data shows.
The growth has been particularly pronounced in Republican-led states such as Florida, where new laws encourage or require such cooperation. Earlier this year, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law requiring all county sheriffs to cooperate with ICE through either a 287(g) program at the jail or a program in which they serve ICE warrants to expedite detentions and removals.
Benton County’s partnership with ICE has been controversial off and on since its inception nearly 20 years ago.
ICE data shows arrests have shot up this year in the county, a Trump stronghold in a heavily Republican state that has a large foreign-born population compared with other parts of Arkansas.
About half of those arrested by ICE through the program have been convicted of crimes, while the other half have charges pending, according to the data. But the severity of the charges ranges widely.
Jail records show those on recent ICE holds include people charged with forgery, sexual assault, drug trafficking, theft and public intoxication. Offenses related to domestic violence and unsafe driving are among the most common.
Local observers say they have tracked an uptick in people facing ICE detention after traffic stops involving violations such as driving without a license.
“It just feels more aggressive. We’re seeing people detained more frequently on extremely minor charges,” said Nathan Bogart, an immigration attorney. “They’ve kind of just been let off the leash now.”
County officials were unwilling to talk about their partnership with ICE. County Judge Barry Moehring, the county's chief executive who oversees public safety, referred questions to the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Shawn Holloway, who has championed the program since his election in 2015, did not respond to several interview requests. The sheriff’s office spokesperson referred questions to ICE.
Body cam video shows that police officer Myles Tucker pulled Osornio over on Sept. 15 in a quiet neighborhood of Rogers as she drove to a bank to get change for her job at the retail chain Five Below.
Tucker said he stopped Osornio because a check of her license plate number indicated that her auto insurance was unconfirmed, and he thought she made a suspicious turn after seeing police.
In addition to issuing tickets for lacking insurance and driving with a suspended license, the officer learned she had a warrant for failing to appear for a misdemeanor domestic violence case. That case stemmed from a 2023 incident in which she argued and fought with her husband.
Osornio disputed that she missed a court hearing. She told the officer that her husband had been deported and that she needed to arrange child care for her children.
During the drive to the jail, Tucker played upbeat Christian-themed music in his patrol vehicle.
He turned down the music to ask Osornio where she was born, saying the information would be required at the jail. “I ask the question because I have to put it on the form, not because I’m trying to get you in trouble,” he said.
Osornio said she was baffled about why she was placed on an ICE hold. She offered to show her residency and Social Security cards, but jail staff told her she would have to meet with an immigration agent in a few days. She said that never happened and instead she was told the hold was “lifted.”
Neither a jail spokesperson nor ICE responded to questions about the matter.
Cpl. Don Lisi, spokesperson for the Rogers Police Department, said his agency has “nothing to do with” the county’s ICE partnership.
But jail records show dozens of the department’s recent arrests have turned into ICE detentions once suspects are booked. Advocates for immigrants allege the department and others nearby engage in racial profiling in traffic stops.
In interviews, nonwhite residents said they were afraid to drive in northwest Arkansas regardless of whether they had legal status. Some said they leave home only to go to work, have groceries and food delivered rather than eating out, and avoid other activities.
“This is a kind of jail, one would say,” said Ernesto, 73, a school custodian born in Venezuela, from his apartment filled with Christmas decorations. He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used to avoid retaliation.
One of Ernesto’s adult daughters was recently stripped of her asylum status, and his temporary legal status also recently expired. He recently witnessed authorities “taking away people” from a traffic stop.
“Don’t just pull over people because they’re Latino or a foreigner,” he said. “I hope that all this is over soon, that the state of Arkansas sees who are the immigrants that are doing good here.”
Rogers-based attorney Lilia Pacheco said she started practicing law in the area during the first Trump administration, and “it’s day and night between the first administration as far as enforcement.” She said Benton County authorities have taken their cooperation with ICE to new heights, stepping up traffic stops, assisting with arrests and welcoming undercover agents.
“We’re seeing that shift here, and I think that’s given a rise to the arrests and operations in the area,” she said. “It looks like their relationship is a lot closer than what we anticipated that it would be.”
Pacheco said her husband was recently pulled over in Rogers while taking their daughter to school when he was driving the speed limit and could not understand why. The officer asked for his driver’s license, and he was let go without a ticket, she said.
The family has since installed a dashboard camera in their car so that they can record any future interactions with police after the Supreme Court decision that allowed ICE to racially profile, she said.
Pacheco said many who live in the area are from the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, and fear deportation because of a rise in violence linked to drug cartels. Those from El Salvador fear prolonged detention in their country, which has swept up innocent people in its crackdown on gangs, she said.
Osornio said she has been with her husband, Edwin Sanchez-Mendoza, for eight years. They got together a couple of years after he illegally crossed the border from Mexico when he was in his late teens.
They have two children together, a 5-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl. She said her husband worked in construction, and his salary paid the rent and bills in the home they shared in Bentonville.
Court records show Sanchez-Mendoza was arrested on misdemeanor charges in September 2024 after he was accused of striking one of his teenage stepsons.
Sanchez-Mendoza told police he was restraining the stepson in self-defense and believed the teen called police to scare him since he was not in the country legally. A Bentonville officer wrote in a report that the sheriff’s office should check “the legality of Edwin’s nationality status.”
Sanchez-Mendoza was placed on a hold for ICE at the Benton County Jail. The charges were dropped after ICE transferred him elsewhere in January 2025.
Ultimately, Osornio said her husband ended up at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, where he found the conditions unbearable. He agreed to be deported and was flown last spring to Mexico, where he has since moved back to his rural hometown and helps on the family farm.
His absence has been devastating financially and emotionally, Osornio said. When they drive past construction sites, their young daughter says, “Look, Mom, Daddy’s working there,” she said.
The family could no longer afford their house. Osornio got the retail job but has struggled to pay for the apartment where they moved and their bills. She’s getting help from a local advocacy organization and asking for help on GoFundMe.
She suffers from high blood pressure and said she suffered a stroke days after her release from jail.
Osornio said Sanchez-Mendoza wants her to move to Mexico, and she and the kids visited him in May. But she’s agonizing over the decision, saying she fears it would put her children in danger of cartel violence and that she knows the U.S. as home.
She’s anxiously waiting for her new permanent residency card to arrive after receiving a temporary extension earlier this year.
“Obviously over there it’s the cartels. But here now the scare is with immigration. Now we don’t know even if we are safe here anymore,” she said. “Ever since that happened to me, I don’t go anywhere. I don’t go out of my house.”
Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. Associated Press data journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington and AP reporter Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.
A Springdale, Ark., police vehicle, center, pulls over a convertible vehicle, right, Nov. 18, 2025, in Springdale, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Immigration attorney Lilia Pacheco poses for a photo in her vehicle, which has a surveillance camera she installed on the windshield in order to record interactions with police should she be pulled over, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Cristina Osornio shows a photo, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark., from a recent trip to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where she took her two daughter to see her husband, Edwin Sanchez-Mendoza, who signed deportation papers after being held in an immigration detention center for several months. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Cristina Osornio and her 3-year-old daughter, Valentina, decorate a Christmas tree in their apartment, Nov. 18, 2025, in Rogers, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Ernesto, an immigrant from Venezuela, poses for a photograph in his home, Nov. 18, 2025, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The Navy admiral who reportedly issued orders for the U.S. military to fire upon survivors of an attack on an alleged drug boat is on Capitol Hill for a classified briefing with top congressional lawmakers overseeing national security.
The information from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who is now the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, comes at a potentially crucial moment in the unfolding congressional investigation into how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth handled the military operation in international waters near Venezuela. There are mounting questions over whether the strike may have violated the law.
The briefing in a secure facility at the Capitol is with congressional leaders, including the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, and separately to the GOP chairman and Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Here's the latest:
The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services panel is calling on the Pentagon to release video of a U.S. attack that killed two survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat in international waters earlier this year.
Reed and the other leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services and intelligence panels viewed the video at classified briefings by top national security officials in the Capitol on Thursday. He said afterward that the Pentagon should release the video and also the legal opinion authorizing the strike in waters near Venezuela.
“The video will I think answer all of the questions that are floating around and the legal opinion will provide the justification for the general operation,” Reed said.
Republicans and Democrats have vowed to investigate the incident. Reed said the video was disturbing but declined to provide any additional details.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said even without a direct verbal command from Hegseth or anyone else to “kill them all” the order for the mission was to kill those on board.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he did not say ‘kill them all.’ However, there were 11 people on that boat, and the order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,” Smith told the AP.
He described the video showing “basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water — until the missiles come and kill them.”
The Trump administration has instructed U.S. embassies and consulates around the world to prioritize visa applications from foreigners wishing to visit the United States to either invest in America or attend the 2026 World Cup, 2028 Olympics and other major sporting events.
The administration also has added new criteria for highly skilled foreign workers seeking a particular visa.
The new rules would deny entry to applicants deemed to have directed or participated in the censorship of American citizens on social media through content moderation initiatives that have sprung up throughout Europe and elsewhere to combat extremist speech.
The steps were outlined in cables sent this week to all U.S. diplomatic missions and obtained by The Associated Press.
“No one was asking President Trump to take up this task. Our region is far from the headlines,” said Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the signing ceremony. “But when the president saw the opportunity to contribute to peace, he immediately took it.”
Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, said authorities identified Brian Cole Jr. as a suspect in the Washington, D.C., pipe bomb case based on the FBI’s investigation.
“This was not a new public tip that this came from,” Bongino said. “This was our own internal work at the FBI.”
Brian Cole has been charged with use of an explosive device.
“We were going to track this person to the end of the earth. There was no way he was getting away,” Bongino said.
No attorney information was yet available and attempts to reach family and a cellphone listed as Cole’s were not answered.
The long-running bromance between the U.S. president and Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, is still going strong. Trump nodded to Infantino at the DRC-Rwanda peace deal signing, calling him a “great leader in sports and a great gentleman.”
Infantino is in town ahead of the World Cup draw on Friday. The event is being held at the Kennedy Center, or the “Trump Kennedy Center,” as the president called it.
“Oh, excuse me — at the Kennedy Center,” Trump jokingly corrected himself. “Pardon me, such a terrible mistake.”
Trump also said ticket sales for next year’s World Cup, which the U.S. is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, have broken records. “I can report to you that we have sold more tickets than any country, anywhere in the world at this stage of the game,” he said. FIFA said late last month that nearly two million tickets had been purchased during two phases of ticket sales. The third phase begins Dec. 11.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau and Department of Justice brought in a new team of investigators and experts to sift through existing evidence and chase down leads. He said that was, “Something the prior administration failed to do.”
Patel went on to call the arrest “flawless,” saying no officers were hurt taking down what he characterized as a dangerous suspect.
“We solved it. He will have his day in court,” Patel said.
Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of Congo and Paul Kagame of Rwanda are signing a deal aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Congo and opening access to the region’s critical minerals.
Tshisekedi offered a hopeful message about the precarious peace.
“I do believe this day is the beginning of a new path, a demanding path, yes. Indeed, quite difficult,” Tshisekedi said. “But this is a path where peace will not just be a wish, an aspiration, but a turning point.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi says a man named Brian Coles Jr. was arrested Thursday in with the Jan. 5, 2021, pipe bombs left outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Cole is charged with use of an explosive device, Bondi said during a news conference. She said the investigation is still underway, and more charges could be filed in the future.
“As we speak, search warrants are being executed,” Bondi said.
Trump celebrated a peace agreement between the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on Thursday by praising the building hosting the event.
“It’s a spectacular building and we all appreciate it,” Trump said. His administration is involved in a court battle over the think tank.
The State Department on Wednesday said that it renamed it as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
“Thank you for putting a certain name on that,” Trump said to Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the event. “That blew up last night.”
The White House is expected to submit plans for its new ballroom to a planning commission later this month, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday.
“Once plans are submitted, that’s really when the role of this commission, and its professional staff, will begin,” Will Scharf, the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, said.
In Fairfax, Virginia, federal agents gathered outside an office marked “Brian Cole Bail Bonds,” its entrance wrapped in yellow crime-scene tape that flicked in the afternoon wind.
A man in an FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force jacket stood near the entrance, conferring with local officers who were guarding the building.
The business shares the suspect’s name. In public records, it appears to be associated with members of his family, though authorities have not detailed the connection.
The Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate Armed Services Committee offered diverging takeaways from the Pentagon inspector general report on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to share sensitive information.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair, said in a statement that Hegseth “acted within his authority to communicate the information in question to other cabinet level officials.”
But Wicker said that senior leaders also need more tools to share classified information “in real time and a variety of environments.”
Sen. Jack Reed of Oregon, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said Hegseth violated military regulations and showed “reckless disregard for the safety American servicemembers.”
Reed said in his statement that anyone else would have faced “severe consequences, including potential prosecution.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to have a brief meeting with Trump while at the Kennedy Center in Washington for the World Cup draw Friday.
Carney’s spokesperson Audrey Champoux says Carney will also have a brief meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The United States, Canada and Mexico are hosting the 64-nation World Cup next year.
A Navy admiral has told lawmakers that there was no “kill them all” order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
That disclosure Thursday comes as Congress scrutinizes an attack that killed two survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug boat in international waters near Venezuela.
Sen. Tom Cotton told reporters about what he heard from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley in classified briefing and Cotton is defending the attack. But a Democratic lawmaker who was also briefed says he’s deeply concerned by video of the second strike
The Pentagon inspector general’s report released Thursday criticized the use of unapproved messaging apps and devices across the department.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had the authority to declassify the material he shared with others in a Signal chat, the watchdog found. But it also says the release of details about the strike on Houthi militants in Yemen violated internal Pentagon rules about handling sensitive information that could put service members or their missions in danger.
The report noted that the information that Hegseth sent — the quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory about two hours to four hours before those strikes — “created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”
Hegseth wrote on social media: “No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed. Houthis bombed into submission.”
The South Carolina Republican told reporters during a virtual news conference on Thursday that she’s going to finish her term but is “100%” frustrated with the slow pace of the House.
Mace was asked about reporting by The New York Times that she is looking to meet with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to discuss following the lead of the Georgia Republican, who has announced she’s leaving Congress in January.
Mace said she’s expressed her frustrations to House Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she supports and said she expects to outlast recent criticism of his management of the House.
Mace, first elected in 2020, is seeking the GOP nomination for South Carolina governor in next year’s elections and is not expected to run for another House term.
Protesters held signs that read “No Collaboration with ICE/DHS” and begged city leaders to create “ICE-Free zones” during a City Council meeting Thursday. It was the second day of a federal immigration enforcement operation in the city.
After public comment was suspended, and protesters refused to yield their time at the podium, City Council members paused the meeting and left the room.
As protesters chanted “Shame,” city police officers ordered them to leave the building. While some protesters complied, multiple others were pushed or physically carried out by officers.
Trump administration lawyers on Thursday accused plaintiffs of “throwing in the towel” with “procedural gamesmanship” after they moved to dismiss their lawsuit over the aggressive tactics of federal immigration officers in the Chicago area.
The coalition of protesters and journalists behind the suit called the dismissal a victory, saying the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” had largely wound down. But the case was on its way to a skeptical appeals court that had already frozen an order limiting agents’ use of force.
“The moment they have to explain themselves to an appellate court, they run for the hills,” said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer says a bill Democrats will bring to the Senate floor for a vote next week would allow for a three-year extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of this year.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune promised Democrats a vote on a proposal of their choosing as part of a path forward to ending the historic, 43-day government shutdown earlier this fall.
Schumer said every Democrat will support the bill. It’s most likely to fail, though.
“Republicans have one week to decide where they stand. Vote for this bill and bring health care costs down or block this bill and send premiums skyrocketing,” Schumer said.
A White House official said Trump would be making the trip Tuesday to discuss ending the inflation crisis he says was inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip hasn’t been formally announced. It wasn’t immediately clear where in Pennsylvania Trump would be visiting.
Last month’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about affordability persist. White House officials said afterward that Trump — who has done relatively few events domestically — would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies.
The president has said that any affordability worries are part of a Democratic “hoax” and that people simply need to hear his perspective to change their minds — an approach also embraced by Biden, who in early 2024 went to the Pennsylvania borough of Emmaus to take credit for economic improvements after inflation spiked in 2022.
— Josh Boak
▶ Read more about Trump and Pennsylvania
Flags at the White House were lowered to half-staff in honor of U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, a West Virginia National Guard member who was shot Nov. 26, blocks from the White House, and later died of her wounds. Trump issued the proclamation “as a mark of respect for the memory” of Beckstrom.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, commented after seeing a video of two boat strike survivors in what he said was “clear distress” at a classified morning briefing.
“Admiral Bradley has a storied career, and he has my respect and have the respect of all of us,” Himes said on CNN.
“But what I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel were killed by the United States.”
President Trump’s effort to install political loyalists as top federal prosecutors has run into a legal buzz saw lately, with judges ruling that his handpicked U.S. attorneys for New Jersey, eastern Virginia, Nevada and Los Angeles were all serving unlawfully.
Now, another federal judge is poised to consider an argument by New York Attorney General Letitia James that the administration also twisted the law to make John Sarcone the acting U.S. attorney for northern New York.
A court hearing is scheduled to be held Thursday as James challenges Sarcone’s authority to oversee a Justice Department investigation into regulatory lawsuits she filed against Trump and the National Rifle Association.
James, a Democrat, is disputing the legitimacy of subpoenas issued as part of Sarcone’s probe, which her lawyers say is part of a campaign of baseless investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s perceived enemies.
▶ Read more about the Justice Department and Letitia James
At least one Republican senator is raising concerns about Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine committee and the anti-vaccine voices it has platformed.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a liver doctor who’s been outspoken in support of the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, took to X to post the agenda of the committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He noted one of the presenters scheduled for Friday is a trial attorney who’s worked with Kennedy to sue vaccine makers.
“He is presenting as if an expert on childhood vaccines,” Cassidy wrote. “The ACIP is totally discredited. They are not protecting children.”
Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy as health secretary earlier this year but the two have repeatedly clashed over vaccine policy.
The newest member of Congress won a nationally watched special election in Tennessee this week that helped maintain the GOP’s slim grip on power in the chamber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson swiftly swore Van Epps into office, a speedy addition to the GOP ranks — in stark contrast to the seven-week long delay in swearing in the newest Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. Johnson had refused to swear her into office during the government shutdown.
A West Point graduate and former state general services commissioner from Nashville, Van Epps defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn to represent the 7th Congressional District.
The FBI has made an arrest in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into who placed pipe bombs in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The arrest marks the first time investigators have settled on a suspect in an act that had long vexed law enforcement, spawned a multitude of conspiracy theories and remained an enduring mystery in the shadow of the dark chapter of American history that is the violent Capitol siege.
The official who described the arrest spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss a case that hasn’t yet been made public. The arrest took place Thursday morning and the suspect is a man, the official said. No other details were immediately available, including the charges the person might face.
The pipe bombs were placed on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees in the District of Columbia. Nobody was hurt before the bombs were rendered safe, but the FBI has said both devices could have been lethal.
— Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer
▶ Read more about the pipe bomb investigation
U.S. Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, accompanied by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right, walks to a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump speaks during an event on fuel economy standards in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
