Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad released from ICE detention

A5-year-old boy and his fathermust be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they've been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration's approach to enforcement.

Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sparked even more outcry about the administration'simmigration crackdownin Minnesota.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that "the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children."

Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his fathercould not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, were detained in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officersused the preschooler as "bait"by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an "abject lie." It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

The government says Arias entered the U.S. illegally from Ecuador in December 2024. The family's lawyer says he has a pending asylum claim that allows him to remain in the country.

Their detention led to aprotest at the Texas family detention centerand a visit bytwo Texas Democratic members of Congress.

In his order Saturday, Biery said: "apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence," suggesting the Trump administration's actions echo those that then-author and future President Thomas Jefferson enumerated as grievances against England's King George.

Among them: "He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People" and "He has excited domestic Insurrection among us."

Biery included in his ruling a photo of Liam and references to two lines in the Bible: "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these," and "Jesus wept."

He's not the only federal judge who has been tough on ICE recently.A Minnesota-based judgewith a conservative pedigree described the agency as a serial violator of court orders related to the crackdown.

Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has said there's a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day. It's that figure which the judge seemed to refer to as a "quota."

Spokespersons from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The Law Firm of Jennifer Scarborough, which is representing the boy and his family, said in a statement that it was working "to ensure a safe and timely reunion."

"We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal," they said.

During Wednesday's visit by Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, the boy slept in the arms of his father, who said Liam was frequently tired and not eating well at the detention facility that houses about 1,100 people, according to Castro.

Detained families report poor conditions likeworms in food,fighting for clean waterand poor medical care at the detention center since itsreopening last year. In December, a report filed by ICE acknowledged they held about 400 children longer than the recommended limit of 20 days.

Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez contributed to this article.

byNeo

in Celebrity, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sport

February 01, 2026

Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad released from ICE detention

A5-year-old boy and his fathermust be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they've been held after being d...

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The ranks of US rabbis grow more diverse, with rising numbers of women and LGBTQ people

Rabbi Laura Geller recalls how of the 30 people in her class at Hebrew Union College, she was the only woman.

Women Rabbis

Ordained in 1976, she would go on to become one of the first women rabbis in the Jewish Reform Movement. Fifty years later, she's proud to have helped break that glass ceiling and pave the way for change.

Rabbis and rabbinical students in the United States are more diverse than ever today, with increasing numbers of women and LGBTQ+ people. Women from earlier generations who became rabbis marvel at the greater opportunities available for those pursuing clergy roles.

"Women have transformed Judaism," said Geller, rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, California. "All the different kinds of movements have really noticed that Judaism needs to change because women's voices were ignored in the past."

Orthodox branches of Judaism generally don'tallow women to be rabbis, with some exceptions. But Reform and Conservative, the largest movements in the U.S., permit it, as does the growing nondenominational branch.

Nationwide, the Jewish community has become more diverse, so it makes sense that the rabbinate would be as well, said Janet Krasner Aronson, interim director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.

"A lot of people are entering the rabbinate and coming from very different backgrounds, and they really want to come in and shake things up a little bit," she said.

Rebecca Weintraub, associate rabbi of New York City's B'nai Jeshurun congregation, has witnessed this generational shift in liberal Jewish spaces. She is one of several women serving the congregation as rabbis.

"For a lot of the younger generation, when they think of a rabbi, many of them, in their mind, the picture is a woman," Weintraub said. "When I was growing up, when I would think of a rabbi, I'd think, man."

The changing face of the US rabbinate

An organization that supports and trains Jewish spiritual leaders — Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation — hasnew researchdocumenting the diversification of the U.S. rabbinate and its student pipeline. It recently surveyed stakeholders including rabbis, students, schools and other key Jewish institutions.

Atra's research affirms that men still make up the majority of the more than 4,000-strong non-Ultra Orthodox U.S. rabbinate, but women are now a sizable minority. There are also more LGBTQ+ people, Jews of color and members of interfaith households. That increased diversity also is present in non-Orthodox rabbinical schools, where women are in the majority.

"We see an opening that did not exist for populations that once were not able to become rabbis," said Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, Atra's executive director. "We still don't have parity of rabbis in the field, but we do see that we have many more women in the seminary."

Among them isSarah Livschitz, who moved from New Zealand to Los Angeles to enroll in Hebrew Union College, where her student cohort is entirely female.

"It's normal to me that a woman would be a rabbi," said Livschitz, who will be ordained in May. "It's a different world that I live in than people sort of 30 years ago, even 10 years ago."

Signs of progress and ongoing challenges

Eleanor Steinman, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Austin, Texas, views the increased diversity as a sign of thriving.

"The challenge to the rabbinate is that institutions, including synagogues, are not necessarily totally prepared for that diversity," said Steinman, who is gay and known for her social justice and LGBTQ+ rights advocacy in the Jewish community.

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Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum, director of congregational learning and programming at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Massachusetts, recalled how nervous she was during her final year in rabbinical school. Berenbaum, who is Black and has done extensive anti-racism work in the Jewish community, was ordained in 2013.

"My Jewish experiences were pretty much all white," she said. "It was time to go into the job market, and that's when the voices really started to rise in my head: 'Who's going to hire a Black rabbi?' Not 'Who's going to hire a woman rabbi?'"

While serving in Wisconsin and New Jersey congregations, she encountered the rabbinate's patriarchal holdovers, including a lack of accommodations when she became a mother and her husband taking on the "rebbetzin" duties traditionally fulfilled by male rabbis' wives.

"Some of the earlier rabbis were really thrust into the deep patriarchy, where they were accepted but not really accepted, or accepted but forced to mold themselves to a masculine view of what is a rabbi," said Berenbaum, who is now one of three women rabbis in her congregation. "Whereas now women are able to just bring their full selves."

It's clear to some rabbinical students that following a career path paved by the female and LGBTQ+ rabbis that came before them has made their own pursuit easier. That's the case for Sarah Rockford, an LGBTQ+ student at the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

"My leadership is welcome, celebrated, and in some ways not treated as exceptional because of my gender or sexual orientation," she said. "We tend to forget how quickly things have changed."

Rockford credits strong female mentors for embodying how people from a variety of backgrounds can take on the role, such as Rabbi Rachel Isaacs of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, Maine. In 2011, Isaacs became the first openly gay rabbi ordained by the Conservative seminary.

"The Jewish community is far more diverse in every sense of the word than the Jewish community I was raised in," Isaacs said.

A demanding but meaningful calling

Many in the rabbinate are drawn to the deeply meaningful and fulfilling work. But it is also demanding.

"I love to teach, I love to pastor, I love to lead services. Even funerals — they're both sad but they're deeply meaningful. We're up front and center with the most important moments of people's lives," said Felicia Sol, the first woman to serve as senior rabbi in the almost 200-year history of New York's B'nai Jeshurun synagogue.

"Rabbis are being pulled in so many directions and pressured in so many ways that it's very frustrating and hard."

Some rabbis cite the challenge ofholding together congregationsduring times of heightened political divisions and growing tensions over theIsrael-Hamas war. Unsustainable expectations, emotional exhaustion and financial stress are commonplace, according to Atra's research.

"The biggest struggle is burnout," Isaacs said. "No matter how hard you try, the line or the boundary between the personal and the professional is extraordinarily fuzzy, which makes it very hard to unplug."

Steinman agrees. She felt called to become a rabbi as a teenager, wanting to teach and counsel a Jewish community. But she said it can be overwhelming: "When I tell people that I have one day off a week, they're shocked."

Rockford, who is preparing to become a rabbi in May, understands the challenges but remains optimistic.

"My hope for the rabbinate is that we continue to sort of ride this wave of diversifying the faces of people we look to as teachers, as rabbis and as spiritual leaders," she said. "The diversity of those voices makes our communities stronger and better prepared to thrive in the next 100 years."

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP'scollaborationwith The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

byNeo

in Celebrity, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sport

February 01, 2026

The ranks of US rabbis grow more diverse, with rising numbers of women and LGBTQ people

Rabbi Laura Geller recalls how of the 30 people in her class at Hebrew Union College, she was the only woman. ...

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Further Russia-Ukraine talks scheduled for next week, says Zelenskyy

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The next round ofpeace talksbetween Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Sunday.

Envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. had been expected to meet Sunday in Abu Dhabi to continue negotiations aimed at endingMoscow's all-out invasionof its neighbor.

"We have just had a report from our negotiating team. The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set: Feb. 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi. Ukraine is ready for substantive talks, and we are interested in an outcome that will bring us closer to a real and dignified end to the war," Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. or Russian officials.

On Saturday afternoon, top Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev said he had held a "constructive meeting with the U.S. peacemaking delegation" in Florida.

Officials have so far revealed few details of the talks in Abu Dhabi, which are part of a yearlongeffort by the Trump administrationto steer the sides toward a peace deal and end almost four years of all-out war.

While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle with Washington's calls for a compromise, Moscow and Kyiv differ deeply overwhat an agreement should look like.

A central issue is whether Russia should keep or withdraw from areas of Ukraine its forces have occupied, especially Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland calledthe Donbas, and whether it should get land there that it hasn't yet captured.

Drones strike Ukrainian maternity hospital

Elsewhere, Russian attack drones struck a maternity hospital in southern Ukraine on Sunday morning, the Ukrainian emergency service reported.

In a Telegram post, it said the strike wounded three women in the hospital in the city of Zaporizhzhia, and also sparked a fire in the gynecology reception area that was later extinguished. Regional administration head Ivan Fedorov later said the number of injured had risen to six.

Days earlier,U.S. President Donald Trumpsaid Putin had agreed to temporarily halt the targeting of the Ukrainian capital and other cities, as the region suffers underfreezing temperaturesthat have brought widespread hardship to Ukrainians.

The Kremlin confirmed Friday it agreed to hold off striking Kyiv until Sunday, but refused to reveal any details, making it difficult for an independent assessment of whether the conciliatory step had indeed taken place.

In the past week, Russia has struck energy assets in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and in Kharkiv in the northeast. It also hit the Kyiv region on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring four.

Overnight into Sunday, Russia launched 90 attack drones, with 14 striking nine locations, Ukraine's air force said in a Telegram post. A woman and a man were killed in an overnight drone strike in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine, according to local administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Russian shelling also hit central Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, soon after 7 a.m., seriously wounding a 59-year-old woman, according to a Facebook post by the municipal military administration.

Russia's Defense Ministry on Sunday morning said its forces had used operational-tactical aviation, attack drones, missile forces and artillery to strike transport infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces.

In a separate post Sunday, it said that Russian air defences shot down 21 Ukrainian drones flying over southwestern and western Russia. It did not mention any casualties or damage.

Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine athttps://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

byNeo

in Celebrity, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sport

February 01, 2026

Further Russia-Ukraine talks scheduled for next week, says Zelenskyy

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The next round ofpeace talksbetween Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place on Wednesday a...

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NATO's ability to deter Russia has taken a hit with trans-Atlantic infighting

BRUSSELS (AP) — European allies and Canada are pouring billions of dollars into helping Ukraine, and they have pledged tomassively boost their budgetsto defend their territories.

APTOPIX Switzerland Davos Trump

But despite those efforts, NATO's credibility as a unified force under U.S. leadership has taken a huge hit over the past year as trust within the 32-nation military organization dissolved.

The rift has been most glaring over U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats toseize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. More recently, Trump's disparaging remarks about his NATO allies' troops in Afghanistandrew another outcry.

While the heat on Greenlandhas subsidedfor now, the infighting has seriously undercut the ability of the world's biggest security alliance to deter adversaries, analysts say.

"The episode matters because it crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed," Sophia Besch from the Carnegie Europe think tank said in a report on the Greenland crisis. "Even without force or sanctions, that breach weakens the alliance in a lasting way."

The tensions haven't gone unnoticed in Russia, NATO's biggest threat.

Any deterrence of Russia relies on ensuring that President Vladimir Putin is convinced that NATO will retaliate should he expand his war beyondUkraine. Right now, that does not seem to be the case.

"It's a major upheaval for Europe, and we are watching it," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted last week.

Filling up the bucket

Criticized by U.S. leaders for decades over low defense spending, and lashed relentlessly under Trump, European allies and Canada agreed in July to significantly up their game and start investing 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.

The pledge was aimed at taking the whip out of Trump's hand. The allies would spend as much of their economic output on core defense as the United States — around 3.5% of GDP — by 2035, plus a further 1.5% on security-related projects like upgrading bridges, air and seaports.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has hailed those pledges as a sign of NATO's robust health and military might. He recently said that "fundamentally thanks to Donald J. Trump, NATO is stronger than it ever was."

Though a big part of his job is to ensure that Trump does not pull the U.S. out of NATO, as Trump has occasionally threatened, hisflattery of the American leaderhas sometimes raised concern. Rutte has pointedly refused to speak about the rift over Greenland.

Article 5 at stake

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in 1949 to counter the security threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and its deterrence is underpinned by a strong American troop presence in Europe.

The alliance is built on the political pledge that an attack on one ally must be met with a response from them all — the collective security guarantee enshrined inArticle 5of its rule book.

It hinges on the belief that the territories of all 32 allies must remain inviolate. Trump's designs on Greenland attack that very principle, even though Article 5 does not apply in internal disputes because it can only be triggered unanimously.

"Instead of strengthening our alliances, threats against Greenland and NATO are undermining America's own interests," two U.S. senators, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Lisa Murkowski, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

"Suggestions that the United States would seize or coerce allies to sell territory do not project strength. They signal unpredictability, weaken deterrence and hand our adversaries exactly what they want: proof that democratic alliances are fragile and unreliable," they said.

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Even before Trump escalated his threats to seize control of Greenland, his European allies were never entirely convinced that he would defend them should they come under attack.

Trump has said that he doesn't believe the allies would help him either, and he recently drew more anger when he questioned the role of European and Canadian troops who fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan. The president later partially reversed his remarks.

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissedcriticism that Trump has undermined the alliance.

"The stronger our partners are in NATO, the more flexibility the United States will have to secure our interests in different parts of the world," he said. "That's not an abandonment of NATO. That is a reality of the 21st century and a world that's changing now."

A Russia not easily deterred

Despite NATO's talk of increased spending, Moscow seems undeterred. The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said this week that "it has become painfully clear that Russia will remain a major security threat for the long term."

"We are fending off cyberattacks, sabotage against critical infrastructure, foreign interference and information manipulation, military intimidation, territorial threats and political meddling," she said Wednesday.

Officials across Europe have reported acts ofsabotageand mysteriousdrone flightsover airports and military bases. Identifying the culprits is difficult, and Russia denies responsibility.

In a year-end address, Rutte warned that Europe is at imminent risk.

"Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured," he said.

Meanwhile in Russia, Lavrov said the dispute over Greenland heralded a"deep crisis"for NATO.

"It was hard to imagine before that such a thing could happen," Lavrov told reporters, as he contemplated the possibility that "one NATO member is going to attack another NATO member."

Russian state media mockedEurope's "impotent rage" over Trump's designs on Greenland, and Putin's presidential envoy declared that "trans-Atlantic unity is over."

Doubt about US troops

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is due to meet with his counterparts at NATO on Feb. 12. A year ago, he startled the allies by warning that America's security prioritieslie elsewhereand that Europe must look after itself now.

Security in the Arctic region, where Greenland lies, will be high on the agenda. It's unclear whether Hegseth will announce a new drawdown of U.S. troops in Europe, who are central to NATO's deterrence.

Lack of clarity about this has also fueled doubt about the U.S. commitment to its allies. In October, NATO learned that up to 1,500 American troops would be withdrawn from an area bordering Ukraine,angering ally Romania.

A report from the European Union Institute for Security Studies warned last week that although U.S. troops are unlikely to vanish overnight, doubts about U.S. commitment to European security means "the deterrence edifice becomes shakier."

"Europe is being forced to confront a harsher reality," wrote the authors, Veronica Anghel and Giuseppe Spatafora. "Adversaries start believing they can probe, sabotage and escalate without triggering a unified response."

byNeo

in Celebrity, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sport

January 31, 2026

NATO's ability to deter Russia has taken a hit with trans-Atlantic infighting

BRUSSELS (AP) — European allies and Canada are pouring billions of dollars into helping Ukraine, and they have pledged to...

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Mass evictions in Lagos displace thousands including baby twins now living in a canoe

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Victor Ahansu was barely awake with his wife and baby twins before the grinding sound of bulldozers woke them. It was all the warning the family had, he said, before fleeing mass evictions in their historic community of Makoko in Lagos. Their house was demolished on Jan. 11, one of thousands taken down by the ongoing operation.

Nigeria Mass Evictions

Now the 5-month-old twins and their parents live in a wooden canoe, with a woven plastic sack for shelter from the rain. The thump of hammers fills the air as other residents ofNigeria's largest city break down homes and salvage what they can.

"I have not even been able to go to work to make money, because I don't want to leave my wife and children, and the government comes again," Ahansu, a fisherman, told The Associated Press.

For decades, tens of thousands of people have lived in homes on stilts above the lagoon in Makoko, one of Africa's oldest and largest waterfront communities.

To many Nigerians, Makoko has long been distinctive. To nonprofit organizations, it has been a testing ground for ideas like floating schools. But to some developers and authorities, it'svaluable waterfront propertyin the hands of some of the megacity's poorest people.

More than 3,000 homes have been torn down and 10,000 people displaced in this latest wave of demolitions that began in late December, according to a coalition of local advocacy groups. Makoko's residents have lived here legally, but Nigeria's Land Law allows the government to take any land it deems fit for public purpose.

There is a long history of such mass evictions in the rapidly developing city of an estimated 20 million people on the Gulf of Guinea. Advocacy groups estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes since 2023, when the current state government took office.

On Wednesday, hundreds of people protested the mass evictions across Lagos. Police dispersed them with tear gas.

Population pressures

As Lagos' population increases, people in low-income communities like Makoko have been caught in the line of fire amid government efforts to develop the megacity.

Residents told the AP that the Lagos state government in this case asked people to move 100 meters from an electricity line, but then the demolitions just kept going.

Officials at the state's Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development declined to answer questions about the Makoko demolitions and residents' allegations that there had been little or no warning before they began on Dec. 23.

The officials, however, pointed to recent comments by Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who defended the evictions and cited safety risks, saying communities had spread close to critical infrastructure.

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Residents say that space in the Makoko area had been allotted to a private construction company, one of many in a city where waterfront space is often prized for luxury and other properties. The AP couldn't verify that allegation.

"I think that when (the government) is looking for centrally located land and since other places are filled up, there is the idea that you can come and clear away communities because they are less privileged and you can come up with some justification," said Megan Chapman, co-director for the Justice and Empowerment Initiatives, an advocacy group for displaced communities in Lagos.

Makoko, established in the 19th century, has survived past attempts at demolition, usually when there's a public outcry. Life meanders through narrow streets and waterways in the community nicknamed the "Venice of Africa" by outsiders. There are few public services like electricity or waste management.

Those being displaced say they have few options. Lagos has some of Africa's highest rents. A room in a tenement house where dozens of people share bathrooms can go for 700 thousand naira annually (around $500) in a city where the minimum wage is 77,000 naira ($55).

Basirat Kpetosi sat atop the ruins of her waterfront home in Makoko, frying dough in sizzling oil for sale. She was resigned to her loss.

Kpetosi said that she woke to the sound of bulldozers on Jan. 9, when her house was torn down. Now she and her five children are left with no shelter.

Kpetosi, from a family of fishermen, said that she built the home on the lagoon — two rooms on stilts made of bamboo and aluminium sheets — last year.

She said they received no compensation for its destruction, and the government is making no plans for their resettlement, even though the law requires it. In a 2017 ruling by the Lagos High Court seen by the AP, the judge ruled that mass eviction without resettlement violated the "fundamental right to protection from cruel and degrading treatment."

"We sleep in the open," Kpetosi said. "When it rained, it rained on my children and me."

For more on Africa and development:https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP'sstandardsfor working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas atAP.org.

byNeo

in Celebrity, Lifestyle, Politics, ShowBiz, Sport

January 31, 2026

Mass evictions in Lagos displace thousands including baby twins now living in a canoe

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Victor Ahansu was barely awake with his wife and baby twins before the grinding sound of bulldozers...

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