Leadership shakeups at agency tasked with deportations

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, is undergoing a major staff reorganization.

Kenneth Genalo, who had been the acting director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, is retiring and will serve as a special government employee with ICE. Robert Hammer, who has been the acting head of Homeland Security Investigations, will transition to another leadership role at headquarters.

The agency said Marcos Charles will become the new acting head of ERO while Derek Gordon will be the acting head at HSI. ICE also announced a host of other staff changes at various departments within the agency.

ICE said the changes would “help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe.”

Employee charged with trying to give away classified info

An information technology specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency was charged Thursday with attempting to transmit classified information to a representative of a foreign government, the Justice Department said.

Prosecutors say Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Va., was arrested at a location where he had arranged to deposit sensitive records to a person he thought was an official of a foreign government, but who was actually an undercover FBI agent. The identity of the country Laatsch thought he was in communication with was not disclosed, but the Justice Department described it as a friendly, or allied, nation.

The Justice Department said its investigation into Laatsch began in March after officials received a tip that he had offered to provide classified information to another nation. Laatsch wrote in his email that he “did not agree or align with the values of this administration” and was willing to transmit sensitive materials, including intelligence documents, to which he had access, prosecutors said.

U.S. reverses planned closures of mine safety offices

The Trump administration is dropping plans to terminate leases for 34 offices in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the agency responsible for enforcing mine safety laws, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

Earlier this year, the Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump and run by Elon Musk, had targeted federal agencies for spending cuts, including terminating leases for three dozen MSHA offices. Seven of those offices were in Kentucky alone. Ending the MSHA leases had been projected to save $18 million.

White House admits problems in RFK Jr.’s MAHA report

The White House will fix errors in a much-anticipated federal government report spearheaded by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which decried America’s food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs.

Kennedy’s wide-ranging “Make America Healthy Again” report, released last week, cited hundreds of studies, but a closer look by the news organization NOTUS found that some of those studies did not actually exist.

Asked about the report’s problems, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the report will be updated.

Bodies of 5 missing musicians found near Texas border

The bodies of five musicians, members of a Mexican regional music group who had gone missing, were found in the northern city of Reynosa along the Texas border, authorities said on Thursday.

The musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo, which played at parties and local dances in the region, had been reported missing since Sunday.

Tamaulipas state prosecutors, who had been investigating their disappearance, said the men were kidnapped around 10 p.m. that night while traveling in a SUV on the way to a venue where they were hired to play. Their bodies were found on the fringes of Reynosa. Prosecutors said nine suspects believed to be part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has strong presence in the city, have been arrested.

Authorities were not immediately able to say why the men were slain, and did not deny reports by local media that the bodies had been burned.

Tropical Storm Alvin is swirling in the Pacific Ocean

A weather system swirling off the coast of western Mexico has developed into the first tropical storm of the eastern North Pacific hurricane season, forecasters said Thursday.

Tropical Storm Alvin was about 565 miles south-southeast of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

Alvin was expected to strengthen through early today then weaken late tonight. The eastern North Pacific hurricane season runs May 15 to Nov. 30.

Two police officers, 4 Pakistani Taliban killed in a rare raid

Security forces acting on intelligence raided a militant hideout in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, triggering a shootout that left two police officers and four Pakistani Taliban fighters dead, police said Thursday.

The overnight raid was carried out in the Rawalakot district, according to Abdul Jabbar, the police chief in Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and claimed in full by both countries in its entirety.

Ex-judge gets prison for allegedly shooting her former boyfriend

A former magistrate judge in Pennsylvania convicted of shooting and wounding her ex-boyfriend in the head as he slept has been sentenced to 131/2 to 30 years in prison.

Sonya McKnight was convicted last month on attempted homicide and aggravated assault charges.

She resigned her post during Wednesday’s hearing, where the judge told her she was “totally without remorse” for the shooting. McKnight has maintained her innocence, and her attorney said an appeal is ongoing.

— Denver Post wire services