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Some new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers started working before passing background checks and had problems in their past. ICE announced in January that it completed an unprecedented hiring spree, adding 12,000 officers and agents to double its force. Their mission is to help carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. But the speed with which they were brought on to the payroll, to jobs considered important for national security, has raised alarm. The Associated Press found one new ICE hire had filed for bankruptcy twice and worked for six law enforcement agencies in three years. Another was accused of lying in a police report to justify a felony charge against an innocent woman. A third quit his only prior policing job after three weeks.

Some new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers started working before passing background checks and had problems in their past. ICE announced in January that it completed an unprecedented hiring spree, adding 12,000 officers and agents to double its force. Their mission is to help carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. But the speed with which they were brought on to the payroll, to jobs considered important for national security, has raised alarm. The Associated Press found one new ICE hire had filed for bankruptcy twice and worked for six law enforcement agencies in three years. Another was accused of lying in a police report to justify a felony charge against an innocent woman. A third quit his only prior policing job after three weeks.

President Donald Trump is more overtly leaning into some of the spoils of his office in his second term, drawing comparisons to French Queen Marie Antoinette from political opponents. He has celebrated renderings of his $400 million White House ballroom even during the war in Iran and a partial government shutdown. His administration is pushing ahead with plans to build a 250-foot Triumphal Arch near the Lincoln Memorial. Democrats say Trump is more interested in the gilded trappings of the presidency than in everyday Americans' concerns about affordability. The White House says the projects “will benefit generations of future presidents and American visitors.�

New Jersey Democrat Analilia Mejía has won a special election to fill the U.S. House seat that was vacated by Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill after she was voted into that office. Mejía defeated Republican Joe Hathaway. Mejía is a former head of the Working Families Alliance and was backed by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. She emerged from a crowded primary in February and cast the race as a test of President Donald Trump’s leadership. She criticized his pardons of people convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes and faulted him for freezing funds authorized by Congress. Hathaway cast Mejía as too far left to represent the suburban district.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional subcommittee on Thursday held a roundtable discussion on the potential of artificial intelligence, which too…

The Artemis II astronauts who ignited a lunar renaissance are giving high marks to their moonship for its performance during reentry — especially the heat shield. They held their first news conference Thursday since returning to Earth. Speaking from Houston, the three Americans and one Canadian said their lunar flyby puts NASA in a better position to land a crew on the moon in just two years and set up an eventual moon base. The first lunar crew in more than a half-century launched April 1 and became the most distant travelers ever from Earth as they whipped around the moon's far side.

Minnesota officials are pushing forward with investigations of federal law enforcement officers involved in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. is being sought on two counts of aggravated assault. He is accused of pointing his service weapon at people in a car on a Minneapolis highway. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is investigating whether Morgan acted outside his authority as a federal officer, and a warrant is out for his arrest. Minnesota has sued the Trump administration to provide evidence in cases involving shootings by federal officers during the immigration surge.