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From the spacecraft’s observations, scientists discovered that magnetic fields with both north and south polarity are currently present at the sun’s south pole. This mishmash of magnetism is expected to last only a short time during the solar maximum before the magnetic field flips.

Once that happens, a single polarity should slowly build up over time at the poles as the sun heads toward its quiet solar minimum phase, according to ESA.

“How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood, so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective,” said Sami Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and lead scientist for Solar Orbiter’s PHI instrument, which is mapping the sun’s surface magnetic field.

Scientists have enjoyed close-up images of the sun before, but before now, they have all been captured from around the sun’s equator by spacecraft and observatories orbiting along a plane similar to Earth’s path around the sun.

But Solar Orbiter’s journey through the cosmos included close flybys of Venus that helped tilt the spacecraft’s orbit, allowing it to see higher-than-normal latitudes on the sun.

The newly released images were taken in late March, when Solar Orbiter was 15 degrees below the sun’s equator, and then a few days later when it was 17 degrees below the equator — a high-enough angle for the probe to directly see the sun’s south pole.

“We didn’t know what exactly to expect from these first observations — the sun’s poles are literally terra incognita,” Solanki said in a statement.

Solar Orbiter was launched in February 2020. The European-led mission is being operated jointly with NASA.

In the coming years, Solar Orbiter’s path is expected to tilt even further, bringing even more of the sun’s south pole into direct view. As such, the best views may be yet to come, according to ESA.

“These data will transform our understanding of the sun’s magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity,” said Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist.

WASHINGTON — As Republicans barrel toward a critical deadline this summer to lift the debt ceiling, they say there’s no “Plan B” to avert an economically disastrous default if they fail to pass the massive bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda in time.

Congressional Republicans are eyeing increasing the debt limit by $4 trillion to $5 trillion so the government can keep borrowing to meet the country’s obligations. It’s part of their broader domestic policy package, which the Senate needs to pass before it can go back through the House and ultimately to Trump’s desk for his signature. And the GOP only has three votes to spare in both chambers.

“There is no Plan B,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday when asked by NBC News if he has a backup plan for the debt limit. “It’s Plan A. We have to get it done. Failure is not an option.”

It’s a risky gamble by GOP leaders, who are putting all their chips on passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by the debt ceiling deadline.

“We’re going to get reconciliation done,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said when asked what the party’s fallback plan is on the debt ceiling. (Reconciliation refers to the budget process Republicans are using to pass their bill, which allows them to bypass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate and cut Democrats out of the process.)

The Treasury Department has urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling “by mid-July” to safely avoid default. The Congressional Budget Office projected this week that the deadline may be later, “between mid-August and the end of September,” although that won’t be official unless the Treasury Department agrees.

If Republicans fail to pass their sprawling bill in time, they would need to negotiate with Democrats to pass a standalone debt limit extension through the 60-vote process in the Senate.

But there have been no negotiations between party leaders on that front, according to Republican and Democratic aides with knowledge of the dynamics. One GOP aide said the party is “full steam ahead on Plan A” and suggested there may still be time to consider a fallback if they absolutely need to.

Some Republicans say it’s a deliberate tactic to drive up the urgency of passing their filibuster-proof bill.

“We should be set an expectation that we’re getting this done in July, and it includes the debt ceiling,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “I think the minute you start talking about a backup plan, you’re going to have a backup plan.”

If Republican leaders eventually decide they want to cut a bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling, it’s unclear what — if anything — Democrats would demand.

Some, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and Rep. Brendan Boyle, of Pennsylvania., have insisted on abolishing the debt limit entirely in order to prevent the full faith and credit of the United States from being used as leverage in policy negotiations. That’s an idea Trump recently endorsed.

“I am very pleased to announce that, after all of these years, I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren on SOMETHING,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “The Debt Limit should be entirely scrapped to prevent an Economic catastrophe.”

But there’s scant support within the GOP for it, as Republicans have found success using it to extract concessions from Democratic presidents in the past.

There’s no indication that Democrats would respond in kind this year if Republicans came to them and asked for their votes on the debt ceiling.

“I’m not debating hypotheticals,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said when asked what he’d want in exchange.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will aim to eliminate existing limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, a move that would curb the agency’s ability to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news conference that Biden-era carbon pollution standards for power plants “suffocate” the economy in order to protect the environment. Zeldin, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in January, stated that the agency’s announcement was a huge step forward in energy dominance for the U.S., while promising that no power plants would emit more than they already do. Currently, the power sector accounts for a quarter of all U.S. emissions, according to the latest EPA emissions data.

Zeldin also said the EPA plans to weaken Biden-era regulations on mercury emissions from power plants.

Environmental advocates say the EPA’s proposal is an escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing push against climate action across federal agencies, including at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Weather Service. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized the most stringent carbon pollution standards for power plants to date in an effort to tackle the climate crisis — but now, those rules face an uncertain future.

Gina McCarthy, a former EPA Administrator under President Joe Biden, called Zeldin’s announcement a “political play” that defies “decades of science and policy review” in a statement on Wednesday.

“By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,” McCarthy said.

Jill Tauber, the vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice, a nonprofit currently suing the Trump administration over several environmental rollbacks said: “Eliminating pollution standards from the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States flies in the face of what the law requires, what the science tells us, and what we’re seeing every day.”

Power plants in the U.S. are a huge contributor to global carbon emissions. A report published by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law found that if the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter in the world.

Under the first Trump administration, the EPA rolled back several Obama-era greenhouse gas standards on power plants, but this recent announcement marks the first time the agency has suggested outright repeals. Zeldin’s move on power plants follows his promise in March to tackle the “climate change religion” by reconsidering or repealing 31 regulations surrounding tailpipe emissions, coal ash regulations and oil and gas wastewater management.

The proposed rule, which will now move into its comment period, will face scrutiny from legal advocates and environmental nonprofits like Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which say the EPA is obligated to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by law — citing seminal cases like the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA lawsuit, which determined that greenhouse gases must be regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act.

“We’ll be watching closely to see if the EPA proceeds with repealing these life-saving standards based on a legal theory that doesn’t pass the laugh test,” said Meredith Hawkins, the federal climate legal director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The NRDC stands ready to defend the public’s right to breathe in court if needed.”

Cutting historic limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants would impact global climate change, but it could also cause ripple effects on human health and the economy.

Harvey Reiter, an energy and utilities lawyer and a law professor at George Washington University, says that if the EPA moves forward with its planned repeals, he expects some energy companies and utilities that have retooled operations and made long-term investments in renewable energy to sue the Trump administration.

“The biggest impacts of the proposed rules are uncertainty and instability,” he said. “Nobody knows what to do next. It makes investment decisions harder. It makes decisions about hiring, staff and employees harder. It creates a lot of uncertainty in the market.”

Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are not just a climate issue. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide as well as other air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury and fine particulate matter, which are linked to increased risk of respiratory issues and cardiovascular disease. Regulating carbon emissions from power plants broadly reduces other air pollution for communities living near power plants, said Laura Kate Bender, the vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association.

“It works both ways. On the one hand, power plants burning fossil fuels contribute to climate change and cause health problems at the same time,” said Bender. “And then climate change, in many cases, contributes to extreme heat, or more wildfire smoke, or more ozone smogs. Climate change is a health emergency, and cutting carbon in the power sector is a critical tool in the toolbox for fighting climate change.”

Jurors in the trial against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein said Wednesday they unanimously found him guilty of sexually assaulting one woman and not guilty of assaulting another more than a decade ago.

But jurors at Weinstein’s retrial told the judge they were unable to reach a verdict on allegations he assaulted a third woman and Judge Curtis Farber asked the jurors to continue deliberating Thursday before sending them home for the day.

Weinstein, 73, had denied all the charges and his lawyers insisted the sexual encounters with his three accusers were “transactional” and “consensual.”

The jury weighing the evidence against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in his New York retrial reached a partial verdict after five days of deliberation.

Weinstein, 73, who has denied all the allegations, was charged with sexually assaulting three women more than a decade ago.

Weinstein found himself on trial again after the New York state Court of Appeals last year overturned his landmark 2020 conviction for sexually abusing young women, a trial that defined the #MeToo movement and helped turn the Oscar-winning producer into a pariah. The appeals court found that the judge in that trial had improperly allowed testimony against the former Miramax chief based on allegations that were not part of the case.

During the six-week retrial, jurors heard testimony from a former “Project Runway” production assistant, Miriam Haley, and actress Jessica Mann, both of whom testified in the 2020 trial. New to the retrial was testimony from a third accuser, Kaja Sokola, a former runway model from Poland.

Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that the sexual encounters with his three accusers were all “transactional” and “consensual.”

“If this person wasn’t Harvey Weinstein, would we even be here?” Weinstein defense attorney Arthur Aidala asked during his closing argument in accusing the women of being grifters.

Prosecutors, however, said Weinstein preyed on young women trying to make it in Hollywood, sometimes repeatedly, and threatened to wreck their careers if they talked.

“He never had any interest in their careers,” Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg told the jury. “He had an interest in their bodies. And he was going to have their bodies and touch their bodies whether they had wanted him to or not.”

Just as in 2020, Weinstein did not testify at his retrial. But before the jurors announced they had reached a verdict, he told a FOX5 New York reporter that he acted “immorally” and regretted hurting his wife and family, but never did anything “illegal.”

“I put so many friends through this and hurt people … that were close to me, by the way, by actions that were stupid,” he said. “But never illegal, never criminal, never anything.”

Much of the evidence that resulted in Weinstein being convicted five years ago of the third-degree rape of one woman and a first-degree criminal sex act against another woman was reintroduced at his retrial.

Just as before, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape based on complaints by Haley and Mann. But this time, Weinstein also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of first-degree criminal sexual act in the alleged sexual assault of Sokola.

Sokola told the court that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006 at a Manhattan hotel when she was 19 years old. But the alleged abuse began in 2002, when she was 16 and Weinstein forced her to masturbate him, she said.

“Her first sexual experience was the defendant forcing himself on her,” Blumberg said.

During his three-hour closing, Aidala tried to poke holes in the testimony of the three accusers. He suggested they were coached by prosecutors to describe the sexual encounters, which he likened at one point to “naked twister,” in a sinister light.

“They did it all to get the original sinner, the poster boy of the MeToo movement,” Aidala said.

The #MeToo hashtag took off in 2017 following reports in The New York Times and The New Yorker that detailed allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein that went back decades. It helped inspire a reckoning in Hollywood and beyond around sexual harassment.

Weinstein, Aidala added, made for an easy target. “He’s a fat dude — sorry, Harvey,” he said while the former producer looked on.

Aidala insisted the encounters were all “transactional” and that all three women believed Weinstein could help their careers.

“It’s not really a casting couch I thought it was,” Aidala said. “It’s different now. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s the one being used.”

Blumberg painted a far different picture during the prosecution’s closing remarks.

“I want to remind you why we are here,” she said. “Because he raped three people.”

Sokola and Haley both claimed that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on them in separate incidents in 2006. Mann told the court the producer raped her in 2013.

Weinstein, Blumberg said, “had tremendous control over Hollywood. He spoke, people listened. He decided who was in and who was out.”

While Blumberg spoke, Weinstein, seated in a wheelchair, appeared to be listening intently.

“Remember, it’s not the person sitting here today in a wheelchair but this man, in Hollywood, who had the power and was in control,” Blumberg said.

Regardless of the verdict, Weinstein will most likely be returned to California where he has to serve a 16-year sentence for a 2022 rape conviction. His lawyers filed an appeal for that conviction in 2024 that is still in process.

During his latest trial, Weinstein was allowed to stay at Bellevue Hospital where he was being treated for a host of serious health issues.

Back in October, two sources told NBC News that Weinstein had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, an uncommon form of bone marrow cancer.

Weinstein was a Hollywood titan in the 1990s and 2000s when he and his brother Bob ran Miramax, the distributor of critically acclaimed independent movies like “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “The Crying Game,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Clerks,” and box office successes like “Chicago” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

In 1999, Weinstein won a best picture Oscar as one of the producers of “Shakespeare in Love.” And in the early 2010s, his second distribution label, The Weinstein Company, won back-to-back best picture Oscars for “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist.”

But as Weinstein collected accolades, he was dogged by rumors that he preyed on his leading ladies and other women in the industry. By the time he was arrested, more than 80 women had accused him of sexual assault or harassment going back decades.

Just as he did at his trials, Weinstein doggedly denied the claims and insisted the encounters were consensual.

The matchup for New Jersey’s gubernatorial election is set, but looming over the contest will be a name that won’t be on any ballot: Donald Trump.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who secured the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary, is already running ads that attack Republican Jack Ciattarelli for his ties to the president. Ciattarelli, who was also the GOP’s nominee in 2021, romped to victory in his party’s primary after successfully cultivating Trump’s support.

In focusing on Trump, Democrats have history on their side. New Jersey voters have a strong tendency to elect governors from the party that doesn’t control the White House. This has been the case in all but two races over the past four decades.

Plus, Democrats have run this playbook successfully in New Jersey before. Eight years ago, during Trump’s first term, Gov. Phil Murphy scored a 14-point win over Republican Kim Guadagno. Murphy had sought to tie Guadagno to Trump, whose approval rating in New Jersey that fall stood at just 33%. (Murphy was also aided by the cratering popularity of outgoing Republican Gov. Chris Christie.)

Republicans are counting on the Trump factor playing differently this time around. And, at least for now, there are some key variables they can point to with optimism.

One is the result of last year’s presidential race, when Trump lost New Jersey by 6 points to Kamala Harris. That was a far cry from his 16-point loss in 2020 and his 14-point defeat in 2016. From the outset of the 2017 gubernatorial race, it was obvious that Trump would be a major electoral liability for the GOP. That’s not as clear this time around.

In fact, a PIX11/Emerson College poll conducted a few weeks ago showed Trump with a 47% job approval rating in New Jersey. That’s far higher than he fared during the 2017 campaign, or for that matter, at any point during his first term. It’s also higher than the 40% approval rating for Murphy, who is term-limited and provides Ciattarelli with his own opportunity to tie his opponent to an unpopular leader.

That said, there hasn’t been any polling in the state since mid-May. It’s possible Trump’s standing has shifted in response to the unrest in Los Angeles. It’s also possible it will shift for other reasons between now and November. For now, though, it appears to be in a different place than in 2017.

A key question is whether Trump’s improved performance in New Jersey last year signals a broader shift in the electorate away from the Democrats and toward the GOP. His gains came heavily from nonwhite voters, particularly Hispanics and Asian Americans, mirroring what happened nationally. But many of these voters had either not voted before or had done so infrequently. Did they come out only because of Trump himself or are they converts to the GOP as a whole?

The early indicators from elections this year have not been very encouraging for Republicans, who have suffered a series of defeats amid high participation from Democratic-friendly demographics that Republicans haven’t been able to match. But those off-year elections have been relatively low-wattage affairs. New Jersey’s gubernatorial race will attract much more interest and overall turnout, giving the GOP a better shot at leveling the playing field.

Republicans can take some heart from voter registration statistics. Since last November, the number of registered Republicans in the state has remained flat, while Democrats have shed just over 60,000 enrollees. This is a reversal from 2017, when Democrats were outpacing Republicans in new registrations.

There’s also some history Republicans can point to. Democrats have controlled the New Jersey governorship for two consecutive terms now, with Sherrill seeking to make it three in a row. This is the sixth time since 1981 that a party has tried for a third straight term. In the previous cases, they all failed to win it.

MIAMI — After four months with President Donald Trump at the helm, Reinerio de la Torre says he’s waiting to see if the president fulfills his promises.

The 56-year-old electrician, who came from Cuba 18 years ago, voted for Trump in November. But he says the president has gone too far with immigration, and he doesn’t like to see hardworking people being deported. De la Torre also disagrees with the partial travel ban on Cuba, saying “visas should be decided case by case.”

“But it’s still early in the presidency and we have to give him time to see what he does,” de la Torre said outside Hialeah’s City Hall, where roosters were heard crowing in the background. The street that runs across from it was recently named after the president.

Patricia, 52, who declined to give her last name, echoed de la Torre’s sentiment. “He is deporting innocent people, and I don’t like the tariffs, but maybe at the end it will be for the better,” she said.

About 70% of Cuban Americans living in Florida voted for Trump in the 2024 election, and his support in Hialeah, a working-class city in Miami-Dade County with a robust Cuban American population, was one of the strongest. Trump held a rally here one year before the election and the rise in support he got helped him become the first Republican president to win Miami-Dade County since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

While Trump’s support among Cuban Americans remains strong and few seem to regret their vote, worries over immigration policies have begun to creep up among the multiple voters NBC News spoke to, especially among more recent arrivals.

Cuban Americans began flocking toward Trump in big numbers during his first presidency, as he tightened U.S. sanctions against Cuba, banning flights to most of the island and restricting remittances. A hard-line policy is welcomed by many Cuban Americans who fled the communist-run island.

A historic wave has brought well over half a million of Cuban migrants to the U.S. since 2022. Cubans had long been allowed to become U.S. residents fairly easily through the Cuban Adjustment Act, but now Trump’s immigration policies have left some Cuban immigrants in legal limbo.

Trump also revoked the legal status of migrants who entered the U.S. through the Biden-era CBP One app, which temporarily allowed migrants to live in the U.S., and ended the parole program that gave temporary legal status to 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

While the U.S. has been deporting Cubans regularly since 2017, some recent deportations have surprised some. News of families being separated or a former political prisoner’s parole being revoked have alarmed some in the community.

Trump administration’s partial travel ban on Cuba now makes it impossible for Cubans to gain a visa to visit family, something that was already cumbersome since the U.S. stopped processing visas at the Havana embassy in 2017. For most visas, Cubans had to travel to a third country, often Guyana, which is out of reach for most Cubans.

But Cuban Americans voted for Trump for more than hard-line policies against Cuba, and most seemed content with his presidency thus far.

Mirta Marino, 78, a retired bank worker, said, “Trump is making tough policy decisions, but they are necessary to fix the country.”

She said many Cubans come to this country claiming political persecution but frequently visit the island after they become U.S. residents. Marino, who came in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift, said she never returned. She also believes some people come to this country and take advantage of benefits without working.

A few miles away in the city of Doral, known for its concentration of Venezuelans, many patrons at the popular El Arepazo restaurant are still firmly supporting Trump as well.

Rodrigo Torres, 22, a business owner, said he feels bad for all the Venezuelans affected by Trump’s immigration policies, but he said it helps to get the criminals out of the country.

About half of the people deported in February did not have criminal records and more than half of those in ICE detention have no criminal charges or convictions, according to ICE data.

“There are people getting deported for no reason,” Torres said. “But I would still vote for Trump over Harris.”

Like in Hialeah, a solid majority in Doral voted for Trump in 2024. The city is home to one of the president’s resorts, where he held events and rallies before the election.

Venezuelans may be the group most impacted by Trump’s immigration policies. Since he was campaigning, Trump regularly talked about Venezuelan gangs in the U.S.

“They’re sending us our criminals from Caracas, Venezuela,” Trump said at a July 2024 rally in Doral, claiming Venezuela had sent “all of their drug dealers, their criminals, and most of their prisoners into our country.”

Once in office, Trump used an 18th-century wartime law to send hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, alleging they had ties to the gang Tren de Aragua — something many of the migrants’ families and attorneys have disputed. The men have not been allowed to disprove any gang affiliation or contact attorneys or families. Trump also revoked special legal protections known as Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Venezuelans who had been living and working legally in the U.S.

Outside El Arepazo, Carolina Villalobo said she did not vote in the presidential election because she is not yet a citizen, but said she never liked Trump.

“He is very aggressive,” she said. “I agree the country has to be cleaned out and the criminals should be deported, but it should be done with more tact.”

But among her extended family, including siblings and nephews, she’s alone.

“My entire family continues supporting Trump,” Villalobo said.

‘They certainly are feeling the pressure’

The firm support for Trump in South Florida is not surprising to Fernand Amandi, a Democratic consultant and pollster in Miami.

“I haven’t seen a single person who voted for Trump in November of 2024 come out and say: I made a mistake,” he said. “What I have seen is a tremendous amount of rationalization, justification and unwillingness to admit that their votes have contributed to this situation that is now impacting a lot of families and a lot of people directly.”

In order to have a substantial number of voters change their minds, Amandi said, there would have to be a situation in which the economy hits rock bottom and it’s personally affecting them.

Regardless, Democrats are already taking jabs at Republican lawmakers in South Florida that are up for re-election in November 2026. Recently, a group called Keep Them Honest launched an ad campaign on Miami highways and radio criticizing Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar over their support for Trump.

Salazar has been publicly critical about some of Trump’s immigration policies and all three lawmakers have a meeting scheduled with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem this week.

“They certainly are feeling pressure, they certainly are feeling some backlash, but I’m not quite sure yet it’s to the point where it has made them feel like they are in existential political danger,” said Amandi of the Florida Republican members of Congress. “We see it in their lack of engagement or confrontation with the Trump administration directly … they’re not criticizing the policies or Trump, saying this is out of control and unacceptable.”

U.S. immigration officials said they detained Khaby Lame, one of the world’s most popular TikTok personalities, last week and told him to leave the country after they said he “overstayed the terms of his visa.”

The Italian-Senegalese creator, whose real name is Seringe Khabane Lame, entered the U.S. on April 30, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was granted “voluntary departure” on Friday after he was detained by agents at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

Lame did not respond to requests for comment made by NBC News. He has not publicly commented on the reported detainment and subsequent departure.

Lame has continued to post on social media in the days since he reportedly left the U.S. His most recent Instagram story appears to have been posted from Brazil.

Sharks Celebrities Mgmt, which is among the listed agency representatives for the creator, claimed the ICE report is “fake news,” telling NBC News in an email that Lame “did not visit the USA this month to begin with.” They said the “the name mentioned is not his birth name.”

It’s unclear when Lame was last in the U.S. but he did attend the Met Gala in May.

Lame has 162.2 million followers on TikTok, where he grew a massive following during the pandemic after being laid off from a factory job in Italy. The 25-year-old, who is also a goodwill ambassador for the humanitarian aid organization UNICEF, is known for his comedic videos that often use the hashtag, “learnfromkhaby.”

The news comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration in the U.S., including efforts to detain travelers arriving at the border, including airports.

In recent months, social media users have recounted their interactions with immigration officials and shared their fears about traveling back to the U.S. during a period of heightened vigilance at U.S. entry points and borders.

Lame is one of the more high-profile people to date to be detained. Last month, Hasan Piker, one of the top political pundits on Twitch, said that he was stopped and questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport after a trip to France.

The Turkish American streamer, who is vocal on a number of political and social issues, said he was asked about his views, including whether he supports President Donald Trump. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said at the time that “claims that his political beliefs triggered the inspection are baseless.”

Immigration raids have also ramped up across the U.S., including in Los Angeles, where protests have continued for days as demonstrators push back on the Trump administration’s aggressive round-up efforts.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he planned to start “phasing out” the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the hurricane season and that states would receive less federal aid to respond to natural disasters.

Trump also said he planned to distribute disaster relief funds directly from the president’s office.

“We’re going to do it much differently,” Trump said in a briefing at the White House in response to a question about when he planned to eliminate FEMA and what his message was to governors regarding states bearing more disaster-relief costs.

“We’re going to give out less money,” he said.

“We’re going to give it out directly. It’ll be from the president’s office. We’ll have somebody here, could be Homeland Security.”

In an apparent reference to his plans to wind down the disaster-relief agency, Trump added: “I’d say after the hurricane season we’ll start phasing it out.”

The U.S. hurricane season officially began on June 1 and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last month that this year’s season would be above normal with as many as 10 hurricanes.

Trump’s comments were among the most direct to date indicating his intention to significantly downsize if not outright eliminate FEMA, which has an annual budget of around $30 billion and employed more than 20,000 people, including reservists, prior to layoffs earlier this year.

Distributing funds directly from the White House would also mark a departure from current protocols, under which FEMA oversees the dissemination of financial aid to the states following the president’s declaration of a disaster.

Also at the briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that FEMA “fundamentally needs to go away as it exists” and that governors were being encouraged to work together to respond to disasters.

“We’re building communication and mutual aid agreements among states … so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding,” Noem said.

FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

HONG KONG — A life-size Labubu figure has been sold in China for more than $170,000, a record for the highly sought-after toothy monster toy boosted by celebrities.

The 4-foot-tall mint green doll, whose price included a 15% commission, was traded in Beijing on Tuesday at what was billed as the world’s first auction dedicated to Labubu collectibles. Event organizer Yongle Auction said the life-size doll, which is made of hard plastic PVC, is the only one of its kind.

The auction sold all 48 lots for total sales of 3.73 million yuan, or about $520,000, with nearly 1,000 collectors making bids either in person or online, Yongle said in a statement Wednesday. The event came amid a global frenzy over Labubu, which is sold in “blind boxes” by Chinese toy company Pop Mart.

The “intense” bidding showed the “growing momentum of pop art in the auction market,” Yongle said, adding that it will start holding Labubu auctions “regularly.”

The Labubu item that received the second-highest bid was another life-size figure that sold for more than $130,000 and measured 5 feet tall. Coming in third was a set from a series called “Three Wise Labubu” — one doll crossing its arms, one making a peekaboo gesture, and one covering its mouth — that sold for more than $80,000 including commission.

The success of Labubu at auction reflects the “growing presence” of art toys in the market and the progress of Hong Kong and mainland China in setting trends in contemporary culture, said Felix Kwok, a registered auctioneer of China and the founder of Art and Culture Exchange.

“In a somewhat stagnant art auction market, this development is both stimulating and indicative,” he told NBC News via messaging app.

Created in 2015 by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, Labubu is one of “The Monsters” in his children’s book series inspired by Nordic mythology. With high, pointed ears and serrated teeth, the small monster is “kind-hearted and always wants to help, but often accidentally achieves the opposite,” according to Pop Market.

Labubu dolls are often sold in “blind boxes,” sealed packages whose contents are revealed only upon opening. In the U.S. store, one blind box from a recent collection retails for $27.99, while a set of six costs $167.94, though prices can more double on resale sites such as eBay.

The dolls have also been popularized by celebrities such as Rihanna and Lisa from the South Korean girl group Blackpink, both of whom have been spotted sporting Labubu charms on their handbags.

Despite the global trade disruptions caused by U.S. tariffs, fans have continued to line up at Pop Market shops across the world to buy Labubu dolls. Last month, the Chinese retailer even paused Labubu sales in all 16 shops in the U.K. to avoid safety issues following reports of disorderly lines and fights.

In the first three months of this year, Pop Market’s overseas revenue rose almost 480% overall compared with a year earlier, and nearly 900% in the Americas, according to its quarterly report.

As Labubu’s popularity soars globally, Wang Ning, the founder of Pop Market, became $8 billion richer between 2024 and 2025, a fivefold increase in his wealth, according to Forbes.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — A bison gored a man Tuesday after a large group of visitors got too close to the animal in Yellowstone National Park, officials said.

The 30-year-old from Randolph, New Jersey, was treated for minor injuries after being gored around 9:45 a.m. in the Old Faithful area, according to a park statement.

Park officials didn’t release the man’s name or condition, saying what happened was under investigation and no more information was available for release.

He was the second person gored by a bison already this spring in Yellowstone. A 47-year-old Cape Coral, Florida, man had minor injuries after being gored in the Lake Village area May 7.

Bison gored at least two people in Yellowstone last year including an 83-year-old South Carolina woman who was seriously injured. A bison gored an Arizona woman in the park in 2023.

Yellowstone bison injured two people in 2022.

Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other wild animal. They can run up to 35 mph, faster than the men’s world record in the 100-meter dash.

Standing up to 6 feet tall and weighing up to 2,000 pounds, they are North America’s biggest land animal.

Park regulations require visitors to keep at least 25 yards away from bison and other large herbivores and 100 yards away from wolves and bears.