By BRIAN SLODYSKO, ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is examining the handling of the mortgage fraud investigation into Sen. Adam Schiff, including the potential involvement of people who claimed to be acting at the behest or direction of two Trump administration officials who have been pushing the probe of the California Democrat, according to a document reviewed by The Associated Press.

Federal authorities involved in the Schiff investigation in Maryland interviewed a Republican congressional candidate on Thursday who has promoted the mortgage fraud allegations against the lawmaker and quizzed her about any communications she may have had with Justice Department official Ed Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. The interview came after the woman received a subpoena seeking information about communications she may have had with people claiming to be working at the direction of Pulte and Martin.

Christine Bish, a real estate agent who is running for a congressional seat in California, told the AP that she was prepared to speak to investigators about her own yearslong effort to draw attention to Schiff’s mortgages. But authorities instead were focused on potential interactions she has had with Pulte and Martin, Bish said.

“I expected to be asked questions, a lot of questions, about, ’How did you come about investigating Adam Schiff and what were your findings?” Bish said. “What they wanted to know was if I was in communication with Ed Martin or Director Pulte — and I was not.”

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Bish said she kept trying to return to the Schiff allegations, but that the officials “are trying to, in my opinion, investigate the investigators.”

The revelation that authorities are turning their attention to the handling of the Schiff investigation is likely to bring fresh scrutiny to the already criticized efforts by Pulte and Martin to investigate Trump political foes for mortgage fraud.

In recent months, Bish had been contacted by multiple times by Robert Bowes, who worked in the first Trump administration and purported to work for Pulte, according to a person familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concern about retribution.

Bowes, who is listed on the subpoena, asked Bish to investigate the mortgages of multiple people, the person said. On one occasion, Bowes asked Bish to serve as a source to a national news outlet he claimed was working on a negative story about mortgages held by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the person said.

Bowes did not respond to a request for comment Thursday

Pulte did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. A message seeking comment was also left with a spokesperson for Martin. The Justice Department declined to comment.

In August, the department named Martin as a special prosecutor to help conduct investigations into Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Prosecutors have separately issued subpoenas as part of a mortgage fraud investigation into Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor whom Trump has sought to fire.

Lawyers for all three have denied the allegations.

The investigation into Schiff is being conducted by prosecutors in Maryland, though the status of the inquiry is unclear. The investigation into James resulted in criminal charges last month in Virginia. She has pleaded not guilty and, in a filing this week, her lawyers decried what they said was “outrageous” government conduct that resulted in her indictment.

Bish told the AP that she previously submitted her work on Schiff to congressional ethics officials, but that nothing came of it. After Pulte put out a call for mortgage fraud tips, she resubmitted her research to the agency he leads as well as the FBI. Pulte called her and left a voicemail asking for more information, she said, but Bish said she has never had a conversation with him.

The subpoena Bish received seeks any communications she may have had with Pulte or any persons claiming to be working at his “behest,” including anyone claiming to be Pulte’s chief of staff. It also seeks information about communications with anyone “claiming to be working for or at the direction of” the Justice Department or “anyone claiming to be acting at the direction or request of” Martin.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to end its monthslong deployment of National Guard troops to help police the nation’s capital.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that President Donald Trump’s military takeover in Washington, D.C., illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the district. She put her order on hold for 21 days to allow for an appeal, however.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to challenge the Guard deployments. He asked the judge to bar the White House from deploying Guard troops without the mayor’s consent while the lawsuit plays out.

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Cobb found that while the president does have authority to protect federal functioning and property, he can’t unilaterally deploy the D.C. National Guard to help with crime control as he sees fit or call in troops from other states.

After her ruling, Schwalb called for troops to be sent home. “Normalizing the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement sets a dangerous precedent, where the President can disregard states’ independence and deploy troops wherever and whenever he wants — with no check on his military power,” Schwalb said.

The White House, though, stood by the deployment.

“President Trump is well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C., to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks,” said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.”

In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the Secretary of the Army. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols.

It’s unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said Guard troops are likely to remain in the city through at least next summer.

“Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand,” they wrote.

Government lawyers have said Congress empowered the president to control the D.C. National Guard’s operation. “There is no sensible reason for an injunction unwinding this arrangement now, particularly since the District’s claims have no merit,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.

Trump’s Guard deployments have led to other court challenges, including in Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Supreme Court is also weighing the administration’s emergency appeal to be allowed to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area in support of the immigration crackdown. A lower court has indefinitely prevented the deployment.

In Washington, the Trump administration deputized Guard troops to serve as special U.S. Marshal Service deputies. Schwalb’s office said out-of-state troops are impermissibly operating as a federal military police force in D.C., inflaming tensions with residents and diverting local police resources.

“Every day that this lawless incursion continues, the District suffers harm to its sovereign authority to conduct local law enforcement as it chooses,” his office’s attorneys wrote.

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.

The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

Since taking office for a second time in January, Trump has systematically reversed former President Joe Biden’s focus on slowing climate change to pursue what the Republican calls U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country.

Even before it was released, the offshore drilling plan has been met with strong opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is eyeing a 2028 presidential run and has emerged as a leading Trump critic. Newsom pronounced the idea “dead on arrival” in a social media post. The proposal also is likely to draw bipartisan opposition in Florida. Tourism and access to clean beaches are key parts of the economy in both states.

FILE – Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif., May 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Plans to allow drilling off California, Alaska and Florida’s coast

The administration’s plan proposes six offshore lease sales off the coast of California.

It also calls for new drilling off the coast of Florida in areas at least 100 miles from that state’s shore. The area targeted for leasing is adjacent to an area in the Central Gulf of Mexico that already contains thousands of wells and hundreds of drilling platforms.

The five-year plan also would compel more than 20 lease sales off the coast of Alaska, including a newly designated area known as the High Arctic, more than 200 miles offshore in the Arctic Ocean.

All offshore areas “with the potential to generate jobs, new revenue and additional production to advance America’s energy dominance should be considered for inclusion,” the American Petroleum Institute and other groups said in a joint letter to the Trump administration in June.

The groups cited California’s history as an oil-producing state. “Undiscovered resources could be readily produced given the array of existing infrastructure in the area, particularly in southern California,” the letter said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Opposition from California and Florida

Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and Trump ally, helped persuade Trump officials to drop a similar offshore plan in 2018 when he was governor. Last week, Scott and fellow Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody’ co-sponsored a bill to maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling in the state that Trump signed in his first term.

“As Floridians, we know how vital our beautiful beaches and coastal waters are to our state’s economy, environment and way of life,″ Scott said in a statement. “I will always work to keep Florida’s shores pristine and protect our natural treasures for generations to come.”

A Newsom spokesman said Trump officials had not formally shared the plan, but said “expensive and riskier offshore drilling would put our communities at risk and undermine the economic stability of our coastal economies.”

California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that helped spark the modern environmental movement. While there have been no new federal leases offered since the mid-1980s, drilling from existing platforms continues.

Newsom expressed support for greater offshore controls after a 2021 spill off Huntington Beach and has backed a congressional effort to ban new offshore drilling on the West Coast.

A Texas-based company, with support from the Trump administration, is seeking to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara damaged by a 2015 oil spill. The administration has hailed the plan by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. as the kind of project Trump wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term reversing former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.

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Environmental and economic concerns over oil spills

Democratic lawmakers, including California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, warned that opening vast coastlines to new offshore drilling “would devastate coastal economies, jeopardize our national security, ravage coastal ecosystems, and put millions of Americans’ health and safety at risk.”

Oil spills “not only cause irreparable environmental damage, but also suppress the value of coastal homes, harm tourism economies and weaken coastal infrastructure,” the lawmakers said in a letter signed by dozens of Democrats. One disastrous oil spill can cost taxpayers billions in lost revenue, cleanup costs and ecosystem restoration, they said.

Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, called the Trump administration’s latest plan “an oil spill nightmare.”

Coastal communities “depend on healthy oceans for economic security and their cherished way of life,” he said. “We need to protect our coasts from more offshore drilling, not put them up for sale to the oil and gas industry. There’s too much at stake to risk more horrific oil spills that will haunt our coastlines for generations to come.”

By KATHY McCORMACK, Associated Press

It’s the ultimate homecoming photo — a smiling family rushing to reunite with a U.S. Air Force officer in 1973 who spent years as a POW in North Vietnam, his oldest daughter sprinting ahead with her arms outstretched, both feet off the ground.

“Burst of Joy,” the iconic black-and-white image capturing the Stirm family at Travis Air Force Base in California, was published in newspapers throughout the nation. Taken by Associated Press photographer Sal Veder, it won a Pulitzer Prize and has continued to resonate through the years, a symbol of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

On Veterans Day, former Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, seen in the photo in uniform with his back to the camera, died at an assisted living facility in Fairfield, California, his daughter, Lorrie Stirm Kitching, confirmed Thursday. He was 92.

“It’s right in my front foyer,” Kitching, 68, of Mountain View, said of the photo. She was 15 when that moment of her running to hug her father that St. Patrick’s Day was forever preserved.

“Just the feelings of that and the intensity of the feeling will never leave me,” Kitching told the AP in an interview. “It is so deep in my heart, and the joy and the relief that we had our dad back again. It was just truly a very moving reunion for our family, and that feeling has never left me. It’s the same feeling every time I see that picture.

“And every day, how grateful I am that my father was one of the lucky ones and returned home,” she added. That was really a gift.”

Stirm was shot down over North Vietnam

Stirm, a decorated pilot, was serving with the 333rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force in Thailand in 1967. During a bombing mission over North Vietnam that Oct. 27, his F-105 Thunderbird was hit and he was shot three times while parachuting. He was captured immediately upon landing.

He was held captive for 1,966 days in five different POW camps in Hanoi and North Vietnam, including the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” known for torturing and starving its captives, primarily American pilots shot down during bombing raids. Its most famous prisoner was the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, who also was shot down in 1967.

McCain and Stirm had known each other. They shared a wall in solitary confinement and communicated through a tapping code.

“John McCain tapped in this joke. First time Dad laughed in jail,” Kitching said. “I just wish I knew what that joke was,” she said. “I’m sure it was something very ribald.”

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Photo represented heartbreak for Stirm

Stirm, who was 39 when the photo was taken told the AP 20 years later that he had several copies of it, but didn’t display it in his house. He had been handed a “Dear John” letter from his wife, Loretta, by a chaplain upon his release.

“I have changed drastically — forced into a situation where I finally had to grow up,” the letter read in part. “Bob, I feel sure that in your heart you know we can’t make it together — and it doesn’t make sense to be unhappy when you can do something about it. Life is too short.”

Stirm said the photo “brought a lot of notoriety and publicity to me and, unfortunately, the legal situation that I was going to be faced with, and it was kind of unwelcomed.”

The couple divorced a year after Stirm returned from Vietnam and both remarried within six months.

They came together for weddings and other family events. Loretta Adams died in 2010, of cancer. She was 74.

“It hurt really deeply,” Kitching said. “She told him she wanted to make the marriage work. But she was being up front and honest. So every story has two sides, and I know very well just how difficult it is to understand the two sides.”

Stirm retired from the Air Force in 1977 after 25 years of service. He joined Ferry Steel Products, a business his grandfather started in San Francisco. He also had worked as a corporate pilot.