By DAVID FISCHER

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — The man charged with trying to assassinate Donald Trump while he played golf last year in South Florida stood before a group of potential jurors in a Florida courtroom on Monday and said he was “sorry for bringing you all in here.”

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Ryan Routh, wearing a gray sports coat, red tie with white stripes and khaki slacks, is representing himself in the trial that began with jury selection on Monday in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida.

“Thank you for being here,” Routh told the first group of 60 jurors who were brought into the courtroom after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon introduced prosecutors and Routh to the panel.

Cannon signed off on Routh’s request to represent himself but said court-appointed attorneys needed to remain as standby counsel.

During a hearing earlier to go over questions that would be asked of jurors, Routh was partially shackled. But he did not appear to be restrained when the first of three batches of 60 potential jurors were brought into the courtroom on Monday afternoon.

Cannon dismissed the questions Routh wanted to ask jurors as irrelevant earlier Monday. They included asking jurors about their views on Gaza, the talk of the U.S. acquiring Greenland and what they would do if they were driving and saw a turtle in the road.

The judge approved most of the other questions for jurors submitted by prosecutors.

The panel of 120 potential jurors filled out questionnaires on Monday morning and the first group was brought into the courtroom during the afternoon session. The judge inquired about any hardships that would prevent them from sitting as jurors during a weeks-long trial. Twenty-seven noted hardships and the judge dismissed 20 of them on Monday.

The other two groups of jurors will return to the courtroom on Tuesday morning for similar questioning. Those who are not dismissed will then return at 2 p.m. Tuesday for further questioning about the case and their views.

The court has blocked off four weeks for Routh’s trial, but attorneys are expecting they’ll need less time.

Jury selection was expected to take three days in an effort to find 12 jurors and four alternates. Opening statements were scheduled to begin Thursday, and prosecutors will begin their case immediately after that.

FILE – In this imaged released by the Martin County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement officers arrest Ryan Routh, the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

Cannon told Routh last week that he would be allowed to use a podium while speaking to the jury or questioning witnesses, but he would not have free rein of the courtroom.

Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The case became mired in delays as motions piled up over months, and was ultimately dismissed by Cannon last year after she concluded that the special counsel tapped by the Justice Department to investigate Trump was illegally appointed.

Routh’s trial begins nearly a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted Routh’s attempt to shoot the Republican presidential nominee. Routh, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.

Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

The judge last week unsealed the prosecutor’s 33-page list of exhibits that could be introduced as evidence at the trial. It says prosecutors have photos of Routh holding the same model of semi-automatic rifle found at Trump’s club.

Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he was arrested in 2002 for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch fuse.

In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence.

In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.

La Casa Blanca reveló una lista de 20 obras en museos Smithsonian que según la administración tienen contenidos objetables. Varias de las exposiciones y obras son de artistas latinos.

Museo Smithsonian (Felix Mizioznikov / Shutterstock.com)

El pasado 21 de agosto, la Casa Blanca reveló una lista de 20 obras en museos Smithsonian que, según la administración Trump, son obras de arte, exposiciones y programas con contenidos objetables.

Varias de las exposiciones y obras son de artistas latinos.

Entre los programas que están en la mira de la administración se encuentra “Prosperando en la diversidad: latinas y latinos con discapacidades” (Thriving in Diversity: Latinas and Latinos with Disabilities), una exposición virtual del Museo Nacional del Latino Estadounidense del Smithsonian.

La Casa Blanca también rechazó el cuadro “Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas” (Refugiados cruzando el muro fronterizo por el sur de Texas) de Rigoberto A. González —y que fue finalista en un concurso organizado por la Galería Nacional de Retratos en 2022— por conmemorar “el acto de cruzar ilegalmente la frontera”, dice el comunicado de la Casa Blanca.

“4 de Julio, vista desde la frontera sur”
por Felipe Galindo.

También se consideraron inaceptables exposiciones del Museo Nacional del Latino Estadounidense del Smithsonian que retratan a Estados Unidos como una tierra robada y caracterizan la historia del país como basada en la “colonización”.

Otra obra criticada es del artista Felipe Galindo, también conocido como Feggo. Su ilustración titulada “4th of July from the south border” (4 de julio vista desde la frontera sur) fue descrita por la Casa Blanca como una obra que “muestra a migrantes viendo los fuegos artificiales del Día de la Independencia ‘a través de una abertura en el muro fronterizo entre Estados Unidos y México’”.

La pieza, de 1999, se exhibió en una etiqueta de la exposición ¡Presente! Una historia latina de los Estados Unidos en la Galería Latina del Museo Nacional de Historia Americana.

 
La lista de artistas, obras y exposiciones parece estar extraída de un reciente artículo publicado en la revista digital conservadora The Federalist, que titulaba el artículo diciendo que el Museo Nacional de Historia Americana del Smithsonian está lleno de “propaganda antiamericana de pared a pared”.

Además, esta lista sale a la luz una semana después de que miembros de la Casa Blanca enviaran una carta a ocho museos del Smithsonian en la que pedían información sobre sus planes actuales y futuros para exposiciones, contenidos en redes sociales y otros materiales.  La revisión exhaustiva tiene el fin de adaptar el Smithsonian a las directrices culturales de Trump antes de las celebraciones del 250 aniversario del país.

Así que para hablar sobre esta lista de obras y artistas, invitamos a Felipe Galindo, uno de los artistas que se mencionan en esta lista de la Casa Blanca.

Más detalles en nuestra conversación a continuación.

Ciudad Sin Límites, el proyecto en español de City Limits, y El Diario de Nueva York se han unido para crear el pódcast “El Diario Sin Límites” para hablar sobre latinos y política. Para no perderse ningún episodio de nuestro pódcast “El Diario Sin Límites” síguenos en Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Pódcast y Stitcher. Todos los episodios están allí. ¡Suscríbete!

The post PODCAST: ¿Por qué la administración Trump arremetió contra obras de los museos Smithsonian? appeared first on City Limits.

“While politicians debate zoning and development, a little-discussed federal bureaucratic mechanism called the High Housing Cost Adjustment is systematically excluding working New Yorkers from programs designed to help them.”

The groundbreaking for a city-financed affordable housing project in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in 2019. (John McCarten/NYC Council)

A New York City teacher earning $70,000 applies for an affordable housing unit in Queens and is told she doesn’t qualify. Not because she makes too much money, but because she doesn’t make enough. The “affordable” one-bedroom requires a minimum income of $90,000, and even the studio required $75,000; just out of reach.

Stories like this illustrate a broader paradox in New York’s housing policy. While politicians debate zoning and development, a little-discussed federal bureaucratic mechanism called the High Housing Cost Adjustment is systematically excluding working New Yorkers from programs designed to help them.

Every housing discussion in New York centers on Area Median Income (AMI). It is the benchmark determining who qualifies for affordable housing. But the AMI used in New York isn’t what most people think it is. It’s not the actual median income of New Yorkers.

Instead, it’s been artificially inflated by the High Housing Cost Adjustment (HHCA), a federal multiplier that adjusts income requirements upward in expensive markets. For 2025, New York’s official AMI for a family of two was $129,600, and for a family of three it was $145,800. With an average household size of 2.55, you would then expect the average household income to be $137,700.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) own calculations for the same geographic area, however, this actual number is $103,000. This indicates that the HHCA is skewing AMI values up roughly 33 percent.

To give an example of this, units at up to 135 percent of AMI can be included in the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. If you apply that same 33 percent “inflation” from the HHCA mentioned earlier, that means “affordable” units are being built for those earning 180 percent of the real area median income. Is that true affordability?

The gap represents working families being systematically locked out of programs ostensibly designed to help them.

You might ask why the HHCA exists at all. HUD’s methodology explicitly allows income limits to be adjusted up in response to housing-cost-to-income disparities that deviate significantly from the national norm. In short, the HHCA was designed to prevent households in expensive areas from being disqualified from federal housing programs simply because the local cost-of-living (particularly rent) is out of step with median income figures. It reflects a federal intent to align eligibility standards with housing market realities, rather than rigid income metrics.

The geographic impact of the HHCA is evident across the city. In the Bronx, where median household income is around $46,000, “affordable” developments often require incomes that exceed what most neighborhood residents earn. This can create a perverse outcome: affordable housing resources that accelerate gentrification rather than prevent it. Low-income neighborhoods get developments that serve moderate and middle-income households from elsewhere, while local residents remain priced out.

Housing advocates typically blame wealthy suburbs in Westchester and Long Island for inflating regional income calculations. But the HHCA is what really transforms regional disparities into exclusionary policy. Yet, it receives little attention in housing debates outside of the most wonky corners. 

Mayor Eric Adams’ housing initiatives have focused on zoning reform to increase supply. Mayor Bill de Blasio largely did the same. More often than not, however, this means building “affordable” housing at the highest AMI bands. These projects count towards the total number of “affordable” units in the city (and bog down the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development and other relevant city agencies), without actually addressing the affordable housing crisis. This is why there is a constant flow of headlines about new “affordable” housing developments without the situation ever seeming to change. 

There are multiple reasons for this. One is that the HUD’s AMI values must be used for determining eligibility for projects to use federal funds. The second is that it is simply very expensive to build in New York City. And, the third is that by building “affordable housing” for higher earners, politicians can gain political wins for supporting “affordable housing,” without putting substantial money behind the effort, all while retaining residents that are more politically active and attractive as part of the city’s tax base (higher earners).

A key reason why these inflated AMI levels matter so much is that they are not optional. When projects seek to tap federal resources (from Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME funds, or other HUD programs) they are required to use HUD’s published AMI figures to determine who qualifies.

In New York, that means developers and housing agencies must design affordability bands around income thresholds that are already skewed upward by the High Housing Cost Adjustment. Even if a project sponsor wanted to serve lower-income tenants, the eligibility framework itself is defined by federal formulas.

This requirement creates a disconnect between federal rules and local realities. On paper, a household earning 80 percent of AMI may qualify as “low income,” but in practice that figure can be far above what many neighborhood residents actually earn.

The result is that projects built with federal dollars often end up out of reach for the very households those funds are intended to benefit. Instead of anchoring affordability in the lived conditions of local communities, federal mandates lock projects into a standardized metric that reflects more about financing structures than about need.

The high rents embedded in today’s “affordable housing” numbers are not simply the product of developer greed or government indifference. They are, in large part, a reflection of the underlying costs of building in New York City. Land prices remain among the highest in the country, and construction costs (driven by labor, materials, insurance, and regulatory requirements) have only risen in recent years.

When the city and federal government peg “affordability” to Area Median Income levels, what is really happening is that the rents being targeted are the lowest that developers can feasibly offer while still covering the enormous costs of acquiring land and financing construction.

This tension gives validity to the claims developers often make: without additional subsidy, tax relief, or creative financing tools, they cannot simply lower rents on their own. Housing, unlike other markets, carries an upfront cost structure that is fixed long before a single tenant moves in. If land, labor, and materials command a certain price, then rents must follow that logic; unless public dollars or policy interventions absorb part of the burden. The affordability levels are calibrated to the cost of the project, not the income of the neighborhood.

The result is a distortion in what “affordability” actually means. Rather than reflecting the economic realities of households, the rent thresholds are often backfilled to make projects pencil out. In other words, AMI-driven affordability has become a financing tool more than a true measure of local need. This is not to dismiss the role developers play in shaping housing outcomes, but to recognize that the system as designed leaves them little room to maneuver without the government stepping in to close the gap.

One of the quieter dynamics at play in New York’s housing policy is that “affordable housing” has often been defined in ways that serve higher earners, not the lowest-income households most at risk of displacement. By setting affordability benchmarks at levels aligned with inflated AMIs, elected officials can claim credit for producing large numbers of “affordable units” without committing the resources required to reach those most in need. In doing so, they sidestep the political and fiscal challenges of funding deeper subsidies, while still delivering ribbon-cuttings, press releases, and campaign talking points about their dedication to solving the housing crisis.

This approach also has a built-in political logic. Higher-earning households who qualify for these so-called affordable apartments are more likely to be stable contributors to the tax base, and they are often more politically engaged. By calibrating housing policy to capture this population, the city not only bolsters revenue but also retains a constituency that is seen as more desirable to court. The cost, of course, is that the very groups most harmed by rising rents are left out of the picture. The politics of affordability, in other words, too often privilege appearances and fiscal security over true equity

New York’s housing crisis has multiple causes, but one is within local control: how the city works within federal policy frameworks that may not serve local needs effectively on their own. City and state officials should advocate for reforms to HHCA calculations at the federal level, as proposed by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024. They should also intentionally build at lower AMIs to counteract the HHCA. To do this, they will need to further supplement federal funds with those at the city and state levels.

But addressing this issue requires first acknowledging it exists. There is not an easy answer to this question, but we should not delude ourselves into thinking that the “affordable” housing we are currently building will ever create a truly equitable city. Currently, housing policy debates focus heavily on supply and zoning, but give little attention to how federal definitions and formulas determine what “affordability” really means.

The consequences are real. Working professionals consistently find themselves excluded from affordable housing programs despite earning salaries that would suggest they need assistance with housing costs. When the federal bureaucracy creates affordability requirements that don’t match local economic realities, the resulting contradictions undermine the effectiveness of affordable housing policy.

The question for New York’s leaders is whether they will examine how federal policy frameworks interact with local housing needs, and whether they’re willing to advocate for changes that could make affordable housing programs more accessible to the New Yorkers they’re intended to serve.

Once we recognize that AMI is not what it seems, the question is: would we rather the city invest funds, time, and energy into subsidizing additional housing for those earning well above the actual median income in the city, or instead turn our investments to those who most need it?

Eddie Palka is a practicing architect in New York City who has focused on affordable housing throughout his career. He is also an Associate Research Scholar at the Columbia University Housing Lab, researching the affordable housing crisis, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the NYIT Center for Offsite Construction. He is also part of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s Academy for Public Scholarship on the Built Environment.

The post Opinion: The Hidden Federal Formula Making NYC’s ‘Affordable’ Housing Unaffordable appeared first on City Limits.

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Police in Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu opened fire Monday on demonstrators protesting a government attempt to regulate social media that blocked some of the world’s largest platforms, including Facebook, X and YouTube. At least 17 people were killed.

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Rallies swept the streets around the Parliament building, which was surrounded by tens of thousands of people angry at authorities who said the companies had failed to register and submit to government oversight. At least 145 people were wounded, officials said.

Protesters pushed through barbed wire and forced riot police to retreat inside the Parliament complex.

The gunfire unfolded as the government pursues a broader attempt to regulate social media with a bill aimed at ensuring the platforms are “properly managed, responsible and accountable.” The proposal has been widely criticized as a tool for censorship and for punishing government opponents who voice their protests online.

About two dozen social networks that are widely used in Nepal were repeatedly given notices to register their companies officially in the Himalayan nation, the government said. Those that failed to register have been blocked since last week.

Neither Google, which owns YouTube, nor Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press. Elon Musk’s X platform did not respond either.

The video-sharing app TikTok, Viber and three other platforms have registered and operated without interruption.

The death toll was announced by police official Shekhar Khanal. He said 28 officers were among the wounded, as smaller protests continued into late Monday evening.

The situation remained tense, and the government announced a curfew around Parliament, the government secretariat, the presidential house and key parts of the city.

Seven of those killed and scores of wounded were received at the National Trauma Center, the country’s main hospital in the heart of Kathmandu.

“Many of them are in serious condition and appear to have been shot in the head and chest,” said Dr. Badri Risa. Families waited anxiously outside for news of their relatives while people lined up to donate blood.

“Stop the ban on social media. Stop corruption, not social media,” the crowds outside Parliament chanted, waving the red and blue national flags. Monday’s rally was called the protest of Gen Z, which generally refers to people born between 1995 and 2010.

The government’s proposed bill includes asking the companies to appoint a liaison office or a point of contact in the country. Rights groups have called it an attempt by the government to curb freedom of expression and fundamental rights.

Nepal in 2023 banned TikTok for disrupting “social harmony, goodwill and diffusing indecent materials.” The ban was lifted last year after TikTok’s executives pledged to comply with local laws, including a ban of pornographic sites that was passed in 2018.