HOUSTON — Carlos Correa is returning to Houston, giving the Astros a needed jolt for their infield with a stunning trade from the Minnesota Twins ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the trade hadn’t been announced. Additional terms of the swap weren’t immediately available.

Correa spent his first seven years in Houston, where he became one of the most beloved players in franchise history, helping the team to six playoff appearances, three American League pennants and its first World Series title in 2017 — a championship tainted by a sign-stealing scandal. The top pick in the 2012 amateur draft and 2015 AL Rookie of the Year was part of the homegrown core that helped the Astros go from the league’s laughingstock to perennial contenders.

Correa, who waived his no-trade clause, has exclusively played shortstop in his 11-year major league career but will almost certainly move to third base for the AL West leaders with shortstop Jeremy Peña close to returning from the injured list. The Astros need help at third with All-Star Isaac Paredes out indefinitely with a hamstring injury.

Charismatic and an unquestioned leader in the clubhouse, Correa could help galvanize a team that has managed to remain atop the division standings despite dealing with multiple injuries to both its lineup and pitching staff.

Correa reunites with second baseman Jose Altuve, who is the Astros’ longest tenured player and one of his closest friends on the team. When asked about the possibility of Correa returning to Houston on Wednesday, Altuve raved about him before saying: “So I think — if anything (were) to happen, I hope it’s the best for him and for us.”

The 30-year-old Correa was named to two of his three All-Star Games while with the Astros and won a Gold Glove Award in 2021. He seemed to embrace the villain role when Houston became the league’s most hated team after it was revealed the Astros illegally stole signs in their run to the 2017 title and during the 2018 season.

He left when he became a free agent before the 2022 season when the Astros wouldn’t pay him what he believed he was worth, signing a three-year deal worth just over $105 million. Correa opted out of that contract after one year but re-signed with the Twins on a six-year, $200 million deal, of which just under $100 million is still owed. The contract also includes vesting options for the 2029-2032 seasons.

While Correa’s defense at shortstop has been impeccable and his leadership in the clubhouse strong, the investment for the Twins simply hasn’t panned out. He played the 2023 season through plantar fasciitis in his left foot, batting just .230 with 131 strikeouts in 135 games and a pedestrian .711 OPS.

He shined in the playoffs, helping the Twins end a record 18-game postseason losing streak and win a series for the first time in 21 years, and was enjoying an All-Star season in 2024 before plantar fasciitis popped up again – this time in his right foot. He had to withdraw from the All-Star Game and didn’t return until mid-September, after the Twins were already mired in a sharp swoon that pushed them out of playoff contention.

Correa has been much healthier this year, but not as productive. His .905 OPS in 2024 has fallen to .704 this year, with seven home runs in 93 games.

The contract he signed 2 1/2 years ago now constitutes a much larger percentage of the team’s payroll, after a sharp decline in regional television revenue in light of the bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group prompted a spending reduction by Twins ownership. The Pohlad family has since put the club up for sale.

A statue of St. Paul’s gold-medal-winning gymnast Suni Lee has been stolen and police asked for the public’s help Thursday to find it.

A bust of U.S. gymnast Sunisa Lee. (Courtesy of St. Paul Parks and Recreation)

It was installed at Phalen Lakeside Activity Center in St. Paul in 2023, after she made history with her win at the 2020 Olympic Games.

“The brass statue, along with the rock with her nameplate on it, were taken within the last day,” police wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. “We are actively working to find the statute.”

It would have been difficult to steal and likely required tools, said Alyssa Arcand, a St. Paul police spokeswoman.

“Apparently it had two steel rods connecting it, so it would have taken awhile to get it out,” she said.

Police are asking anyone with information to email SPPD-eastinvestigations@stpaul.gov.

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By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The agency responsible for carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda says it has already made tentative job offers to more than 1,000 people as it ramps up hiring following the passage of legislation earlier this month giving the agency a massive infusion of cash.

The agency’s spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement Thursday that the offers had been made after July 4. That’s when Trump signed into law a broad package of tax breaks and spending cuts that also included about $170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, spread out over five years.

“ICE has already issued over 1,000 tentative job offers since July 4. Many of these offers were to ICE officers who retired under President Biden because they were frustrated that they were not allowed to do their jobs,” she said. “Now under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is excited to get back to work to remove rapists, murderers, gang members and pedophiles from our communities.”

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The budget is multiplying exponentially

ICE is the key agency responsible for executing Trump’s campaign promise of carrying out the largest deportation operation in history. The administration has been ramping up immigration-related arrests across the country. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, has said ICE officers would have a target of at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.

That heightened enforcement has played out with arrests in immigration courts, worksites, neighborhoods and more.

ICE is set to get $76.5 billion, nearly 10 times its current annual budget. Some $45 billion will go toward increasing detention capacity. Nearly $30 billion is for hiring 10,000 more staff so the agency can meet its goal of 1 million annual deportations. The White House has said ICE will grow from 20,000 employees to about 30,000.

Earlier this week, ICE announced a recruiting campaign aimed at finding and hiring the deportation officers, investigators and lawyers it will need to meet that goal of 10,000 new staff. As part of that campaign the agency is offering an eye-catching bonus of up to $50,000 for new recruits as well as other benefits like student loan forgiveness and abundant overtime for deportation officers.

At a time when the federal government has been firing federal employees left and right, the USAJOBS website where vacancies for federal jobs are posted has dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement jobs.

Some are for the deportation officers responsible for finding and removing people from the country; investigators with Homeland Security Investigations, which helps investigate transnational crime, including immigration issues; and lawyers who represent the government in prosecuting immigration cases.

Jobs to support the detention network are also in play

But there are also other jobs that support the detention network that is being supercharged to carry out mass deportations: nurses and nurse managers, psychiatric care providers, auditors, field medical coordinators and more.

The anticipated hiring boom has also raised concerns about whether standards will be lowered in order to meet the growing demand. The Border Patrol underwent its own expansion during the early 2000s — something that is often cited as a cautionary tale for the risks of quick hiring. To meet hiring goals, training and hiring standards were changed. Arrests for employee misconduct rose.

McLaughlin rejected suggestions that the agency would lower recruitment standards.

“All new recruits must meet the same standards they always have. I know this may be shocking to the media, but many Americans want to serve their country and help remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” she said.

By JAIMIE DING and DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Pentagon said Thursday it is ending the deployment of all but 250 National Guard troops that were originally sent to Los Angeles to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 1,350 National Guard members to leave this week. The rest will remain to protect federal personnel and property, according to the statement attributed to Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson.

Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines were deployed to Los Angeles in early June over the objections of state and local officials. Half of the Guard were pulled back roughly two weeks ago, and the Marines were ordered to leave a few days later.

“We greatly appreciate the support of the more than 5,000 Guardsmen and Marines who mobilized to Los Angeles to defend Federal functions against the rampant lawlessness occurring in the city,” Parnell said.

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Local leaders have contested the presence of federal troops in the city, blaming them for inflaming tensions in the region and said their presence was unnecessary. Mayor Karen Bass called the departure of more troops “another win for Los Angeles” in a post Wednesday night on X.

The presence of Guard troops in the city had been mostly limited to two locations with federal buildings in Los Angeles, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. Some soldiers have been protecting federal agents during immigration raids.

National Guard troops recently accompanied federal authorities with guns and horses at a July 7 operation at MacArthur Park, a neighborhood with large Mexican, Central American and other immigrant populations, that ended abruptly.

A vast majority of the troops remained at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos during their time in Southern California and were not seen deployed in Los Angeles. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have largely been small, scattered impromptu protests around immigration arrests.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that President Donald Trump’s “political theater backfired.”

“The women and men of our military deserve more than to be used as props in the federal government’s propaganda machine,” Newsom said.

Newsom sued the federal government in June over the deployment of the National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he activated the troops without notifying him. Newsom also asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids.

While a lower court ordered Trump to return control of the Guard to California, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the judge’s order.

Klepper reported from Washington, D.C.