By MICHAEL BIESECKER and RYAN J. FOLEY

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Cuban migrant held in solitary confinement at an immigration detention facility in Texas died after guards held him down and he stopped breathing, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday that ruled the death a homicide.

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Geraldo Lunas Campos died Jan. 3 following an altercation with guards. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the 55-year-old father of four was attempting suicide and the staff at Camp East Montana tried to save him.

But a witness told The Associated Press last week that Lunas Campos was handcuffed as at least five guards held him down and one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious.

The autopsy report by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office found Lunas Campos’ body showed signs of a struggle, including abrasions on his chest and knees. He also had hemorrhages on his neck. The deputy medical examiner, Dr. Adam Gonzalez. determined the cause of death was asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.

The report said witnesses saw Lunas Campos “become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement.” It did not elaborate on what happened during the struggle but cited evidence of injuries to his neck, head and torso associated with physical restraint. The report also noted the presence of petechial hemorrhages — tiny blood spots from burst capillaries that can be associated with intense strain or injury — in the eyelids and skin of the neck.

Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy report for AP, said the presence of petechiae in the eyes “tend to support” the conclusion that asphyxia caused the death. Those injuries suggest pressure on the body and are often associated with such deaths, he said.

He said the contusions on Lunas Campos’ body may reflect physical restraint and the neck injuries were consistent with a hand or knee on the neck.

The autopsy also found the presence of prescription antidepressant and antihistamine medications, adding that Lunas Campos had a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety. It made no mention of him attempting suicide.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment on the autopsy report.

ICE’s initial account of the death, which included no mention of an altercation with guards, said Lunas Campos had become disruptive and staff moved him to a segregated area.

“While in segregation, staff observed him in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance,” the agency said in its Jan. 9 statement. “Medical staff responded, initiated lifesaving measures, and requested emergency medical services.”

Lunas Campos was pronounced dead after paramedics arrived.

Last Thursday, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Lunas Campos had attempted suicide and guards tried to help him.

“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life,” she said. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”

Camp Montana East is a sprawling tent facility in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base. The AP reported in August that the $1.2 billion facility, expected to become the largest detention facility in the U.S., was being built and operated by a private contractor headquartered in a single-family home in Richmond, Virginia. The company, Acquisition Logistics LLC, had no prior experience running a corrections facility.

It was not immediately clear whether the guards present when Lunas Campos died were government employees or those of the private contractor.

Lunas Campos was among the first detainees sent to Camp Montana East, arriving in September after ICE arrested him in Rochester, New York, where he lived for more than two decades. He was legally admitted to the U.S. in 1996, part of a wave of Cuban immigrants seeking to reach Florida by boat.

ICE said he was picked up in July as part of a planned immigration enforcement operation due to criminal convictions that made him eligible for removal.

New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of sexual contact with a person under 11, a felony for which he was sentenced to one year in jail and placed on the state’s sex offender registry.

Foley reported from Iowa City.

A 24-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of first-degree murder for killing his pregnant sister and dismembering her body in his Lakeville townhome in 2024.

Jack Joseph Ball entered the guilty pleas on the same day a court trial was to begin before a Dakota County judge in the killings of 30-year-old Bethany Ann Israel of Bloomington and her unborn child, who was four months along.

Ball has asserted a defense of mental illness. Minnesota law states that a person is not criminally responsible if a mental illness made the person unable to understand what they were doing or know that it was wrong at the time the offense was committed. A court trial on Ball’s defense of mental illness is still scheduled for May 21.

If convicted, Ball faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. He remains in custody at the Dakota County jail.

Police were called to the home on Encina Path near 170th Street and Pilot Knob Road just before 11 p.m. on May 23, 2024. They saw dismembered body parts believed to be those of Israel and found a saw, hatchet and large knives, all of which were covered in blood.

Jack Joseph Ball (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

Soon after police arrived, a resident in Rosemount reported seeing a man on their home security camera and he placed what appeared to be a body part on their front step.

Law enforcement found Bell in the backyard of a neighboring home. He had a self-inflicted knife wound across his throat and was hospitalized before being jailed.

Police searched the area and found several dismembered body parts believed to be those of Israel.

Investigators later found journals and other writings by Ball. He wrote that he was angry his sister was pregnant and “no longer innocent,” according to the complaint.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Israel’s cause of death was complex homicidal violence and confirmed she was 17 to 18 weeks pregnant.

The baby would have been the first child for Israel and her husband, Josh, who were married in 2021, according to her obituary. They planned to name the boy Levy.

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By JIM MUSTIAN

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — In two decades of kicking in doors for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often took on the risks of being the “lead breacher,” meaning he was the first person into the room.

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On Wednesday, he felt a familiar uncertainty awaiting sentencing for using his DEA badge to protect childhood friends who became prolific drug traffickers in Buffalo, New York.

“I knew never what was on the other side of that door — that fear is what I feel today,” Bongiovanni, 61, told a federal judge, pounding the defense table as his face reddened with emotion. “I’ve always been innocent. I loved that job.”

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced lawman to five years in federal prison on a string of corruption counts. The punishment was significantly less than the 15 years prosecutors sought even after a jury acquitted Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including an allegation he pocketed $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia.

The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts following two lengthy trials and the almost Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Bongiovanni’s career, in which the lawman racked up enough front-page accolades to fill a trophy case.

Bongiovanni once hurtled into a burning apartment building to evacuate residents through billowing smoke. He locked up drug dealers, including the first ever prosecuted in the region for causing a fatal overdose.

“There are two completely polar opposite versions of the facts and polar opposite versions of the defendant,” Vilardo said, assuring prosecutors five years behind bars would pose a considerable hardship to someone who has never been to prison.

Defense attorney Parker MacKay noted the judge had acknowledged Bongiovanni as a “beacon” of the Buffalo community. The government’s request for a 15-year sentence, he added, was “completely unmoored to the nature of the convictions.”

“As Mr. Bongiovanni told the judge at sentencing, he is innocent, and we look forward to continuing to work with him to prove that,” MacKay told The Associated Press.

A jury in 2024 convicted Bongiovanni of four counts of obstruction of justice, counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and making false statements to law enforcement.

Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s “little dark secret” caused immeasurable damage over 11 years. They likened him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent serving a 12-year federal sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.

Bongiovanni upheld an oath not to the DEA, they argued, but to organized crime figures in the tight-knit Italian American community of his North Buffalo upbringing. During sentencing, Bongiovanni’s family dissolved into tears on the front row of the packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo.

Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s corruption involved as much inaction as calculated coverup. They pointed to a turning point in 2008 when Bongiovanni could have acted on intelligence about traffickers he knew whose operation would evolve into a large-scale organization with links to California, Vancouver, and New York City.

Joseph Bongiovanni, center, leaves federal court with his wife, Lindsay Bongiovanni, right, after being sentenced to 5 years in prison on corruption charges, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/John Mustian)

He also was accused of authoring bogus DEA reports, stealing sensitive files, throwing off colleagues, outing confidential informants, covering for a sex-trafficking strip club and helping a high school English teacher keep his marijuana-growing side hustle. Prosecutors said he brazenly urged colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and focus instead on Black and Hispanic people.

“His conduct shook the foundation of law enforcement — and this community — to its core,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi told the judge. “That’s what a betrayal is.”

The ex-agent’s downfall came amid a sex-trafficking prosecution that took sensational turns, including an implicated judge who killed himself after the FBI raided his home, law enforcement dragging a pond in search of an overdose victim and dead rats planted outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors allege was later killed by a fatal dose of fentanyl.

It also involved the Pharoah’s Gentlemen’s Club outside Buffalo. Bongiovanni was childhood friends with the strip club’s owner, Peter Gerace Jr., who authorities say has close ties to both the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaws Motorcycle Club. A separate jury convicted Gerace of a sex trafficking conspiracy and of paying bribes to Bongiovanni.

The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the DEA after a string of corruption scandals prompted at least 17 agents brought up on federal charges over the past decade. Last month, prosecutors charged another former agent with conspiring to launder millions of dollars and obtain military-grade firearms and explosives for a Mexican drug cartel.

Frank Tarentino, the DEA’s northeast associate chief of operations, said Bongiovanni’s sentence “sends a powerful message that those who betray their badge will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest consumer price report last week, providing a closer look at how energy costs, grocery prices and other everyday expenses have shifted in the nearly 12 months since President Donald Trump assumed office.

Across the board, inflation accelerated last month, with prices rising 0.3% from November to December. Consumer costs are also 2.7% higher than they were a year ago, an increase driven largely by surging food prices, which saw a 3.1% hike year-over-year.

Grocery staples like milk, bread, tomatoes and ground beef all went up in December. Meanwhile, gas prices dipped 5.5%, representing the biggest percent decrease in the average nationwide cost going back at least two years.

The Tribune is tracking 11 everyday costs for Americans — eggs, milk, bread, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, chicken, ground beef, gasoline, electricity and natural gas — and how they are changing, or not, under the second Trump administration. This tracker is updated monthly using CPI data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To see the average U.S. price of a specific good, click on the dropdown arrow below and select the item you wish to view.

Eggs

Egg prices have fallen for an eighth month, down another 15 cents from November to land at $2.71 for a dozen large Grade A eggs.

The continued drop-off in prices is the result of a declining number of bird flu cases in commercial and backyard flocks — particularly among egg-laying hens. From the beginning of December through the first half of January, roughly 1.8 million birds were affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza in the United States, with less than 150,000 of the birds being table egg-layers, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. By comparison, in January 2025, during the height of the outbreak, there were nearly 19 million cases among egg-layers alone.

The cost of eggs is currently about 35% less than it was in December 2024, before Trump’s swearing-in, and prices have plummeted 56% since March, when the nationwide average was a record-breaking $6.23 per dozen.

Milk

The cost of milk, meanwhile, jumped 5 cents month-over-month.

A gallon of fresh, fortified whole milk is now priced at $4.05 — a 1% decrease in price from this time last year.

Bread

The cost of white bread also ticked up by a few cents in December. Even so, at $1.83 per pound, the national average is 10 cents less than it was when Trump started his second term.

Bananas

Banana prices were unchanged in December, remaining at $0.66 per pound. That average is just 1 cent off the all-time high recorded in September and is nearly 7% more than it was 12 months ago.

Recent price inflation is likely a byproduct of the president’s trade war, with 10% reciprocal tariffs imposed on Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia and Honduras, and a 25% “fentanyl tariff” levied against Mexico — all of which are among the top suppliers of bananas to the U.S.

But in mid-November, Trump took action to combat rising grocery costs, announcing that some agricultural products would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs due to “current domestic demand for certain products” and “current domestic capacity to produce certain products.”

Both fresh and dried bananas were among the listed exemptions.

Oranges

It’s cold and flu season, which means stocking up on citrus. Luckily, you won’t have to pay as much for your daily dose of Vitamin C the next time you visit the grocery store.

The average price of navel oranges was $1.57 per pound in December — a 23 cent drop from September, the next most recent month of data.

This sharp decrease in cost is standard for the fruit market this time of year: Oranges are cheapest in the winter months, then increasing in price throughout the late spring and summer and eventually peaking in September or October each year.

Additionally, as with bananas, oranges are now exempt from most reciprocal tariffs, bringing down costs for foreign growers like Chile, South Africa and Australia.

Tomatoes

As of December, the cost of field-grown tomatoes was $1.84 per pound, a slight increase from the previous month but still lower than August and September.

This change is somewhat of an abnormality given the harvesting season. Typically, tomato prices spike in the fall and peak in the early winter months, but according to the USDA, softer market conditions domestically have driven cheaper retail costs — particularly for this time of year.

Prices for fresh tomatoes are down roughly 10% since Trump took power.

Chicken

After months of moderately raised prices, the cost of chicken seems to be on the decline.

Prices fell slightly for a fifth month, with a pound of fresh, whole chicken now costing an average of $2.02 nationwide. Even so, grocery store prices have stayed fairly stagnant, continuing to hover around the $2 mark for more than two years.

As a reliably cheap source of protein, there’s a reason chicken remains a staple in so many Americans’ diets.

Ground Beef

A notably less cheap source of protein? Ground beef.

Prices have been steadily climbing since last January, with ground beef costs ballooning by more than 18% — or about $1 per pound.

This can be attributed to a confluence of factors. The U.S. cattle inventory is the lowest it’s been in almost 75 years, and severe drought in parts of the country has further reduced the feed supply, per the USDA. Steep tariff rates on top beef importers have also played a part in higher prices stateside, but as of Nov. 13, high-quality cuts, processed beef and live cattle are exempt from most countries’ levies. Similarly, a 50% tariff on beef products from Brazil was lifted in late November, a huge win given the U.S. imported more beef from the South American nation than anywhere else in the world outside Australia last year.

Still, beef prices are so high that the president has taken to accusing foreign-owned meat packers of intentionally inflating costs and requested that the Department of Justice investigate the matter.

As of December, a pound of 100% ground beef chuck would set you back about $6.52.

Electricity

Electric costs are also hovering around all-time highs at approximately 19 cents per kilowatt-hour.

With the average American household using roughly 899 kWh every four weeks, that translates to a monthly bill of about $170.

Increased energy demand as a result of power-hungry data centers is a growing issue for many states — Illinois included. A recent report released jointly by three state agencies said Illinois could be five years away from chronic electricity shortages and higher monthly bills. As for Chicago, the Illinois Commerce Commission recently approved a $243 million rate reconciliation request for ComEd, the city’s primary electric utility. That hike will be passed along to customers, with a delivery charge increase of $3.10 per month starting in January.

To offset these rising costs, Gov. JB Pritzker earlier this month signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, and ComEd is offering state-mandated nuclear energy credits.

Still, for many Americans, relief is needed. Since last year, the average price of electricity per kilowatt-hour has risen by 7%.

Gasoline

The price at the pump saw a noticeable decrease month-over-month.

Dropping 18 cents, the average nationwide cost of gasoline registered at $3.05 per gallon of regular unleaded. Fill-ups were considerably cheaper in Chicago, too. From November to December, prices dropped by 22 cents a gallon, landing at $3.07, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Declining gas costs have become an oft-cited accomplishment from White House officials. In his presidential address last month, Trump highlighted the work his administration has done to lower prices, and last week, the White House X account shared a post claiming that 43 states now boast averages under $3 a gallon.

In truth, from January to December, the cost of gasoline has fallen by 5% nationwide. In that same 12-month window under President Joe Biden, prices spiked by more than 46%.

Natural Gas

Piped utility gas, or natural gas, is another expense that’s creeping up.

On average, Americans are paying nearly 12% more to heat their homes, ovens and stovetops than when Biden left office. Average prices nationwide sit at $1.70 per therm — the highest they’ve been in three years.

What’s more, both Chicago-area gas utilities, Peoples Gas and Nicor Gas, are seeking rate increases upward of $200 million. If approved, Chicagoans and suburban residents alike will see higher charges on their monthly bills.