By ALBERT STUMM, Associated Press

INVERNESS, Scotland (AP) — As we crossed the Keswick Bridge into the rolling hills outside Inverness, green fields of early-spring barley still had months to grow until harvest. The grain will be sent to a nearby malting factory and eventually made into whisky at some of Scotland’s 150-plus distilleries.

Interspersed among the barley fields were yellow rows of flowering rapeseed, used to make cooking oil, and herds of grazing sheep that seemed to outnumber people.

A general view of Inglis Street in Inverness, Scotland, appears on March 31, 2025. (Albert Stumm via AP)

It was a tableau I thought would have been the same for a thousand years. But rapeseed only started to be planted in the 1970s, and at one point there were a lot more people than sheep, said my guide, Cath Findlay.

During the tumultuous hundred years of the Highland Clearance, landowners kicked out most of the tenants and replaced them with sheep, which were more valuable to them than people, Findlay said.

“At the time, the British government were fighting all over the world, and they needed wool for uniforms and meat for their soldiers,” she said. “So in much of the Highlands, we see that it’s hilly, and there’s lots of sheep.”

The history lesson resonated because it was obvious throughout my week in Scotland that the past is very much present. But Inverness and its environs are hardly stuck in the past.

Small, but thriving

Inverness is the gateway to the Highlands, a rugged, windswept region of northwest Scotland. The small but thriving city, one of the fastest-growing in the United Kingdom, is best known as the jumping-off point for mystical monster hunters attracted by the legend of Loch Ness.

People shop in Leakey’s Bookshop on Church Street in Inverness, Scotland, on March 31, 2025. (Albert Stumm via AP)

In recent years, however, it’s carving out an international identity beyond whisky, Nessie and tartan plaid, though there still is plenty of that too.

The center of town can be crossed on foot in a leisurely 15 minutes. Overlooking a cliff at one end, the red sandstone Inverness Castle was covered in scaffolding when I visited this spring. A renovation to turn it into an interactive attraction focused on stories of the Highlands is expected to finish this year.

Right in the center is the recently refurbished Victorian Market, a once bustling hall that was on the verge of closing anyway when the COVID lockdown arrived.

The entrance to the renovated Victorian Market, hosting over 30 independent businesses, appears in Inverness, Scotland, on March 31, 2025. (Albert Stumm via AP)

Town leaders took advantage of the moment to breathe new life into it. The market now includes a mix of craft stores, cafes, jewelry shops, barbers and one remaining butcher (try their meat pies, which Findlay said are better than homemade).

The seafood market was replaced with a lively food hall, with the acclaimed Bad Girls Bakery as its first tenant. Following soon were innovative but affordable seafood at The Redshank, pulled meat at Ollie’s Pops, vegan at Salt N Fire, and more.

Now, there is live music every day and 75,000 people pass through the market during busier weeks — nearly the size of the population of the entire city.

Tour guide Cath Findlay appears in the Old High Church Kirkyard in Inverness, Scotland, on March 31, 2025. (Albert Stumm via AP)

“It was dead as a doornail, and now it’s the beating heart of the town,” Findlay said.

Just up Church Street, the main drag, The Walrus and Corkscrew opened soon after as the town’s only wine bar. And nearby at Black Isle Bar, wood-fired pizzas come paired with one of 24 organic beers that the owners brew on their own farm just outside town.

A story with your meal

In the nearby village of Beauly, the Downright Gabbler guesthouse has four suites and a full-time storyteller.

Garry Coutts and his wife, Jane Cumming, opened with a small dining room and their daughter Kristy as chef. It’s not a restaurant, exactly, but they hold several themed events each week that combine Coutts’ encyclopedic knowledge of Scottish history and legend with their daughter’s modern take on traditional dishes.

Garry Coutts and his wife, Jane Cumming appear outside of their at their guest house and restaurant, Downright Gabbler, in Beauly, Scotland, on March 31, 2025. (Albert Stumm via AP)

Among the events is the regularly held Highland Banquet, six courses that trace the region’s people from prehistory to modern times. Venison carpaccio with pickled blackberries, for instance, was inspired by hunter-gatherers, although Coutts noted they ate much more seafood and foraged vegetables than deer.

“They’re very difficult to catch,” Coutts quipped. “They run away!”

The courses unfolded with stories peppered throughout, ranging from some illegal origins of Johnnie Walker’s whisky blends to the couple’s distaste for Las Vegas. Also on the table was a deck of cards, each printed with the name of a prominent Scot to be drawn at random for a story told on the fly.

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I pulled Alexander Graham Bell, who likely holds the record for having the most challenges from competitors for patent infringement, Coutts said.

“It’s amazing the number of Americans that come in here and tell me he’s not Scottish,” he said.

If you go

Where to stay: Lodgings include the Ness Walk Hotel, a modern, five-star property a 20-minute walk from the center, and the Heathmount Hotel, a cozy, independent, three-star option within a 10-minute walk of Church Street.

Travelers tip: For such a small town, there is a shocking amount of live music. Performers attract crowds at Hootananny and The Highlander every night, and most nights at MacGregor’s, among other spots. First, stop into The Malt Room for a whisky flight chosen from their list of 350 single-malts.

Find more information on visitscotland.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about travel, food and wellness. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

While specific figures for New York under the new federal administration are not yet available, media reports and press releases from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest there have been more than 340 arrests of migrants from January to mid-April across the state. 

Residents rally against local ICE activity in Fulton, NY on April 25, 2025. (Erin Fiorini/Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network)

It was the afternoon of Jan. 21, and President Donald Trump had just taken office hours before.

That day, María’s husband picked up their four children from school, and on the way home, another vehicle hit them. María had been up late working the night shift cleaning offices from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Fulton, located in upstate Oswego County, New York. But calls to her cell phone woke her up.

“Mom, immigration came and took Dad away,” she recalled being told by her 15-year-old daughter, who was in the front seat of the family car at the time. After the collision, María said her husband called the police—and immigration showed up too, according to her daughter.

When María, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of jeopardizing their immigration process, got to the scene of the incident, her husband was already handcuffed.

He’s among an estimated hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested in New York so far this year, part of a pledge by the Trump administration—which just marked its first 100 days in office—to carry out mass deportations. Nationwide, the number of immigration arrests in February was the highest in any month in the last seven years, The Guardian reported. 

While specific figures for New York under the new federal administration are not yet available, media reports and press releases from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest there have been more than 340 arrests of migrants from January to mid-April across the state. 

“As part of its routine operations, ICE arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws,” an ICE spokesperson said via email, adding that the ICE’s field office in upstate Buffalo “is actively investigating immigration crimes in cities across northern, western and central New York State.”

María said her husband has no criminal history. In a press release last week, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that 75 percent of the 158,000 ICE arrests across the country since Trump took office were of immigrants with past convictions or pending charges. But media reports have documented an increasing number of people without records getting caught up by ICE. 

Shadowed by the Statue of Liberty, New York has long been perceived as welcoming to immigrants. But the Trump administration’s crackdown is being felt even in New York City, where hundreds of ICE arrests have been made despite sanctuary laws that restrict local government cooperation with immigration authorities.

Mayor Eric Adams has also challenged one of the sanctuary laws that kicked ICE off Rikers Island more than a decade ago.

While the mayor says the move is intended to keep “dangerous people off our street,” city lawmakers slammed the change, saying it would make immigrant New Yorkers even more wary of cooperating with police or reporting crimes.

On April 21, after the City Council sued the Adams administration, New York Judge Mary Rosado blocked the mayor’s executive order allowing ICE agents onto Rikers Island, a decision the judge reiterated on April 25, extending the temporary restraining order.

City Councilmembers and advocates held a rally outside City Hall on April 10 to protest Mayor Adams’ plan to allow ICE to operate on Rikers Island. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

During an interview on the Fox News’ show “My View With Lara Trump,” Mayor Eric Adams—who recently saw the corruption charges against him dropped at the behest of Trump’s Justice Department—referred to the city’s sanctuary laws as a “concept.”

“A lot of people don’t realize there is no law of sanctuary city. That’s not a law. It is a concept,” the mayor said in an interview on April 19.  

Beyond city limits, New York State has a patchwork of sanctuary laws, which exist mostly in cities like Ithaca and the capital in Albany.

In 2020, during President Trump’s first term, New York immigrant advocates and state lawmakers introduced the New York for All Act, a bill that would prohibit state and local resources from being used to carry out immigration enforcement. 

Similar legislation passed in neighboring states like New Jersey and Connecticut. But after years of pressure, this bill has not yet been approved.

Advocates who spoke with City Limits said the transformation of immigration enforcement in New York is evident. After arrests, people are placed in a detention center, meaning there has been an uptick not only in arrests but also detainees.

For a few weeks, María’s husband was detained at the ICE detention facility in Batavia, NY, before he was transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. He was deported to El Salvador on March 14, the day before the first three flights of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act departed.

“All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States, regardless of nationality,” an ICE spokesperson said.

After her husband’s arrest, María lost her cleaning job because she had to take care of her daughters at night. She just found a new job, but said it has been a rough time for everyone.

“He was not a delinquent man—he went from church to work,” María told City Limits in Spanish. “He was a good father. That hurt me the most.”

A chilling effect, as well as solidarity

Upstate advocates say they have been receiving more reports of immigrant arrests daily.

“We’ve seen activity at farms, lumber mills, restaurants, outside food distributions, churches, packing plants, construction sites,” said Jessica Maxwell, director of the  Workers’ Center of Central New York. “Most seem to be targeting workers and trying to catch them in transit where they are most vulnerable.”

Sightings of Border Patrol, ICE, or Department of Homeland Security agents, combined with media reports and stories circulating on immigrant community channels, have created a “chilling effect” throughout these communities.

Advocates described that people have stopped going to the market, church, or social events out of fear, just as they did during the pandemic.

On April 25, a group of residents protested in Fulton “against ICE and in favor of due process,” said Erin Fiorini, a volunteer advocate for the Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network. 

“There are farms where nobody leaves anymore,” Maxwell said. “How long is that sustainable for people?”

“For a lot of our community, particularly in the North Country, it’s like a pandemic. They don’t go out to dinner. Soccer leagues have been canceled,” she added. “People are not going out for social events anymore. Not even the church.”

Amid this fear, volunteers, residents, and organizations like the farmworker-led grassroots group Alianza Agrícola have created networks to order and deliver groceries for those too fearful to leave their homes or workplaces.

The measures do not stop there.

“One of them [a farmworker] was telling me yesterday that everybody’s packing boxes and sending them back to Guatemala because people feel like it’s just like a ticking time bomb,” Maxwell said. “It’s just a matter of time, and they don’t want to lose everything. Don’t want to lose all their stuff.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post In Trump’s First 100 Days, Immigrant Arrests Stir Fear Across New York—But Also Forge Community Bonds appeared first on City Limits.

President Trump said Sunday that he was ordering the FBI to reopen the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, the historic prison on an island off of San Francisco that has been closed since 1963.

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

RELATED: If Trump really wants to reopen Alcatraz, he’ll have to go through California’s environmental laws

Once fortified with the goal of becoming the world’s most secure prison, the government closed Alcatraz because it was too expensive to run — costing three times as much as most other federal prisons.

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, in a statement posted Sunday to social media, said that Trump’s proposal “is not a serious one.”

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago,” she wrote. “It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction.”

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The federal government would have some major challenges to overcome if it does want to make Alcatraz into an operating prison again, said local historian John Martini.

“It’s nowhere near a functioning island by any means,” said Martini, who has written about the military history of the San Francisco Bay. “God, it’s a wreck.”

The main prison has been deteriorating for years, save for some seismic upgrades that made it safe for visitors. Back in 1962, the Bureau of Prisons weighed making upgrades to the prison, but it would have cost $5 million — or $52 million today.

Were Trump to raze the existing structure and build anew, that too could be prohibitively expensive, Martini said. The island has no source of fresh water, which means that contractors have to ship their own water to make concrete.

The island is also a rock, with no soil to drill into. On top of that, there’s no electricity on the island, except what’s generated from a small system of solar panels. Many contractors operate on generators, so their fuel has to be brought over by boat. Bad sea conditions make it nearly “impossible” for them to land, too, Martini said.

“The reason it is not a prison now is because of the daunting challenges from six decades ago,” Martini said. “The idea that we’re going to forget all that and pick up where we left off during the JFK administration — let’s just say there will be a lot of challenges.”

The federal penitentiary opened in August 1934 and was in operation for less than 30 years. Inmates included notorious criminals such as Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly, who had a history of prior escapes from prison.

In 1962, three of Alcatraz’s prisoners escaped — John Anglin, his brother Clarence, and Frank Morris. They planted dummies in their beds, climbed out via rooftop ventilators, and launched a raft with the aim of crossing the Bay. They were never found and are believed not to have survived.

Who controls Alcatraz?

As of 1972, Alcatraz has been owned by the National Park Service. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which manages the island, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Can Trump really rebuild?

Alcatraz is on the National Register of Historic Places. If Trump is serious about rebuilding a prison on Alcatraz, it would likely have to remove its designation.

He could also end up getting held up by California’s strong environmental protection laws. Current contractors using heavy equipment must work around nesting sea birds, since the island is considered a protected environment, Martini said. Nearly a third of the island is closed much of the year so that Western gulls and cormorants can make their nests.

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What’s on the island now?

Since 1973, Alcatraz has been open to the public, operating as a tourist destination and a museum looking back at its time as a federal penitentiary. The museum welcomes more than 1.4 million visitors each year.

The National Park Service has been in the midst of redesigning the museum and visitor experience, with the launch slated for later this summer, according to a social media post by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Vice President Sean Kelley.

The annual Escape from Alcatraz Island is hosted on the island each year, which requires a 1.5-mile swim through the Bay’s choppy waters to the San Francisco shore.

The island is also popular with birdwatchers — it hosts over 20,000 birds, including murres, grebes and ducks.

Where do federal prisoners go now?

The Federal Bureau of Prisons operates three high-security penitentiaries in California and six medium-security federal correctional institutions. In 2024, the government closed the scandal-plagued women’s prison, FCI Dublin, where several guards were found to have sexually abused multiple inmates.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve will likely keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, despite weeks of harsh criticism and demands from President Donald Trump that the Fed reduce borrowing costs.

After causing a sharp drop in financial markets two weeks ago by saying he could fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Trump subsequently backed off and said he had no intention of doing so. Still, he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have said the Fed should cut rates.

They argue that inflation has steadily cooled and high borrowing costs are no longer needed to restrain price increases. The Fed sharply ramped up its short-term rate in 2022 and 2023 as pandemic-era inflation spiked.

Separately, Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, last Wednesday suggested that DOGE should look more closely at the Fed’s spending on its facilities.

The heightened scrutiny shows that even as the Trump administration backs off its threats to fire Powell, the Fed is still subject to unusually sharp political pressures, despite its status as an independent agency.

FILE – In this July 31, 2019, file photo, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Even so, the Fed will almost certainly leave its key rate unchanged at about 4.3% when it meets Tuesday and Wednesday. Powell and many of the other 18 officials that sit on the Fed’s rate-setting committee have said they want to see how Trump’s tariffs affect the economy before making any moves.

Trump, however, on Friday said on the social media platform Truth Social that there is “NO INFLATION” and claimed that grocery and egg prices have fallen, and that gas has dropped to $1.98 a gallon.

That’s not entirely true: Grocery prices have jumped 0.5% in two of the past three months and are up 2.4% from a year ago. Gas and oil prices have declined — gas costs are down 10% from a year ago — continuing a longer-running trend that has continued in part because of fears the economy will weaken. Still, AAA says gas prices nationwide average $3.18 a gallon.

Inflation did drop noticeably in March, an encouraging sign, though in the first three months of the year it was 3.6%, according to the Fed’s preferred gauge, well above its 2% target.

Without tariffs, economists say it’s possible the Fed would soon reduce its benchmark rate, because it is currently at a level intended to slow borrowing and spending and cool inflation. Yet the Fed can’t now cut rates with Trump’s broad tariffs likely to raise prices in the coming months.

Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at BNY, said that the Fed is “scarred” by what happened in 2021, when prices rose amid supply snarls and Powell and other Fed officials said the increase would likely be “transitory.” Instead, inflation soared to a peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

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Letters: Actually, it IS about President Trump

This time they will be more cautious, he said.

“That’s a Fed that is going to have to wait for evidence and be slow to adjust on that evidence,” Reinhart said.

Plus, Trump’s badgering of Powell makes it harder for the Fed chair to cut rates because doing so anytime soon would be seen as knuckling under to the White House, said Preston Mui, an economist at Employ America.

“You could imagine a world where there isn’t pressure from the Trump administration and they cut rates … sooner, because they feel comfortable making the argument that they’re doing so because of the data,” he said.

For his part, Powell said last month that tariffs would likely push up inflation and slow the economy, a tricky combination for the Fed. The central bank would typically raise rates — or at least keep them elevated — to fight inflation, while it would cut them to spur the economy if unemployment rose.

Powell has said that the impact of the tariffs on inflation could be temporary — a one-time price increase — but most recently said it “could also be more persistent.” That suggests that Powell will want to wait, potentially for months, to ensure tariffs don’t sustainably raise inflation before considering a rate cut.

Some economists forecast the Fed won’t cut rates until its September meeting, or even later.

Yet Fed officials could move sooner if the tariffs hit the economy hard enough to cause layoffs and push up unemployment. Wall Street investors appear to expect such an outcome — they project that the first cut will occur in July, according to futures pricing.

Separately, Musk criticized the Fed Wednesday for spending $2.5 billion on an extensive renovation of two of its buildings in Washington, D.C.

“Since at the end of the day, this is all taxpayer money, we should certainly look to see if indeed the Federal Reserve is spending $2.5 billion on their interior designer,” Musk said. “That’s an eyebrow raiser.”

Fed officials acknowledge that the cost of the renovations have risen as prices for building materials and labor have spiked amid the post-pandemic inflation. And former Fed officials, speaking on background, say that local regulations forced the Fed to do more of the expansion underground, rather than making the buildings taller, which added to the cost.

Meanwhile, Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and a potential candidate to replace Powell as chair when Powell’s term expires next year, said recently that the Fed has attracted greater scrutiny because of its failure to keep prices in check.

“The Fed’s current wounds are largely self-inflicted,” he said in a speech during an International Monetary Fund conference in late April, in which he also slammed the Fed for participating in a global forum on climate change. “A strategic reset is necessary to mitigate losses of credibility, changes in standing, and most important, worse economic outcomes for our fellow citizens.”

Powell, for his part, said last month that “Fed independence is very widely understood and supported in Washington, in Congress, where it really matters.”