By David Lightman, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Reps. Doris Matsui and Mike Thompson want to impeach Homeland Secretary Kristin Noem. So do dozens of other Democrats.

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They said Wednesday they’re backing an impeachment resolution in the House led by Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill. It appears highly unlikely it will go anywhere in the Republican-run chamber.

The Democrats’ anger has been building all year, as immigration enforcement agents have used what critics say are strong-arm tactics to find undocumented immigrants. Impeachment backers are particularly outraged by the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Gold by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minneapolis during an anti-ICE protest January 7.

“Secretary Noem, you have violated your oath of office and there will be consequences,” Kelly told a Capitol news conference Wednesday.

Many Republicans and Trump administration officials have said ICE personnel were acting in self-defense in Minneapolis.

“Our ICE officers are enforcing federal law as the Congress wrote it. The Democrats here don’t like that law, they object to its enforcement, and they are actively encouraging citizens to obstruct its enforcement,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, chairman of the House immigration subcommittee.

Nonetheless, Matsui, Thompson and an estimated 70 other House members want to try to oust Noem.

“She’s spearheading a lawless and incompetent campaign of cruelty in our cities, blatantly violating the Constitution and allowing the senseless killing of our neighbors,” Matsui, D-Sacramento, posted on the social media platform X.com.

“She has been a complete and destructive failure as DHS secretary. Our nation demands that our justice system is carried out transparently and in accordance with the Constitution,” she said in a separate post.

Added Thompson, D-St. Helena, “Like so many Americans, I am sickened by ICE’s killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Enough is enough.

“It’s clear that Secretary Noem isn’t just a poor leader — she’s violating the law,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back hard.

“How silly during a serious time. As ICE officers are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, Rep. Kelly is more focused on showmanship and fundraising clicks than actually cleaning up her crime-ridden Chicago district,” the department said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee.

Could Noem be impeached?

The impeachment drive appears to have little momentum. Even if the House impeached Noem, which would take a majority vote, the Senate would need a two-thirds majority to remove her from office. The House has a 218 to 213 Republican majority, and 53 of the Senate’s 100 members are Republican.

Party leaders have indicated they’d rather keep the focus on affordability.

“We haven’t had a caucus-wide conversation on that issue,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, when asked earlier this week about Noem’s actions.

“Clearly, we’re going to have to explore what accountability looks like as it relates to an out-of-control administration that continues to break the law, violate norms and jam reckless, right-wing extremism down the throats of the American people,” he said.

Rep. McClintock’s view

Republicans have generally supported the ICE action. “What I saw was an ICE vehicle attempting to leave an area that was in a near-riot condition, a civilian vehicle then suddenly moved in front of it to block its departure,” McClintock said. He described what he saw in a lengthy X post.

He watched as “an ICE officer approached that vehicle and issue a lawful order to the driver to get out of the car. Instead of complying with that order, the driver backed up, pointed the car in the direction of another officer, and then shifted into drive…”

Kelly said her effort has been long in the making. At a Wednesday news conference, she said the department has acted improperly as it searches for undocumented immigrants.

“Secretary Kristi Noem is an incompetent leader, a disgrace to our democracy, and I am impeaching her for obstruction of justice, violation of public trust, and self-dealing,” Kelly said.

She has proposed three articles of impeachment:

—Obstruction of Congress: The measure says Noem “willfully obstructed Congressional oversight and withheld Congressionally appropriated funds in violation of her constitutional oath and federal law.”

—Violation of public trust: Noem “compromised public safety, violated due process of American citizens, and directed unconstitutional actions.”

—Self-dealing: Noem “abused her office for personal benefit and steered federal dollars to associates. “

©2026 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Visit at mcclatchydc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. overdose deaths fell through most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades.

Federal data released Wednesday showed that overdose deaths have been falling for more than two years — the longest drop in decades — but also that the decline was slowing.

And the monthly death toll is still not back to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone where it was before the current overdose epidemic struck decades ago, said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.

“Overall I think this continues to be encouraging, especially since we’re seeing declines almost across the nation,” he said.

Overdose deaths fell in 45 states

Overdose deaths began steadily climbing in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths from heroin and — more recently — illicit fentanyl. Deaths peaked nearly 110,000 in 2022, fell a little in 2023 and then plummeted 27% in 2024, to around 80,000. That was the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data runs through August 2025 and represents the first update of monthly provisional drug overdose deaths since the federal government shutdown.

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An estimated 73,000 people died from overdoses in the 12-month period that ended August 2025, down about 21% from the 92,000 in the previous 12-month period.

CDC officials reported that deaths were down in all states except Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, New Mexico and North Dakota. But they noted it’s likely that not all overdose deaths have been reported yet in every state, and additional data in the future might affect that state count.

Researchers cannot yet say with confidence why deaths have gone down. Experts have offered multiple possible explanations: increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.

Some also point to research that suggests the number of people likely to overdose has been shrinking, as fewer teens take up drugs and many illicit drug users have died.

Two other theories recently joined the list.

China regulation changes may be having an impact

In a paper published last week in the journal Science, University of Maryland researchers point to the drug supply. They say regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.

Their argument is based partly on information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which last year reported that the purity — and dangerous potency — of fentanyl rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic but fell after 2022. It suggests it became harder to make fentanyl and its potency was diluted.

One piece of evidence for that: More U.S.-based Reddit users reported a fentanyl “drought” in 2023.

The authors connect that to signs that the Chinese government — at the urging of U.S. officials — took steps in 2023 to clamp down on the selling of substances used to make drugs. Information is limited on exactly what the Chinese government did, and the paper is a bit speculative, but “we thought we could make a case,” said Peter Reuter, one of the authors.

The recent deceleration of overdose deaths could be because producers in Canada and Mexico found alternative sources, Reuter and his colleagues think.

Their paper drew inspiration from a team of University of Pittsburgh researchers, who earlier concluded that regulatory changes in China concerning the drug carfentanil were an important explanation for a dip in U.S. overdose deaths in 2018.

Did pandemic stimulus payments play a role?

Those same Pittsburgh researchers — Dr. Donald Burke and Dr. Hawre Jalal — are now focused on another theory for what’s happened to overdose deaths. In a paper published last week in the International Journal of Drug Policy, they say overdose trends may be at least partly tied to federal stimulus checks sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers tracked the three rounds of pandemic stimulus payments to U.S. households in 2020 and 2021, and saw surges in overdose deaths after each one.

That money alleviated economic hardship for many families, but some of it also helped people pay for illicit drugs, the Pittsburgh researchers say. And the end of those payments helps explain why overdoses stabilized in 2022 and began falling afterward, they say.

Both arguments seem to have merit, though they do not prove causation, said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

“I personally think it’s more complicated,” with those partial explanations layering on other trends, he said.

The Maryland and Pittsburgh researchers raised questions about whether Trump administration policies could slow momentum.

They noted relations between the U.S. and China strained last year when Trump placed sharply higher tariffs on imports from China, and speculated China might ease efforts to police fentanyl precursors.

They also noted Trump has promised a $2,000 check to Americans to help offset the rising prices resulting from tariffs placed on China. Those checks could cause some drug users to splurge and overdose, said Burke, who urged federal officials to think through how the money is disbursed.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN

The Trump administration placed new security requirements on Nividia’s semiconductor sales to China, but essentially greenlighted the export of its powerful H200 artificial intelligence chips to Chinese buyers.

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Nvidia must ensure that there is an adequate supply in the U.S., and the H200 chips must undergo a third-party review before being exported to China, according to new rules set by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. But the new rules lower the bar for exports.

China won’t be allowed to use the chips for military purposes and is not allowed to import more than 50% of the chips sold to U.S. customers.

“We applaud President Trump’s decision to allow America’s chip industry to compete to support high paying jobs and manufacturing in America,” Nvidia told The Associated Press in a prepared statement Wednesday. “Offering H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America.”

The new Commerce rules arrive just over a month after President Donald Trump said he’d allow Nvidia to sell the H200 to “approved customers” in China.

The H200 is not Nvidia’s most advanced product. Those chips, called Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin, were not part of the approved chips for export.

A group of Democratic senators has objected to sales in China, saying that the chips could aid China’s military, help China carry out more effective cyberattacks against the U.S. and strengthen China’s economic and manufacturing sector.

The approval of the licenses to sell Nvidia H200 chips reflects the increasing power and close relationship that the company’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, enjoys with the president. But there have been concerns that China will find ways to use the chips to develop its own AI products in ways that could pose national security risks for the U.S., a primary concern of the Biden administration which had sought to limit exports.

In August Nvidia and AMD agreed to share 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government, as part of a deal to secure export licenses for the semiconductors.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Wednesday vowed to continue releasing prisoners detained under former President Nicolás Maduro during her first press conference since Maduro was ousted by the United States earlier this month.

Rodríguez served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, running Venezuela’s feared intelligence service and managing its crucial oil industry. A 56-year-old lawyer and politician, Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president two days after the Trump administration snatched Maduro from his fortified compound and claimed the U.S. would be calling the shots in Venezuela.

Addressing journalists from a podium at the presidential palace, Rodríguez said the process of releasing prisoners had begun under Maduro and “has not yet concluded.”

“That process remains open,” she said, adding that the releases sent a message that Venezuela was opening “to a new political moment.”

Despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term, President Donald Trump enlisted Rodríguez to help secure U.S. control over Venezuela’s oil sales. To ensure the former Maduro loyalist does his bidding, he threatened Rodríguez with a “situation probably worse than Maduro,” who faces federal charges of drug-trafficking from a Brooklyn jail.

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