By PATRICK WHITTLE

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the world’s rarest whale species is having more babies this year than in some recent seasons, but experts say many more young are needed to help stave off the possibility of extinction.

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The North Atlantic right whale’s population numbers an estimated 384 animals and is slowly rising after several years of decline. The whales have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, according to scientists who study them.

The whales give birth off the southeastern United States every winter before migrating north to feed. Researchers have identified 15 calves this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

That number is higher than two of the last three winters, but the species needs “approximately 50 or more calves per year for many years” to stop its decline and allow for recovery, NOAA said in a statement. The whales are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear.

This year’s number is encouraging, but the species remains in peril without stronger laws to protect against those threats, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with environmental group Oceana. The federal government is in the midst of a moratorium on federal rules designed to protect right whales until 2028, and commercial fishing groups have pushed for a proposal to extend that pause for even longer.

There is still time left for more baby whales to be born this winter, but 50 is not a reasonable expectation because of a lack of reproductive females in the population, Brogan said.

“We’re not going to be able to calve ourselves to recovery,” Brogan said. “We also need to be doing more to tackle the two primary causes of right whale deaths, being entanglement in fishing gear and being hit by boats.”

The whales have fared better than last winter, when they gave birth to only 11 calves, according to NOAA data. The whales have reached 20 calves only twice since 2010, and they gave birth to no calves in a disastrous 2018 season. The whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said.

The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling and have been federally protected for decades. They remain in a crisis at the moment because there have been more deaths than births in the population in the past decade, NOAA said in its statement.

By BRUCE SCHREINER

President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president’s backing.

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Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country.

“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

The congressman claimed that Trump wrongly circumvented Congress when ordering the attack.

“In the Constitution, the Founders vested war making power in Congress, not the Executive branch,” he wrote.

Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown his true colors” by criticizing the military operation.

“This operation sends a clear message: the United States will not allow rogue regimes to enable criminal networks or use oil and other resources to fuel our global adversaries,” Gallrein said on social media. “Holding bad actors accountable is how we restore law and order, deter aggression, and protect American families.”

Gallrein added that American intervention “opens the door to a new chapter for the people of Venezuela — one defined not by decades of oppression, but by the possibility of peace and prosperity.”

He is Trump’s choice to challenge Massie, a maverick who has had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. The primary election in May will test Trump’s hold over Republican politics. The sudden emergence of Venezuela as an issue will test the president’s ability to hold together his coalition during a challenging election year for Republicans that could be defined by domestic concerns like health care and affordability.

The libertarian-leaning Massie has won reelection by lopsided margins since entering Congress in 2012 — even when he incurred Trump’s wrath.

The military action in Venezuela is the latest example of Massie standing up to Trump.

The congressman opposed the massive tax breaks and spending cuts package last year that Trump calls “beautiful” but Massie says will grow the national debt and hurt the economy. Massie said the president lacked authority to attack Iran’s nuclear sites without congressional approval. And Massie was at the forefront of efforts to force the public release of case files on the sex trafficking probe into the late Jeffrey Epstein.

In his bid to unseat the congressman, Gallrein has the president’s vaunted political operation on his side, and a super PAC launched by Trump aides has run ads attacking Massie. But he will confront an entrenched, well-funded incumbent in Massie.

Trump on Monday reiterated his support for Gallrein on his social media platform and urged other Republicans to stay out of the May primary.

“I have heard that there are other Candidates exploring a run for this seat, but I am asking all MAGA Warriors to rally behind Captain Ed Gallrein, the Candidate who is, far and away, best positioned to DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the beautiful Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Trump said.

So far, at least two Democrats have filed to run for the congressional seat stretching across northern Kentucky, along with a third Republican besides Massie and Gallrein. The eventual Republican nominee will be heavily favored in a district last represented by a Democrat two decades ago.

By JOSH FUNK

Pipeline safety regulators on Monday assessed their largest fine ever against the company responsible for leaking 1.1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana in 2023. But the $9.6 million fine isn’t likely to be a major burden for Third Coast to pay.

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This single fine is close to the normal total of $8 million to $10 million in all fines that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration hands out each year. But Third Coast has a stake in some 1,900 miles of pipelines, and in September, the Houston-based company announced that it had secured a nearly $1 billion loan.

Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director Bill Caram said this spill “resulted from a company-wide systemic failure, indicating the operator’s fundamental inability to implement pipeline safety regulations,” so the record fine is appropriate and welcome.

“However, even record fines often fail to be financially meaningful to pipeline operators. The proposed fine represents less than 3% of Third Coast Midstream’s estimated annual earnings,” Caram said. “True deterrence requires penalties that make noncompliance more expensive than compliance.”

The agency said Third Coast didn’t establish proper emergency procedures, which is part of why the National Transportation Safety Board found that operators failed to shut down the pipeline for nearly 13 hours after their gauges first hinted at a problem. PHMSA also said the company didn’t adequately assess the risks or properly maintain the 18-inch Main Pass Oil Gathering pipeline.

The agency said the company “failed to perform new integrity analyses or evaluations following changes in circumstances that identified new and elevated risk factors” for the pipeline.

That echoed what the NTSB said in its final report in June, that “Third Coast missed several opportunities to evaluate how geohazards may threaten the integrity of their pipeline. Information widely available within the industry suggested that land movement related to hurricane activity was a threat to pipelines.”

The NTSB said the leak off the coast of Louisiana was the result of underwater landslides, caused by hazards such as hurricanes, that Third Coast, the pipeline owner, failed to address despite the threats being well known in the industry.

A Third Coast spokesperson said the allegations were a shock because the company “consistently meets or exceeds regulatory requirements across our operations.”

“After constructive engagement with PHMSA over the last two years, we were surprised to see aspects of the recent allegations that we believe are inaccurate and exceed established precedent. We will address these concerns with the agency moving forward,” the company spokesperson said.

The amount of oil spilled in this incident was far less than the 2010 BP oil disaster, when 134 million gallons were released in the weeks following an oil rig explosion, but it could have been much smaller if workers in the Third Coast control room had acted more quickly, the NTSB said.

The Trump administration has begun deploying upwards of 2,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities as part of a 30-day surge that seeks to escalate a federal immigration crackdown and growing fraud investigations, according to law enforcement sources cited by CBS News.

CBS said the deployment will involve agents and officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation branch, as well as Homeland Security Investigations, the agency’s investigative arm tasked with fighting transnational crimes. The law enforcement sources were unnamed in the report, according to CBS News, because they requested anonymity to discuss operations that have not been publicly announced.

Agents deployed from Homeland Security Investigations are expected to investigate alleged cases of housing, daycare and Medicaid fraud, building on last month’s inspection of dozens of sites in and around Minneapolis, according to CBS News, which said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino will help lead immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities alongside an unknown number of U.S. Border Patrol officers. Bovino has overseen immigration roundups in Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles and New Orleans.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel already had announced an increase in operations in Minnesota. Last week Noem posted on social media that officers were “conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.” Patel said the intent was to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”

The new Twin Cities deployment would represent one of the largest concentrations of DHS personnel in an American city in recent years. Tactical units known as Special Response Teams are also expected to be part of the operation, which could grow larger as officers rotate through over the next 30 days.

The new surge, said CBS, comes amid intense state and federal scrutiny of Minnesota following years of high-profile fraud cases involving federally funded programs. They have included some of the largest pandemic-era and post-pandemic fraud schemes in the country, like the Feeding Our Future case, which led to dozens of indictments and convictions.

The deployment, which began Sunday, will make the Twin Cities the first major immigration enforcement target in the New Year. It’s been met with growing resistance from protesters, elected officials and some business owners.

Hotel rooms canceled, observers gathering

On Monday, under the title “No Room at the Inn!,” the Department of Homeland Security shared at least four social media posts on X claiming that a Hilton hotel had canceled reservations for officers who had attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates. Citing a statement issued to Fox News, DHS later posted that Hilton had apologized for the cancellations, noting “Hilton hotels serve as welcoming places for all. This hotel is independently owned and operated, and the actions referenced are not reflective of Hilton values. We are investigating this matter with this individual hotel, and can confirm that Hilton works with governments, law enforcement, and community leaders around the world to ensure our properties are open and inviting to everyone.”

In St. Paul, some bars and restaurants have posted signs saying, “Federal Agents Not Permitted on Premises. ICE, DEA, ATF or any other agent or agency may not enter or park or stage immigration operations on this property.”

Elsewhere, groups of “constitutional observers” have sought to document ICE actions.

A sign on a St. Paul bar on Jan. 5, 2026 indicates that federal immigration agents are not welcome on the premises. CBS News reported the Trump administration had begun a 30-day surge, deploying 2,000 federal immigration, Border Patrol and investigative agents in the Twin Cities. (Frederick Melo / Pioneer Press)

State Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega, DFL-St. Paul, circulated video on Monday of ICE agents conducting a Jan. 3 operation on the city’s West Side. Perez-Vega said constitutional observers were gathered in the parking lot of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Concord Street, where they positioned themselves “to ensure community members in the area were informed of their rights. … Despite observers maintaining a clear and safe distance, one observer was pepper-sprayed by an agent. … The use of force appeared unnecessary given the non-confrontational and lawful behavior of those present.”

West Side organizations including Neighborhood House, the West Side Boosters, the West Side Community Organization, the Immigrant Defense Network and the office of St. Paul City Council President Rebecca Noecker are hosting a constitutional observer training next week at the Wellstone Center.

Some officials have promised legal resistance. Speaking at her swearing-in ceremony last Friday, new St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said she was ready to work with the St. Paul City Council on ordinances intended to oppose aggressive sweeps by ICE.

“From cutting funding to our city or targeting our neighbors, we are facing an unprecedented incursion that we must meet head on,” said Her, who said she plans to ban ICE from staging in the city’s parks and public spaces, and from wearing complete mask coverings that obscure identity.

“One thing we know about this administration is that they won’t play by the rules, but it is important we stand up for our neighbors and set those rules first,” the mayor said. “Let’s not forget who is the aggressor here, who is the one tearing families apart. … I am determined not to allow this federal administration to turn us against each other.”

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