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The cases against Harvey Weinstein: A timeline of allegations and trials

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The cases against Harvey Weinstein: A timeline of allegations and trials

Harvey Weinstein is arraigned in court on September 18, 2024 in New York City, pleading not guilty to a new sex crimes charge.

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This story was originally published in 2020, and has been updated with more recent information on Weinstein’s legal proceedings.

This report includes descriptions of sexual assault.

For much of Harvey Weinstein’s career, dark rumors of sexual assault and harassment tailed the Hollywood megaproducer. Only in recent years did the allegations gather the heft and momentum that culminated in multiple convictions.

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While scores of women have accused Weinstein of crimes dating back decades — ranging from intimidation to rape — this timeline focuses on the incidents cited in criminal cases against him in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Though Weinstein’s New York conviction was overturned in spring of 2024, a new trial is underway in Manhattan. Those updates are below.

Timeline

Winter 1993-94: Weinstein allegedly rapes Annabella Sciorra

The actress Annabella Sciorra, perhaps best known for her Emmy-nominated work on The Sopranos, said Weinstein raped her at her Manhattan apartment after an industry dinner. She says the producer dropped her off, only to reappear at her door and force his way inside.

Sciorra’s allegation went on to become the subject of pretrial arguments in Manhattan. While the alleged incident happened too long ago to be prosecuted under state law and Weinstein’s defense team objected to its inclusion, her testimony was heard anyway during the 2020 trial, in support of the charge of predatory sexual assault.

Summer 2004: Weinstein allegedly forces Lucia Evans to perform oral sex

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The former aspiring actress Lucia Evans told The New Yorker — in one of a pair of major stories that trained a national spotlight on the allegations against Weinstein — that he had raped her in his office in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood.

“He forced me to perform oral sex on him,” Evans alleged, adding: “I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t.’ I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.”

Her account led prosecutors to pursue a criminal sexual act charge against Weinstein, although it was dismissed in 2018.

July 10, 2006: Weinstein allegedly forces himself on Mimi Haley

Mimi Haley, a former production assistant at Weinstein’s now-bankrupt production company, says that after inviting her to his New York City home, the producer ignored her objections, pulled out her tampon and forcibly performed oral sex on her.

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“No woman should have to be subjected to this type of unacceptable abuse,” she said in 2017. “Women have the right to say no. A ‘no’ is a ‘no,’ regardless of the circumstances — and I told Harvey ‘no.’ “

Haley’s claim was included in charges against Weinstein filed in 2018 and she went on to testify in his 2020 trial in Manhattan.

Feb. 18-19, 2013: A pair of incidents in Los Angeles

These alleged incidents prompted Los Angeles prosecutors to file four charges against Weinstein in 2020: one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint.

“On Feb. 18, 2013, Weinstein allegedly went to a hotel and raped a woman after pushing his way inside her room,” the office of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey explained in 2020. “The next evening, the defendant is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a hotel suite in Beverly Hills.”

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March 18, 2013: Alleged rape in New York City

For a long time, few details had been released about this allegation, which prompted two of the charges Weinstein was tried for in New York in 2020: first- and third-degree rape. Indeed, it was not until the trial’s opening statements that prosecutors released the name of the alleged victim, Jessica Mann, and the details of her story.

Prosecutors said Mann, an aspiring actress, had attended several industry events with Weinstein and endured increasingly aggressive sexual advances — including one incident in which, similar to Mimi Haley’s, Mann says Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her.

But it was later, on March 18 — one month after the alleged incidents in Los Angeles — that Mann says she tried to confront Weinstein at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. There, he allegedly coaxed her up to his room, forced her to disrobe and ordered her onto the bed.

“He got on top of her and he raped her, forcing his penis into her vagina,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hast told jurors in 2020. “Jessica just laid there. When he finished, he got off of her.

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March 2015: New York DA decides not to prosecute allegation

Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, a Filipina-Italian model, reported Weinstein to the New York Police Department for allegedly groping her during a meeting at his Tribeca office in 2015. She says that later, at the urging of police, she wore a recording device for an arranged meetup at a Manhattan hotel. She says it was during that meeting that Weinstein admitted to groping her and sought unsuccessfully to get her to come to his room.

However, the office of then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. decided not to pursue the case, saying at the time that “a criminal charge is not supported.”

Years later, after the publication of a New Yorker piece detailing Gutierrez’s allegations, her story would become a focus of intense criticism leveled at Vance, whose office became responsible for prosecuting the criminal trial. Then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo requested a review of the DA’s 2015 decision, though it’s not clear whether that was ever completed.

Oct. 5, 2017: The New York Times publishes allegations

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While rumors of sexual harassment and assault had long dogged Weinstein — even supplying punchlines at the Oscars — it wasn’t until The New York Times and The New Yorker published exposés that the allegations found serious traction.

The Times’ story, written by investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, focused on allegations by a series of assistants and actresses, such as Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan.

Weinstein, in a statement released the same day, pledged to take a leave of absence from his production company and acknowledged that “I have a long way to go.”

Adding, “I so respect all women and regret what happened.” Weinstein did not admit any wrongdoing.

Oct. 10, 2017: The New Yorker‘s website publishes more allegations

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Published just days after the The New York Times article, journalist Ronan Farrow’s piece in The New Yorker focused on a slew of other accusations — including the allegation by Lucia Evans that had been added but was later dropped from the list of criminal charges Weinstein faces in New York.

Oct. 14, 2017: Weinstein is expelled from the Academy

In one of the first signs that the reaction to The New York Times and The New Yorker reports represented a sea change, complete with real-world implications for Weinstein, the Hollywood producer was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the influential organization responsible for the Oscars.

“We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues,” the Academy’s 54-member Board of Governors explained in a statement after an emergency meeting, “but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.”

March 19, 2018: The Weinstein Company files for bankruptcy

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Buffeted by months of negative press, the production company that Weinstein founded with his brother, Bob, went belly up. The Weinstein Company declared bankruptcy and sold “substantially all” of its assets to Lantern Capital Partners. It also voided the nondisclosure agreements it had reached with Weinstein’s accusers.

May 25, 2018: Weinstein surrenders to police

The former Hollywood producer arrived at the New York Police Department’s 1st Precinct in Lower Manhattan, where he submitted to arrest with droves of journalists looking on. It was Harvey Weinstein’s first arrest in connection with the sexual assault allegations.

The same day, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. submitted Weinstein’s initial slate of charges: “The defendant is charged with Rape in the First and Third Degrees, as well as Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree, for forcible sexual acts against two women in 2013 and 2004, respectively.”

About a week and a half later, Weinstein plead not guilty to the charges, which changed significantly as new information came to light.

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July 2, 2018: Additional charges against Weinstein announced

Manhattan District Attorney Vance announced the filing of a superseding grand jury indictment, which added charges connected with a third incident in 2006. The new slate included one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree and two counts of predatory sexual assault, the most serious charges levied against Weinstein by Manhattan prosecutors.

Miriam “Mimi” Haley, who was involved in the alleged 2006 incident, had come forward with her story more than half a year earlier, saying that during her time working at The Weinstein Company, Harvey Weinstein orally forced himself on her inside his New York City home.

Weinstein plead not guilty to the new charges a week after they were announced.

Oct. 11, 2018: One charge against Weinstein is dismissed

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Justice James Burke, the judge overseeing the Manhattan trial, dismissed one of the charges against Weinstein after it became clear that investigators didn’t properly present certain information to the grand jury.

Lucia Evans told the grand jury — and The New Yorker — that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. But an unidentified friend of hers had contradicted that account in an interview with a detective, saying Evans called it a consensual act in exchange for the promise of acting work.

Prosecutors acknowledged later that the detective “failed to inform” them of “important details” of the interview prior to Evans’ grand jury testimony. Weinstein’s legal team pushed to have the criminal sexual act charge dismissed as a result, and prosecutors did not object.

Harvey Weinstein arrives at court for jury selection on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in New York.

Harvey Weinstein arrives at court for jury selection on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in New York.

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Jan. 6, 2020: Trial in New York City begins

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Weinstein’s trial formally opened in Manhattan, with more than two weeks devoted to selecting a jury. After roughly a year and a half of pretrial wrangling, the charges Weinstein faced are as follows:

  • Two counts of predatory sexual assault
  • One count of rape in the first degree (connected to the 2013 incident)
  • One count of rape in the third degree (2013 incident)
  • One count of criminal sexual act in the first degree (2006 incident)

Jan. 6, 2020: Los Angeles prosecutors announce charges of their own

The same day that his trial opened in Manhattan, Weinstein was hit with new legal woes from the other side of the U.S.: four felony counts of sexual assault, filed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. The charges are connected with incidents that allegedly happened at local hotels over two nights in February 2013.

“We believe the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims,” Lacey says, “and then commit violent crimes against them.”

Feb. 24, 2020: Manhattan jury finds Weinstein guilty in mixed verdict

After about five days of deliberations, jurors convicted the former producer of two of the five counts he faced — third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act — but acquitted him of the most serious charges.

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He did not visibly react as the verdict was read but, according to defense lawyer Arthur Aidala, repeatedly told his attorneys afterward: “I’m innocent. … I didn’t rape anyone.”

Of the two counts that stuck, the criminal sexual act is the more serious, carrying a sentence of at least five years in prison and a maximum of more than two decades.

After the hearing, Weinstein’s path to the Rikers Island, where he was to await his sentencing, was rerouted to a nearby hospital after he experienced chest pains and high blood pressure.

March 11, 2020: Weinstein receives 23-year prison sentence in New York 

The sentence handed down in a Manhattan courtroom included 20 years for first-degree criminal sexual act and three years for third-degree rape — nearly the maximum allowed under New York state law.

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Weinstein’s victims “refused to be silent, and they were heard,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement after the sentencing hearing. “Their words took down a predator and put him behind bars, and gave hope to survivors of sexual violence all across the world.”

Weinstein’s legal team vowed to appeal.

October 2022: Trial in Los Angeles begins 

The former movie mogul faced rape and sexual assault charges in front of a jury of nine men and three women at a Los Angeles court house. The former movie mogul was charged with raping and sexually assaulting four women between 2004 to 2013.

December 2022: Weinstein found guilty in mixed verdict in Los Angeles trial 

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Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and sexual misconduct – three of seven charges – in his Los Angeles trial.

“It is time for the kingmaker to be brought to justice,” LA County Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez said during closing arguments of the trial.

Weinstein’s convictions hinged on allegations from one of four accusers. (The jury ruled Weinstein was not guilty on one of the remaining charges, and couldn’t reach a decision on three others.) Four additional charges were dismissed.

February 23, 2023: Weinstein sentenced in California 

Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years behind bars by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench, to be served consecutively after his 23-year sentence in New York.

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April 25, 2024: New York conviction is overturned 

Weinstein’s 2020 sex crime conviction was overturned while serving a 23-year sentence in New York. In a 4-3 decision, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial because the proceedings included testimony from women whose allegations were not part of the case. These are otherwise known as Molineux witnesses.

Judge Jenny Rivera wrote: “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose … The only evidence against defendant [Weinstein] was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings … was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury.”

April 28, 2024: Weinstein in and out of the hospital 

Weinstein was hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan upon his return to New York. After his 2020 conviction was vacated, Weinstein was turned over to the city’s Department of Correction. According to a state spokesperson Weinstein remains in custody because of his Los Angeles conviction and sentence.

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May 1, 2024: Prosecutors plan for a new trial 

During a hearing in a New York courtroom, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed his office was putting together a new trial — first planned for the fall of 2024, and later delayed to the following spring.

May 29, 2024: New York prosecutors signal potential for new indictment

Manhattan prosecutors informed Judge Curtis Farber that they may seek a new indictment ahead of Weinstein’s upcoming trial. During a court hearing, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg confirmed that additional survivors had come forward with assault claims and may be willing to testify.

June 7, 2024: Weinstein’s lawyers appeal California conviction 

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Weinstein’s lawyers appealed his California conviction, arguing that evidence was excluded from his trial there, which ended in 2022.

September 12, 2024: Another New York indictment is announced

New York prosecutors announced in a hearing that Weinstein was indicted on additional sex crimes charges. Weinstein is not present in court, after being rushed into emergency heart surgery the weekend prior.

September 18, 2024: Weinstein pleads not guilty to new charge in New York

Prosecutors unsealed the indictment, detailing allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein in 2006. In a New York courtroom, Weinstein plead not guilty.

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April 15, 2025: Jury selection begins in Weinstein’s trial in New York

In Harvey Weinstein’s third trial in just over five years, the disgraced film producer is facing assault allegations from three different women, including one whose identity has not yet been revealed.

Ilya Marritz and Clare Lombardo contributed to this timeline.

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Video: Senators Question Kristi Noem on ICE Immigration Tactics

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Video: Senators Question Kristi Noem on ICE Immigration Tactics

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Senators Question Kristi Noem on ICE Immigration Tactics

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeatedly refused to apologize for suggesting that Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens shot and killed by agents, were domestic terrorists.

What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem. A disaster. What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that turn out are American citizens. I could talk about the culture that’s been created here. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, when I spoke to Alex’s parents, they told me that you calling him a domestic terrorist — this was directly from them — the day after he was killed, a nurse in our V.A., Alex — one of the most hurtful things they could ever imagine was said by you about their son. Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Pretti’s parents? Ma’am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said It appeared to be an incident of — I think the parents saw it for what it was. In a hearing — recent hearing before the HSGAC committee, C.B.P. and ICE officials testified under oath that their agencies did not inform you that Pretti was a domestic terrorist — during that hearing, stated during that hearing, I was getting reports from the ground, from agents at the scene, and I would say that it was a chaotic scene. How did you think that calling them domestic terrorists at that scene was somehow going to calm the situation? The fact that you can’t admit to a mistake, which looks like under investigation, it’s going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back. Law enforcement needs to learn from that. You don’t protect them by not looking after the facts.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeatedly refused to apologize for suggesting that Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens shot and killed by agents, were domestic terrorists.

By Christina Kelso and Jackeline Luna

March 3, 2026

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Pregnant migrant girls are being sent to a Texas shelter flagged as medically risky

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Pregnant migrant girls are being sent to a Texas shelter flagged as medically risky

The Trump administration is sending pregnant unaccompanied minors to a South Texas shelter (above) flagged as medically inadequate by officials from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The facility is run by a for-profit contractor called Urban Strategies.

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The Trump administration is sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration enforcement to a single group shelter in South Texas. The decision was made over urgent objections from some of the administration’s own health and child welfare officials, who say both the facility and the region lack the specialized care the girls need.

That’s according to seven officials who work at the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian, or are separated from family by immigration authorities. The children remain in ORR’s care until they can be released to an adult or deported, or turn 18.

All of the officials asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

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Since late July, more than a dozen pregnant minors have been placed at the Texas facility, which is in the small border city of San Benito. Some were as young as 13, and at least half of those taken in so far became pregnant as a result of rape, the officials said. Their pregnancies are considered high risk by definition, particularly for the youngest girls.

“This group of kids is clearly recognized as our most vulnerable,” one of the officials said. Rank-and-file staff, the official said, are “losing sleep over it, wondering if kids are going to be placed in programs where they’re not going to have access to the care they need.”

The move marks a sharp departure from longstanding federal practice, which placed pregnant, unaccompanied migrant children in ORR shelters or foster homes around the country that are equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies.

The ORR officials said they were never told why the girls are being concentrated in a single location, let alone in this particular shelter in Texas. But they — along with more than a dozen former government officials, health care professionals, migrant advocates and civil rights attorneys — worry the Trump administration is knowingly putting the children at risk to advance an ideological goal: denying them access to abortion by placing them in a state where it’s virtually banned.

“This is 100% and exclusively about abortion,” said Jonathan White, a longtime federal health official who ran ORR’s unaccompanied children program for part of President Trump’s first term. White, who recently retired from the government, said the administration tried and failed to restrict abortion access for unaccompanied minors in 2017. “Now they casually roll out what they brutally fought to accomplish last time and didn’t.”

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Asked if the administration is sending pregnant children to San Benito to restrict their access to abortion, HHS said in a statement that the allegation was “completely inaccurate.”

In an earlier statement, the department said that “ORR’s placement decisions are guided by child welfare best practices and are designed to ensure each child is housed in the safest, most developmentally appropriate setting, including for children who are pregnant or parenting.”

But several of the ORR officials took issue with the department’s statement. “ORR is supposed to be a child welfare organization,” one of them said. “Putting pregnant kids in San Benito is not a decision you make when you care about children’s safety.”

ORR’s acting director, Angie Salazar, instructed agency staff to send “any pregnant children” to San Benito beginning July 22, 2025, according to an internal email obtained as part of a six-month investigation by The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom, public media collaboratives that worked together to produce this story.

A copy of the July 22, 2025, email notifying ORR supervisors of the directive to send pregnant unaccompanied minors to a single shelter in San Benito, Texas. The move comes over objections from the government’s own health and child welfare officials.

A copy of the July 22, 2025, email notifying ORR supervisors of the directive to send pregnant unaccompanied minors to a single shelter in San Benito, Texas. The move comes over objections from the government’s own health and child welfare officials.
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Several of the officials said a handful of pregnant girls have mistakenly been placed in other shelters because immigration authorities didn’t know they were pregnant when they were transferred to ORR custody.

Since the July order, none of the pregnant girls at the San Benito facility have experienced major medical problems, according to the ORR officials and Aimee Korolev, deputy director of ProBAR, an organization that provides legal services to children there. They said several of the girls have given birth and are detained with their infants.

But ORR officials interviewed for this story said they worry the shelter is only one high-risk pregnancy away from catastrophe.

“I feel like we’re just waiting for something terrible to happen,” one of the officials said.

‘Blown away by the level of risk’

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There are dozens of ORR shelters or foster homes across the country that are designated to care for pregnant unaccompanied children, according to several of the ORR officials, with 12 in Texas alone. None of them could recall a time when all of the pregnant minors in the agency’s custody were concentrated in one shelter.

Detaining them in San Benito, Texas, doctors and public health experts said, is a dangerous gambit.

“It’s not good to be a pregnant person in Texas, no matter who you are,” said Annie Leone, a nurse midwife who recently spent five years caring for pregnant and postpartum migrant women and girls at a large family shelter not far from San Benito. “So, to put pregnant migrant kids in Texas, and then in one of the worst health care regions of Texas, is not good at all.”

The specialized obstetric care that exists in Texas is mostly available in its larger cities, hours from San Benito. And several factors, including the high number of uninsured patients, have eroded the availability of health care across the state.

Furthermore, Texas’ near-ban on abortion has been especially devastating to obstetric care. The law allows an exception in cases where the pregnant person’s life is in danger or one of her bodily functions is at risk, but doctors have been confused as to what that means.

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Many doctors have left to practice elsewhere, and those who’ve stayed are often scared to perform procedures they worry could come with criminal charges. While Texas passed a law clarifying the exceptions last year, experts have said it may not be enough to assuage doctors’ fears.

Several maternal health experts listed the potential dangers for the girls at the San Benito shelter: If one of them develops an ectopic pregnancy (where the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus), if she miscarries or if her water breaks too early and she gets an infection, the emergency care she needs could be delayed or denied by doctors wary of the abortion ban.

Getting the care that is available could take too long to save her life or the baby’s, they added.

Adolescents are also more likely to give birth early, which can be life-threatening for both mother and baby. The youngest face complications during labor and delivery because their pelvises aren’t fully developed, said Dr. Anne-Marie Amies Oelschlager, an obstetrician in Washington state who specializes in adolescent pregnancy.

“These are young adolescents who are still going through puberty,” she said. “Their bodies are still changing.”

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Pregnant girls who recently endured the often harrowing journey to the U.S. face even more risk, obstetrics experts said. Experts who work with migrant children say many are raped along the way and contract sexually transmitted infections that can be dangerous during pregnancy. Add to that little to no access to prenatal care or proper nourishment, and then the trauma of being detained.

“You couldn’t set up a worse scenario,” said Dr. Blair Cushing, who runs a women’s health clinic in McAllen, about 45 minutes from San Benito. “I’m kind of blown away by the level of risk that they’re concentrating in this facility.”

A history of problems

The San Benito shelter is owned and operated by Urban Strategies, a for-profit company that has contracted with the federal government to care for unaccompanied children for more than a decade, according to USAspending.gov.

Meliza Fonseca lives across the street from the San Benito shelter. She said she occasionally sees kids in the yard on weekends, “but for the most part, you don’t see them.”

Meliza Fonseca lives across the street from the San Benito shelter. She said she occasionally sees kids in the yard on weekends, “but for the most part, you don’t see them.”

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The main building, an old tan brick Baptist Church, occupies a city block in downtown San Benito, a quiet town of about 25,000. The church was converted to a migrant shelter in 2015 and was managed by two other contractors before Urban Strategies took it over in 2021.

On a fall day last year, there were no signs of activity at the facility, though children’s lawn toys and playground equipment were visible behind a wooden fence. A guard was stationed at one of the entrances.

“It’s pretty quiet, just like it is today,” said Meliza Fonseca, who lives nearby. “That’s the way it is every day.”

She said she occasionally sees kids playing in the yard on weekends, “but for the most part, you don’t see them.”

Reached by email, the founder and president of Urban Strategies, Lisa Cummins, wrote that the company is “deeply committed to the care and well-being of the children we serve,” and directed any questions about ORR-contracted shelters to the federal government.

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When asked about the San Benito facility, HHS wrote that “Urban Strategies has a long-standing record of delivering high-quality care to pregnant unaccompanied minors, with a consistently low staff turnover.”

But the ORR officials who spoke with the newsrooms said that as recently as 2024, staff members at the shelter failed to arrange timely medical appointments for pregnant girls or immediately share critical health information with the federal agency and discharged some of them without arrangements to continue their medical care.

ORR barred the shelter from receiving pregnant girls from September to December of 2024 while Urban Strategies implemented a remediation plan, but the plan did not add staff or enhance their qualifications, the officials said.

Some of the officials said ORR’s leadership was provided with a list of shelters that are better prepared to handle children with high-risk pregnancies. All of those shelters are outside Texas, in regions where the full range of necessary medical care is available. Yet the directive to place them at San Benito remains in place.

“It’s cruel, it’s just cruel,” one of the officials said. “They don’t care about any of these kids. They’re playing politics with children’s health.”

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‘A dress rehearsal’

Jonathan White, who ran ORR’s unaccompanied children program from January of 2017 to March of 2018, said he wasn’t surprised to learn that the new administration is moving pregnant unaccompanied children to Texas.

“I’ve been expecting this since Trump returned to office,” White said in an interview.

He said he views the San Benito order as a continuation of an anti-abortion policy shift that began in 2017, which “ultimately proved to be a dress rehearsal for the current administration.”

Scott Lloyd, the agency’s director at the time, denied girls in ORR custody permission to end their pregnancies, court records show. Lloyd also required the girls to get counseling about the benefits of motherhood and the harms of abortion and personally pleaded with some of them to reconsider.

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“I worked to treat all of the children in ORR care with dignity, including the unborn children,” Lloyd told the newsrooms in an email.

In the fall of 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit against Lloyd and the Trump administration on behalf of pregnant girls in ORR custody. The ACLU argued that denying the girls abortions violated their constitutional rights, established by the Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Not long after the lawsuit was filed, White said, he received a late-night phone call from Lloyd, who had a request. He wanted White to transfer an unaccompanied pregnant girl who was seeking an abortion to a migrant shelter in Texas, where, under state law, it would have been too late for her to terminate her pregnancy. White said that he believed following the order would have been unlawful because it might have denied the girl access to legal relief under the lawsuit, so he refused. The girl was not transferred.

Lloyd, who has since left the government, acknowledged making the request but said he didn’t think it was illegal.

The lawsuit was settled in 2020; the first Trump administration agreed not to impede abortion access for migrant youth in federal custody going forward. Four years later, the Biden administration cemented the deal in official regulations: If a child who wanted to terminate her pregnancy was detained in a state where it was not legal, ORR had to move them to a state where it was.

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That rule remains in place, and the agency appears to be following it: ORR has transferred two pregnant girls out of Texas since July, though the agency officials said one of the girls chose not to terminate her pregnancy.

But now that Trump is back in office, his administration is working to end the policy.

‘Elegant and simple’

Even before Trump won reelection, policymakers in his circle were planning a renewed attempt to restrict abortion rights for unaccompanied minors.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a politically conservative overhaul of the federal government, called for ORR to stop facilitating abortions for children in its care. The plan advised the government not to detain unaccompanied children in states where abortion is available.

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Such a change is now possible, Project 2025 argued, because Roe v. Wade is no longer an obstacle. Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision in 2022, there is no longer a federal right to abortion.

Upon returning to office, Trump signed an executive order “to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”

Then, in early July, the Department of Justice reconsidered a longstanding federal law, known as the Hyde Amendment, that governs the use of taxpayer money for abortion. The DOJ concluded that the government cannot pay to transport detainees from one state to another to facilitate abortion access, except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

And now, ORR is working to rescind the Biden-era requirement that pregnant girls requesting an abortion be moved to states where it’s available. On Jan. 23, the agency submitted the proposed change for government approval, though it has not yet published the details.

Several of the ORR officials who spoke with the newsrooms said it’s unclear whether children in the agency’s custody who have been raped or need emergency medical care will still be allowed to get abortions.

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“HHS does not comment on pending or pre-decisional rulemaking,” the department wrote when asked for details of the regulatory change. “ORR will continue to comply with all applicable federal laws, including requirements for providing necessary medical care to children in ORR custody.”

The day the change was submitted, an unnamed Health and Human Services spokesperson told The Daily Signal, a conservative news site, “Our goal is to save lives both for these young children that are coming across the border, that are pregnant, and to save the lives of their unborn babies.”

Experts who spoke with the newsrooms said it’s unclear why the government would concentrate pregnant children in one Texas shelter, rather than disperse them at shelters throughout the state. But they said they’re convinced that the San Benito directive and the anti-abortion rule change are meant to work hand in hand: Once pregnant children are placed at the San Benito shelter, the new regulations could mean they cannot be moved out of Texas to get abortions — even if keeping them there puts them at risk.

“It’s so elegant and simple,” said White, the former head of the unaccompanied children program. “All they have to do is send them to Texas.”

Mark Betancourt is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to The California Newsroom.

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Mose Buchele with The Texas Newsroom contributed reporting.

This story was produced by The California Newsroom and The Texas Newsroom. The California Newsroom is a collaboration of public media outlets that includes NPR, CalMatters, KQED (San Francisco), LAist and KCRW (Los Angeles), KPBS (San Diego) and other stations across the state. The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA (North Texas), Houston Public Media, KUT (Austin), Texas Public Radio (San Antonio) and other stations across the state.

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Trump claims US stockpiles mean wars can be fought ‘forever’; Kristi Noem testifies before Congress – US politics live

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Trump claims US stockpiles mean wars can be fought ‘forever’; Kristi Noem testifies before Congress – US politics live

Trump says US stockpiles mean “wars can be fought ‘forever’”

In a late night post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that the US munitions stockpiles “at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better”.

He added that the US has a “virtually unlimited supply of these weapons”, meaning that “wars can be fought ‘forever’”.

This comes after Trump said that the US-Israel war on Iran could go beyond the four-five weeks that the administration initially predicted. The president also did not rule out the possibility of US boots on the ground in Iran during an interview with the New York Post on Monday.

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“I rebuilt the military in my first term, and continue to do so. The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!,” he wrote.

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During his opening remarks, Senate judicicary committee chairman, Chuck Grassley, blamed Democrats for the ongoing shutdown Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but highlighted four agencies: the Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Coast Guard.

Democrats are demanding tighter guardrails for federal immigration enforcement, but a sweeping tax bill signed into law last year conferred $75bn for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which means the agency is still functional amid the wider department shuttering.

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