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FBI to prioritize immigration, as DOJ scales back white-collar cases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The FBI ordered agents on Monday to devote more time to immigration enforcement and scale back investigating white-collar crime, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the Justice Department issued new guidance on what white-collar cases will be prioritized.

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In a series of meetings, FBI agents were told by their field offices they would need to start devoting about one third of their time to helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.

Pursuing white-collar cases, they were told, will be deprioritized for at least the remainder of 2025, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Reuters could not immediately determine how many field offices were informed of the change, or whether it would apply to agents across the country.

An FBI spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

The orders came on the same day that Matthew Galeotti, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, issued new guidance to prosecutors that scales back the scope of white-collar cases historically pursued by the department and orders prosecutors to “minimize the length and collateral impact” of such investigations.

Immigration enforcement has largely not been the purview of the Justice Department’s law enforcement agencies in the past.

But as President Donald Trump has stepped up an immigration crackdown, thousands of federal law enforcement officials from multiple agencies have been enlisted to take on new work as immigration enforcers, pulling crime-fighting resources away from other areas.

Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also previously announced they will scale back efforts to prosecute certain kinds of white-collar offenses, including public corruption, foreign bribery, kleptocracy and foreign influence.

Pope Leo calls for news media to shun divisive language

VATICAN CITY (NYT) — Pope Leo XIV used his first audience with news outlets Monday to appeal to journalists to help cool the heated language of today’s media landscape.

The comments once again echoed some of the themes highlighted by his predecessor, Pope Francis, as Leo backed a free press to enable informed decisions and renewed his calls for a more peaceful world.

“Let us disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred; let us free it from aggression,” Leo told more than 1,000 journalists, including the Vatican press corps, who were gathered in an auditorium. “We do not need loud, forceful communication but rather communication that is capable of listening,” he added, delivering his address in Italian.

In comments that were likely to win him points with his audience, Leo spoke of the need for people to be informed in order to make sound decisions and of “the precious gift of free speech and of the press.”

Leo took the stage to a rapturous ovation from members of the news media, some of whom will report on his papacy and others who were in Rome to cover the death and funeral of Francis as well as the conclave that elected the new pope.

Leo’s address to news media, a papal tradition, was frequently interrupted by applause. He began with an impromptu joke in English, thanking journalists for their applause but saying he hoped they would not fall asleep during his remarks.

The last five popes have held audiences with the media early in their papacies. Leo, the first American to lead the Roman Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion faithful, has spent his first days as pope pledging to align himself with “ordinary people” and decrying aggression and conflict.

In the pope’s remarks, which lasted around 10 minutes, Leo called for the release of journalists who had been imprisoned for their work. At least 550 journalists were being held across the world as of December, according to Reporters Without Borders, a nonpartisan organization that works to protect journalists.

Trump asks drugmakers to lower US prices

(NYT) — President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order asking drugmakers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medicines in the United States.

But the order cites no obvious legal authority to mandate lower prices. The order said the administration would consider taking regulatory actions or importing drugs from other countries in the future if drugmakers do not comply.

It was something of a win for the pharmaceutical industry, which had been bracing for a policy that would be much more damaging to its interests.

Last week, Trump hyped a coming announcement that was “as big as it gets.” And on Sunday evening, he teed up the order in a Truth Social post, writing that he would link U.S. drug prices to those in peer countries under a “most favored nation” pricing model — a policy he attempted unsuccessfully in his first term for a small set of drugs in Medicare.

His executive order Monday does not do that. Pharmaceutical stocks rose Monday on the news.

Trump’s executive order came just hours after House Republicans offered an expansive set of health care policy changes that would cut around $700 billion from Medicaid and the Obamacare marketplaces over a decade and would cause an estimated 8.6 million Americans to become uninsured.