It’s Thursday, September 18. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why is Gen Z out of work? Charlie Kirk and Judaism. An afternoon with Woody Allen. And much more.

But first: Arrested, chained, and deported.

Over the last few weeks, Free Press reporter Frannie Block and freelance journalist Mónica Cordero have spent hours interviewing a 33-year-old Ecuadorian man who was arrested by ICE agents when he appeared in immigration court in June. These courts—where immigrants, following the rules, arrive to have their asylum claims heard—have become traps, places where ICE agents nab them and send them back without their claims ever being considered.

The man Frannie and Mónica spoke to, known only as R.A. in court documents, described a horrific ordeal after his arrest that no one deserves for simply trying to gain legal status in the U.S. He says he was put in chains, stuffed into crowded cells without enough beds or toilets, and shuttled to a series of nasty facilities before being sent back to Ecuador.

“I felt like the most wanted person in the world,” he said. “As if I had killed, kidnapped, or raped.” He says he saw dozens of other immigrants suffering a similar fate.

With 11 other deported immigrants, R.A. has filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the courthouse arrests deprive them of their due process rights. Getting their day in court was the one thing they had always been able to count on. Back in Ecuador, R.A. is trying to keep out of sight, knowing that the same people who caused him to fear for his safety—and were the reason he fled to America in the first place—are still there. Read Frannie and Mónica’s disturbing report below.

—Joe Nocera

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter-point on Wednesday. (Win McNamee via Getty Images)

• The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter-point on Wednesday. In the decision, officials pointed toward a weak job market and signaled that there could be more cuts to come. Newly appointed Fed governor Stephen Miran, Trump’s former top economic adviser, was the sole Fed member who dissented, advocating instead for a larger rate cut.

• Disney’s ABC is removing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show from the air “indefinitely” after backlash to his comments following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The company said it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

• Trump called Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to wish him a happy 75th birthday, a signal that the strained relationship between Washington and New Delhi might be warming up. The call came amid disputes over Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods, which he levied as punishment after India continued to purchase Russian oil, for which U.S. officials accuse the country of financing Russia’s war on Ukraine.

• The U.S. government announced on Wednesday that it will invest $75 million into Ukraine’s mineral reserves. A matching pledge from the Ukrainian government will bring the fund to $150 million, giving the nation’s war-torn economy a hefty boost without military aid.

• Jerry Greenfield, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, announced he’s quitting the company. According to Greenfield, the iconic brand’s support of left-wing causes has been stifled by its parent company, Unilever, which acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000. “Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power,” Greenfield wrote on social media.

• Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, said Wednesday that two Western labs have proven that her husband was poisoned. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most famous domestic opponent, died last year at a Russian prison camp at age 47.

• The FBI has arrested a man after he drove his car into a Pittsburgh bureau field office early Wednesday morning and draped an American flag on its gate. Nobody was injured, and an FBI agent told reporters that the suspect has a history of mental illness.

• OpenAI announced its new ChatGPT for teens program on Tuesday. The announcement comes on the heels of a new federal probe into artificial intelligence’s impacts on child safety and the increasing allegations that AI has encouraged child suicide.

• Former CDC chief Susan Monarez testified before a Senate committee on Wednesday to address her abrupt firing by Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month. When asked by Republican senator Roger Marshall whether she should have been confirmed in the first place, she replied, “If I am put in a position of having to say, ‘I will cede the scientific integrity to retain my job,’ then I am not the right person for this position.” She also told the panel that Kennedy had clashed with her over her pro-vaccine beliefs—and that RFK claimed the CDC is “corrupt” and “killing children.”

• Meanwhile, over at the House Judiciary Committee, FBI director Kash Patel got into an out-and-out shouting match with Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. After Swalwell said that Patel’s claim that the courts were preventing him from releasing more Jeffrey Epstein documents was “bullshit,” the FBI director replied that Swalwell’s entire career in Congress was “bullshit.” He added, “It is a disgrace to the American people.”

• Police in the UK arrested four people after images of Donald Trump and the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein were projected onto Windsor Castle on Tuesday. The incident comes just after President Trump arrived in Britain for his second state visit and a meeting with King Charles III.

• An immigration judge in Louisiana ordered the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate student. The judge ruled that Khalil, whose status has been the center of heated debate, be sent to Syria or Algeria due to his failure to disclose information on his green card.