Politics

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Russian, Chinese planes entered its air defence zone during the joint exercise.

South Korea and Japan separately scrambled fighter jets after Russian and Chinese military aircraft conducted a joint air patrol near both countries.

Seven Russian and two Chinese aircraft entered South Korea’s Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) at approximately 10am local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday, according to the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul.

The planes, which included fighter jets and bombers, were spotted before they entered the KADIZ – which is not territorial airspace but where planes are expected to identify themselves – and South Korea deployed “fighter jets to take tactical measures in preparation for any contingencies”, according to reports.

The Russian and Chinese planes flew in and out of the South Korean air defence zone for an hour before leaving, the military said, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency.

On Wednesday the defence ministry said that a diplomatic protest had been lodged with representatives of China and Russia over the entry of their warplanes into South Korea’s air defence zone.

“Our military will continue to respond actively to the activities of neighbouring countries’ aircraft within the KADIZ in compliance with international law,” said Lee Kwang-suk, director general of the International Policy Bureau at Seoul’s defence ministry.

Japan separately deployed military aircraft to “strictly implement” air defence measures “against potential airspace violations”, following the reported joint patrol of Russia and China, Japanese Minister of Defence Shinjiro Koizumi said.

In a statement posted on social media late on Tuesday, Koizumi said two Russian “nuclear-capable Tu-95 bombers” flew from the Sea of Japan to the Tsushima Strait, and met with two Chinese jets “capable of carrying long-range missiles”.

At least eight other Chinese J-16 fighter jets and a Russian A-50 aircraft also accompanied the bombers as they conducted a joint flight “around” Japan, travelling between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako Island, Koizumi said.

“The repeated joint flights of bombers by both countries signify an expansion and intensification of activities around our country, while clearly intending to demonstrate force against our nation, posing a serious concern for our national security,” he added.

9日（火）の午前から夕方にかけて、ロシアの核兵器搭載可能な爆撃機Tu-95×2機が日本海→対馬海峡を飛行し、中国の長射程ミサイルを搭載可能な爆撃機H-6×2機と東シナ海において合流したあと、沖縄本島・宮古島間→太平洋の四国沖まで我が国周辺を共同飛行しました。… pic.twitter.com/6RcWJbM99b

— 小泉進次郎 (@shinjirokoiz) December 9, 2025

Koizumi’s statement comes just days after he accused Chinese fighter jets on Sunday of directing their fire-control radar at Japanese aircraft in two separate incidents over international waters near Okinawa.

On Monday, Japan’s Ministry of Defence said that it had monitored the movements of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and accompanying support vessels near Okinawa since Friday, adding that dozens of takeoffs and landings from Chinese aircraft on the carrier were monitored.

Japan said it was the “first time” that fighter jet operations on a Chinese aircraft carrier had been confirmed in waters between Okinawa’s main island and Minami-Daitojima island to the southeast.

China’s Ministry of National Defence said on Tuesday that it had organised the joint air drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.

The air drills took place above the East China Sea and western Pacific Ocean, the ministry said, calling the exercises the “10th joint strategic air patrol” with Russia.

Moscow also confirmed the joint exercise with Beijing, saying that it had lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

“At certain stages of the route, the strategic bombers were followed by fighter jets from foreign states,” the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Since 2019, China and Russia have regularly flown military aircraft near South Korean and Japanese airspace without prior notice, citing joint military exercises.

In November 2024, Seoul scrambled jets as five Chinese and six Russian military planes flew through its air defence zone. In 2022, Japan also deployed jets after warplanes from Russia and China neared its airspace.

China and Russia have expanded military and defence ties since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago. Both countries are also allies of North Korea, which is seen as an adversary in both South Korea and Japan.

Ukrainian leader responds to US President Trump’s suggestion that he is using the war as an excuse to avoid elections.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared that his government was prepared to hold elections within three months if the United States and Kyiv’s other allies can ensure the security of the voting process.

Zelenskyy issued his statement on Tuesday as he faced renewed pressure from US President Donald Trump, who suggested in an interview with a news outlet that the Ukrainian government was using Russia’s war on their country as an excuse to avoid elections.

Wartime elections are forbidden under Ukrainian law, and Zelenskyy’s term in office as the country’s elected president expired last year.

“I’m ready for elections, and moreover I ask… that the US help me, maybe together with European colleagues, to ensure the security of an election,” Zelenskyy said in comments to reporters.

“And then in the next 60-90 days, Ukraine will be ready to hold an election,” he said.

In a Politico news article published earlier on Tuesday, Trump was quoted as saying: “You know, they [Ukraine] talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy any more.”

Zelenskyy dismissed the suggestion that he was clinging to power as “totally inadequate”.

He then said that he would ask parliament to prepare proposals for new legislation that could allow for elections during martial law.

Earlier this year, Ukraine’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution affirming the legitimacy of Zelenskyy’s wartime stay in office, asserting the constitutionality of deferring the presidential election while the country fights Russia’s invasion.

In February, Trump also accused Zelenskyy of being a “dictator”, echoing claims previously made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskyy and other officials have routinely dismissed the idea of holding elections while frequent Russian air strikes take place across the country, nearly a million troops are at the front and millions more Ukrainians are displaced. Also uncertain is the voting status of those Ukrainians living in the one-fifth of the country occupied by Russia.

Polls also show that Ukrainians are against holding wartime elections, but they also want new faces in a political landscape largely unchanged since the last national elections in 2019.

Ukraine, which is pushing back on a US-backed peace plan seen as Moscow-friendly, is also seeking strong security guarantees from its allies that would prevent any new Russian invasion in the future.

Washington’s peace proposal involves Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not captured, primarily the entire industrial Donbas region, in return for security promises that fall short of Kyiv’s aspirations, including its wish to join the NATO military alliance.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said he has deemed churches and other houses of worship “essential” and called on governors to allow them to reopen this weekend despite the threat of the coronavirus.

“Today I’m identifying houses of worship — churches, synagogues and mosques — as essential places that provide essential services,” Trump said during a hastily arranged news conference Friday. He said if governors don’t abide by his request, he will “override” them, though it’s unclear what authority he has to do so.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prepared reopening guidelines for churches and other houses of worship weeks ago, but the White House had refused to release them until Thursday, when Trump abruptly changed course.

“I said ‘You better put it out.’ And they’re doing it,” Trump said Thursday at a Ford Motor Co. plant repurposed to make ventilators in Michigan. “And they’re going to be issuing something today or tomorrow on churches. We got to get our churches open.”

Trump on Friday stressed the importance of churches in many communities and took issue with some of the businesses that had been allowed to reopen.

“Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential,” but not churches, he said. “It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.”

“These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united. The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue, go to their mosque,” he said.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Opponents of Missouri’s new congressional map submitted thousands of petition signatures Tuesday calling for a statewide referendum on a redistricting plan backed by President Trump as part of his quest to hold on to a slim Republican majority in next year’s elections.

Organizers of the petition drive said they turned in more than 300,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office — more than the roughly 110,000 needed to suspend the new U.S. House districts from taking effect until a public vote can be held sometime next year.

Referendum votes in Missouri are automatically set for the upcoming November election, unless the General Assembly approves an earlier date during its regular session that begins in January. Missouri’s candidate filing period runs from Feb. 24 through March 31, but districts can still be changed after the deadline, as occurred when the legislature last approved districts in 2022.

The signatures also need to be formally verified by local election authorities and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who has argued the referendum is unconstitutional. But if the signatures hold up, the referendum could create a significant obstacle for Republicans who hope the new districts could help them win a currently Democratic-held seat in the Kansas City area in the November election.

“At the end of the day, these are going to have to get counted, and people are going to vote on this,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, which sponsored the referendum drive.

Redistricting typically happens once a decade, after each census. But the national political parties are engaged in an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle after Trump urged Republican-led states to reshape House voting districts to their advantage. The Republican president is trying to avert a historical tendency for the incumbent’s party to lose seats in midterm elections.

Each House seat could be crucial, because Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to win control of the chamber and impede Trump’s agenda.

Redistricting is spreading through states

Texas was the first to respond to Trump’s call by passing a new congressional map that could help Republicans win five additional seats. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way last week for the new districts to be used in the 2026 elections.

Republicans could gain one seat each under new maps passed in Missouri and North Carolina and have an improved chance at taking two additional seats under a new Ohio congressional map. In Indiana, senators are considering a proposal this week that also could help Republicans win two additional seats.

Democrats scored a victory in California, where voters in November approved a new Democratic-drawn congressional map that could help the party win five additional seats. Democrats could gain a seat in Utah under new congressional districts imposed by a judge.

But Republicans are challenging both states’ measures in court. And Utah lawmakers are meeting in a special session Tuesday to consider delaying the candidate filing deadline to allow more time for the legal challenge.

Virginia Democrats have also taken a first step toward mid-decade redistricting, with additional votes expected in the new year.

Missouri referendum sparks intense battle

People Not Politicians has raised about $5 million, coming mostly from out-of-state organizations opposed to the new map. National Republican-aligned groups have countered with more than $2 million for a committee supporting the new map.

Republicans have tried to thwart the referendum in numerous ways.

Organizations supporting the Republican redistricting have attempted to pay people up to $30,000 to quit gathering petition signatures, according to a lawsuit filed by Advanced Micro Targeting Inc., a company hired by People Not Politicians.

Hoskins, the secretary of state, contends he cannot legally count about 100,000 petition signatures gathered in the one-month span between legislative passage of the redistricting bill and his approval of the referendum petition’s format, but can only count those gathered after that.

Hoskins also wrote a ballot summary stating the new map “repeals Missouri’s existing gerrymandered congressional plan … and better reflects statewide voting patterns.” That’s the opposite of what referendum backers contend it does, and People Not Politicians is challenging that wording in court.

Meanwhile, Republican Atty. Gen. Catherine Hanaway filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Hoskins and the General Assembly asserting that congressional redistricting legislation cannot be subject to a referendum. Although a federal judge dismissed that suit Monday, the judge noted that Hoskins has “the power to declare the petition unconstitutional himself,” which would likely trigger a new court case.

Missouri’s restricting effort already has sparked an intense court battle. Lawsuits by opponents challenge the legality of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe’s special session proclamation, assert that mid-decade redistricting isn’t allowed under Missouri’s constitution and claim the new districts run afoul of requirements to be compact, contiguous and equally populated.

It’s been more than a century since Missouri last held a referendum on a congressional redistricting plan. In 1922, the U.S. House districts approved by the Republican-led legislature were defeated by nearly 62% of the statewide vote.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump will road-test his claims that he’s tackling Americans’ affordability woes at a Tuesday rally in Mount Pocono, Penn., — shifting an argument made in Oval Office appearances and social media posts to a campaign-style event.

The trip comes as polling consistently shows that public trust in Trump’s economic leadership has faltered. Following dismal results for Republicans in last month’s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump.

The president has consistently blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for inflation even as his own aggressive implementation of policies has pushed up prices that had been settling down after spiking in 2022 to a four-decade high. Inflation began to accelerate after Trump announced his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. Companies warned that the import taxes could be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced hiring, yet Trump continues to insist that inflation has faded.

“We’re bringing prices way down,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “You can call it ‘affordability’ or anything you want — but the Democrats caused the affordability problem, and we’re the ones that are fixing it.”

The president’s reception in the county hosting his Tuesday rally could give a signal of just how much voters trust his claims. Monroe County flipped to Trump in the 2024 election after having backed Biden in 2020, helping the Republican to win the swing state of Pennsylvania and return to the White House after a four-year hiatus.

As home to the Pocono Mountains, the county has largely relied on tourism for skiing, hiking, hunting and other activities as a source of jobs. Its proximity to New York City — under two hours by car — has also attracted people seeking more affordable housing.

It’s also an area that could help decide control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

Trump is holding his rally in a congressional district held by freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who is a top target of Democrats and won his 2024 race by about 1.5 percentage points, among the nation’s closest. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is running for the nomination to challenge him.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running digital ads during Trump’s visit on the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader website that criticize Bresnahan for his stock trading while in Congress and suggest that Trump has not as promised addressed double-dealing in Washington.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said on the online conservative talk show “The Mom View” that Trump would be on the “campaign trail” next year to engage supporters who otherwise might sit out a congressional race.

Wiles, who helped manage Trump’s 2024 campaign, said most administrations try to localize midterm elections and keep the president out of the race, but she intends to do the opposite of that.

“We’re actually going to turn that on its head,” Wiles said, “and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”

Wiles added, “So I haven’t quite broken it to him yet, but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024 again.”

The challenge for Trump is how to address the concerns of voters about the economy while simultaneously claiming that the economy is enjoying an historic boom.

Asked on a Politico podcast about how he’d rate the economy, Trump leaned into the grade inflation by answering “A-plus,” only to then amend his answer to “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

Trump has said he’s giving consumers relief by relaxing fuel efficiency standards for autos and signing agreements to reduce list prices on prescription drugs.

Trump has also advocated for cuts to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate — which influences the supply of money in the U.S. economy. He argues that would reduce the cost of mortgages and auto loans, although critics warn that cuts of the scale sought by Trump could instead worsen inflation.

The U.S. economy has shown signs of resilience with the stock market up this year and overall growth looking solid for the third quarter. But many Americans see the prices of housing, groceries, education, electricity and other basic needs as swallowing up their incomes, a dynamic that the Trump administration has said it expects to fade next year with more investments in artificial intelligence and manufacturing.

Since the elections in November when Democrats won key races with a focus on kitchen table issues, Trump has often dismissed the concerns about prices as a “hoax” and a “con job” to suggest that he bears no responsibility for inflation, even though he campaigned on his ability to quickly bring down prices. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Boak and Levy write for the Associated Press. Levy reported from Harrisburg, Penn.

In February 2023, Jaime Green, the superintendent of a tiny school district in the mountains of Northern California, flew to Washington, D.C., with an urgent appeal.

The Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools like his in forested counties, was about to lapse, putting thousands of districts at risk of losing significant chunks of their budgets. The law had originated 25 years ago as a temporary fix for rural counties that were losing tax revenue from reduced timber harvesting on public lands.

Green, whose Trinity Alps Unified School District serves about 650 students in the struggling logging town of Weaverville, bounded through Capitol Hill with a small group of Northern California educators, pleading with anyone who would listen: Please renew the program.

They were assured, over and over, that it had bipartisan support, wasn’t much money in the grand scheme of things, and almost certainly would be renewed.

But because Congress could not agree on how to fund the program, it took nearly three years — and a lapse in funding — for the Secure Rural Schools Act to be revived, at least temporarily.

On Tuesday, the U.S. House overwhelmingly voted to extend the program through 2027 and to provide retroactive payments to districts that lost funding while it was lapsed.

The vote was 399 to 5, with all nay votes cast by Republicans. The bill, approved unanimously by the Senate in June, now awaits President Trump’s signature.

“We’ve got Republicans and Democrats holding hands, passing this freaking bill, finally,” Green said. “We stayed positive. The option to quit was, what, layofffs and kids not getting educated? We kept telling them the same story, and they kept listening.”

Green, who until that 2023 trip had never traveled east of Texas, wound up flying to Washington 14 times. He was in the House audience Tuesday as the bill was passed.

In an interview Tuesday, Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents a vast swath of Northern California and helped lead the push for reauthorization, said Congress never should have let the program lapse in the first place.

The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), greets Supts. Jaime Green, of Weaverville, and Anmarie Swanstrom, of Hayfork, on Capitol Hill in February 2023.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m not proud of the situation taking this long and putting these folks in this much stress,” he said of rural communities that rely upon the funding. “I’m not going to break my arm patting myself on the back.”

Despite broad bipartisan support, the Secure Rural Schools Act, run by the U.S. Forest Service, expired in the fall of 2023, with final payouts made in 2024. That year, the program distributed more than $232 million to more than 700 counties across the United States and Puerto Rico, with nearly $34 million going to California.

In 2024, reauthorization stalled in the House. This year, it was included in a House draft of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act but was ultimately dropped from the final package.

While public school budgets are largely supported by local property taxes, districts surrounded by untaxed federal forest land have depended upon modest payments from the U.S. Forest Service to stay afloat.

Historically, that money mostly came from logging. Under a 1908 law, counties with national forests — primarily in the rural West — received 25% of what the federal government made from timber sales off that land. The money was split between schools, roads and other critical services.

But by the early 1990s, the once-thriving logging industry had cratered. So did the school funding.

In 2000, Congress enacted what was supposed to be a short-term, six-year solution: the Secure Rural Schools & Community Self-Determination Act, with funding based on a complex formula involving historical timber revenues and other factors.

Congress never made the program permanent, instead reauthorizing versions of it by tucking it into other bills. Once, it was included in a bill to shore up the nation’s helium supply. Another time, it was funded in part by a tax on roll-your-own-cigarette machines.

The program extension passed Tuesday was a standalone bill.

“For rural school districts, it’s critically important, and it means stability from a financial perspective,” said Yuri Calderon, executive director of the Sacramento-based Small School Districts’ Assn.

Calderon said he had heard from numerous school districts across the state that had been dipping into reserve funds to avoid layoffs and cutbacks since the Secure Rural Schools Act expired.

Calderon said the program wasn’t “a handout; it’s basically a mitigation payment” from the federal government, which owns and manages about 45% of California’s land.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) meets with a group of superintendents from rural Northern California in February 2023.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

On Dec. 3, LaMalfa and Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, alongside Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo and Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, spearheaded a letter with signatures from more than 80 bipartisan members of Congress urging House leadership to renew the program by the end of the year.

The letter said the lapse in funding already had led to “school closures, delayed road and bridge maintenance, and reduced public safety services.”

In Trinity County, where Green’s district is located, the federal government owns more than 75% of the land, limiting the tax base and the ability to pass local bonds for things like campus maintenance.

As the Secure Rural Schools Act has been tweaked over the years, funding has seesawed. In 2004, Green’s district in Weaverville, population 3,200, received $1.3 million through the program.

The last payment was about $600,000, roughly 4% of the district’s budget, said Sheree Beans, the district’s chief budget official.

Beans said Monday that, had the program not been renewed, the district likely would have had to lay off seven or eight staff members.

“I don’t want to lay off anyone in my small town,” Beans said. “I see them at the post office. It affects kids. It affects their education.”

In October — during the 43-day federal government shutdown — Beans took three Trinity County students who are members of Future Farmers of America to Capitol Hill to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson’s staff about the program.

After years of back and forth, Green could not go on that trip. He did not feel well. His doctor told him he needed to stop traveling so much.

Before hopping on a flight to Washington this weekend, the 59-year-old superintendent penned a letter to his staff. After three decades in the district, he was retiring, effective Monday.

Green wrote that he has a rare genetic condition called neurofibromatosis type 2, which has caused tumors to grow on his spinal cord. He will soon undergo surgeries to have them removed.

“My body has let me go as far as I can,” he wrote.

In Green’s letter, he wrote that, if the Secure Rural Schools Act was extended, “financially we will be alright for years to come.”

On Monday night, the district’s Board of Trustees named Beans interim superintendent. She attended the meeting, then drove more than three hours to the airport in Sacramento. She got on a red-eye flight and made it to Washington in time for the Secure Rural Schools vote on the House floor.

When Green decided a few weeks ago to step down, he did not know the reauthorization vote would coincide with his first day of retirement.

But, he said, he never doubted the program would eventually be revived. Coming right before Christmas, he said, “the timing is beautiful.”

Former President Jair Bolsonaro has endorsed his eldest son’s campaign to be Brazil’s next president in the 2026 race.

Far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has reaffirmed his commitment to running in Brazil’s 2026 presidential race, despite criticism that he appeared to be openly haggling over whether to remain a candidate.

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro met with reporters outside federal police headquarters in the capital Brasilia, where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting to foment a coup.

The younger Bolsonaro said he conveyed to his father that he would not shrink from the 2026 race.

“I told him this candidacy is irreversible,” Flavio said. “And in his own words, ‘We will not turn back.’ Now it is time to talk to people, so we can have the right people on our side.”

The senator also attempted to clear up the comments that sparked the initial controversy.

On Sunday, Flavio raised eyebrows when he told Brazilian media that he could exit the race — for the right “price”.

“There’s a possibility I won’t go all the way,” Flavio said at the time. “I have a price for that. I will negotiate.”

He declined to name what that price would be, but his comments were widely interpreted to be a reference to his father’s imprisonment.

In September, a panel on Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Jair of five charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2022 presidential election, including one count of seeking the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

Jair lost the 2022 race to current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a left-wing leader who has announced he will run for a fourth term in 2026.

In November, the Supreme Court panel ordered Jair to be taken into custody to begin his sentence, after the ex-president admitted to damaging his ankle monitor.

Separately, in 2023, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal ruled that Jair should be barred from holding public office for eight years, as a penalty for misusing the presidential office to spread election falsehoods.

Since his detention, Jair has backed his eldest son’s candidacy in the 2026 race. Liberal Party (PL) president Valdemar Costa Neto also confirmed on Friday that Jair’s endorsement meant that Flavio would indeed lead the party’s ticket.

Flavio has since received other right-wing endorsements, including from Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who was previously considered a frontrunner to represent the PL.

But Flavio’s comments on Sunday have thrown his nascent candidacy into doubt.

Critics, including from Lula’s Workers Party, have seized upon Flavio’s suggestion of a “price” to question his ethics and commitment.

“No one launches a candidacy one day, and the next day says, ‘Look, I can negotiate,’” Edinho Silva, the president of the Workers Party, told reporters. “It’s not just me. No one would take it seriously.”

But Flavio on Tuesday dismissed the attacks and reaffirmed he would stay in the race, while fighting for his father’s freedom.

“My price is Bolsonaro free and on the ballot,” he said. “In other words, there is no price.”

Tony Dokoupil is expected to move from mornings to evenings at CBS News.

Dokoupil, currently the co-host of “CBS Mornings,” has signed a new deal to take over as anchor of “CBS Evening News,” according to several people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly. One person said an announcement is expected as soon as this week.

A representative for CBS News declined comment. Dokoupil, 44, did not respond to a request for comment.

The news division’s signature program is expected to return to a solo anchor format after pairing John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois over the last year. Both Dickerson and DuBois are departing CBS News later this month.

The appointment of Dokoupil would not point to a major change in direction at the program. Dokoupil, who has been with CBS News since 2016 after three years at NBC, became co-host at CBS Mornings in 2019.

Bari Weiss, the recently appointed editor in chief at CBS News, reportedly expressed a desire to bring in an outside name, including Bret Baier, the Washington-based anchor at conservative-leaning Fox News. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was also discussed internally, but he chose to sign a new deal with his network.

The Free Press, the digital news site co-founded by Weiss and acquired by Paramount, vigorously defended Dokoupil last year when he was at the center of controversy over an aggressive on-air interview he conducted with author Ta-Nehisi Coates last year.

Dokoupil was admonished in an editorial meeting for how he questioned Coates about his new book, “The Message,” which examines the Israel-Gaza conflict. CBS News leadership said on the call that the interview did not meet the company’s editorial standards after receiving a number of complaints from staffers.

A recording of the meeting was posted on the Free Press site.

“It is journalists like Tony Dokoupil who are an endangered species in legacy news organizations, which are wilting to the pressures of this new elite consensus,” the editors of the Free Press wrote on the matter.

Shari Redstone, the former majority shareholder in CBS News parent Paramount, also publicly expressed her support for Dokoupil at the time. She said CBS News executives made “a bad mistake” in their handling of the matter. Both executives who led the editorial call, Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, are no longer with the network.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court’s conservatives signaled Tuesday they are likely to rule for Republicans and President Trump by throwing out a Watergate-era limit on campaign funding by political parties.

The court has repeatedly said campaign money is protected as free speech, and the new ruling could allow parties to support their candidate’s campaigns with help from wealthy donors.

For the second day in a row, Trump administration lawyers urged the justices to strike down a law passed by Congress.
And they appeared to have the support of most of the conservatives.

The only doubt arose over the question of whether the case was flawed because no current candidate was challenging the limits.

“The parties are very much weakened,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “This court’s decisions over the years have together reduced the power of political parties, as compared to outside groups, with negative effects on our constitutional democracy.”

He was referring to rulings that upheld unlimited campaign spending by wealthy donors and so-called SuperPACs.

In the Citizens United case of 2010, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and four other conservatives struck down the long-standing limits on campaign spending, including by corporations and unions. They did so on the theory that such spending was “independent” of candidates and was protected as free speech under the 1st Amendment.

They said the limits on contributions to candidates were not affected. Those limits could be justified because the danger of corruption where money bought political favors. This triggered a new era of ever-larger political spending but most of it was separate from the candidates and the parties.

Last year, Elon Musk spent more than $250 million to support Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection. He did so with money spent through political action committees, not directly to Trump or his campaign.

Meanwhile the campaign funding laws limit contributions to candidates to $3,500.

Lawyers for the National Republican Senatorial Committee pointed out this trend and told the Supreme Court its decisions had “eroded” the basis for some of the remaining the 1970s limits on campaign funding.

At issue Tuesday were the limits on “coordinated party spending.” In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress added limits on campaign money that could be given to parties and used to fund their candidates. The current donation limit is $44,000, the lawyers said.

Washington attorney Noel Francisco, Trump’s solicitor general during his first term, urged the court strike down these limits on grounds they are outdated and violate the freedom of speech.

“The theory is that they’re needed to prevent an individual donor from laundering a $44,000 donation through the party to a particular candidate in exchange for official action,” he said.

If a big-money donor hopes for win a favor from a congressional candidate, the “would-be briber would be better off just giving a massive donation to the candidate’s favorite super PAC,” he said.

The suit heard Tuesday was launched by then Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and other Republican candidates, and it has continued in his role as vice president and possibly a presidential candidate in 2028.

Usually, the Justice Department defends federal laws, but in this instance, the Trump administration switched sides and joined the Republicans calling for the party spending limits to be struck down.

Precedents might have stood in the way.

In 2001, the Supreme Court had narrowly upheld these limits on the grounds that the party’s direct support was like a contribution, not independent spending. But the deputy solicitor general, Sarah Harris, told the justices Tuesday that the court’s recent decisions have “demolished” that precedent.

“Parties can’t corrupt candidates, and no evidence suggests donors launder bribes by co-opting parties’ coordinated spending with candidates,” she said.

Marc Elias, a Democratic attorney, joined the case in the support of the court limits. He said the outcome would have little to do with speech or campaign messages.

“I think we’re underselling the actual corruption” that could arise, he said. If an individual were to give $1 million to political party while that person has business matter before the House or Senate, he said, it’s plausible that could influence “a deciding or swing vote.”

The only apparent difficulty for the conservative justices arose over questions of procedure.

Washington attorney Roman Martinez was asked to defend the law, and he argued that neither Vance nor any other Republicans had legal standing to challenge the limits. Vance was not a current candidate, and he said the case should be dismissed for that reason.

Some legal observers noted that the limits on parties arose in response to evidence that huge campaign contributions to President Nixon’s reelection came from industry donors seeking government favors.

“Coordinated spending limits are one of the few remaining checks to curb the influence of wealthy special interests in our elections,” said Omar Noureldin, vice president for litigation at Common Cause. “If the Supreme Court dismantles them, party leaders and wealthy donors will be free to pour nearly unlimited money directly into federal campaigns, exactly the kind of corruption these rules were created to stop.”

Daniel I. Weiner, an elections law expert at the Brennan Center, said the justices were well aware of how striking down these limits could set the stage for further challenges.

“I was struck by how both sides had to acknowledge that this case has to be weighed not in isolation but as part of a decades-long push to strike down campaign finance rules,” he said. “Those other decisions have had many consequences the court itself failed to anticipate.”

The French first lady’s team says she had intended to criticise a feminist group’s ‘radical method’ of protest.

French First Lady Brigitte Macron is facing criticism after a video emerged of her using a sexist slur against feminist activists who disrupted the show of an actor-comedian once accused of rape.

Macron’s team said on Tuesday that she had intended to criticise their “radical method” of protest.

The scene filmed on Sunday showed France’s first lady in discussion backstage at the Folies Bergère theatre in central Paris with actor Ary Abittan before a performance he was about to give.

The previous night, feminist campaigners had disrupted his show, wearing masks of the actor bearing the word “rapist” and shouting, “Abittan, rapist!”

A woman in 2021 accused the actor of rape, but in 2023, investigators dropped the case, citing a lack of evidence.

Before Sunday’s performance, Macron is seen in the video, published by local media Public on Monday, asking him how he was feeling. When he said he was feeling scared, Macron was heard jokingly responding, using a vulgar expression in French, “If there are any stupid bitches, we’ll kick them out”.

The feminist campaign group “Nous Toutes” (“All of Us”) said its activists disrupted Abittan’s show to protest what it described as “the culture of impunity” around sexual violence in France.

The group later turned the insult into a hashtag on social media, #sallesconnes, and many shared it in a show of support.

Among those was actor Judith Godreche, who has become a feminist icon since accusing two directors of sexually abusing her when she was a minor and calling for an end to such behaviour in France’s cultural sector.

“We too are stupid bitches,” she posted on Instagram.

An activist who took part in the action, and who gave the pseudonym of Gwen to avoid repercussions, said the collective was “profoundly shocked and scandalised” by Macron’s language.

“It’s yet another insult to victims and feminist groups,” she said.

The first lady’s team argued her words should be seen as “a critique of the radical method employed by those who disrupted the show”.

France has been rocked by a series of accusations of rape and sexual assault against well-known cultural figures in recent years.

Screen icon Gerard Depardieu was convicted in May of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021, and is to stand trial charged with raping an actor in 2018. He denies any wrongdoing.

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2023 had expressed admiration for Depardieu, saying  at the time the actor was the target of a “manhunt” and that he stood behind the presumption of innocence.

Opponents of President Macron on the left wing of French politics criticised his wife’s use of a sexist slur, and some said she should apologise.

The critics included former French President François Hollande. Speaking to broadcaster RTL, Hollande said: “There’s a problem of vulgarity.”

But on the French far-right, National Rally lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy said Brigitte Macron’s comments were delivered in private and “stolen”.

“If each of us were filmed backstage saying things with friends, I think there would be plenty to comment on,” he told broadcaster BFMTV. “All of this is very hypocritical.”

BOSTON — A federal judge has allowed a Tufts University student from Turkey to resume research and teaching while she deals with the consequences of having her visa revoked by the Trump administration, leading to six weeks of detention.

The arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student studying children’s relationship to social media, was among the first as the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Caught on video in March outside her Somerville residence, immigration enforcement officers took her away in an unmarked vehicle.

Öztürk has been out of a Louisiana immigrant detention center since May and back on the Tufts campus. But she’s been unable to teach or participate in research as part of her studies because of the termination of her record in the government’s database of foreign students studying temporarily in the United States.

In her ruling Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper wrote that Öztürk is likely to succeed on claims that the termination was “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law and in violation of the First Amendment.”

Government argued that termination was legal

The government’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued that the Boston federal court lacked jurisdiction and that Öztürk’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System record, or SEVIS record, was terminated legally after her visa was revoked, making her eligible for removal proceedings.

“There’s no statute or regulation that’s been violated by the termination of the SEVIS record in this case,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Sauter said during a hearing last week. The Associated Press sent an email Tuesday seeking comment from Sauter on whether the government plans to appeal.

In a statement, Öztürk, who plans to graduate next year, said while she is grateful for the court’s decision, she feels “a great deal of grief” for the education she has been “arbitrarily denied as a scholar and a woman in my final year of doctoral studies.”

“I hope one day we can create a world where everyone uses education to learn, connect, civically engage and benefit others — rather than criminalize and punish those whose opinions differ from our own,” said Öztürk, who is still challenging her arrest and detention.

The then-30-year-old was one of four students who wrote the opinion piece in the campus newspaper. It criticized the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Öztürk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends in March for iftar, a meal that breaks a fast at sunset during the month of Ramadan, according to her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said. The government asserted that terminating her SEVIS record two hours after her arrest was a proper way of informing Tufts University about her visa revocation.

A State Department memo said Öztürk’s visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions “‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”

Öztürk running out of time to pursue teaching, research goals

Without her SEVIS status reinstated, Öztürk said she couldn’t qualify as a paid research assistant and couldn’t fully reintegrate into academic life at Tufts.

“We have a strange kind of legal gaslighting here, where the government claims it’s just a tinkering in a database, but this is really something that has a daily impact on Ms. Öztürk’s life,” her attorney, Adriana Lafaille of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said in court.

“We are running out of time to make this right. Each day that goes by is a day that she is being prevented from doing the work that she loves in the graduate program that she came here to be part of. Each day that this happens is a day that the government is allowed to continue to punish her for her protected speech.”

Öztürk, meanwhile, has maintained a full course load and fulfilled all requirements to maintain her lawful student status, which the government hasn’t terminated, her lawyer said.

Record created to collect information on international students

SEVIS is mandated by Congress in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and administered by the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement “to collect information relating to nonimmigrant foreign students” and “use such information to carry out the enforcement functions of” ICE.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, when a SEVIS record is terminated, a student loses all on- and off-campus employment authorization and allows ICE agents to investigate to “confirm the departure of the student.”

Willingham and McCormack write for the Associated Press. McCormack reported from Concord, N.H.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy admiral who is retiring early from command of the campaign to destroy vessels allegedly carrying drugs near Venezuela spoke to key lawmakers Tuesday as Congress seeks more answers on President Trump’s mission, which, in one instance, killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of an initial strike.

The classified video call between Adm. Alvin Holsey, who will be retiring from U.S. South Command in the coming days, and the GOP chairs and ranking Democrats of the Senate Armed Services Committee represented another determined step by lawmakers to demand an accounting from the Department of Defense on the threats against Venezuela and the strikes, especially after a report that two survivors were killed during one operation in September.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declined to discuss the specifics of the call but described Holsey as a “great public servant.”

Congress is also demanding that the Pentagon turn over unedited video of the strikes, as well as the orders authorizing the attacks, as part of its annual defense authorization bill. Wicker said that the Pentagon is weighing whether the video had “classified sections.”

The demands were evidence of the intense scrutiny being placed on the Sept. 2 strike, which legal experts say may have violated the laws governing how the U.S. military uses deadly force. Congressional leaders will also receive a wider foreign policy and national security briefing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday afternoon.

“They are using expensive, exquisite American military capabilities to kill people who are the equivalent of corner dealers and not making progress interdicting the trafficking by the cartels,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.

Congress presses for more information

What lawmakers learn from Holsey could shed new light on the purpose and parameters of Trump’s campaign, which has struck 22 boats and killed at least 87 people since it started in September. Trump has also been making threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, sending a fleet of warships near the South American country, including the largest U.S. aircraft carrier.

Holsey became the leader of U.S. Southern Command just over one year ago, but in October, Hegseth announced that Holsey would be retiring early from his post. As commander of U.S. forces in the region, Holsey oversaw a command structure that has in recent years been mostly focused on building stability and cooperation across much of Latin America.

Trump’s drug boat campaign, however, has added a new, deadly dynamic to its mission. Rather than trying to interdict drug vessels, as forces such as the U.S. Coast Guard have traditionally done, the Trump administration asserts that the drugs and drug smugglers are posing a direct threat to American lives. Officials say they are applying the same rules as the global war on terrorism to kill drug smugglers.

Lawmakers are also questioning what intelligence the military is using to determine whether the boats’ cargo is headed for the U.S. As they have looked closer at the Sept. 2 strike, lawmakers learned that the destroyed boat was heading south at the time of the attack and that military intelligence showed it was headed toward another vessel that was bound for Suriname.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the Republican-controlled Congress will push back on the Trump administration’s campaign.

“I want a full set of data to draw my conclusions from,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who had demanded accountability after it was revealed that two survivors had been killed.

Trump this week justified the strike by claiming that the two suspected drug smugglers were trying to right part of the boat after it had capsized in the initial attack. However, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the special operations commander who ordered the second strike, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing last week that he ordered the second strike to ensure that the cocaine in the boat could not be picked up later by cartel members.

Groves and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

Children under 16 can no longer access 10 of the world’s biggest platforms, including Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.

Australia has banned children under 16 from social media in a world-first, as other countries consider similar age-based measures amid rising concerns over its effects on children’s health and safety.

Under the new law, which came into effect at midnight local time on Wednesday (13:00 GMT on Tuesday), 10 of the biggest platforms face $33m in fines if they fail to purge Australia-based users younger than 16.

The law has been criticised by major technology companies and free speech campaigners, but praised by parents and child advocates.

The Australian government says unprecedented measures are needed to protect children from “predatory algorithms” filling phone screens with bullying, sex and violence.

“Too often, social media isn’t social at all,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in advance of the ban.

“Instead, it’s used as a weapon for bullies, a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators.”

The law states that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit are forbidden from creating or keeping accounts belonging to users in Australia under 16.

Streaming platforms Kick and Twitch are also on the government’s blacklist, as are message boards Threads and X. Popular apps and websites such as Roblox, Pinterest and WhatsApp are currently exempt – but the government has stressed that the list remains under review.

Meta, YouTube and other social media giants have already condemned the ban.

YouTube, in particular, has attacked the law, describing it as “rushed” and saying it would only push children into deeper, darker corners of the internet.

While most platforms have begrudgingly agreed to comply, for now, legal challenges are in the wind.

Online discussion site Reddit said Tuesday it could not confirm local media reports that said it would seek to overturn the ban in Australia’s High Court.

The Sydney-based internet rights group Digital Freedom Project has already launched its own bid to have teenagers reinstated to social media.

Some parents, tired of seeing children stuck to their phones, see the ban as a relief.

Father-of-five Dany Elachi said the restrictions were a long-overdue “line in the sand”.

“We need to err on the side of caution before putting anything addictive in the hands of children,” he told the AFP news agency.

The Australian government concedes the ban will be far from perfect at the outset, and canny teenagers will find ways to circumvent it.

Social media companies bear the sole responsibility for checking users are 16 or older.

Some platforms say they will use AI tools to estimate ages based on photos, while young users may also choose to prove their age by uploading a government ID.

There is keen interest in whether Australia’s sweeping restrictions can work as regulators around the globe wrestle with the potential dangers of social media.

Malaysia indicated it was planning to introduce a similar ban next year.

Australia’s Communications Minister Anika Wells said last week that the European Commission, France, Denmark, Greece, Romania and New Zealand were also interested in setting a minimum age for social media.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed a law prohibiting federal officials from taking enforcement actions against immigrants near courthouses, in hospitals, on college campuses or in day care facilities.

The law, which takes effect immediately, is in response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration in the Chicago area, launched in September.

The law also provides for legal steps for those whose constitutional rights were violated during enforcement action, including a $10,000 in damages for someone unlawfully arrested while attempting to attend a court proceeding.

“Dropping your kid off at day care, going to the doctor, or attending your classes should not be a life-altering task,” Pritzker said at a bill-signing in a largely Latino neighborhood in Chicago. “Illinois — in the face of cruelty and intimidation — has chosen solidarity and support.”

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Operation Midway Blitz” arrested more than 3,000 people.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — Job openings inched up slightly in October, despite fears of shrinkage.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its government shutdown-delayed October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary Tuesday, showing a small uptick in job openings that month.

But the job market isn’t rosy quite yet. Hiring stalled, layoffs increased and employees did not quit their jobs. The voluntary quits rate was at a five-year low.

The report also includes some data from September, which hadn’t been released because of the government shutdown from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12. The October data also was affected by the agency’s inability to collect data during the month.

At the end of October, there were about 7.67 million job openings in the United States, which is a slight raise from 7.66 million in September and 7.23 million in August, the report said.

In October, the number and rate of total separations (quits, layoffs, firings) were little changed at 5.1 million and 3.2%. The number of total separations decreased in health care and social assistance by 111,000 and in the federal government by 34,000.

The quits were at 2.9 million and 1.8%, which was down by 276,000 over the year. A drop in quits can indicate a lack of confidence in the job market.

The Federal Reserve is expected to release its decision on interest rates on Wednesday.

Blair was the only figure named for the board when Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza.

Tony Blair has been dropped from consideration for a role on a proposed US-led “board of peace” for Gaza after objections from Arab and Muslim governments, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper has reported.

Blair was the only figure named for the board when Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza in September, with the US president describing the former UK prime minister as a “very good man”.

Blair praised the plan as “bold and intelligent” and signalled he was willing to serve on the board, which would be chaired by Trump himself.

But diplomats from several Arab and Muslim states objected to Blair’s involvement, the FT reported on Monday.

As British Prime Minister, Blair strongly supported the US-led so-called “war on terror” and sent tens of thousands of British troops to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which was launched based on false claims that Iraq’s then leader, Saddam Hussein, had developed weapons of mass destruction.

In the Middle East region, Blair remains widely viewed as partially responsible for the war’s devastation.

Since leaving office in 2007, he has set up the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), which has worked with governments accused of repression to help improve their image.

His institute was also involved with a project, led by Israeli business figures, developing “day-after” plans for Gaza alongside Israeli business figures.

The project included proposals for a coastal resort dubbed the “Trump Riviera” and a manufacturing hub named after Elon Musk – ideas critics said ignore human rights and threaten Palestinians with displacement.

There was no immediate comment from Blair’s office. An ally quoted by the FT rejected claims that opposition from regional governments had forced him out of Trump’s planned “peace board”, insisting discussions were ongoing.

Another source said Blair could still return in “a different capacity”, noting he is favoured by both Washington and Tel Aviv.

Trump’s Gaza plan led to a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with Israeli forces continuing attacks across the besieged territory. At least 377 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect in October, according to Gaza authorities. More than 70,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza in October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities.

Los Angeles County’s inspector general is retiring as chief watchdog for the Sheriff’s Department, stepping down from the post he has held since it was first created a dozen years ago.

Max Huntsman, 60, announced his plans in a letter Tuesday.

“It has been my honor to work with a talented, brave, and tireless group of public servants to ensure that the public knows what its government is doing,” he wrote.

Huntsman, a former L.A. County prosecutor, also included comments that were critical of how the county has responded to efforts at civilian oversight of the Sheriff’s Department.

Time and again, he wrote, efforts by his office “were ignored” by county leaders.

“The county is putting all its efforts into convincing the public and the courts that it is following the law and has no room to honestly evaluate itself and make the changes it would need to really follow those laws,” Huntsman told The Times in a message early Tuesday. “That’s not compatible with my oath of office.”

In stacks of detailed reports, the inspector general’s office has described a wide range of abuses and failures by the Sheriff’s Department, the L.A. County Probation Department and county leaders. Huntsman’s office has documented poor conditions in L.A. County’s jails, called out the Sheriff’s Department’s for noncompliance with portions of of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and criticized the inability or unwillingness of sheriff’s department officials to rein in so-called deputy gangs, whose tattooed members have repeatedly been accused of misconduct.

The Inspector General’s Office has independently probed hundreds of on-duty shootings by deputies, along with other use of force incidents. Under Huntsman’s direction, the office also scrutinized deficiencies in the county’s skilled nursing facilities during the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic.

In 1991, Huntsman graduated from Yale Law school and immediately joined the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office. A father of two, he served as a deputy district attorney for 22 years, prosecuting political corruption, police misconduct and fraud cases before leaving the courtroom for the helm of the new Office of Inspector General.

One of the main reasons the Sheriff’s Department is still plagued by many of the problems Huntsman confronted when he first became inspector general, he wrote in the Tuesday letter, has been the county’s reluctance to swiftly implement many of his office’s recommendations.

“In my twelve years at this work, I have longed for the day that the county would address the conditions in our reports without a court fight,” he wrote. “Some things never change.”

The Inspector General’s Office is now expected to undergo a sea change with the retirement of the only leader it has ever had.

Huntsman is the latest in a recent string of oversight officials to abruptly depart from their posts. In June, L.A. County Civilian Oversight Commission Chair Robert Bonner told the public that county officials were terminating him from the position. Earlier this year, Sean Kennedy, a member of the commission and its former chair, resigned over what he described as undue county interference in the commission’s activities.

The oversight bodies themselves also have faced cuts. In August, a county office proposed eliminating the Sybil Brand Commission, which conducts civilian oversight of the largest county jail system in the U.S. The county also announced that it would be reassigning or eliminating about a third of Huntsman’s staff.

Yet Huntsman and other county oversight officials continued to advocate for change. For instance, in October, state lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 847. The law will allow oversight commissions across the state, including L.A. County’s Civilian Oversight Commission, to view confidential documents in closed session.

“When government abuses occur, they are sometimes kept secret, but that is no longer the case for much of what is happening in Los Angeles County,” Huntsman wrote at the end of his Tuesday letter. “What you do about it is up to you.”

Dec. 9 (UPI) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday granted a Justice Department request to release the grand jury files from the indictment hearing of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus had argued against releasing the grand jury evidence. In a filing, Markus wrote that Maxwell “does not take a position” on the Justice Department’s request to unseal the material, but said that releasing the material “would create undue prejudice” and prevent “the possibility of a fair retrial.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer on Tuesday ordered the release of grand-jury transcripts and evidence from the case against Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors.

He also ordered the release of evidence shared between the prosecution and defense before Maxwell’s trial, but said that the Justice Department should take care not to release any identifying information on the victims. He said the Justice Department filed a motion to unseal grand jury materials in July but didn’t notify the victims. He ordered that a district attorney must “personally certify” that the material is “rigorously reviewed” before its release.

The new law passed last month by Congress requires the release of the Epstein files by Dec. 19. The Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed and signed by President Donald Trump on Nov. 19.

The new law’s language is “strikingly broad,” Engelmayer wrote. Congress’s “decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials.”

On Dec. 5, U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith of Florida ordered the release of grand-jury transcripts from the investigation against Epstein from 2005 to 2007. That investigation was abandoned.

While awaiting trial in 2019, Epstein died by suicide in jail.

Sébastien Lecornu faces a vital test to his premiership over the social security budget bill.

France’s National Assembly is set to vote on a major social security budget bill, in a critical test for the embattled Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who has pledged to deliver the country’s 2026 budget before the end of the year.

Debate on the legislation began on Tuesday afternoon. Lecornu governs without a majority in parliament, and has sought support from the Socialist Party by offering concessions, including suspending President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform.

If lawmakers reject the plan, France could face another political crisis and a funding gap estimated at 30 billion euros ($35bn) for its healthcare, pension, and welfare systems.

“This social security budget bill is not perfect, but it is the best possible,” Lecornu wrote on X on Saturday, warning that failure to pass it would threaten social services, public finances, and the role of parliament.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on Monday that his party could back the bill after the government agreed to suspend Macron’s 2023 pension reform, which raised the retirement age, until after the 2027 presidential election.

But the far-right National Rally and the hard-left France Unbowed have both signalled their opposition, along with more moderate right-wing parties.

Even government allies, including the centrist Horizons party and conservative Republicans, could abstain or vote against the legislation. They argue that freezing the pension reform and raising taxes to win socialist support undermines earlier commitments.

France, the eurozone’s second-largest economy, has been under pressure to reduce its large budget deficit. But political instability has slowed those efforts since Macron’s snap election last year resulted in a hung parliament.

Lecornu, a close Macron ally, said last week that rejection of the bill would nearly double the expected shortfall from 17 billion to 30 billion euros ($20bn-$35bn), threatening the entire 2026 public spending plan.

Without a deal before year-end, the government may be forced to introduce temporary funding measures.

The government aims to bring the deficit below 5 percent of GDP next year, but its narrow political options have led to repeated clashes over public spending.

Budget disputes have already toppled three governments since last year’s election, including that of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who lost a no-confidence vote over his own budget bill.

Dec. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a case questioning whether limits on how much political parties can spend in support of candidates violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case against the Federal Election Commission, saying the spending limits restrict the parties’ abilities to reach and influence voters, The New York Times reported.

The FEC has set limits on coordinated spending according to each state’s voting-age population and number of members in Congress.

Attorneys for Public Citizen, a voter advocacy group, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of maintaining the limits.

“If those contributions, which dwarf the base limits on [individual] contributions to candidates, are effectively placed at a candidate’s disposal through coordinated spending, they become potent sources of actual or apparent corruption,” the brief said.

The effort to free up coordinated spending is one of many in recent years by Republicans that have sought to loosen campaign purse strings across the board, including the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC.

The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is expected to argue in favor of preserving coordinated spending limits, first enshrined in 1974 as a way to prevent bribery.

“This has been held constitutional at least twice before by the Supreme Court and more times by lower courts,” Democratic attorney Marc Elias said, according to ABC News.

Yemen’s Southern Transition Council has declared itself in control of the country’s south, raising fears they will declare independence. Members of the internationally-backed government have fled. So what is the STC? Soraya Lennie explains.