Politics Desk

According to President Trump, the United States attacked Iran because the Iranian regime posed “imminent threats” to the U.S. and its allies, including through its use of terrorist proxies and continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world,” he said in a recorded statement Saturday.

According to leading Democrats in Congress, Trump’s justification is questionable, especially given his claims of having “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities in separate U.S. bombings last year.

“Everything I have heard from the administration before and after these strikes on Iran confirms this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and part of a small group of congressional leaders — the Gang of Eight — who were briefed on the operation by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

That divide is bound to remain an issue politically heading into this year’s midterm elections, and could be a liability for Republicans — especially considering that some in the “America First” wing of the MAGA base were raising their own objections, citing Trump’s 2024 campaign pledges to extricate the U.S. from foreign wars, not start new ones.

The debate echoed a similar if less immediate one around President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, also based on claims that “weapons of mass destruction” posed an immediate threat. Those claims were later disproved by multiple findings that Iraq had no such arsenal, fueling recriminations from both political parties for years.

The latest divide also intensified unease over Congress ceding its wartime powers to the White House, which for years has assumed sweeping authority to attack foreign adversaries without direct congressional input in the name of addressing terrorism or preventing immediate harm to the nation or its troops.

Even prior to the weekend bombings, Democrats including Sen. Adam Schiff of California were pushing Congress to pass a resolution barring the Trump administration from attacking Iran without explicit congressional authorization.

“President Trump must come to Congress before using military force unless absolutely necessary to defend the United States from an imminent attack,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the armed services and foreign relations committees, said in a statement Thursday.

In justifying the daylight strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei just two days later, Trump accused the Iranian government of having “waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder” for nearly half a century — including through attacks on U.S. military assets and commercial shipping vessels abroad — and of having “armed, trained and funded terrorist militias” in multiple countries, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Trump said that after the U.S. bombed Iran last summer, it had warned Tehran “never to resume” its pursuit of nuclear weapons. “Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland,” he said.

Other Republican leaders largely backed the president.

“The United States did not start this conflict, but we will finish it. If you kill or threaten Americans anywhere in the world — as Iran has — then we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“Every president has talked about the threat posed by the Iranian regime. President Trump is the one with the courage to take bold, decisive action,” said Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi.

While Iran’s coordination with and sponsorship of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas are well known, Trump’s claims about its ongoing development of nuclear weapons systems are less established — and the administration has provided little evidence to back them up.

Democrats seized on that lack of fresh intelligence in their responses to the attacks, contrasting Trump’s latest claims about imminent threats with his assertion after the separate summer bombings that the U.S. had all but eliminated Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

“Let’s be clear: The Iranian regime is horrible. But I have seen no imminent threat to the United States that would justify putting American troops in harm’s way,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Gang of Eight. “What is the motivation here? Is it Iran’s nuclear program? Their missiles? Regime change?”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the Trump administration “has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat,” and must do so.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the Trump administration needs congressional authority to wage such attacks barring “exigent circumstances,” and didn’t have it.

“The Trump administration must explain itself to the American people and Congress immediately, provide an ironclad justification for this act of war, clearly define the national security objective and articulate a plan to avoid another costly, prolonged military quagmire in the Middle East,” he said.

After the U.S. military announced Sunday that three U.S. service personnel were killed and five others seriously wounded in the attacks, the demands for a clearer justification and new constraints on Trump only increased.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said Sunday he is optimistic that Democrats will be unified in trying to pass the war powers resolution, and also that some Republicans will join them, given that the strikes have been unpopular among a portion of the MAGA base.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who partnered with Khanna to force the release of the Epstein files, has said he will work with him again to push a congressional vote on war with Iran, which he said was “not ‘America First.’”

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said that whether or not Iran represented an “imminent” threat to the U.S. depends not just on its nuclear capabilities, but on its broader desire and ability to inflict pain on the U.S. and its allies — as was made clear to both the U.S. and Israel after the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which Iran praised.

“If you are Israel or the United States, that’s imminent,” he said.

What happens next, Radd said, will largely depend on whether remaining Iranian leaders stick to Khamenei’s hard-line policies, or decide to negotiate anew with the U.S. He expects they might do the latter, because “it’s a fundamentalist regime, it’s not a suicidal regime,” and it’s now clear that the U.S. and Israel have the capabilities to take out Iranian leaders, Iran has little ability to defend itself, and China and Russia are not rushing to its aid.

How the strikes are viewed moving forward may also depend on what those leaders decide to do next, said Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology who teaches courses on Iran and Middle East politics at the UCLA International Institute.

If the conflict remains relatively contained, it could become a political win for Trump, with questions about the justification falling away. But if it spirals out of control, such questions are only likely to grow, as occurred in Iraq when things started to deteriorate there, he said.

Israel and the U.S. are currently betting that the conflict will remain manageable, which could turn out to be true, Harris said, but “the problem with war is you never really know what might happen.”

On Sunday, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and the wider Gulf region. Trump said the campaign against Iran continued “unabated,” though he may be willing to negotiate with the nation’s new leaders. It was unclear when Congress might take up the war powers measure.

As a Clinton supporter, I am very disappointed that the President fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for speaking on masturbation (Dec. 10), while Ronald Reagan let Surgeon General C. Everett Koop speak his mind on AIDS, birth control and condom use–all positions with which Reagan disagreed–for both of the former President’s terms. Perhaps Reagan recognized that doctors speak of things, in clear, uncensored language, in a way that politicians cannot.

I have never seen such sore winners as the Republicans are this year. Their call for Elders’ head heralds some very dark days to come. Clinton needs to learn a lesson from this, a lesson he seems loath to learn: You cannot appease your enemies by sacrificing your friends. You will lose your friends and your enemies will call you a coward.

DAVID VAN CHANEY, West Hollywood

*

It is good to see Clinton moving to the right. He may not have, as yet, fully embraced “Three strikes and you’re out” but at least “Three faux pas and you’re out” is a start.

WARREN M. LENT, Los Angeles

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“She Pulled No Punches” (editorial, Dec. 10) is surprisingly acute and on target, both as to the rationale for Elders’ dismissal as surgeon general and as to the lamentable restraint on public discourse in our country–suffered by those who do their homework well and let us know what they think.

I think it cheeky of you to offer kind words at all for one who frequently shoots from the lip. She is the Jesse Helms of the left, though with far kinder heart and broader perspective. I will miss her in the way one misses sitting on the edge of the chair when someone rises to speak, half-afraid yet hoping some truth will out.

On the masturbation comment that got her canned, the practice needs no encouragement from the classroom. Bravo, Dr. Elders, and keep talking straight. You are in the grand tradition of free speech.

VERNON STORY, Community United Methodist Church, Desert Hot Springs

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Being outspoken is not a virtue worth defending when what you have to say is just plain dumb. Which is why I can’t believe you would write an editorial supporting Elders. This woman has embarrassed herself virtually every time she has opened her inarticulate mouth. Have you not been listening?

Whatever has kept Clinton from firing her before this is a mystery. The number of mind-numbing statements made by this surgeon general over the last two years is far too extensive to list here but to me, her most classic remark had to do with violence in America: “We need safer weapons and safer bullets,” said she. No further comment.

JUDIE GAUGENMAIER, Studio City

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It fascinates me that we will accept political babble and allow ourselves to go into denial, and when we are confronted with the truth as given to us by Elders we rebuke the truth and the messenger.

BEN BOELMAN, Placentia

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Dr. Jack Kevorkian would have been a better choice for surgeon general than Elders.

DWIGHT M. CATES, Ventura

SAN ANTONIO — A heated U.S. Senate race in Texas entered its final stretch Sunday with candidates from both parties making final pitches to voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary, the nation’s first big contest of the 2026 midterm elections.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn is trying to avoid being the first incumbent GOP senator from Texas to lose a primary, fighting challenges from Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Democrats, hungry to win a Senate race in the state for the first time since 1988, see an opening, but have their own knotty race to figure out.

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a rhetorical brawler and regular antagonist to President Trump, is stressing her federal experience and was scheduled to meet voters in the Dallas area with Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. Crockett was endorsed Friday by former Vice President Kamala Harris.

State Rep. James Talarico, a soft-spoken seminarian who emphasizes his crossover appeal to Republicans, was set to hold a rally in San Antonio as part of a final tour that he describes as a movement.

But Cornyn’s precarious stature as an incumbent vulnerable in his party’s primary has been the focus of a majority of the the massive sums spent by both sides in the run-up to Tuesday’s balloting.

“Complacency is a killer,” Cornyn told voters Saturday at a seafood restaurant in the Woodlands, a Houston suburb. “It kills relationships. It kills careers.”

Senate Republican leaders in Washington, working to hold their thin majority, have worried out loud for months that Democrats could have a shot at a long out-of-reach Texas seat if Republicans nominate Paxton, who is popular with Trump voters but has had years of legal problems, which led to his impeachment three years ago. He was acquitted.

Talarico, who has raised more money than Crockett, is part of the Texas primary’s record fundraising pace. His campaign has spent $13 million on television advertising since the start of the year, the most of any single entity in the crowded field of groups spending on either side, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Heading into Tuesday’s primary elections, the cost of advertising and reserved advertising time had topped $110 million, the most ever for a Senate primary. Most of it — more than $67 million — had been spent by Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups, much of it attacking Paxton, but also lately trying to keep Hunt from advancing.

If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote Tuesday, the primary proceeds to a runoff between the top two vote recipients on May 26.

A late visit to Texas on Friday by Trump, who used the Port of Corpus Christi as a backdrop for a speech highlighting energy production, drew all of the top Republican candidates. And while the president said Friday he’s “pretty much” decided whom to endorse, he declined to name him.

“We have a great attorney general, Ken Paxton. Where’s Ken? Hi, Ken,” Trump said. He continued, “And we have a great senator, John Cornyn. Hi, John.”

Noting that they’re in a “little bit of a race,” Trump added: ’It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people.”

Despite his long career in Texas politics, Paxton has painted himself as a Washington outsider and a staunch supporter of Trump.

“I’m not going up to Washington, D.C., to join the swamp club,” Paxton said at a campaign event in Fort Worth. “I will go up there and fight for you.”

Beaumont and Murphy write for the Associated Press and reported from San Antonio and Oklahoma City, respectively.

BOSTON — Eight-year-old Martin Richard was a bright, sunny boy who loved to ride his bike and went “wild” when he played offense on his soccer team, scoring the winning goal in a championship game last year.

Krystle Campbell was the vivacious assistant manager of local steakhouse, the first to backstop fellow workers by running plates from the kitchen. She could instantly smooth over diners’ complaints with her smile.

They were both cheering on the sidelines of the Boston Marathon on Monday when two bombs went off with a thunderous boom and cloud of white smoke, claiming them as the first victims of the blast. Boston University officials confirmed the death of a third person Tuesday: a graduate student who has not been identified.

Friends and family members of the victims were still in shock after Monday’s chaos. Martin’s father, Bill Richard, who was tending to his wife and 6-year-old daughter, who were injured in the blast, released a statement thanking strangers for their prayers.

“We also ask for your patience and for privacy as we work to simultaneously grieve and recover,” he said.

Campbell’s mother, Patty, emerged briefly on the front steps of her family’s modest two-story home in Medford.

“We are heartbroken at the death of our daughter,” Campbell told reporters, her voice shaking between sobs. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

As federal investigators chased leads in the effort to find the perpetrators, doctors at Boston’s trauma centers tended to the more than 170 people wounded in the explosions, many of whom have been released. Dr. George Velmahos, the leader of the trauma team at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that although many of its surgeons trained on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, they were confounded by the severity of the injuries they confronted as waves of patients arrived at the emergency rooms Monday.

Some of the patients were in surgery for hours as doctors tried to remove metal fragments, spiky metal pieces that looked like nails without heads, and pellets that had shredded their limbs. But the positive outlook of many of them left Velmahos “moved and really amazed.”

“Some of them woke up today with no legs and told me they were just happy to be alive,” Velmahos said. “Some of them said they thought they were lucky.”

Among the relatives and friends who kept watch at Mass General was 39-year-old Corey Comeau, who was visiting his cousin and his cousin’s girlfriend Tuesday afternoon.
Comeau, a chef at Stephanie’s restaurant on Newbury Street, near what is now a crime scene, said his cousin was “still a little shellshocked” but that his cousin’s 24-year-old girlfriend suffered worse injuries.

“They say they can save her leg,” Comeau said as he stood outside the hospital after visiting.

“I can’t believe I’m even saying that. It’s not normal conversation.” Still, he said, the mood inside the hospital was “much calmer today than last night” with doctors going from patient to patient and conferring with families.

“These are some of the best hospitals in the world. The staff has been unbelievable,” he said.

At the same time, Monday’s chaos bred confusion, as in the case of Krystle Campbell.

Campbell had been watching the marathon alongside her friend Karen, her grandmother Lillian Campbell said, and the family at first believed that she had survived with serious injuries to her legs. But the family learned Tuesday morning that it was Karen who lived.

Lillian Campbell said her granddaughter stopped by her house for the last time last Thursday afternoon, when they drank tea and talked for several hours about work, friends and life.

“She loved being around people. She loved doing things for people,” said Lillian Campbell, 79, who noted that her granddaughter moved in to take care of her after she underwent surgery a few years ago. “She was hard worker. She was bubbly all the time.”

Nick Miminos, who had recently hired Campbell as an assistant manager at Jimmy’s Steer House in Arlington, Mass., said the 29-year-old “had one of those personalities that belongs in hospitality.”

“The wait staff loved working with her,” Miminos said. “She would run food for them, clear the tables for them. She wasn’t just a figurehead. She enjoyed getting her hands dirty.”

Not far away in the Ashmont section of Dorchester, neighbors and friends of the Richard family grieved at a candlelight vigil for young Martin. Bill Richard had been a force in restoring the historic neighborhood. His wife, Denise, who suffered critical injuries Monday, was a librarian at the Neighborhood House Charter School, where Martin and his 6-year-old sister, Jane, were enrolled.

Twins Andreas and Alejandro Calderon, 10, came by the Richard house to place a soccer ball, signed with their names, on the family’s porch. The boys recalled Martin hopping around the playground at recess and unleashing his energy on the soccer field.

“When we put him on defense and goalie he would do good, but he would save his energy so when we put him on offense he would go wild,” said Andreas, whose father coached the team.

Other friends posted their memories of Martin on Facebook and Twitter. Among the more searing images was a picture of Martin, with his gap-toothed smile, holding a blue sign he had made with magic markers.

“No more hurting people,” his sign said. “Peace.”

ALSO:

Boston Marathon bombs: Crude, unsophisticated but still deadly

Dad of 8-year-old Boston bombing victim: ‘Please pray for my family’

After Boston twin bombings, a nation offers its support and solidarity

alana.semuels@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

andrew.tangel@latimes.com

Also contributing were Times staff writers Maeve Reston and Alan Zarembo in Los Angeles.

Donald Trump has never been one to play by the rules.

Whether it’s stiffing contractors as a real estate developer, defying court orders he doesn’t like as president or leveraging the Oval Office to vastly inflate his family’s fortune, Trump’s guiding principle can be distilled to a simple, unswerving calculation: What’s in it for me?

Trump is no student of history. He’s famously allergic to books. But he knows enough to know that midterm elections like the one in November have, with few exceptions, been ugly for the party holding the presidency.

With control of the House — and Trump’s virtually unchecked authority — dangling by a gossamer thread, he reckoned correctly that Republicans were all but certain to lose power this fall unless something unusual happened.

So he effectively broke the rules.

Normally, the redrawing of the country’s congressional districts takes place once every 10 years, following the census and accounting for population changes over the previous decade. Instead, Trump prevailed upon the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, to throw out the state’s political map and refashion congressional lines to wipe out Democrats and boost GOP chances of winning as many as five additional House seats.

The intention was to create a bit of breathing room, as Democrats need a gain of just three seats to seize control of the House.

In relatively short order, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, responded with his own partisan gerrymander. He rallied voters to pass a tit-for-tat ballot measure, Proposition 50, which revised the state’s political map to wipe out Republicans and boost Democratic prospects of winning as many as five additional seats.

Then came the deluge.

In more than a dozen states, lawmakers looked at ways to tinker with their congressional maps to lift their candidates, stick it to the other party and gain House seats in November.

Some of those efforts continue, including in Virginia where, as in California, voters are being asked to amend the state Constitution to let majority Democrats redraw political lines ahead of the midterm. A special election is set for April 21.

But as the first ballots of 2026 are cast on Tuesday — in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas — the broad contours of the House map have become clearer, along with the result of all those partisan machinations. The likely upshot is a nationwide partisan shift of fewer than a handful of seats.

The independent, nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which has a sterling decades-long record of election forecasting, said the most probable outcome is a wash. “At the end of the day,” said Erin Covey, who analyzes House races for the Cook Report, “this doesn’t really benefit either party in a real way.”

Well.

That was a lot of wasted time and energy.

Let’s take a quick spin through the map and the math, knowing that, of course, there are no election guarantees.

In Texas, for instance, new House districts were drawn assuming Latinos would back Republican candidates by the same large percentage they supported Trump in 2024. But that’s become much less certain, given the backlash against his draconian immigration enforcement policies; numerous polls show a significant falloff in Latino support for the president, which could hurt GOP candidates up and down the ballot.

But suppose Texas Republicans gain five seats as hoped for and California Democrats pick up the five seats they’ve hand-crafted. The result would be no net change.

Elsewhere, under the best case for each party, a gain of four Democratic House seats in Virginia would be offset by a gain of four Republican House seats in Florida.

That leaves a smattering of partisan gains here and there. A combined pickup of four or so Republican seats in Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri could be mostly offset by Democratic gains of a seat apiece in New York, Maryland and Utah.

(The latter is not a result of legislative high jinks, but rather a judge throwing out the gerrymandered map passed by Utah Republicans, who ignored a voter-approved ballot measure intended to prevent such heavy-handed partisanship. A newly created district, contained entirely within Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, seems certain to go Democrats’ way in November.)

In short, it’s easy to characterize the political exertions of Trump, Abbott, Newsom and others as so much sound and fury producing, at bottom, little to nothing.

But that’s not necessarily so.

The campaign surrounding Proposition 50 delivered a huge political boost to Newsom, shoring up his standing with Democrats, significantly raising his profile across the country and, not least for his 2028 presidential hopes, helping the governor build a significant nationwide fundraising base.

In crimson-colored Indiana, Republicans refused to buckle under tremendous pressure from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other party leaders, rejecting an effort to redraw the state’s congressional map and give the GOP a hold on all nine House seats. That showed even Trump’s Svengali-like hold on his party has its limits.

But the biggest impact is also the most corrosive.

By redrawing political lines to predetermine the outcome of House races, politicians rendered many of their voters irrelevant and obsolete. Millions of Democrats in Texas, Republicans in California and partisans in other states have been effectively disenfranchised, their voices rendered mute. Their ballots spindled and nullified.

In short, the politicians — starting with Trump — extended a big middle finger to a large portion of the American electorate.

Is it any wonder, then, so many voters hold politicians and our political system in contempt?

Santa Cruz tried out the surveillance company Flock Safety for a little over a year before deciding it was time to move on.

Cambridge, Mass., also had enough and tore up its contract in December. Now, some officials in San Diego have begun to have second thoughts of their own.

In recent months, dozens of cities have cut ties with Flock — the nation’s largest provider of automated digital license plate readers — over fears that data the company captures is helping power President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The same can’t be said in one particularly surprising place: Los Angeles. Here, Flock still has an eager customer base of local elected officials, police officers, homeowners associations and businesses.

Unlike some of its competitors, the Atlanta-based company has not only marketed its plate readers to law enforcement as a vital crime-fighting tool, but aggressively pitched its product to private citizens, experts say.

“They are tremendous investigative tools,” said LAPD spokesman Capt. Michael Bland.

But for critics, there’s an obvious downside: the potential tracking of law-abiding citizens without a warrant on a scale once thought unimaginable.

“These can be really powerful tools to find someone, and identity them. But when you don’t have a suspect, everyone can be a suspect,” said Hannah Bloch-Wehba, a professor of law at Texas A&M University.

A Flock spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Typically mounted on street poles or atop police cars, plate readers continuously monitor passing vehicles, recording their location at a specific date and time. But Flock’s AI-powered cameras go even further by also documenting other identifying vehicle details, such as make, model and color, as well as any distinctive markings like scratches or dents on a bumper.

From there, police can easily search for the location of specific vehicles in the company’s vast national database, allowing them not only to potentially retrace the whereabouts of someone suspected of a crime, but also receive predictions about future movements.

In a presentation to the Picfair Village Neighborhood Assn., Flock boasted that its plate readers had helped solve “10% of reported crime in the U.S.” In L.A., the company said, its technology had been deployed to nab porch pirates and car thieves, not to mention played a role in solving a “high-profile crime involving stolen weapons from a politician’s home.”

The problem, at least in the minds of a growing number of privacy and immigration advocates, is that the readers capture a vast amount of information not related to any specific criminal investigation. The ability of federal authorities to access Los Angeles Police Department surveillance data directly from companies like Flock or from regional intelligence hubs called fusion centers undermines the city’s promise as a haven for immigrants, critics say.

“License plate readers play a critical role in providing directions and a road map to ICE for going out to kidnap people,” said Hamid Khan, an organizer with the activist group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which last spring wrote a letter to the Police Commission urging it to rewrite the LAPD’s policies to ensure information on law-abiding drivers isn’t shared with federal authorities.

The commission, the LAPD’s civilian oversight panel, ordered a study on the department’s license plate reader system that is expected to be completed this summer.

LAPD officials say records collected by the plate readers are accessible only to five smaller police agencies with which the department has data-sharing agreements. Furthermore, they say the use of the readers, like with other police technology, is restricted by state laws that limit information sharing with federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Plate-reading technology has been around for decades. But as the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown has ramped up, residents, privacy advocates and officials in some cities across the country have mounted campaigns urging their local governments to stop using the technology.

Much of the backlash has been aimed specifically at Flock — a heavyweight in the surveillance market that contracts with a reported 5,000 U.S. policing agencies. The company’s data-sharing with federal authorities and cybersecurity lapses have been documented by 404 Media and other outlets.

After previously denying it had federal contracts, Flock Chief Executive Garrett Langley admitted in interviews in recent months that the company has worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. The company has since said that it has severed ties with both agencies, and responded to other concerns by giving communities more power to decide whom to grant access to state or nationwide lookup networks.

In Bloch-Wehba’s view, Flock’s meteoric rise is a triumph of marketing over results.

“There’s very little evidence on the actual impact of these technologies on violent crime rates at all,” said Bloch-Wehba, who noted an explosion of surveillance technology in 2020 to monitor protesters or enforce rules implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

In the L.A. area, Flock has gone head to head with competitor Vigilant Solutions, which has for years supplied the majority of the LAPD’s plate readers. But today, cops tout Flock cameras at community meetings and some City Council members have paid to bring them to their districts.

Flock has also sought to flex its political might. City records show the company has stepped up its lobbying efforts at City Hall in recent years — hiring Ballard Partners, a powerful Florida-based firm whose employees now include former City Councilmember Joe Buscaino.

Many Flock plate readers, though, have been purchased by community groups. In most cases, residents band together to raise money to buy the devices, which they then either grant access to or donate to the LAPD via the Police Foundation, the department’s nonprofit charity. By donating the equipment, neighborhood groups may get to control what type of technology is installed and by whom.

“My real preference would be a fully staffed LAPD, and then we don’t have any cameras,” said Jim Fitzgerald, who lives in Venice and serves on its neighborhood council.

Roy Nwaisser, who chairs the Encino Neighborhood Council’s public safety committee, said that Flock often played up the shortage of police officers during its presentations to residents in his neighborhood.

“I personally have concerns with how Flock conducts their businesses, but they are the biggest player and if LAPD is working with them, they just have to make sure that there are those safeguards,” he said. “I don’t know that automated license plate readers are all that effective when owned by neighbors living on the street who decided to get together.”

Police executives have defended the practice, saying license plate data has helped solve untold numbers of crimes, from run-of-the-mill porch theft to high-profile cases like the 2024 attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a Florida golf course. The technology also came into play during an investigation into the fatal drive-by shooting of a 17-year-old boy at a North Hills intersection last month. According to a search warrant affidavit, detectives tracked a suspect vehicle to a home in Sun Valley after it was captured by several scanners near where the shooting occurred.

Because so many plate scanners are in private hands, it’s difficult to say how many of the devices are in operation citywide.

The L.A. Bureau of Street Lighting, which is responsible for installing the devices on city-owned property, said it has mounted 324 over five years — though that tally doesn’t include mobile plate readers.

Bland said the LAPD has 1,500 police vehicles equipped with the scanners. Police also have access to an additional 280 plate readers in fixed locations throughout the city, which are owned privately or by the department, he said. He estimated that about 120 of those readers belong to Flock.

The cameras are also integrated with the department’s new drones, which are being paid for by a $1.2-million donation from the Police Foundation.

The devices are also used for many other purposes outside of regular law enforcement. Big box retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s have installed Flock cameras across hundreds of parking lots. Many border crossings have them. In East L.A., they are used as an emissions-reduction tool by tracking semi-trailers. USC uses them to enforce parking violations, and the L.A. Department of Transportation has deployed such cameras to nab motorists who park in bus lanes.

Since the beginning of 2025, a small-but-growing number of states and cities have enacted laws aimed at curbing the use of surveillance technology such as license plate readers.

Under California law, police agencies are required to adopt detailed usage and privacy policies governing license plate data, restrict access to authorized purposes, and regularly audit searches to prevent misuse. Gov. Gavin Newsom previously vetoed a bill that would have restricted use of such data, saying the regulations would impede criminal investigations, but the bill has been reintroduced this year.

Nearly 50 cities nationwide have opted to deactivate their scanners or cancel contracts with Flock, mostly in recent months, according to the website DeFlock.me, which has set out to map locations of the company’s cameras. Responding to public pressure, some places like Santa Cruz canceled their contracts after realizing that they had been sharing their data more broadly than they had known, including with federal authorities.

Other Flock customers, like Oakland, have dug in and decided to keep their cameras at the urging of local homeowners association representatives and small business owners — but over the objections of the city’s own Privacy Advisory Commission.

Among the places that have started to reconsider their relationship with Flock is San Diego. In December, city leaders split on the issue, but ultimately voted to keep using Flock’s scanners after a contentious public hearing meeting in which they heard from hundreds of residents opposed to the surveillance technology.

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said he voted against working with Flock based on what he saw as the company’s poor track record of “data retention” and “consumer protections.” Although the city has operated Flock plate readers and cameras for years, the stakes are far higher now, he said.

“We have a presidential regime that is not only flouting the law, but takes pride in ignoring due process, in violating rights of people they deem unworthy of the rights and protections,” said Elo-Rivera, who represents an ethnically diverse district in San Diego’s Mid-City area. “They have a by-any-means-necessary approach when it comes to immigration enforcement. And now they have a tool that makes it very easy for them to track people down.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

LAREDO, Texas — A month after ICE agents sent the young Ecuadoran mother and her 7-year-old daughter to a sprawling detention center 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home, they were finally free.

But when the bus pulled up to a migrant shelter in the Texas border city of Laredo, dropping off a half-dozen families lugging bags stuffed with belongings, the stress of recent weeks tracked mother and daughter like the long shadows on that mid-February afternoon.

Night after night inside south Texas’ Dilley Immigration Processing Center with hundreds of other families, the grade-schooler wept and pleaded to know why they were being held.

“She would tell me, ‘Mom, what crime did I commit to be a prisoner?’ I didn’t know what to tell her,” said the 29-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear being identified could negatively affect their immigration case. Her husband was deported to Ecuador soon after they were taken into custody.

Many Americans were alarmed last month when photos circulated showing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis detaining a 5-year-old boy wearing a bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack. The concern followed Liam Conejo Ramos and his father when they were sent to Dilley, surrounded by chain-link fences on a dusty plain about 75 miles south of San Antonio.

But Liam was hardly an outlier. ICE has been holding hundreds of children at Dilley — many for months.

“We are all Liam,” Christian Hinojosa, an immigrant from Mexico, said by phone from Dilley, where she and her 13-year-old son were held for more than four months. They were released this month and allowed to return home to San Antonio, where she works as a health aide.

She noted that Liam and his father were released from Dilley after 10 days, after members of Congress and a judge intervened.

“My son says, ‘That’s unfair, Mama. What’s the difference between him and us?’”

Ramping up family detentions

When the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico. Detentions at the facility were scaled back by the Biden administration in 2021, before it was closed three years later.

Since being reopened by President Trump’s administration last spring, life inside Dilley — a compound of trailers and other prefabricated buildings — has been shaped by three decisive changes.

The number of detained families has risen sharply since last fall. The government is holding many children well beyond the 20-day limit set by long-standing court order. And many detainees have lived in the U.S. for several years, with roots in neighborhoods, workplaces and schools, according to lawyers and other observers.

“Just imagine that you’re a child and you’re taken out of your surroundings,” said Philip Schrag, a Georgetown University law professor and author of “Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America.”

Suddenly you’re in “a completely strange environment with the doors locked and guards in uniform roaming around,” said Schrag, who counseled Dilley detainees as a volunteer lawyer during the Obama administration.

ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. On an average day, more than 220 children were held, with most of those detained longer than 24 hours sent to Dilley. More than half of Dilley detainees during that period were children.

Nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE were eventually deported, and almost 1 in 10 left the country when their parents accepted voluntary departure, according to an AP analysis of the latest comprehensive data. About a quarter were released in the U.S., requiring their parents to check in regularly with ICE as their legal cases proceed.

The number of detainees at Dilley has risen sharply since the period covered by the data, nearly tripling between fall and late January to more than 1,300, according to Relevant Research, which analyzes immigration enforcement data.

“We’ve started to use 100 days as a benchmark for prioritizing cases because so many children are exceeding 20 days,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. In a visit this month, Welch said she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.

The increased detention of children comes as the Trump administration has gutted a Department of Homeland Security office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities.

“It’s a particular concern that family detention is being increased,” said Dr. Pamela McPherson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist contracted by Homeland Security from 2014 until last year to inspect and investigate conditions at Dilley and other ICE facilities holding children. “Just who’s providing that check and balance now?”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents the congressional district where Dilley is located, said multiple visits have convinced him criticism of the center is unfair.

He said he’d been impressed by Dilley’s facilities and the professionalism and dedication of staff. “They’re not doing policy. They’re just fulfilling a duty,” Gonzales said.

The Homeland Security Department did not respond to detailed questions about Dilley submitted by the AP. But both Homeland Security and ICE objected to allegations of poor care and conditions there.

“The Dilley facility is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,” ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement this week. Services include medical screenings, infant care packages and classrooms and recreational spaces, he noted.

But concerns about Dilley are personal for Kheilin Valero Marcano, a Venezuelan immigrant detained with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, Amalia, in December and held for nearly two months.

When the child got a high fever, Valero Marcano said Dilley staff told her it was just a virus. Two weeks later, Amalia started vomiting, then losing weight. Valero Marcano said she took her to the Dilley doctor’s office at least eight times, and was offered only Tylenol and ibuprofen.

The baby was eventually sent to two hospitals, where doctors diagnosed COVID-19, bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach virus, she said.

ICE disputed Valero Marcano’s account, saying in a statement the baby “immediately received proper medical care” at Dilley before being sent to the hospital. Back in Dilley, “she was in the medical unit and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines,” it said.

The family’s return to Dilley coincided with a measles outbreak there. They were released earlier this month after their lawyers petitioned the court.

“I’m so worried for all the families who are still inside,” Valero Marcano said.

A teen in distress

After more than two months in a cramped room at Dilley with three other families, the 13-year-old girl’s depression turned increasingly dark.

The eighth-grader stopped eating after finding a worm in her food, family members said. Staff sometimes withheld medications she’d long been prescribed to keep her anxiety in check and help her sleep.

When a total lockdown was imposed, a guard blocked the teen from leaving the crowded room to join her mother and sister in the bathroom. She spiraled into crisis, and used a plastic knife from the cafeteria to cut her wrist.

“She said she didn’t want to live anymore because she preferred to die rather than having to keep living in confinement,” her mother, Andrea Armero, told the AP in a video call from Colombia, where the family was deported this month. The AP generally avoids identifying people who attempt or die by suicide.

The girl’s struggles began before she arrived at Dilley. Soon after starting middle school in Colombia, she learned a family member had sexually abused her younger sister. Armero said she saw no option but to leave, and in early 2024 she and her daughters traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border and applied for asylum.

Living with family in Florida, the 13-year-old was doing well in school but sometimes experienced panic attacks about being sent back to Colombia. Under a psychiatrist’s care, she was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications and regularly saw a therapist. Then, in December, ICE agents detained Armero and her daughters during a routine check-in.

At Dilley, the 13-year-old calmed herself by drawing, producing haunting pictures of a girl locked inside gates. But when she and other detainees took part in a protest after 5-year-old Liam and his father got to Dilley, guards took away drawing materials and ordered everyone to stay inside.

The teen’s mental health collapsed. She tried to harm herself with the plastic knife, Armero said, and repeatedly hit her head. The family was put into isolation without seeing a doctor, then deported to Colombia on Feb. 11 after a judge ordered them removed, she said.

Dilley discharge documents described “active problems,” including a “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self-harm,” in addition to a “history of post-traumatic stress disorder” and “history of anxiety.” AP also spoke with detainees and attorneys who independently described the girl’s suicide attempt.

Responding to questions from AP, a Department of Homeland Security official acknowledged there had been “a case of self-harm” inside the facility, but did not specify what had happened, or how staff handled the incident. When AP asked for details, the department did not respond to follow-up questions.

“No child at Dilley … has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment,” said Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, the for-profit prison company that operates the facility under contract with ICE. Gustin declined to answer specific questions about the 13-year-old girl, citing privacy rules.

Detention weighs on children

On a phone call from inside Dilley, 13-year-old Gustavo Santino-Josa introduced himself to a reporter by name and the nine-digit identification number ICE assigned him when he was taken into custody with his mother.

“Until today I don’t know what we did wrong to get detained,” Gustavo said. “I’ve seen my mom cry almost daily, and I ask God that we can go out and go home soon.”

He worried they might never be released.

“My mom says that as long as there is hope it is worth fighting for,” Gustavo said before handing the phone to his mother, Christian Hinojosa, the healthcare aide originally from Mexico.

“All his friends have left already,” his mother said. “Some were deported. Some got released recently. And it hurts. It hurts to see people leaving and you’re staying here.”

Dilley was built to hold 2,400 people, housed in clusters ICE calls “neighborhoods.” Bunk beds are arranged side-by-side for up to four families, frequently putting parents with young children in close quarters.

Once in full operation, Dilley is expected to generate about $180 million in annual revenue for CoreCivic, according to the company’s recent filing with securities regulators.

In a video on its website, CoreCivic says Dilley’s “open campus layout allows residents to move freely and unescorted throughout the day.”

It does not mention that parents and their children are locked inside.

In response to questions from the AP, CoreCivic’s Gustin said the staff at Dilley includes a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner and other trained medical professionals and mental health services workers to “meet the needs of children and families in our care.”

In talks with parents of children held at Dilley, however, the same problems come up repeatedly, said Welch, the children’s rights lawyer.

Kids cry often and don’t get enough sleep, in part because lights are on around the clock, she said. The water tastes terrible and causes stomachaches and rashes, so some families stick to what they can buy in the commissary.

Their children don’t eat enough and have lost weight, Welch said. There are classrooms, but instruction is limited to an hour daily, mostly filling out worksheets.

A 14-year-old girl, identified in court papers by the initials NVSM, reported there were tensions with up to 12 people sharing their room. At night when she and her mother tried to sleep, others insisted on turning up the TV.

“I feel very sad and stressed to be here,” the teen said in an account filed with the court that oversees a binding settlement governing detention and release of children. “My nerves are so high. I don’t know what is happening. My muscles will twitch because I’m so nervous and on edge.”

Concerns about oversight

As the government’s detention of parents and their children came under scrutiny in 2014, an ICE official claimed that family detention centers, equipped with basketball courts and medical clinics, were “more like a summer camp.”

The characterization irritated McPherson, the child psychiatrist who, along with another physician, was retained in 2014 by Homeland Security to inspect family detention centers. Their contracts were not renewed by the Trump administration last year after Homeland Security announced sweeping staff reductions.

“Having a clean place to sleep, having food, that’s not the same thing as having family and community,” McPherson said.

The doctors’ investigations of family detention centers exposed consistently inadequate staffing and disregard by administrators for the trauma caused by detention, concerns they reported in 2018 to a Senate caucus set up to hear from whistleblowers.

At Dilley, the doctors noted a persistent shortage of pediatricians and the inability to hire a child psychiatrist from the time they began their inspections until they alerted senators.

Employees unsure how to deal with 2-year-olds biting and hitting one another placed the children and their parents in medical isolation for days, McPherson and her colleague told senators. Without supervision, a nurse at Dilley gave adult-strength hepatitis A shots to about 250 children in 2015, the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. reported.

Homeland Security responded to many of the findings by making changes before a special committee recommended in late 2016 that the government discontinue family detention except in rare cases. The first Trump administration increased family detention before the Biden administration began phasing it out in 2021.

That the Trump administration is again holding families at Dilley after so many warnings feels “dystopian,” McPherson said.

“The decision to knowingly traumatize children and subject them to chronic stress, I just have no words for it,” she said.

Worries even after release

Huddled around picnic tables at the Laredo migrant shelter, parents released from Dilley searched anxiously for flights back to the homes they left behind. They called relatives, friends, teachers, anyone who might help with money to get there.

The young Ecuadoran mom talked of returning to Minneapolis, where her 2-year-old daughter, born in the U.S., was staying with a friend. With her husband deported, parenting will be entirely her responsibility.

That means getting her 7-year-old back in school. Then the woman, who had a work permit and a job in a Minneapolis restaurant before being detained, needs to keep her children fed.

“Let’s go home, Mom, but don’t go back to work because ICE is going to pick you up again,” the little girl said. Her mother tried to reassure her.

That won’t happen, she said, because now they have a special paper telling ICE to leave them alone.

She hopes that’s a promise she can keep.

Burke, Geller and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. AP data reporter Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — For a decade, President Trump promised to end what he calls forever wars, casting himself as a leader opposed to prolonged conflicts in the Middle East and who would rather pursue peace in the world.

Now, early in his second term, Trump is taking military action against Iran that could expand well beyond a limited effort to halt the country’s nuclear program.

In a video posted on Truth Social, the commander-in-chief said American forces also plan to “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy.” He warned members of Iran’s military to surrender or “face certain death.” And urged the Iranian people to take the moment as an opportunity to rise up against their government.

“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States armed forces,” Trump said.

Trump, who has been considering a strike on Iran for several weeks, acknowledged he reached the decision to attack while aware of the human toll that could come with it.

“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war,” he said. “But we are doing this, not for now, we are doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”

Trump’s military campaign in Iran is a sharp turn in tone for a president who has long been critical of open-ended conflicts in the Middle East, and marks a shift from an America-first agenda message that helped him return to the White House.

“I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars,” Trump said in his November 2024 victory speech as he promised to focus national resources on domestic priorities rather than foreign conflicts.

As Trump advocated to bring home American forces from deployments around the world and to withdraw from key defense treaties, his position resonated with a war-weary electorate in the lead up to the election.

Fewer than six in 10 Americans (56%) believed the United States should take an active role in world affairs ahead of the election — the second-lowest level recorded since the question was first asked in 1974, according to polling by the Council on Foreign Affairs.

Trump’s posture on war in the Middle East had been consistent before he ran for office.

In 2013, he criticized former President Obama’s negotiations with Tehran, predicting in a post on Twitter, that Obama would “attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly.” That same year, Trump warned that “our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.”

And in a heated February 2016 debate, Trump attacked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, stating that his brother George W. Bush lied about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities to get the U.S. into the Iraq War. Trump called the Iraq War a “big, fat mistake” that “destabilized the Middle East.”

“They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none,” he said.

Trump’s confrontation with Iran bears little resemblance to those early rebukes.

Trump has yet to present evidence of an imminent threat to the United States from Iran’s nuclear program — a capability he claimed to have “obliterated” just eight months ago — and has instead framed the military campaign as one to ensure Tehran never develops nuclear weapon at all.

“It is a very simple message,” he said. “They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump’s shift has already drawn the attention of congressional Democrats, many of whom are calling the president out for backing out on his promise to end foreign wars — and are demanding that he involve Congress in any further military actions.

“Regardless of what the President may think or say, he does not enjoy a blank check to launch large-scale military operations without a clear strategy, without any transparency or public debate, and not without Congressional approval,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) criticized Trump for “drawing the country into yet another foreign war that Americans don’t want and Congress has not authorized.”

The military involvement in Iran is not the first time that members of Congress have complained about the Trump administration’s willingness to sideline the legislative branch on decisions that could trigger broader conflicts this year.

In January, Trump ordered military forces to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and said the United States would run the sovereign nation until further notice. He threatened military action in Colombia, whose leftist President Gustavo Petro has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics.

Trump has alienated allied nations when he said he was willing to send American troops to seize Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. And on Friday, he said U.S. is in talks with Havana and raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover of Cuba” without offering any details on what he meant.

His actions have coincided with his annoyance at not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to seek peace in the world. At one point, the president said he no longer felt an “obligation to think purely of Peace” because he didn’t get the recognition.

Trump’s shifting tone, and his use of violent war imagery in his pretaped remarks about Iran, have rattled even part of his base.

“I did not campaign for this. I did not donate money for this,” said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conservative who recently left Congress after a bitter fight with Trump. “This is not what we thought MAGA was supposed to be. Shame!”

Republican leaders, however, are largely standing behind the president.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Iran “posed a clear and unacceptable threat” to the United States and has refused “the diplomatic off-ramps.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (D-La.) said Trump took the action after exhausting “every effort to pursue peaceful and diplomatic solutions.”

Other top Republican lawmakers rallied behind the president, too.

“The butcher’s bill has finally come due for the ayatollahs,” Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote in a post on X. “May God bless and protect our troops on this vital mission of vengeance, and justice, and safety.”

Politicians going on entertainment shows is hardly new, but Vice President Al Gore’s appearance on “Late Show With David Letterman” Wednesday took the use of popular culture further than before.

Politicians, classically, have used popular culture programs two ways: First, to repair and humanize their image, as Richard Nixon did playing the piano on the Jack Paar show in 1960 or appearing on “Laugh-In” in 1968, or as Bob Dole recently did appearing with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” to tell self-deprecating jokes and demonstrate that he is more than just a mean guy.

Second, politicians have used popular culture to reach out to new audiences, as President Clinton did during the campaign last year, appearing on Arsenio Hall’s show and on MTV.

“The important thing about going on MTV was not what he said, but the fact that he was there, reaching out to young people on their channel, welcoming them into the process,” Clinton media adviser Mandy Grunwald explained.

Gore’s appearance on Letterman’s new CBS show was slightly different. He did crack jokes with Letterman about his stiff image and the job of being vice president–even reading his own Top 10 list of good things about the office, including “After they sign a bill, there’s a lot of free pens.” But the vice president actually wanted to build support for a substantive public policy, his plan for reinventing government.

He demonstrated the government’s method of safety-testing an ash tray, or “ash receiver, tobacco (desk type).” Gore and Letterman donned safety goggles and smashed the ash tray with a hammer on a U.S.-mandated maple plank.

“This is a step beyond the talk shows,” or playing the saxophone in dark sunglasses, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.

And that made it risky too.

In effect, the Clinton Administration “has embraced popular culture as part of a general strategy, to use it to get their message out,” said Robert Lichter, director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a research group in Washington that studies TV.

“The danger is you can be used up by popular culture,” since the entertainment world does not operate by the same rules as the world of politics and journalism.

Politicians cannot demand equal time. And a politician with real power can look foolish tangling with an entertainer.

Vice President Dan Quayle discovered the risks after he criticized the fictional TV character Murphy Brown for her decision to have a child out of wedlock.

Not only did “Murphy Brown’s” producers retaliate with a program that denounced Quayle’s ideas in a way that was unadorned and quite serious political rhetoric, but the 1992 Emmy Awards show was converted into a diatribe against Quayle and the Republican Party for its criticism of Hollywood’s values.

According to Lichter’s Center, which monitors political humor on late-night shows, Leno, Letterman et al. are more focused on politics than ever.

In his first six months in office, Clinton has been the brunt of nearly 400 late-night jokes. George Bush, after six months, had been the brunt of about 60.

Gore, meanwhile, has been the brunt of as many jokes as Quayle was in his first six months as the First Sidekick.

“Let me give you an idea of just how boring our new vice president is,” Letterman had said of Gore on an earlier night. “Al Gore’s Secret Service code name is Al Gore.”

President Trump’s decision to strike Iran creates new risks for a significant chunk of the world’s oil supply.

The Islamic Republic itself pumps about 3.3 million barrels a day, or 3% of global output, making it the fourth-largest producer in OPEC. But the nation wields far greater influence over the world’s energy supplies because of its strategic location.

Iran sits on one side of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane for about a fifth of the world’s crude from key suppliers including Saudi Arabia and Iraq. While the waterway remains open, some oil tankers were avoiding sailing through following the attacks and ships were piling up on either side of the entrance, tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Oil markets are closed for the weekend, and there was no initial information on whether the attacks on Iran and the country’s retaliatory strikes across the region Saturday targeted any energy assets.

Here are the pressure points to watch in oil as events unfold.

Iran’s production

Iran produces about 3.3 million barrels of oil a day, up from less than 2 million barrels a day in 2020 despite continued international sanctions. The country has become more adept at skirting these restrictions, sending about 90% of its exports to China.

The largest oil deposits are Ahvaz and Marun and the West Karun cluster, all in Khuzestan province.

Iran’s main refinery, built at Abadan in 1912, can process more than 500,000 barrels a day. Other key plants include the Bandar Abbas and Persian Gulf Star refineries, which handle crude and condensate, a type of ultra-light oil that’s abundant in Iran. The capital, Tehran, has its own refinery.

For Iran’s overseas shipments, the Kharg Island terminal in the northern Persian Gulf is the main logistical hub. There was an explosion on the island Saturday, according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency, which didn’t provide details or make any reference to the oil terminal.

Kharg Island has numerous loading berths, jetties, remote mooring points and tens of millions of barrels of crude storage capacity. The facilities have handled export volumes exceeding 2 million barrels a day in recent years.

U.S. sanctions discourage most potential buyers of Iran’s crude, but private Chinese refiners have remained willing customers, provided they get steep discounts. For international shipments, Iran relies on a fleet of aging tankers that mostly sail with their transponders deactivated to avoid detection.

Earlier this month, Iran was rapidly filling tankers at Kharg Island, probably in an effort to get as much crude on the water and move vessels out of harm’s way in case the facility was attacked. It was a move similar to last June ahead of Israeli and U.S. attacks.

Any strike on Kharg Island would be a desperate blow for the country’s economy.

Iran’s main natural gas fields are farther to the south along the Persian Gulf coast. Facilities at Assaluyeh and Bandar Abbas process, transport and ship gas and condensate for domestic use in power generation, heating, petrochemicals and other industries.

The area is the main point for Iran’s condensate exports. During the June war, an attack on a local gas plant sparked jitters among traders, but didn’t cause a lasting spike in oil prices because it didn’t affect any export facilities.

Regional Dangers

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Feb. 1 of a “regional war” if his country was attacked by the U.S. Tehran has claimed that a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz is within its power.

It would be an extreme step that the country has never taken but remains a nightmare scenario for global markets.

Hormuz is the chokepoint for bulk of the Persian Gulf’s exports of crude and also refined fuels such as diesel and jet fuel. Qatar, one of world’s biggest liquefied natural gas exporters, also relies on the strait. At least three gas tankers going to or from Qatar had paused voyages following the latest attacks in the region, according to ship-tracking data.

A seized South Korean-flagged tanker is escorted by Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats in the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz in January 2021. If Iran were to close the strait after the U.S.-Israel strikes Saturday, it would likely cause a massive disruption to exports and cause crude prices to spike.

(Tasnim News Agency via AP)

While OPEC members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have some ability to reroute their shipments via pipelines that avoid Hormuz, closing the strait would still cause a massive disruption to exports and cause crude prices to spike.

There were signs that other Gulf producers were also accelerating shipments in February. Saudi Arabia’s crude shipments averaged about 7.3 million barrels a day in the first 24 days of the month, the most in almost three years. Combined flows from Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were set to climb almost 600,000 barrels a day from the same period in January, according to data from Vortexa Ltd.

In the past, Tehran has made retaliatory strikes on some of its neighbors’ energy assets. In 2019, Saudi Arabia blamed Tehran for a drone attack on its Abqaiq oil processing facility that halted production equivalent to about 7% of global crude supply.

Many observers say it’s improbable that Iran could keep Hormuz closed for long, making lower-impact actions like harassment of shipping more likely.

During last year’s war on Iran by Israel and the U.S., nearly 1,000 vessels a day were having their GPS signals jammed near Iran’s coast, contributing to one tanker collision. Sea mines are another long-threatened option for deterring shipping.

Market reactions

Oil surged the most in more than three years during the June war, with Brent crude rising above $80 a barrel in London. However, the gains quickly faded once it became clear that key regional oil infrastructure hadn’t been damaged.

Since then, concerns about an oversupply have dominated global markets, with crude in London ending 2025 about 18% lower than where it started.

Despite those fears of a glut, prices have surged 19% this year, partly due to fears of U.S. strikes on Iran.

With the main oil futures closed for the weekend, there’s limited insight into how traders are reacting to the latest attacks. However, a retail trading product, run by IG Group Ltd., was pricing West Texas Intermediate as high as $75.33, a gain of as much as 12% from Friday’s close.

Burkhardt and Di Paola write for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writer Julian Lee contributed to this report.

Democrats are pushing for a vote next week on a resolution to curtail President Trump’s authority to conduct strikes in Iran, a move that would reassert Congress’ role in approving the use of military might.

The effort was already underway to force a vote on a war powers resolution, but it gained fresh momentum as the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran beginning early Saturday, an action that Trump referred to in a video shortly afterward as “war.” House Democratic leaders announced this week — before the strikes — that they would begin procedures to force a floor vote on a resolution for Iran.

The resolution directs Trump to terminate the use of armed forces against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by Congress. Presidents of both parties have skirted around war powers resolutions in the past.

Passage is uncertain in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with GOP members of both chambers expressing initial support for the bombing of Iran. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) praised the attacks Saturday and said to reporters that the administration “better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change.”

But the effort for a war powers vote has gained the support of at least two House Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, making it possible for the measure to pass the House if enough Democrats support the measure and enough members show up for the final vote.

On the Senate side, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, who voted for an earlier war powers resolution, said he would “oppose another presidential war.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Iran “is a bad actor and must be aggressively confronted for its human rights violations, nuclear ambitions, support of terrorism and the threat it poses” to allies in the region.

“However, absent exigent circumstances, the Trump administration must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war,” Jeffries’ statement said.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a California Democrat who is co-sponsoring the resolution with Massie, urged lawmakers to reconvene in Washington on Monday to vote, calling the strikes the launch of “an illegal regime change war in Iran with American lives at risk.”

Massie on social media described the attack as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.”

The resolution faced initial opposition from staunch pro-Israel House Democrats Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the Senate should pass the resolution but didn’t outright oppose the strikes. He complained that the administration did not lay out its case to Congress or the public.

Trump would surely veto the resolution if passed, but substantial GOP votes for it could persuade him to limit the attacks on Iran. The Senate passed a procedural vote for a resolution against the strikes in January that culminated in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, after which the White House sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Capitol Hill to testify to members.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but no president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in World War II has used that formal declaration, instead relying on less expansive authorization to deploy military force. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 to slow the Vietnam War.

However, most presidents have sought some level of buy-in and approval from Congress, which approves the budget for the Pentagon.

“The Constitution is clear: The decision to take this nation to war rests with Congress, and launching large-scale military operations — particularly in the absence of an imminent threat to the United States — raises serious legal and constitutional concerns,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement. “Congress must be fully briefed, and the administration must come forward with a clear legal justification.”

Other Senate Democrats, including Tim Kaine of Virginia and Andy Kim of New Jersey, have also urged their chamber to vote on a similar measure to put checks on Trump’s use of military force in Iran.

Rubio notified the so-called Gang of Eight — the top congressional leaders in the House and Senate and on the intelligence committees — of the strikes, the White House said.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, defended the strikes as “pivotal and necessary.”

“The President has stated the operation’s goals clearly: thwart permanently the ayatollahs’ desire to create a nuclear weapon, degrade their ballistic missile force and their production capacity, and destroy their naval and terrorism capabilities,” Wicker said in a statement.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) noted in his statement: “This is not how a democracy goes to war.”

Wasson writes for Bloomberg.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.

When Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman launched her bid for mayor, her decision stunned many of the city’s political players, in large part because she had endorsed Karen Bass’ reelection a few weeks earlier.

Since Raman jumped into the race, those politicos have been searching for clues as to why Raman broke so completely with Bass, going from ally to opponent.

Now, an additional data point has emerged that, at minimum, signals that Bass and Raman were not as simpatico as they seemed.

Last month, Bass quietly took steps to drop Raman from the powerful board that oversees the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Raman had been serving in that role since 2022, when she was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Bass’ team said they notified Raman’s office on Jan. 16 that the mayor planned to select someone else to represent her on the AQMD’s 13-member board, which works to ensure that more than 17 million people across four counties — Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino — have cleaner air.

Raman’s term expired last month, and Bass has not announced a replacement. Until that happens, Raman will continue to serve in the post.

Bass spokesperson Amanda Crumley did not provide an explanation for Bass’ decision but said it was not prompted by any policy disagreements between the two.

“The Mayor has 60 days to appoint a new council member to the AQMD, and she and her team started conversations with council members weeks ago in planning for the end of the term,” Crumley said. “As has been the plan for weeks, Mayor Bass will be moving forward with an appointment soon.”

Raman, in a statement, said that losing the AQMD seat was not a factor in her decision to run for mayor.

“During my time on the Board, I’ve been able to meaningfully push for cleaner air, stronger accountability for major polluters, and real progress on zero-emission freight and building standards that protect the health of Angelenos,” Raman said.

Raman said she learned she was being “removed” from her post in mid-January. On Jan. 27, Bass announced that Raman had endorsed her bid for a second term. A few days before that, the mayor’s team informed Raman’s office that they would be going public with her endorsement, according to a Bass campaign aide.

Raman launched her own mayoral campaign on Feb. 7, hours before the filing deadline, saying the city “can’t seem to manage the basics.”

Bass and Raman have mostly been in sync over the last three years, frequently appearing together and only occasionally revealing points of contention.

Raman, who lives in Silver Lake, opposed a package of pay increases for police officers, saying it was financially reckless. Bass, who resides in Windsor Square, said the raises and bonuses were needed to boost recruitment at the Los Angeles Police Department, which has lost 1,300 officers since 2020.

Last year, Raman also opposed a $2.6-billion plan to upgrade the Convention Center. She called the project a budget buster, while Bass said it is needed to revitalize downtown and the region’s economy.

The mayor’s move at the AQMD suggests the two may have disagreed in another policy area. But the back story is tough to decode.

One possible clue: the AQMD’s recent approval of a major agreement to bring zero-emissions technology to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The agreement commits the ports to add electric truck chargers, hydrogen fuel pumps and other technology aimed at eliminating diesel pollution.

At one point, Raman pushed for a more aggressive “rulemaking” approach that would give the AQMD enforcement power if the ports failed to meet certain emissions goals, according to a source with knowledge of the process, who asked to remain unnamed.

Bass favored a less regulatory approach — a cooperative agreement between AQMD and the ports, the source said. That strategy was also favored by the shipping industry and organized labor.

In the end, Raman voted in favor of the cooperative agreement, while acknowledging outside criticism of the decision. She said she supported the agreement to keep the AQMD from “continuing a decade of inaction.”

Environmental groups were disappointed. Bill Magavern, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, said the AQMD “adopted a weak, unenforceable agreement when what the board had committed to doing for years was an actual enforceable limit on emissions.”

Magavern said he thinks there were times that Raman, as a Bass appointee, “felt compelled to go along with the mayor’s wishes.” At the same time, he expressed some concern about Raman’s departure.

“We are sorry to see her leave the board because we think the AQMD needs to face up to our air pollution challenges,” Magavern said. “We certainly hope that Bass will appoint someone who is willing to stand up for clean air and take on polluting special interests.”

For now, Raman’s name still appears on the AQMD website as a member of the board. Its next meeting is on Friday.

State of play

— BIGGER IS BETTER: The city’s Charter Reform Commission recommended this week that the City Council grow to 25 members, up from 15. The citizens panel also called for the city to switch to ranked-choice voting, with voters choosing their candidates in order of preference. Both proposals could wind up on the city’s ballot in November, depending on the wishes of the council.

— FEDS SWOOP IN: The FBI raided the home and office of L.A. Unified schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho this week, in what appears to be a probe involving a company that developed an AI chatbot for the nation’s second-largest school system. Two days later, the school board placed Carvalho on paid leave.

— HEADING TO COURT: Former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley sued the city of Los Angeles this week, saying the mayor retaliated against her in an attempt to shift blame over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire. A Bass aide said the lawsuit has no merit. The council decided to pay Crowley’s successor, Fire Chief Jaime Moore, nearly $474,000 per year.

— ‘RED HOT COALS’: Meanwhile, a Los Angeles firefighter said in sworn testimony that he sounded the alarm about the inadequate mop-up of the Lachman fire — and was blown off by a captain — days before the embers reignited into the deadly Palisades fire.

— SIGNATURE SEARCH: Wednesday’s deadline for candidates to turn in their petitions for the June 2 primary election is fast approaching. So far, six mayoral candidates have qualified for the ballot — Bass, Raman and four others: housing advocate Rae Huang, engineering manager Asaad Alnajjar, political scientist Juanita Lopez and technical architect Andrej Selivra.

— WHO ELSE IS IN? All of the incumbents have qualified: City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, City Controller Kenneth Mejia and Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Katy Yaroslavsky, Monica Rodriguez, Traci Park, Hugo Soto-Martínez and Tim McOsker.

According to the City Clerk’s latest update, the challengers so far are Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy, running for city attorney; real estate executive Zach Sokoloff, running for city controller; and council candidates Maria Lou Calanche, Nelson Grande, Jose Ugarte and Faizah Malik.

— GIVING BACK GRANTS: About $100 million in state funding for transportation projects in Boyle Heights, Wilmington and Skid Row is now in jeopardy because the city doesn’t have the staff to complete the projects. The issue is part of the fallout from last year’s $1-billion budget shortfall, when city leaders cut hundreds of vacant positions.

— RIDING THE RAILS: The long-awaited extension of the Metro D Line subway, once known as the Purple Line, will finally make its debut on May 8. The extension will take subway riders west from Koreatown to La Cienega Boulevard, with brand-new stations at La Brea and Fairfax avenues.

— ANIMAL ATTACK: A jury has awarded $5.4 million to a woman who was mauled by a dog at an L.A. animal shelter, the latest in a string of such cases. The woman said neither the shelter nor the rescue group she worked for told her about the dog’s bite history.

— BAR FIGHT: Downtown LA Law Group, the firm at the center of the scandal over Los Angeles County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement, is fighting to keep thousands of documents out of the hands of state bar investigators. The bar launched its probe after The Times reported that nine DTLA clients said they had been paid to sue the county over alleged sex abuse.

— DON’T JUMP: An LAPD officer who went on disability and then was caught skydiving now faces criminal charges. Christopher Brandon Carnahan, 43, committed insurance fraud by exaggerating the extent of an on-duty work injury, according to the D.A.’s office.

— SIDELINED SUPERVISORS: L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger recently sounded off on the governance overhaul coming to the county. Appearing at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Barger said the powerful new position of elected countywide CEO would relegate the supervisors to the realm of ribbon-cutting and little else.

“You’ll see a CEO that has autonomy to do what he or she wants with no term limits, veto power,” Barger said. “Quite frankly, I think the supervisors are going to be in name only.”

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The size of the Los Angeles City Council should increase from 15 to 25 seats, the city’s Charter Reform Commission recommended Thursday.

On a 9-2 vote, the commission backed the council expansion, with supporters saying that smaller ethnic groups, including Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander residents, would be better represented.

The council has consisted of 15 members since 1925, when the city had fewer than 600,000 residents, compared with 3.9 million today.

“I think we owe the people of Los Angeles to walk out of this room saying that we are a commission that’s concerned about equity, that we are a commission that is concerned about Black and AAPI folks who live in this city,” said Commissioner James M. Thomas, who supported the expansion.

The commission also recommended ranked choice voting, where voters list candidates in order of preference, for municipal elections beginning in 2032. The city should also establish a new position, chief financial officer, which would essentially be a title change for what is now called the city administrative officer, the commission recommended.

By April 2, the commission, which has been meeting since last July, must send all its recommendations to the City Council on changes to the city’s governing charter. The council will then vote on which changes will go before city voters as ballot measures in November.

Thursday’s meeting was packed with supporters of City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who feared that the commission would gut his office’s watchdog role.

Among the CFO’s duties would be preparing the city budget, advising the mayor on fiscal policy and producing revenue forecasts — duties currently under the CAO.

Tim Riley, owner of Heavy Water Coffee Shop in Chinatown, said trust in government is at an all-time low and urged the commission to keep the controller’s powers intact.

“Kenneth has been the only form of government that we have felt has represented us as a community,” Riley said.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo spoke briefly and confirmed his support for designating the CAO as the city’s chief financial officer, without impacting the controller’s office. The CFO role recommended by the commission does not take away any duties from the controller.

In 1925, each of the 15 City Council members represented about 38,000 residents. Now, each council district has an average of 265,000 residents. If the council grows to 25, each member would represent roughly 159,000 residents.

The commission did not discuss whether the council members’ salaries and office budgets should remain the same, potentially increasing costs for taxpayers.

Nick Caputo, who has been chronicling the charter reform commission‘s progress online, advocated during public comment for the commission to endorse more than 23 seats. The commission had debated for weeks about whether to go as low as 23 seats or as high as 31, settling on 25 as a compromise.

With smaller council districts, Caputo said, residents will be represented by people who know their neighborhoods better.

“I’m happy that they did go to 25,” Caputo said Friday. “I think that would be a tremendous boost for not just representation, but also you’ll get real specialists.”

Commissioner Carla Fuentes noted that three City Council members — Nithya Raman, Ysabel Jurado and Heather Hutt — have publicly supported expanding the council to 25.

“This is a huge moment for the commission,” Chairperson Raymond Meza said after Thursday night’s meeting. “We have been hearing from hundreds of stakeholders, academics, members of the public, other interested parties — and to be able to begin drafting charter language for the City Council to consider is pretty momentous.”

During the debate on ranked choice voting, Commissioner Diego Andrades explained that the city would no longer hold a primary election, which would save money. Instead, all candidates would run in a general election.

Commissioner Christina Sanchez expressed concern that non-English speaking voters and those in under-served communities might have trouble understanding the complexities, which drew ire from the crowd.

“Are you calling us stupid?” two people said.

The commission also passed a recommendation that the city should approve an ordinance for language accessibility and educating residents about the new voting system.

Two days earlier, the commission voted unanimously to bifurcate the duties of the city attorney, currently an elected official who prosecutes misdemeanors and represents the city in civil litigation. Under the commission’s proposal, an appointed city attorney would take over the civil litigation duties, while an elected city prosecutor would handle the misdemeanors.

The decision to bifurcate the position came after consulting with good governance groups, the public and city departments, Andrades said. The current system allows a city attorney eyeing higher office to potentially offer bad advice to a sitting mayor, and conflicts of interest could occur on issues like police-related settlements and misconduct, he said.

Times staff writer Dave Zahniser contributed to this report.

Embassy staffers and dependents evacuating, airlines suspending service, eyes in Iran warily turning skyward for signs of an attack.

The prospects of a showdown between the U.S. and Iran loom ever higher, as massive American naval and air power lies in wait off Iran’s shores and land borders.

Yet little of that urgency is felt in Iran’s government. Rather than quickly acquiescing to President Trump’s demands, Iranian diplomats persist in the kind of torturously slow diplomatic dance that marked previous discussions with the U.S., a pace that prompted Trump to declare on Friday that the Iranians were not negotiating in “good faith.”

But For Iran’s leadership, Iranian experts say, concessions of the sort Trump are asking for about nuclear power and the country’s role in the Middle East undermine the very ethos of the Islamic Republic and the decades-old project it has created.

“As an Islamic theocracy, Iran serves as a role model for the Islamic world. And as a role model, we cannot capitulate,” said Hamid Reza Taraghi, who heads international affairs for Iran’s Islamic Coalition Party, or Hezb-e Motalefeh Eslami.

Besides, he added, “militarily we are strong enough to fight back and make any enemy regret attacking us.”

Even as another round of negotiations ended with no resolution this week, the U.S. has completed a buildup involving more than 150 aircraft into the region, along with roughly a third of all active U.S. ships.

Observers say those forces remain insufficient for anything beyond a short campaign of a few weeks or a high-intensity kinetic strike.

Iran would be sure to retaliate, perhaps against an aircraft carrier or the many U.S. military bases arrayed in the region. Though such an attack is unlikely to destroy its target, it could damage or at least disrupt operations, demonstrating that “American power is not untouchable,” said Hooshang Talé, a former Iranian parliamentarian.

Tehran could also mobilize paramilitary groups it cultivated in the region, including Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis, Talé added. Other U.S. rivals, such as Russia and China, may seize the opportunity to launch their own campaigns elsewhere in the world while the U.S. remains preoccupied in the Middle East, he said.

“From this perspective, Iran would not be acting entirely alone,” Tale said. “Indirect alignment among U.S. adversaries — even without a formal alliance — would create a cascading effect.”

The U.S. demands Iran give up all nuclear enrichment and relinquish existing stockpiles of enriched uranium so as to stop any path to developing a bomb. Iran has repeatedly stated it does not want to build a nuclear weapon and that nuclear enrichment would be for exclusively peaceful purposes.

The Trump administration has also talked about curtailing Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support to proxy groups, such as Hezbollah, in the region, though those have not been consistent demands. Tehran insists the talks should be limited to the nuclear issue.

After indirect negotiations on Thursday, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi — the mediator for the talks in Geneva — lauded what he said was “significant progress.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said there had been “constructive proposals.”

Trump, however, struck a frustrated tone when speaking to reporters on Friday.

“We’re not exactly happy with the way they’re negotiating and, again, they cannot have nuclear weapons,” he said.

Trump also downplayed concerns that an attack could escalate into a longer conflict.

This frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire during an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, on Jan. 9.

(Uncredited / Associated Press)

“I guess you could say there’s always a risk. You know, when there’s war, there’s a risk in anything, both good and bad,” Trump said.

Three days earlier, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, said, “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon — can’t let that happen.”

There are other signs an attack could be imminent.

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Israel allowed staff to leave the country if they wished. That followed an earlier move this week to evacuate dependents in the embassy in Lebanon. Other countries have followed suit, including the U.K, which pulled its embassy staff in Tehran. Meanwhile, several airlines have suspended service to Israel and Iran.

A U.S. military campaign would come at a sensitive time for Iran’s leadership.

The country’s armed forces are still recovering from the June war with Israel and the U.S, which left more than 1,200 people dead and more than 6,000 injured in Iran. In Israel, 28 people were killed and dozens injured.

Unrest in January — when security forces killed anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 protesters (estimates range wildly) — means the government has no shortage of domestic enemies. Meanwhile, long-term sanctions have hobbled Iran’s economy and left most Iranians desperately poor.

Despite those vulnerabilities, observers say the U.S. buildup is likely to make Iran dig in its heels, especially because it would not want to set the precedent of giving up positions at the barrel of a U.S. gun.

Other U.S. demands would constitute red lines. Its missile arsenal, for example, counts as its main counter to the U.S. and Israel, said Rose Kelanic, Director of the Middle East Program at the Defense Priorities think tank.

“Iran’s deterrence policy is defense by attrition. They act like a porcupine so the bear will drop them… The missiles are the quills,” she said, adding that the strategy means Iran cannot fully defend against the U.S., but could inflict pain.

At the same time, although mechanisms to monitor nuclear enrichment exist, reining in Tehran’s support for proxy groups would be a much harder matter to verify.

But the larger issue is that Iran doesn’t trust Trump to follow through on whatever the negotiations reach.

After all, it was Trump who withdrew from an Obama-era deal designed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, despite widespread consensus Iran was in compliance.

Trump and numerous other critics complained Iran was not constrained in its other “malign activities,” such as support for militant groups in the Middle East and development of ballistic missiles. The Trump administration embarked on a policy of “maximum pressure” hoping to bring Iran to its knees, but it was met with what Iran watchers called maximum resistance.

In June, he joined Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a move that didn’t result in the Islamic Republic returning to negotiations and accepting Trump’s terms. And he has waxed wistfully about regime change.

“Trump has worked very hard to make U.S. threats credible by amassing this huge military force offshore, and they’re extremely credible at this point,” Kelanic said.

“But he also has to make his assurances credible that if Iran agrees to U.S. demands, that the U.S. won’t attack Iran anyway.”

Talé, the former parliamentarian, put it differently.

“If Iranian diplomats demonstrate flexibility, Trump will be more emboldened,” he said. “That’s why Iran, as a sovereign nation, must not capitulate to any foreign power, including America.”

DENVER — Renee Good loved sparkles and laughter and any excuse for a celebration. She loved pretty much everyone she met, and was late for pretty much everything.

“She had this way of making you feel special and loved that I didn’t even understand … until we lost her,” Donna Ganger said Friday of her daughter, who was shot and killed by an immigration officer during the federal crackdown in Minneapolis.

She was “slow to anger, quick to love, quick to care,” said her father, Tim Ganger. “That’s the essence of who she was.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed Jan. 7 as immigration agents surged through the Minneapolis area, sparking waves of protests. Her death and that of another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, weeks later in Minneapolis sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

In a wide-ranging interview in Colorado, where some of the family lives, Good’s parents and two of her brothers, Brent and Luke Ganger, talked to the AP about the joy Good found in life, their grief and their hopes that her death can bring about change in a deeply polarized nation.

“It’s going to be hard in the future,” Donna Ganger said. “It’s going to be kind of a constant pain.”

Settling in Minneapolis

Good, who graduated from college later in life, was volunteering in a local school district and working as a substitute teacher when she was killed, her parents said.

“She was working so hard to get her education, and then she was finally able to use it, and I could just tell how happy she was and how fulfilled,” Donna Ganger said.

Good, her 6-year-old son and her partner, Becca Good — the women were not legally married, according to a family lawyer, but referred to each other as wives — had only recently relocated to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Mo., settling on a quiet residential street in a tight-knit neighborhood known for its progressive activism.

In social media accounts, Renee Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” On Pinterest, a profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child, alongside posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.

The family “settled very quickly into the community in Minneapolis,” said Donna Ganger, describing how the neighborhood had also welcomed the rest of the family when they came after the shooting. They see that as the result of the love that Good had showed her new neighbors.

“It was incredible to receive that back,” Luke Ganger said.

Donna Ganger held a stuffed toy owl as she spoke, a gift from her daughter, who knew how much she loved the birds. It had sparkles on its feet, a reminder of Good’s love for glitter.

At Good’s memorial service, a table of glitter had been set out for guests. Donna Ganger had put a piece on a lens of her glasses and it’s remained there.

“She just kind of sparkled all the way through,” said Donna Ganger. “I think of her and I look down and see my little sparkle.”

‘A very American blend’

The family is “a very American blend,” Luke Ganger said recently in testimony to Congress. “We vote differently, and we rarely completely agree on the finer details of what it means to be a citizen of this country.”

Yet “we have always treated each other with love and respect,” he said.

On Friday, the family didn’t want to discuss the specifics of their differences, but Donna Ganger said she’d long prayed for guidance: “Before all this happened, I said, ‘Make me a wise woman.’”

In the hours after Good’s death, Trump administration officials said she had been shot as she tried to drive her car into an immigration officer. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had committed “an act of domestic terrorism.”

But as video evidence and other details of the confrontation emerged, and criticism of the crackdown began growing, administration comments softened.

President Trump said he’d been told that Tim Ganger had supported him.

“He was all for Trump, loved Trump. And, you know, it’s terrible,” he told reporters. “I hope he still feels that way.”

Tim Ganger declined to talk about his political affiliation or whether it had changed with his daughter’s killing.

“I think I’m just going to leave that go,” he said. “There’s so many other important things” to deal with now, he added.

But family members said they hoped their ability to get along would be an inspiration.

“Our purpose through this whole tragic, difficult, unbelievable time, is to have something good come out of this,” Tim Ganger said. “Otherwise the senselessness of this is overwhelming.”

Sadness echoed in Donna Ganger’s voice as she talked about navigating family differences.

“Sometimes I’m just silly, you know, and I joke with them and I’m goofy,” she said. “But I want to be able to talk about hard things — and that’s hard sometimes with your own family to talk about hard things that maybe you don’t agree on. And I don’t want there to be any hardships between us or hurt.

“But it’s important that we learn to be careful with our words, but share them in a deep way,” she said. “It’s really important.”

Family members spoke only in general ways about the change they’d like to see come from Good’s death.

“I think it’s evident that something is broken, right?” said Brent Ganger. “And when something is broken, you have to take a deep look to see what it is that can be changed and fixed in order for it to not happen again.”

The morning of the shooting

On the morning of the shooting, as immigration raids and protests were flaring across the city, Becca Good has said she and Renee stopped their car in the street to support neighbors during an immigration operation.

Video shows Renee Good in a maroon SUV blocking part of the road and repeatedly honking her horn.

Two immigration officers get out of a truck and one orders Good to open her door. She reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel as the officer says again, “Get out of the car.” Almost simultaneously, Becca Good, standing in the street shouts, “Drive, baby, drive!”

When Good begins pulling forward, an ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle — later identified as Jonathan Ross — pulls his weapon and fires at least two shots into the car, through the driver’s-side corner of the windshield and the driver’s window, killing Good.

Weeks later, Tim Ganger said he hoped the family’s tragedy would lead to change, though “I’m not even sure what that will look like.”

“But for something good, for people to stop and take a breath and take a look and have a dialog,” he said. “That’s the broader mission of what we want, for people to come together and take care of each other.”

The Justice Department has said it sees no basis to open a federal civil rights investigation into Good’s death, but the family has hired a law firm that is conducting its own investigation and exploring potential legal action.

Family members said no one from the federal government has contacted them about Good’s killing, and they are unsure whether anyone will be held accountable.

“All we can do is speak out and hope that our sincere words are enough to enact some kind of change,” Brent Ganger said.

Slevin and Sullivan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Minneapolis, respectively.

Israel and the United States launched an air campaign against Iran on Saturday, striking Tehran and several other cities in what President Trump said was the start of “major combat operations.”

The attacks began with Israeli strikes Saturday morning — a workday in Iran — on Tehran, the capital, with residents speaking of attacks near the presidential palace and Iran’s National Security Council.

There were also reports of Israeli strikes on the Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of Defense, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and a military complex.

Israel’s defense minister said the “pre-emptive strike” was to “remove threats against the State of Israel”.

It remains unclear the extent of the campaign and what its ultimate aim will be. But in an eight-minute recorded video message on Truth Social, Trump outlined a maximalist strategy that would see much of what he called “this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. … We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world, and attack our forces,” he said. “And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.”

He urged Iranians to take over their government.

“This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he said. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.”

Trump also said U.S. military forces “may have casualties.”

Iran’s IRNA news agency quoted a source in the presidential office who said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was unharmed in the strike.

Besides the capital, explosions could be heard in other the cities, including Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah and Qom, according to Iranian state media.

Both Israel and Iran shut down their airspace.

Cellphone and internet communications were disrupted shortly after the attacks began. Multiple Iranian state news websites also appear to have been hacked.

There was no immediate official response from Iran, but Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, vowed retaliation.

“We warned you!” he wrote on social media. “Now you have started down a path which end is no longer in your control.”

Residents reported hearing sounds of missiles flying over cities in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in what was thought to be a missile barrage from Iran against Israel.

The attacks come two days after the U.S. and Iran concluded a third round of Oman-brokered negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing tensions and stopping the prospect of war.

On Friday, Trump expressed displeasure with the pace of the talks, saying the Iranian side were not negotiating in “good faith” or giving in to U.S. demands. But Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said a deal was “within reach.”

WASHINGTON — Amid the chaos in Kabul, politicians and pundits have declared the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan a defeat from which U.S. influence may never recover.

“Biden’s credibility is now shot,” wrote Gideon Rachman, chief oracle of Britain’s Financial Times.

“A grave blow to America’s standing,” warned the Economist.

But take a deep breath and remember some history.

When South Vietnam collapsed after a war that involved four times as many U.S. troops, many drew the same conclusion: The age of U.S. global power was over.

Less than 15 years later, the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War began to end, and the United States soon stood as the world’s only superpower.

The lesson: A debacle like the defeat in Kabul — or the one in Saigon two generations earlier — doesn’t always prevent a powerful country from marshaling its resources and succeeding.

I’m not dismissing the tragedy that has befallen the Afghans or the damage that U.S. credibility has suffered. When President Biden told a news conference that he had “seen no questioning of our credibility from allies,” he sounded as if he was in denial — or, perhaps worse, out of touch.

No questioning? How about the question from Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the British Parliament’s defense committee: “Whatever happened to ‘America is back’?”

Or the complaint from Armin Laschet, the German conservative who could be his country’s leader after elections next month: “The greatest debacle NATO has experienced since its founding.”

Whether he likes it or not, Biden has repair work to do.

The first step, already underway, is making sure the endgame in Kabul doesn’t get any worse.

That means keeping U.S. troops on the ground until every American is out, as Biden has promised. It also requires an energetic effort to evacuate Afghans who worked with the U.S. government and other institutions, even if that requires risking the lives of some American troops. Those Afghans trusted us; if we abandon them, it will be a long time before we can credibly ask the same of anyone else.

And, of course, the administration needs to prevent Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from replanting themselves in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. If the United States fails at that — the original reason we invaded the country almost 20 years ago — Biden’s decision to withdraw will justly be judged a fiasco.

There’s repair work to do beyond Afghanistan, too.

“We’ve got to show that it would be wrong to see American foreign policy through the lens of Afghanistan,” Richard N. Haass, president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations and a former top State Department official, told me.

The United States has more important interests that need attention and allies that need reassurance, he said.

“The most important thing is to deter our major foes,” he said, referring to China, Russia and Iran.

“This is a moment to strengthen forces in Europe, mount more freedom of navigation operations [by the U.S. Navy] in the South China Sea,” he said. “This is a good time to say we’re serious about our commitment to Taiwan,” which China periodically threatens.

Biden took a step in that direction in his recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, listing Taiwan along with South Korea and Japan as places where the U.S. “would respond” to an attack.

If anything, Haass and other foreign policy veterans say, the questions about American credibility are likely to make Biden react more strongly to the next few challenges overseas.

“The most intriguing question is what effect this episode has on Biden’s thinking,” suggested Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Will he think: ‘I’ve got to be tougher with the Iranians now? Do I have to signal to a country like Taiwan that I’m prepared to protect American interests there?’”

But the notion that American influence has been fatally damaged is overblown, he argued.

“There have been many other instances in which U.S. credibility has been diminished, but our phone continues to ring,” Miller said.

Biden and his aides already know most of this. The premises of his foreign policy — reviving U.S. domestic strength, revitalizing U.S. alliances, and focusing on vital interests like China and Russia — provide a foundation for recovery.

“My dad used to have an expression: If everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to you,” the president said last week. “We should be focusing on where the threat is the greatest.”

The test Biden faces now is whether he can execute that strategy — and show that he’s credible where it matters most — more successfully than in his botched withdrawal from an unwinnable war.

Reporting from Sacramento — Toni Atkins is one of California’s most powerful lawmakers, ascending to leadership roles in the Assembly and Senate the last five years.

As Atkins’ clout has soared, so too has the consulting businesses of her spouse, Jennifer LeSar.

The clientele for LeSar’s two affordable housing and economic development firms has grown nearly fourfold since 2013, the year before Atkins became Assembly speaker, according to Atkins’ economic disclosure forms.

In 2018, the year that Atkins’ colleagues elevated her to Senate president pro tem, her spouse’s firms had contracts with 86 public agencies, developers, nonprofits and other clients, the forms indicate, which was more than in any previous year. The year before, LeSar had received a lucrative contract from a Bay Area agency without going through a competitive bidding process — a rare step allowed in emergencies, when a company offers a unique service or when the agency can justify a compelling reason to do so.

LeSar is now in a position to potentially garner even more business as Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders, including her spouse, propose increasingly bold responses to the state’s housing affordability crisis.

In the last three years, LeSar’s firms have received $1.3 million from state agencies alone, including contracts to implement one of the state’s largest low-income housing programs, which Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego, supports. Additionally, over the last 18 months, LeSar worked on a plan that calls for a package of state legislation that would rewrite major California housing policies. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a Bay Area public agency, is paying LeSar’s firm more than half a million dollars for the effort, through the no-bid contract.

Agency executives said LeSar’s relationship with Atkins had no bearing on their decision to hire her, and the Senate leader said she wouldn’t treat the bills any differently than any other proposals from her colleagues.

Atkins and LeSar, who has worked in affordable housing for nearly three decades, both said they are concerned about a perception of conflicts of interest and, as a result, consult with attorneys about possible intersections in their work.

“We spend a lot of time trying to make sure in our very busy days that we’re following the letter of the law,” Atkins said.

“These questions have been asked and answered before by the press and have largely been accepted as a nonissue,” LeSar said in an email response to The Times. She declined an interview request.

Rey Lopez-Calderon, executive director of the government ethics group California Common Cause, said the dramatic increase in LeSar’s clientele could raise concerns from the public that outside groups are trying to curry favor with a powerful politician by hiring her spouse.

“That’s really obviously a number that’s eyebrow raising,” Lopez-Calderon said. “It definitely runs the risk of the public thinking something shady is going on.”

Still, he said, absent evidence LeSar or Atkins used their relationship to leverage new business, there wasn’t anything illegal or unethical about LeSar’s consulting work.

Source: State Sen. Toni Atkins’ Annual Statements of Economic Interest

(Kyle Kim / Los Angeles Times)

Lawmakers have faced questions about potential conflicts involving a spouse and development issues before. In 2011, opponents of redevelopment agencies, which provided significant funding for low-income housing, criticized then-state Sen. Bob Huff about his efforts to save the program, noting that Huff’s wife was a paid consultant for a developer with a financial stake in the issue.

Political rivals have alleged Atkins’ relationship with LeSar is also a conflict, given Atkins’ outsized role in housing debates. In 2015, Atkins, then in the Assembly, proposed legislation to impose a fee on real estate transactions, such as mortgage refinancing, to fund low-income housing development. A version of the bill passed in 2017. When she first introduced the measure, Atkins requested an opinion from the Office of Legislative Counsel, which assured her that the bill presented no conflict of interest because the funding was not tied to any specific company or project. LeSar has vowed not to bid on funding directly tied to the bill.

Assembly leader Toni Atkins denies conflict of interest in funds proposal »

The couple married in 2008 after meeting while running in housing, LGBT advocacy and political circles in San Diego, where Atkins once served as a city councilwoman. Just before her election to the Legislature, Atkins worked for LeSar Development for about 18 months. While there, she wrote a report on development near transit and handled other housing work across the state. As of last month, Atkins was pictured on the business’ website, listed as an alumna of the firm. She no longer appears on a redesign of the site that became public Wednesday.

In 2011, after Atkins had been elected to the Legislature, LeSar opened a second firm, Estolano LeSar Advisors, with Cecilia Estolano, an attorney who worked in housing and economic development for the city of Los Angeles. Last year, Atkins abstained from voting on Estolano’s appointment to the powerful UC Board of Regents, which governs the state’s flagship university system.

Recent clients for the two firms, according to Atkins’ economic disclosures, have included the city and county of Los Angeles, UC Berkeley, USC, the California Endowment, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, for-profit and nonprofit developers and the Open Society Foundations, the organization founded by billionaire George Soros.

Rick Gentry, president of the San Diego Housing Commission, praised LeSar. Among other work, he said, she guided his public housing agency in 2014 into expanding its portfolio to provide homelessness services.

“She knows as much about the industry as anyone I’ve ever met,” Gentry said.

Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission cited LeSar’s experience as their reason for hiring her.

The agency was finishing an effort to plan for growth in the Bay Area through 2040 and realized that project was futile without a comprehensive attempt to deal with the nation’s worst housing affordability challenges.

“Jennifer LeSar is extremely qualified and well-positioned to take on multiple roles for this project,” wrote Vikrant Sood, a senior planner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, in a June 2017 memo justifying her hiring.

LeSar’s firm researched prior studies on the region’s housing problems and planned and attended the group’s meetings. The result of the effort was a proposal, known as the CASA Compact, which said the Bay Area could fix its housing problems only through a suite of state legislation.

The CASA Compact calls for new state laws to boost protections for tenants, increase apartment construction near transit and help raise more than $1 billion to build low-income housing, among other things. Bay Area legislators have introduced more than a dozen bills that align with the plan, nearly all of it affecting the entire state.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission officials said LeSar did not recommend any of the policies the region decided to pursue but, rather, packaged together the conclusions into a final report. LeSar also said she declined additional work with MTC once it became clear that the CASA Compact was going to advance state bills.

She said she sought a legal opinion in January after the agency discussed offering her a new contract to help implement the plan.

LeSar initially told The Times that her attorney had advised her that the second contract would be a potential conflict so she declined the work. But in later correspondence with The Times, she said that she had been mistaken. The attorney’s advice, LeSar said, was that the new contract wouldn’t pose a conflict, but she decided to forgo the work to avoid any appearance of a problem.

Commission officials anticipated the CASA Compact process would lead to state legislation from the beginning. Sood said in the June 2017 memo that originally justified LeSar’s hiring that CASA “will yield a package of legislative and funding solutions at the state and regional level.”

Despite that, agency officials decided to pursue LeSar directly rather than putting the initial contract out to a competitive bid, a process designed to ensure an agency receives the best services for the lowest cost and without bias. The agency said it could do so because it had a compelling reason — LeSar’s background and the ambitious nature of the project — to hire her without first seeking out other firms.

No MTC officers publicly opposed hiring LeSar. Following agency rules, then-Executive Director Steve Heminger signed off on the first $200,000 of the contract himself. The agency’s administrative committee, which is made up of Bay Area elected officials, voted unanimously and without comment in December 2017 to increase the amount to $450,000. (The contract value rose to $511,000 when it was extended again at the beginning of this year.)

Some local government officials in the Bay Area’s smaller cities oppose the CASA Compact because they believe it takes away their power. Michael Barnes, a councilman in the city of Albany — a community that borders Berkeley — said LeSar’s extensive work with the MTC over the last 18 months adds to fears that lawmakers, out of deference to Atkins, will overlook local leaders’ concerns when evaluating the legislation.

“We have very strict guidelines for our ethical behavior,” Barnes said. “For me, as someone who has lived under these guidelines as an elected official, this doesn’t seem ethical.”

LeSar’s businesses also have seen an increase in contracts with state agencies, per Atkins’ economic disclosures. Since February 2016, the two firms have received at least nine contracts from four state departments. All but one — a $5,000 contract to advise housing department employees on evaluating loan documents — were awarded through competitive bidding processes.

Much of the contract work has come from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, which is responsible for administering housing and planning efforts funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program, which taxes polluters. The state has provided roughly $400 million annually through Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program, one of the largest budget allocations for low-income development and one that Atkins has said she “led the effort” in the Legislature to fund. Estolano LeSar was hired to help applicants from disadvantaged communities write grants and provide other support for their projects.

Newsom’s office declined to comment, but Ken Alex, who was OPR director under former Gov. Jerry Brown, said he was unaware of Atkins and LeSar’s relationship.

“I have heard from staff that the work was good and would have been advised if it was not,” Alex said.

Atkins said she has sometimes voted in ways that have hurt her spouse’s business. In 2011, she supported ending the state’s redevelopment program, the property tax set aside for local governments that funded local affordable housing and economic development.

“I was part of a vote that actually almost killed her business for a period of time,” Atkins said.

Atkins said she doesn’t plan to write any of the bills recommended in the CASA Compact proposal. She said she wouldn’t abstain from voting on them or otherwise handle them differently than any other piece of legislation because the bills address broad policy matters and therefore don’t present a conflict.

But if CASA Compact measures pass, it could be a signal to outside groups that hiring LeSar could be beneficial to getting similar efforts through the Legislature, given Atkins’ substantial influence over the fate of legislation at the Capitol, said Lopez-Calderon of Common Cause.

“I definitely think that some businesses will imagine that exact scenario and act accordingly,” he said.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliam

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge Friday extended an order protecting refugees in Minnesota who are lawfully in the U.S. from being arrested and deported, saying a Trump administration policy turns the “American Dream into a dystopian nightmare.”

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim granted a motion by advocates for refugees to convert a temporary restraining order that he issued in January into a more permanent preliminary injunction while the case develops.

The order applies only in Minnesota. But the implications of a new national policy on refugees that the Department of Homeland Security announced Feb. 18 were a major part of the discussion at a hearing held by the judge the next day.

“Minnesota refugees can now live their lives without fear that their own government will snatch them off the street and imprison them far from loved ones,” Kimberly Grano, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project, told the Associated Press.

The Trump administration asserts that it has the right to arrest potentially tens of thousands of refugees across the U.S. who entered the country legally but don’t yet have green cards. A new Homeland Security memo interprets immigration law to say that refugees applying for green cards must return to federal custody one year after they were admitted to the U.S. so that their applications can be reviewed.

The judge expressed disbelief in a 66-page opinion.

“This Court will not allow federal authorities to use a new and erroneous statutory interpretation to terrorize refugees who immigrated to this country under the promise that they would be welcomed and allowed to live in peace, far from the persecution they fled,” Tunheim said.

He said the U.S. decades ago promised refugees fleeing persecution that they could build a new life after rigorous background checks.

“We promised them the hope that one day they could achieve the American Dream,” Tunheim wrote. “The Government’s new policy breaks that promise — without congressional authorization — and raises serious constitutional concerns. The new policy turns the refugees’ American Dream into a dystopian nightmare.”

Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement Friday night that the ruling was “yet another lawless and activist order from a federal judge” and that the Trump administration expected to be “vindicated in court.”

“USCIS is committed to rooting out fraud and protecting the public safety and national security interests of the American people by screening and vetting aliens,” the statement said.

Justice Department attorney Brantley Mayers said during a court hearing last week that the government should have the right to arrest refugees one year after entering the U.S., but he also indicated that would not always happen.

The judge noted that one refugee in the case, identified as D. Doe, was arrested in January after being told that someone had struck his car.

“He was immediately flown to Texas, where he was interrogated about his refugee status. He was kept in ‘shackles and handcuffs’ for sixteen hours. D. Doe was ultimately released on the streets of Texas, left to find his way back to Minnesota,” Tunheim said.

Karnowski and White write for the Associated Press and reported from Minneapolis and Detroit, respectively. AP writer Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.

The Obama administration is finding some new political cover by invoking the Bush administration after Republican presidential hopefuls stepped up their attacks on the president’s announcement that the United States would withdraw its troops from Iraq by year’s end.

Relations between any presidential administration and its predecessor are never easy, especially when they represent different parties and sharply dissimilar philosophies as is the case between the presidencies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush. On the economic front, the Obama administration has long argued that the deep political hole it inherited from the Bush years has caused a big part of the president’s current woes.

In a briefing with reporters aboard Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney cited the Bush administration as he fielded a question about the GOP response to the announced troop withdrawal from Iraq. It was Bush who launched the Iraq campaign when he called Iraq part of the axis of evil that threatened the United States and said it was linked to international terrorism and wanted to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Both claims were questioned by critics, especially after no such major weapons were recovered during the more than eight years of the U.S.-led war.

In a question, a reporter described the Republicans as accusing Obama as acting “based on political motivations and just sort of sheer ineptitude.” Carney fired back that the commitment to withdraw by the end of the year was part of an agreement “signed by the Iraqi government and the Bush administration.

“So in response to the criticism, I just have to ask, you know, what country are they living in? What planet are they living on,” Carney said of the Republicans.

“Because, again, this president has — from the very beginning when he ran for office, he made clear what he wanted to do in Iraq, which was end this war responsibly in a way that was in the best interests of the United States. He made clear from the beginning that he would keep the commitment made by the Bush administration with the sovereign Iraqi government to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of 2011,” he said.

Lest anyone miss the connection, Carney later went back to the Bush administration a third time, wondering what the Republicans wanted.

“Are they suggesting that we violate an agreement that’s signed by the Bush administration with the sovereign government of Iraq? That we keep troops there without the consent and agreement of the Iraqi government?” Carney said.

michael.muskal@latimes.com

WASHINGTON — A crowd gathered at a commuter gate at Reagan National Airport on Friday as fog-laden Washington skies caused an hourlong ground stop that backed up passengers hoping to head out from American Airlines’ Terminal D.

But soon the already densely packed area swelled even more, as word spread across nearby gates that, of the hundreds of air travelers coming and going, only one among them was accompanied by a U.S. Secret Service detail, along with uniformed local police officers: former President Biden.

Biden, who has rarely made public appearances since leaving office last year, sat, like many of his fellow passengers, awaiting a flight that would take him to Columbia, S.C., for an evening event with the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Passengers whispered and gaped in wonder: Why would a man who for a time was leader of the free world be, like they were, at the mercy of airport travel delays, even as he sat ensconced in his security detail?

Maybe for Biden it made more sense than for some other former presidents. Known for years as Amtrak Joe, Biden as a senator prided himself on becoming arguably the nation’s biggest Amtrak fan, regularly taking the train home to Delaware rather than taking up residence in Washington. Now, as a former president, he’s been spotted riding the rails since, taking selfies with and chatting up his fellow passengers.

On Friday, the vibe was about the same, as Biden — seated in the third row of the tiny first class cabin on the commuter jet — boarded the flight ahead of other passengers, along with his detail, members of which were spread throughout the plane.

“God bless you, sir,” one woman said, as she filed past Biden in his window seat, newspaper in his lap.

“Thank you for your service,” a man said, shaking Biden’s hand.

The woman who took the aisle seat next to the former president first set down her coffee on the arm rest they shared, deposited a bag in the overhead compartment, then sat down and realized her seatmate was the nation’s 46th president.

Biden set his hand on her cup to steady it, then met her gaze with a hello as she took her seat.

“I feel like I’m about to cry,” the woman said, as they shook hands and, over the course of the next hour, chatted throughout the flight.

Former presidents and their spouses receive lifelong Secret Service protection under federal law, but there are no provisions guaranteeing the elite levels of private travel that were necessary features of their time in office.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

The morning after Netflix clinched its deal to buy Warner Bros., Paramount Skydance Chairman David Ellison assembled a war room of trusted advisors, including his billionaire father, Larry Ellison.

Furious at Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav for ending the auction, the Ellisons and their team began plotting their comeback on that crisp December day.

To rattle Warner Bros. Discovery and its investors, they launched a three-front campaign: a lawsuit, a hostile takeover bid and direct lobbying of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

“There was a master battle plan — and it was extremely disciplined,” said one auction insider who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Netflix stunned the industry late Thursday by pulling out of the bidding, clearing the way for Paramount to claim the company that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. The deal was valued at more than $111 billion.

The streaming giant’s reversal came just hours after co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos met with Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and a deputy at the White House. It was a cordial session, but the Trump officials told Sarandos that his deal was facing significant hurdles in Washington, according to a person close to the administration who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Even before that meeting, the tide had turned for Paramount in a swell of power, politics and brinkmanship.

“Netflix played their cards well; however, Paramount played their cards perfectly,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media Co. “They did exactly what they had to do and when they had to do it — which was at the very last moment.”

Key to victory was Larry Ellison, his $200-billion fortune and his connections to President Trump and congressional Republicans.

Paramount also hired Trump’s former antitrust chief, attorney Makan Delrahim, to quarterback the firm’s legal and regulatory action.

Republicans during a Senate hearing this month piled onto Sarandos with complaints about potential monopolistic practices and “woke” programming.

David Ellison skipped that hearing. This week, however, he attended Trump’s State of the Union address in the Capitol chambers, a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The two men posed, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, for a photo that was posted to Graham’s X account.

David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance Corp., walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

On Friday, Netflix said it had received a $2.8-billion payment — a termination fee Paramount agreed to pay to send Netflix on its way.

Long before David Ellison and his family acquired Paramount and CBS last summer, the 43-year-old tech scion and aircraft pilot already had his sights set on Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount’s assets, including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, have been fading. Ellison recognized he needed the more robust company — Warner Bros. Discovery — to achieve his ambitions.

“From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” David Ellison said in a Friday statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”

Warner’s chief, Zaslav, who had initially opposed the Paramount bid, added: “We look forward to working with Paramount to complete this historic transaction.”

Netflix, in a separate statement, said it was unwilling to go beyond its $82.7-billion proposal that Warner board members accepted Dec. 4.

“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs,” Sarandos and co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said in a statement.

“But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix chiefs said.

Netflix may have miscalculated the Ellison family’s determination when it agreed Feb. 16 to allow Paramount back into the bidding.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company already had prevailed in the auction, and had an agreement in hand. Its next step was a shareholder vote.

“They didn’t need to let Paramount back in, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make sure the process wouldn’t be challenged,” Miller said.

In addition, Netflix’s stock had also been pummeled — the company had lost a quarter of its value — since investors learned the company was making a Warner run.

Upon news that Netflix had withdrawn, its shares soared Friday nearly 14% to $96.24.

Netflix Chief Executive Ted Sarandos arrives at the White House on Feb. 26, 2026.

(Andrew Leyden / Getty Images)

Invited back into the auction room, Paramount unveiled a much stronger proposal than the one it submitted in December.

The elder Ellison had pledged to personally guarantee the deal, including $45.7 billion in equity required to close the transaction. And if bankers became worried that Paramount was too leveraged, the tech mogul agreed to put in more money in order to secure the bank financing.

That promise assuaged Warner Bros. Discovery board members who had fretted for weeks that they weren’t sure Ellison would sign on the dotted line, according to two people close to the auction who were not authorized to comment.

Paramount’s pressure campaign had been relentless, first winning over theater owners, who expressed alarm over Netflix’s business model that encourages consumers to watch movies in their homes.

During the last two weeks, Sarandos got dragged into two ugly controversies.

First, famed filmmaker James Cameron endorsed Paramount, saying a Netflix takeover would lead to massive job losses in the entertainment industry, which is already reeling from a production slowdown in Southern California that has disrupted the lives of thousands of film industry workers.

Then, a week ago, Trump took aim at Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official. In a social media post, Trump called Rice a “no talent … political hack,” and said that Netflix must fire her or “pay the consequences.”

The threat underscored the dicey environment for Netflix.

Additionally, Paramount had sowed doubts about Netflix among lawmakers, regulators, Warner investors and ultimately the Warner board.

Paramount assured Warner board members that it had a clear path to win regulatory approval so the deal would quickly be finalized. In a show of confidence, Delrahim filed to win the Justice Department’s blessing in December — even though Paramount didn’t have a deal.

This month, a deadline for the Justice Department to raise issues with Paramount’s proposed Warner takeover passed without comment from the Trump regulators.

“Analysts believe the deal is likely to close,” TD Cowen analysts said in a Friday report. “While Paramount-WBD does present material antitrust risks (higher pay TV prices, lower pay for TV/movie workers), analysts also see a key pro-competitive effect: improved competition in streaming, with Paramount+ and HBO Max representing a materially stronger counterweight to #1 Netflix.”

Throughout the battle, David Ellison relied on support from his father, attorney Delrahim, and three key board members: Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra A. Catz; RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale; and Justin Hamill, managing director of tech investment firm Silver Lake.

In the final days, David Ellison led an effort to flip Warner board members who had firmly supported Netflix. With Paramount’s improved offer, several began leaning toward the Paramount deal.

On Tuesday, Warner announced that Paramount’s deal was promising.

On Thursday, Warner’s board determined Paramount’s deal had topped Netflix. That’s when Netflix surrendered.

“Paramount had a fulsome, 360-degree approach,” Miller said. “They approached it financially. … They understood the regulatory environment here and abroad in the EU. And they had a game plan for every aspect.”

On Friday, Paramount shares rose 21% to $13.51.

It was a reversal of fortunes for David Ellison, who appeared on CNBC just three days after that war room meeting in December.

“We put the company in play,” David Ellison told the CNBC anchor that day. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”

Times staff writer Ana Cabellos and Business Editor Richard Verrier contributed to this report.