Kate Garraway has revealed she was ‘flabbergasted’ after making it to the semi-final of the Celebrity Traitors before she was dramatically banished from the Scottish castle
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Hundreds of asylum seekers could be housed in two military sites in Inverness and East Sussex as the government aims to end the use of hotels.
Discussions are under way over the use of the sites to accommodate 900 men, as first reported in the Times.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has instructed Home Office and Ministry of Defence officials to accelerate work to locate appropriate military sites, the BBC understands.
The government has pledged to end the use of asylum hotels, which have cost billions of pounds and become a focal point for anti-migrant protests, by the next election.
Migrants are due to be housed in the Cameron Barracks in Inverness and Crowborough army training camp in East Sussex by the end of next month, under plans being drawn up by ministers.
Defence Minister Luke Pollard told BBC Breakfast that the sites were not “luxury accommodation by any means,” but “adequate for what is required”.
“That will enable us to take the pressure off the asylum hotel estate and enable those to be closed at a faster rate,” he said.
Pressed on whether military sites would be cheaper for the government than hotels, Pollard said the cost was currently being assessed and that “it depends on the base”.
He said: “But I think there’s something that is of greater significance that we’ve seen over the past few months, and that is the absolute public appetite to see every asylum hotel closed.”
Pollard would not be drawn on how many asylum seekers were to be moved or when that would happen.
He said there would have to be sufficient engagement with local authorities and adequate security arrangements in place. “Those conversations have been going on for some time now,” he added.
Inverness’s Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald told the BBC he supported the use of military sites to house asylum seekers, but that the chosen base seemed “a bit odd” given it is in the town centre.
“It’s effectively the same,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that to his knowledge it was an open barracks without security.
“I very much thought the idea of putting them in army camps was to have them out of town, and make them less of an issue for the local population.”
He said he had first been given a “tip-off” about the use of Cameron Barracks about a month ago by someone in the army, when its occupants had been given notice to leave, and recently learned the plan was to house 300 asylum seekers there.
MacDonald added that Scotland did not have a “great track record” of migrants staying put there – and that the Home Office would need to consider whether they would “just up sticks and leave”.
Ministers are also considering industrial sites, temporary accommodation and otherwise disused accommodation to house asylum seekers.
Government sources told the BBC that all sites would comply with health and safety standards.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ”We are furious at the level of illegal migrants and asylum hotels.
“This government will close every asylum hotel. Work is well under way, with more suitable sites being brought forward to ease pressure on communities and cut asylum costs.”
Around 32,000 asylum seekers are currently being accommodated in hotels, a drop from a peak of more than 56,000 in 2023 but 2,500 more than last year.
A report on Monday found billions of taxpayers’ money had been “squandered” on asylum accommodation.
The Home Affairs Committee said “flawed contracts” and “incompetent delivery” had resulted in the Home Office relying on hotels as “go-to solutions” rather than temporary stop-gaps, with expected costs tripling to more than £15bn.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Sir Keir said he was “determined” to close all asylum hotels, adding: “I can’t tell you how frustrated and angry I am that we’ve been left with a mess as big as this by the last government.”
Two former military sites – MDP Wethersfield, a former RAF base in Essex, and Napier Barracks, a former military base in Kent – are already being used to house asylum seekers after being opened under the previous Tory government.
The storm could grow into a hurricane by Friday and a major one by the late weekend.
Published On 23 Oct 202523 Oct 2025
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Tropical Storm Melissa is threatening the Caribbean Sea islands with dangerous landslides and life-threatening flooding, as officials urge residents of flood-prone areas to seek higher ground and shelter.
Jamaica’s eastern region could see up to 12 inches (300mm) of rain. “Now that is significant rainfall, and that is the main thing that we should be mindful of at this time,” Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service, said.
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Similar rainfall amounts were expected for southern Haiti and the southern Dominican Republic through Saturday, with even more rain possible locally, depending on Melissa’s path later in the week.
Heavy rain was also forecast for western Jamaica, southern Hispaniola, Aruba and Puerto Rico.
Melissa had maximum sustained winds of 50mph (85km/h) and was moving west at 2mph (4km/h) late on Wednesday night, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The slow-moving storm was centred about 335 miles (535km) south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and some 295 miles (475km) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.
The NHC said the storm could strengthen gradually in the coming days and grow into a hurricane by Friday and a major hurricane by the late weekend.
Heavy rains in the Dominican Republic have already disrupted traffic and led to the cancellation of sports events.
Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, and the first named storm to form in the Caribbean this year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season – which runs from June 1 to November 30 – with 13 to 18 named storms.
Of those, five to nine were forecast to become hurricanes, including two to five major hurricanes, which pack winds of 111mph or greater.
The defending NBA champions aren’t thinking of themselves in that way.
The 80th season of the NBA starts Tuesday night in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder — the “defending” champions, even though they don’t seem to like the term — will get their rings and enjoy one final moment of celebrating last season’s seven-game triumph over the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals.
“Everybody is saying ‘defending,’” guard Jalen Williams said, “but we’re trying to be on the offensive as well.”
Translation: One title isn’t enough for the Thunder. They want more.
They are fully aware that this is the NBA’s parity era — seven different franchises have won titles in the last seven years, a run unprecedented in league history. Commissioner Adam Silver has seen nine different franchises win in his 12 seasons leading the NBA; his predecessor, David Stern, saw eight different franchises win in his 30-year run as commissioner. The Thunder would like to be the ones to put at least a temporary halt to parity, and with basically everyone back from a 68-win team that won the crown last season, it’s easy to see why BetMGM Sportsbook lists the Thunder as favorites to win the 2026 title.
“It’s what you strive for,” said Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, coming off a year in which he was the scoring champion, an NBA champion, the MVP and the NBA Finals MVP. “We’ve all achieved something that we’ve dreamed about since we were kids. We’ve had plenty of time to relish and think about it and have fun, and I guess you can kind of say just soak in it. I know I have.
“But … it would suck to lose the NBA championship in 2026. So that’s the new focus. That’s the new goal.”
It won’t be easy, of course. The Western Conference is positively loaded.
Lakers guard Luka Doncic drives past Oklahoma City Thunder guard Cason Wallace during a road loss last season.
(Kyle Phillips / Associated Press)
Houston added Kevin Durant to a 52-win team. Victor Wembanyama is healthy again in San Antonio. Golden State still has Stephen Curry. The Lakers have Luka Doncic and (soon, they hope) LeBron James. Nikola Jokic remains unstoppable in Denver. Anthony Edwards hasn’t even reached his prime yet in Minnesota. The Clippers have the most experienced roster in the league. Dallas has the No. 1 pick in Cooper Flagg and tons of talent around him.
Those eight teams — among others — all have legitimate hopes. Consider this: Assuming the Thunder make the playoffs, at least one of those eight teams won’t even make Round 1 of the postseason.
“I think the Western Conference is the best conference I’ve ever seen. This is my 29th year in the NBA,” said Tim Connelly, Minnesota’s president of basketball operations. “I’ve never seen such a talent-rich conference. … We’re not going to duck anybody. We can’t wait to see where we stand up in this kind of historically stacked Western Conference.”
The Eastern Conference has a slew of intrigue.
Defending East champion Indiana lost Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the finals and knows he won’t play this season, then lost Myles Turner in free agency to Milwaukee. Boston — the big preseason favorite to win last season’s title after being champions in 2024 — is waiting to see if, or when, Jayson Tatum’s torn Achilles tendon will allow him to return. Philadelphia had a wasted season last year because of injuries and now gets another chance at seeing if Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George can make a run. Cleveland and New York are established and expected to be near or at the top, with upstarts like Orlando, Detroit and Atlanta poised to give themselves contending opportunities as well.
“I think the team that wins the East will feel like they can win it, just like the team that wins in the West,” Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers said. “Last year I made the case that I thought the East was every bit as good as the West at the top. Now two teams have taken a hit. That may have changed.”
The Thunder are trying not to change.
They are no longer chasing. They are the ones being chased. That, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault hopes, is the only real difference between this season and last. This season will bring unplanned challenges, he said, and how the Thunder react in those moments may wind up telling the tale of this season.
“It’s pretty unpredictable as to where that will go,” Daigneault said. “What is predictable is the solution to it and the things that we’ll rely on. We’ve always relied on being very present. We’ve always relied on stacking the days. We’ve always relied on continuous improvement and an emphasis on the things that kind of transcend circumstances. And that’s really where our focus has been, and is, and will continue to be.”
Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.
BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the country’s longest-standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.
GOP leaders believe they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals. The law also places restrictions on commercial fishermen, shippers and other marine industries.
A Republican-led bill in the works has support from fishermen in Maine who say the law makes lobster fishing more difficult, lobbyists for big-money species such as tuna in Hawaii and crab in Alaska, and marine manufacturers who see the law as antiquated.
Conservation groups adamantly oppose the changes and say weakening the law will erase years of hard-won gains for jeopardized species such as the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, which is vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear. There are fewer than 400 right whales remaining.
Here’s what to know about the protection act and the proposed changes.
“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is important because it’s one of our bedrock laws that help us to base conservation measures on the best available science,” said Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Species on the brink of extinction have been brought back.”
It was enacted the year before the Endangered Species Act, at a time when the movement to save whales from extinction was growing. Scientist Roger Payne had discovered that whales could sing in the late 1960s, and their voices soon appeared on record albums and throughout popular culture.
The law protects all marine mammals and prohibits capturing or killing them in U.S. waters or by U.S. citizens on the high seas. It allowed for preventative measures to stop commercial fishing ships and other businesses from accidentally harming animals such as whales and seals. The animals can be harmed by entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and other hazards at sea.
The law also prevents the hunting of marine mammals, including polar bears, with exceptions for Indigenous groups. Some of those animals can be legally hunted in other countries.
Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, a state with a large fishing industry, submitted a draft this summer that would roll back aspects of the law. The bill says the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community” since its inception.
The proposal states that it would make changes such as lowering population goals for marine mammals from “maximum productivity” to the level needed to “support continued survival.” It would also ease rules on what constitutes harm to marine mammals.
For example, the law prevents harassment of sea mammals such as whales and defines harassment as activities that have “the potential to injure a marine mammal.” The proposed changes would limit the definition to activities that actually injure the animals. That change could have major implications for industries such as oil and gas exploration where rare whales live.
That poses an existential threat to the Rice’s whale, which numbers only in the dozens and lives in the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists said. And the proposal takes specific aim at the North Atlantic right whale protections with a clause that would delay rules designed to protect that declining whale population until 2035.
Begich and his staff did not return calls for comment on the bill, and his staff declined to provide an update about where it stands in Congress. Begich has said he wants “a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”
A coalition of fishing groups from both coasts has come out in support of the proposed changes. Some of the same groups lauded a previous effort by the Trump administration to reduce regulatory burdens on commercial fishing.
The groups said in a July letter to House members that they believe Begich’s changes reflect “a positive and necessary step” for American fisheries’ success.
Restrictions imposed on lobster fishermen of Maine are designed to protect the right whale, but they often provide little protection for the animals while limiting one of America’s signature fisheries, said Virginia Olsen, political director of the Maine Lobstering Union. The restrictions stipulate where lobstermen can fish and what kinds of gear they can use. The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in heavy fishing rope.
Gathering more accurate data about right whales while revising the original law would help protect the animals, Olsen said.
“We do not want to see marine mammals harmed; we need a healthy, vibrant ocean and a plentiful marine habitat to continue Maine’s heritage fishery,” Olsen said.
Some members of other maritime industries have also called on Congress to update the law. The National Marine Manufacturers Assn. said in a statement that the rules have not kept pace with advancements in the marine industry, making innovation in the business difficult.
Numerous environmental groups have vowed to fight to save the protection act. They characterized the proposed changes as part of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.
The act was instrumental in protecting the humpback whale, one of the species most beloved by whale watchers, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with Oceana. Along with other sea mammals, humpbacks would be in jeopardy without it, he said.
“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is flexible. It works. It’s effective. We don’t need to overhaul this law at this point,” Brogan said.
The original law makes it illegal to import marine mammal products without a permit and allows the U.S. to impose import prohibitions on seafood products from foreign fisheries that don’t meet U.S. standards.
The import embargoes are a major sticking point because they punish American businesses, said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy officer of the National Fisheries Institute, a Virginia-based seafood industry trade group. It’s critical to source seafood globally to be able to meet American demand for seafood, he said.
The National Fisheries Institute and a coalition of industry groups sued the federal government Thursday over what they described as unlawful implementation of the protection act. Gibbons said the groups don’t oppose the act but want to see it responsibly implemented.
“Our fisheries are well regulated and appropriately fished to their maximum sustainable yield,” Gibbons said. “The men and women who work our waters are iconic and responsible. They can’t be expected to just fish more here to make up a deficit while jeopardizing the sustainability they’ve worked so hard to maintain.”
Some environmental groups said the Republican lawmakers’ proposed changes could weaken American seafood competitiveness by allowing imports from poorly regulated foreign fisheries.
Whittle writes for the Associated Press.
Although fixtures against Sri Lanka and Pakistan should be straightforward for England as they look to continue their winning streak, they could prove decisive with back-to-back matches against India and Australia to come.
England thrashed South Africa in what could have been a tricky opener, avoided a scare against Bangladesh and now have a golden opportunity to make sure they go into those games against the pre-tournament favourites unbeaten.
But they will have to contend with more spin-friendly conditions in Colombo on Saturday, with opener Tammy Beaumont saying the nature of the pitches is reducing the gulf between teams.
“Every game in this World Cup is big. Bangladesh played so well against us and Sri Lanka will be a challenge in home conditions,” she told BBC Sport.
“The conditions are bringing all the teams into it, so it’s important we have to keep playing well.
“It certainly feels like the fixtures have worked quite well for us, so hopefully we can keep building that momentum and it will be all guns blazing by the time we get to Indore.”
The surface in Indore is likely to be the most batter-friendly that England will experience, with Australia’s 326 there against New Zealand the highest total of this World Cup.
While England’s batters struggled against spin against Bangladesh in Guwahati, they are not alone.
Australia’s extraordinary batting depth saved them from what would have been a mind-blowing defeat by Pakistan, recovering from 76-7 to post 221-9 in Colombo, but England have also proved they have a well-rounded attack for the surfaces.
The use of ‘kamikaze’ drones to target gang members in crowded Haitian slums being called ‘ineffective’.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. remains mired in a deadly pandemic, the economy is suffering from a bout of inflation and states face challenges from climate to transportation, but with only days left in their close-fought race, the hottest issue dividing Virginia’s candidates for governor this week was the late novelist Toni Morrison.
The Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, who has steadily gained ground over the past two months, aired an ad featuring Laura Murphy, a parent who had campaigned years ago against the use of Morrison’s widely acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” in her son’s high school Advanced Placement English class.
In 2016 and again in 2017, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, vetoed a bill aimed at “Beloved” that Murphy helped lobby through the state legislature. It would have required K-12 teachers to give parents advance notice of books with “sexually explicit content” and allow them to take their children out of class. “Beloved,” based on a true story of a woman who killed her child to save her from slavery, includes several graphic descriptions of sexual violence.
Youngkin accused the former governor, now seeking to return to the office, of wanting to “silence parents because he doesn’t believe they should have a say in their child’s education.”
McAuliffe fired back that Youngkin was “focused on banning award-winning books from our schools and silencing the voices of Black authors” such as Morrison. The Republican, he said, was engaged in “Trumpian dog whistles.”
For both candidates, the issue provided a chance to rally key audiences — conservative suburban parents on the one side, Black voters on the other — as the state hurtles toward an election Tuesday that, if polls are correct, could be among its closest in years.
President Biden and former President Trump both have a lot riding on the outcome.
The Virginia election is everything that California’s recall turned out not to be — a test of whether Democrats can hold the allegiance of suburban voters stressed by nearly two years of COVID-19 restrictions and of whether Republicans can win a blue state despite Trump’s unpopularity.
Last year, Biden carried Virginia by 10 points, and Democrats currently control all the statewide elected offices. The party took control of both houses of the state legislature over the last four years, and Republicans haven’t won the governorship since 2009.
In short, while Virginia is not as deeply blue as California or New York, it’s a state Democrats recently have been able to count on.
Right now, they can’t.
Biden’s popularity in the state has tumbled, just as it has nationwide since this summer when the Delta variant of the coronavirus upended his optimistic forecasts about COVID-19. A Monmouth University poll in mid-October found Virginia voters disapproving of Biden’s job performance, 52% to 43%, sharply down from an August poll.
The president’s slumping polls are a big problem for McAuliffe, creating “headwinds” for him, as the candidate told supporters last month.
He faces several other difficulties: With Democrats having run the state for the last eight years, they’re naturally the target of voters seeking a change. And McAuliffe, as a former governor trying to make a comeback — Virginia doesn’t allow governors to run for consecutive terms — wouldn’t be a likely change candidate in any case. As a 64-year-old white, male, longtime political figure, he’s not the type to inspire huge enthusiasm among young voters or progressives.
Youngkin, a first-time candidate, has skillfully positioned himself. He’s seized on discontent over schools to take control of an issue on which Democrats have long had an advantage. The Monmouth poll showed that education had risen on the list of top voter concerns and that Youngkin had pulled even with McAuliffe as the candidate voters thought could best handle the issue.
Overall, Youngkin clearly has momentum on his side. The Monmouth poll was one of several recently that found the two candidates dead even — a big accomplishment for the Republican, who this summer trailed by around seven points. A Fox News poll released Thursday evening showed Youngkin moving into the lead among likely voters.
Democrats have dominated early voting, which the state has greatly expanded, but both parties expect Republicans to show up in large numbers to vote in person on Tuesday.
Youngkin, the former CEO of Carlyle Group, a big private equity firm, has poured at least $20 million of his own money into the race, allowing him to keep pace with McAuliffe, a prolific fundraiser. He’s used that money for a barrage of television ads that depict him in classrooms, pledging to raise teacher pay — stealing a page from the Democratic playbook.
At the same time, he has closely identified himself with parents angry over unresponsive school bureaucracies — a sentiment that has boiled over in many parts of the country.
Youngkin has used education issues to mobilize conservatives, pledging to ban teaching of critical race theory in Virginia. It’s not clear that the academic theory, which analyzes the outcomes of systemic racism, is taught anywhere in the state’s K-12 schools, but the idea that it might be has become a rallying cry on the right. That, plus Trump’s endorsement, has solidified his Republican support.
Education also has given him an entrée to less ideological voters in the state’s large suburban regions. In recent elections, those voters increasingly have turned against the GOP, but many are deeply frustrated over the last year and a half of COVID-related school disruptions.
In the California recall election, Republicans had hoped that tapping into parental anger could give them the boost they needed to defeat Gov. Gavin Newsom. That failed, in large part because the top Republican candidate, Larry Elder, lacked credibility with swing voters.
Youngkin has avoided Elder’s habit of creating controversies. Instead, it was McAuliffe who inadvertently helped his opponent with ill-chosen words. During a candidate debate in September, as he explained why he had vetoed the so-called “Beloved” bill, McAuliffe said “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions.”
Then, he added: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Youngkin has heavily featured that line in his ads.
McAuliffe’s campaign eventually responded with an ad in which the former governor expressed respect for parents, but the damage was done.
On top of the reasons that may cause some swing voters to switch this year, McAuliffe also faces a turnout problem, according to Democratic strategists close to his campaign: After the drama of last year, many Democratic voters are exhausted with politics. Republicans, by contrast, are highly motivated to avenge their recent losses.
To counter apathy, McAuliffe has depended heavily on Democrats’ chief motivator — Trump.
In speeches and advertisements, he constantly links his opponent with the unpopular former president.
So do his surrogates, including Biden.
“I ran against Donald Trump. And Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump,” Biden said Tuesday during a campaign rally with McAuliffe in northern Virginia.
Former President Obama, Georgia’s Stacey Abrams and other leading Democrats who have come into the state to campaign have stressed the same point.
Trump, in his usual way, has not been able to resist the urge to get involved. On Wednesday, his spokesperson put out a statement saying that Trump “and his MAGA movement will be delivering a major victory to Trump-endorsed businessman Glenn Youngkin.”
McAuliffe’s campaign went into overdrive to ensure the statement was widely seen.
With the contest appearing so close — tight enough that the winner might not be known until final ballots are counted late next week — there’s one forecast that’s clear: Whichever candidate wins probably can thank Donald Trump.
Biden, before heading to Europe, where he will participate in the G20 economic summit and an international conference on climate change, traveled to Capitol Hill on Thursday to announce that he and party leaders had negotiated the “framework” of a bill to cover his major budget priorities.
As Jennifer Haberkorn and Nolan McCaskill reported, the measure, the subject of negotiations for months, would spend roughly $1.75 trillion over the next 10 years on a host of Democratic priorities, including universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, subsidies for childcare and continuation of the expanded child tax credit.
On healthcare, the bill would expand subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and close the hole in Obamacare that excludes low-income people in the dozen states, mostly in the South, that have refused to expand Medicaid. Both expansions would last through 2025. Medicare would grow to include hearing coverage.
The bill would also include about $500 billion to combat climate change.
McCaskill prepared this summary of what’s in the framework.
Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hope that agreement on the framework will allow the House to pass the separate $1 trillion infrastructure bill that cleared the Senate in early August. But a large number of progressive House Democrats are continuing to hold out. They want more concrete assurances that Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have been the main impediments to Biden’s budget plan in the Senate, will vote for the framework before they’ll vote to approve the infrastructure bill, which the two more-conservative senators support.
Democratic leaders hope to bring both bills to a vote as early as next week.
Several Democratic priorities fell out of the bill as the White House negotiated with Manchin and Sinema to reduce its cost. As Haberkorn reported, a key element that dropped out was a program for paid family leave. Also gone is a plan to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
As Chris Megerian wrote, Biden has been pressing to get agreement on his domestic priorities before heading overseas for the summit meetings.
Friday morning, Biden began his European events with a private meeting with Pope Francis. As Megerian wrote, the meeting comes at a time when some conservative U.S. bishops have talked of denying Biden communion because of his support for abortion rights. The pope’s decision to host Biden “sends a message to the American bishops that denying communion is not something that he approves of,” said John K. White, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington.
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In advance of the climate summit, a House committee has been grilling oil industry leaders about their decades-long record of downplaying the role that fossil fuels play in causing global warming. As Anna Phillips and Erin Logan reported, the hearing marked the first time that members of Congress have directly questioned oil and gas executives under oath about reported efforts to mislead the public about climate change.
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Gov. Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $5 billion in loans to help modernize California’s seaports. The money probably won’t come in time to help clear out current snarls that have backlogged shipments, but it should help prevent future logistical nightmares, Megerian and Russ Mitchell reported.
In Sacramento, lawmakers called for changes following the oil spill off the coast of Orange County, but, as Phil Willon reported, they largely conceded that the state has little ability to ban offshore drilling, most of which occurs in federal waters.
The field of candidates for mayor of Los Angeles got another entry this week as Ramit Varma, an entrepreneur from Encino, announced his candidacy. As Dakota Smith reported, another businessman waits in the wings. Rick Caruso, the prominent developer, has been discussing a race with strategists, including Bearstar Strategies, the firm whose partners Ace Smith and Sean Clegg devised campaigns for former Gov. Jerry Brown and Vice President Kamala Harris.
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The prime minister has warned Reform UK “will tear this country apart” ahead of the Labour party conference.
Arriving in Liverpool on Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer said Reform’s plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain (ILR) for legal migrants was one of “the most shocking things” Nigel Farage’s party had said.
Sir Keir said the conference would be an opportunity to show Labour’s alternative to the “toxic divide and decline” offered by Reform.
He is under pressure after opinion polls show Labour trailing Reform UK, alongside speculation Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham could mount a leadership challenge.
But in an interview with the Sunday Times, Sir Keir insisted Labour could still “pull this round”, and said it was time for Labour to put in the “hard yards, roll up our sleeves and get on with it”.
Farage told the Telegraph, Sir Keir’s language “smacks, frankly, of total desperation” after the prime minister referred to Reform as an “enemy” in an interview with the Guardian.
“To call somebody in politics an enemy is language that is bordering on the inciteful,” he added.
Arriving at the conference centre in Liverpool, Sir Keir said it would be a “big opportunity to make our case to the country, and make it absolutely clear that patriotic national renewal is the way forwards – not the toxic divide and decline that we get with Reform”.
He continued the attacks as the conference got under way, telling the Sunday Mirror Farage was “grubby“, and that the Reform leader was “unpatriotic” for pretending he would fix problems that mattered to voters.
“Add to that that he spends more time grubbing around in America, trying to make money for himself than he does representing his constituents,” he said.
“He goes there not just to make money, but to talk our country down. The leader of a political party going to another country to talk his own country down. Grubby.”
Comparisons with Reform could be a theme of this conference, as Sir Keir tries to portray his party as a patriotic alternative to Reform, who continue to lead opinion polls.
Last week, Reform announced it will replace ILR with visas and force migrants to reapply every five years, if the party wins the next election. That includes hundreds of thousands of migrants currently in the UK.
Applicants would also have to meet certain criteria, including a higher salary threshold and standard of English. ILR is a key route to gaining British citizenship and allows people to claim benefits.
According to a YouGov poll published on Saturday, abolishing indefinite leave to remain divides the public, with 58% of Britons opposed to removing it from those who already hold it.
But more than 44% say they support ending ILR as a policy, while 43% are opposed to the idea.
During a visit to the office of newspaper Liverpool Echo, Sir Keir said: “These are people who have been in our country a long time, are contributing to our society, maybe working in, I don’t know, hospitals, schools, running businesses – our neighbours, and Reform says it wants to deport them in certain circumstances.
“I think it is a real sign of just how divisive they are and that their politics and their policies will tear this country apart.”
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said legal migration was a “good thing” and the UK had “always welcomed people who want to come and work here”.
However, she said migrants should make a “contribution to their wider community”.
“So I am looking at how to make sure that settlement in our country – long term settlement, Indefinite Leave to Remain – is linked not just to the job you are doing, the salary you get, the taxes you pay, [but] also the wider contribution you are making to our communities,” she added.
Speaking to teenagers at the Liverpool Echo visit, Sir Keir also insisted the government would not legalise cannabis, and defended his plans to lower the voting age to 16 in general elections.
“It already happens in Scotland, already happens in Wales, and the sky didn’t fall in,” he said.
Ahead of the Labour conference, backbench MPs and unions renewed calls to end the two-child benefit cap.
Several MPs from Liverpool were among those who wrote to Sir Keir ahead of the conference insisting the cap “is one of the most significant drivers of child poverty in Britain today”.
Two MPs – former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and Apsana Begum – have had the whip restored, after a year-long ban for voting against the government on the cap.
McDonnell told the BBC: “If this is a signal the government is going to scrap the two-child limit I’m really pleased.”
The prime minister’s plans for a new digital ID system, revealed on Friday, will also likely face scrutiny at the conference.
Senior Labour figures are meanwhile expected to set out the details of a fresh tranche of “New Towns” at the event.
The world is a confusing and scary place right now. Many of us are anxious wanderers in the wilderness, looking for answers. Is it any wonder that the wellness industry is booming? Into this strange new world comes Jade Chang’s funny and poignant novel “What a Time to Be Alive,” whose protagonist Lola is broke and aimless — until a leaked video transforms her into an instant self-help guru.
Chang, whose first novel, “The Wangs vs. The World,” was a sharp satire on class and ambition, has now turned her gaze to the promise and peril of self-actualization through social media. I sat down with Chang to discuss spiritualism for profit, tech bros and trucker hats.
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Book jacket of “What a Time to Be Alive” by Jade Chang
(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Ecco)
This book almost didn’t make it, as you physically lost it.
I started it years ago. I was writing in longhand in a notebook, entire chapters of the book. I lost the notebook and I was devastated. Then I moved on and wrote “The Wangs vs. The World.” It took a long time to get back into writing this new book. By the time I circled back to it, the world had changed so much. I think I have become more generous about things, and the story benefited from it.
Lola, your protagonist, unwittingly becomes an online self-help guru on the basis of a leaked video that is posted on social media. She becomes a sort of accidental wellness expert.
As someone who didn’t grow up with religion, I have always been really fascinated by belief. Why do we want to believe, and how are we compelled to certain beliefs? And it was just kind of fascinating and amazing that people could find so much life in religious stories. As I was developing the story of this novel, I realized that everyone in the digital world takes a page from this book as well, using stories to convert listeners into believers. I think Lola starts out sort of thinking she is in above her head, but by the end, her sincerity shines through. She wants to believe what she is telling others to believe.
Do you think the internet breeds cynicism and has turned us all into an angry mob?
I don’t. The digital world doesn’t make us any different from who we are, but it can throw a lens on certain aspects of our behavior. I think the internet allows us to be our best and worst selves. Think about all those strangers who might contribute to a GoFundMe campaign because someone has had a serious injury and needs to pay their medical bills, which can yield tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. That’s the mob functioning at its best.
But isn’t it a little too easy to pull a con job online?
Yes, it’s easy to be inauthentic online, but it’s important to remember that online performance is a tiny percentage of someone’s life. That’s why I was so interested in writing about the rise of this self-help guru, because usually when these stories are told you only see it from the acolyte’s point of view or the skeptic’s point of view. But we all have to make money, and we all are pulling a little something over on someone at some point — it’s part of surviving in the world.
Lola cauterizes the pain in her personal life by offering panaceas to pain for strangers online, but she affects a false persona to do so.
It’s easy to assume that anything we do, whether it’s on social media or elsewhere online, is performative or fraudulent in some way. RuPaul has a great quote where he says gender is drag. Everything is drag, a performance. Every choice we make is often not reflective of our essential self. You can’t codify identity in clothes or that trucker hat you’re wearing; anything you’re going to choose is going to be influenced by the times in which you live and who you surround yourself with. I can only speak from experience, but I think it’s almost impossible to suppress your true self.
You mentioned how self-help gurus and tech bros have a similar public worldview.
As research for the book, I attended one of Oprah’s Super Soul Sundays at Royce Hall. Every single person that spoke had the same arc: “I was down in the dumps, and then I looked up from that hole and I saw a glimmer in the form of CrossFit,” or drumming, or whatever it was that pulled them up from the brink. Then I went to a TED talk, and these tech gurus are saying the exact same thing. It’s the narrative of our time. I saw that crossover, and I knew I had something to say. I was interested in this internal push and pull of, how much do you give in to this tactic, and how much do you not.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Hamilton Cain has mixed feelings about Patricia Lockwood’s autofictional account of the COVID-19 lockdown, “Will There Ever Be Another You,” praising Lockwood’s “rich and kinetic” prose but bemoaning her “self-indulgent and repetitious” narrative.
Steve Henson has a chat with tennis legend Björn Borg about his new memoir, “Heartbeats,” which delves into his heavy cocaine and alcohol use that began shortly after he walked away from the sport at age 26.
Karen Palmer’s harrowing memoir, “She’s Under Here,” “details forgery, a child’s kidnapping, a mental breakdown, struggles to stay afloat — and joy,” writes Bethanne Patrick.
And David A. Keeps reports on the fiscal inequities of the booming audiobook industry: “Many actors are vying for audiobook roles at a time when the talent pool is expanding and casting is becoming a growing topic of debate.”
The Book Jewel, located in the city of Westchester, is just minutes from LAX.
(The Book Jewel)
The Book Jewel is a welcome addition to the neighborhood of Westchester, an expansive bookstore with an excellent selection of fiction and nonfiction titles for locals, or those who might stop by there before catching their flight at nearby LAX. We talked with general manager Joseph Paulsen about the store.
Your store is serving a community that hasn’t had a general interest bookstore in quite some time.
The Book Jewel opened smack-dab in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic in August of 2020. Our Westchester community has supported us from Day 1, and we recently celebrated our fifth anniversary. We are the only bookstore in Westchester, and we are locally owned and independent. I live here in Westchester and have raised both of my sons here.
What’s selling right now?
Right now we’re selling tons of children’s literature and graphic novels (“InvestiGators,” Dav Pilkey, etc.). Of course, the ABA Independent Bestsellers. Lots of romantasy.
You are pretty close to LAX. Do you sell a lot of books to travelers?
The travelers give themselves away with their roller bags, and we catch ’em heading out of Los Angeles on the reg! They like long books for long flights. Lots of souvenirs too! We have some unique, local non-book items as well and offer a better vibe than the international terminal.
The Book Jewel is located at 6259 W. 87th St, Los Angeles, CA.
Swansea claimed their most memorable cup triumph in recent memory against Forest, coming back from 2-0 down to shock the Premier League club thanks to two goals in stoppage time.
Alan Sheehan’s side had no time to celebrate, however, with a tricky league trip to Birmingham City to come on Saturday (12:30 BST).
The likelihood is that Idah will be back among the substitutes at St Andrew’s given the form of Zan Vipotnik, who came off the bench against Forest to score his fifth goal in his past five Swansea appearances.
“That’s the best problem to have,” Idah said.
“Zan has been in fine form and hopefully that continues.
“We all want to get to the Premier League and we are all in it together. I think the competition we have in every position is brilliant. If we are all pushing each other, that’s a good start.”
On a recent evening in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, an imam named Ibrahima Diane explained to a group of men why they ought to be more involved in household chores.
“The prophet himself says that a man who does not help to support his wife and children is not a good Muslim,” said the 53-year-old, as he described bathing his baby and assisting his wife with other duties.
Some of the men chuckled, not entirely convinced, while others applauded.
Diane was participating in a “school for husbands”, a United Nations-backed initiative in which respected male community members learn about “positive masculinity” in relation to health and social issues, and promote these concepts within their communities.
In Senegal, as in many other West African countries with large rural or conservative populations, men often have the final say in major household decisions, including those related to health.
Women may require their husbands’ permission for life-changing decisions, such as accessing family planning or other reproductive health services, as well as hospital deliveries or prenatal care.
After attending the school for husbands, Diane regularly delivers sermons during Friday prayers, in which he discusses issues around gender and reproductive health, from gender-based violence to combating stigma surrounding HIV.
“Many women appreciate my sermons,” he said. “They say their husbands’ behaviour has changed since attending them.” He added that some men have told him the sermons inspired them to become more caring husbands and fathers.
The programme was launched in Senegal in 2011, but in recent years has attracted the attention of the Ministry of Women, Family, Gender and Child Protection, which regards it as an effective strategy for combatting maternal and infant mortality.
“Without men’s involvement, attitudes towards maternal health will not change,” said Aida Diouf, a 54-year-old female health worker who collaborates with the programme. Many husbands prefer their wives not to be treated by male health workers, she explained.
Discussions for men have also focused on girls’ rights, equality, and the harmful effects of female genital mutilation.
The programme now operates at least 20 schools throughout Senegal, and more than 300 men have been trained.
In some communities, men who once enforced patriarchal norms now promote gender equality, a shift which has led to a reduction in the number of forced marriages and greater acceptance of family planning, according to Senegal’s Ministry of Gender.
Men join the groups after being recruited based on trust, leadership and commitment. Candidates must be married, respected locally, and supportive of women’s health and rights.
After training, the men serve as peer educators, visiting homes and hosting informal discussions.
Although maternal and infant deaths in Senegal have declined over the past decade, experts say there is still much progress to be made. The country recorded 237 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, and 21 newborns out of every 1,000 died within their first month. The UN’s global target is to reduce maternal deaths to 70 per 100,000 live births and newborn deaths to under 12 per 1,000 by 2030.
A key problem is that many women have continued to give birth at home, said El Hadj Malick, one of the programme’s coordinators.
“By educating men about the importance of supporting their wives during pregnancy, taking them to hospital and helping with domestic work at home, you are protecting people’s health,” Malick said.
He noted that he still encounters difficulty in changing attitudes on some issues.
“But when we focus on women’s right to be healthy, it gives a human face to the concept and it becomes universal,” Malick said.
Hurricane Erin had maximum sustained winds of 105 mph Tuesday evening, and was expected to cause life-threatening rip currents along the U.S. east coast. Photo courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Aug. 18 (UPI) — Hurricane Erin was taking aim at the U.S. East Coast on Tuesday evening, according to forecasters who are warning Americans of life-threatening rip currents along beaches that could persist for days.
The storm was located about 585 miles southwest of Bermuda and 540 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. EDT update.
Erin had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
It was moving north-northwest at 12 mph.
A storm surge warning was in effect for from Cape Lookout to Duck, N.C., while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Beaufort Inlet to Duck, including Pamlico and Albemarle sounds.
North of Duck, N.C., to Chincoteague, Virginia, was under a tropical storm watch, as was Bermuda.
“On the forecast track, the center of Erin will pass to the east of the Bahamas tonight, and then move over the western Atlantic between the U.S. east coast and Bermuda on Wednesday and Thursday,” the NHC said.
Erin has been pummeling the Turk and Caicos, which are expected to see diminishing rainfall this evening, as should the Bahamas, the forecasters said, as they predict heavy rainfall for North Carolina starting Wednesday night and into Thursday. A potential 1 to 2 inches of rainfall is possible, they said.
Of greater worry are swells generated by Erin, which have the forecasters expecting life-threatening surf and rip currents affecting the Bahamas, Bermuda, Atlantic Canada and the U.S. east coast over the next several days.
“Beachgoers in those areas should follow advice from lifeguards, local authorities and beach warning flags,” the NHC said in a discussion on Erin.
“Storm surge flooding and tropical storm conditions are expected in the North Carolina Outer Banks beginning late Wednesday or Wednesday night, where tropical storm and storm surge warnings are in effect. The storm surge will be accompanied by large waves, leading to significant beach erosion and overwash, making some roads impassable.”
The season’s first Atlantic hurricane reached Category 5 status Saturday morning, the highest classification, after rapidly intensifying overnight Friday, when it became a Category 1 hurricane, the year’s fifth named storm.
Erin dropped to a Category 4 and then a 3 overnight into Sunday, but regained Category 4 strength late Sunday before again losing strength.
Erin became the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic storm season Friday morning.
There have been four named storms so far this season in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Chantal caused major flooding in North Carolina but has been the only one of the four to make landfall in the United States this year.
The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30. The peak hurricane season runs from mid-August through September and into mid-October.
Ninety-three percent of hurricane landfalls along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the East Coast have occurred from August through October, the Weather Channel reported, citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Last year at this time, there had also been five named storms.
On June 25, Mutawakil al-Mohamad and his family woke up to the sound of Israeli soldiers pounding on their door with their rifles.
It would be the last time they woke up in their family home in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Israeli forces arrived at 7am in military convoys with two heavy bulldozers, and al-Mohamad was terrified the soldiers would raid his house and arrest him or his loved ones.
Instead, the soldiers told the family their home was in a designated “military zone” and ordered them to vacate immediately so they could bulldoze it to the ground.
“When I opened the door, I told the soldiers: ‘My young children are scared.’ I asked them to give me 10 minutes, then we will all be out of the house,” al-Mohamed said. The soldiers obliged, he recalled from Ramallah, the administrative capital of the occupied West Bank, where he now lives.
Israel is demolishing more Palestinian homes across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, at a higher rate in 2025 than any previous year since the occupation began in 1967.
Israeli authorities have already destroyed 783 structures – a figure that does not include the large-scale destruction in refugee camps – leading to the forced displacement of 1,119 people, according to the United Nations.
In the Palestinian refugee camps, Israel has destroyed about 600 structures in the Jenin camp and a combined 300 structures in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps as part of military raids it launched at the start of this year, according to figures that Al Jazeera obtained from the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.
Human rights groups, civilians and analysts said the real aim of Israel’s tactics – systematic home demolitions and forced displacement – is to make life unbearable for Palestinians so more will consider leaving if they can.
“Israel’s goal in the West Bank is the same as its goal in Gaza. … It wants to target all Palestinians,” said Murad Jadallah, a human rights researcher with Al-Haq.
Jadallah argued that Israel’s war in Gaza, which many experts have called a genocide, has shocked the world and distracted many from its unprecedented destruction in the West Bank.
“Israel is benefiting from the images of destruction it has created in Gaza in order to push its agenda in the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.
Since the start of this year, about 40,000 Palestinians have fled Israeli military operations in West Bank refugee camps.
Many have struggled to find affordable replacement accommodations, renting instead in whatever villages where they find room, staying with relatives in overcrowded homes or languishing in public buildings converted into shelters for displaced people, Jadallah said.
Ahmed Gaeem, 60, recalled Israeli soldiers evicting him, his wife, five children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews from their building in the Tulkarem refugee camp in March.
The family was also told by Israeli soldiers that Tulkarem had been designated a “military zone” and they would not be allowed to return for some time.
“We left with the clothes on our backs and nothing else. We didn’t have time to pack anything,” Gaeem told Al Jazeera.
A few weeks into Israel’s military campaign, one of Gaeem’s sons managed to return briefly to assess the damage to their home from a distance.
Their home – like countless others – was destroyed. Its windows were shattered, the door hinges blown off and walls caved in.
Gaeem’s family is currently renting three homes in Iktaba village, a few kilometres from Tulkarem city, for a combined rent of about $1,300 – a fortune for a family surviving on meagre savings.
Gaeem noted that while his salary as a Palestinian Authority (PA) civil servant is $500 a month, he hasn’t been paid in months because of the PA’s ongoing economic crisis.
Over the past several years, the PA has cut salaries and struggled to pay its staff as a result of dwindling donor support and Israel’s refusal to hand over tax revenue it collects on the PA’s behalf, an arrangement laid out in the Oslo Accords.
The PA itself was born out of the Oslo peace agreements of 1993 and 1995, which were signed by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The accords ostensibly aimed to bring about a Palestinian state in the years that followed.
The Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three zones.
The PA was tasked with overseeing security and executive functions in Area A and executive functions in Area B while Israel remained in total control of Area C.
This control allowed Israel to quietly and gradually expand illegal settlements – after encircling and then demolishing Palestinian homes and communities – in Area C, a largely agricultural region that makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank.
In July, the Israeli army issued two orders that gave it an additional legal pretext to demolish homes in Area B – a power previously held only by the PA under the Oslo Accords. The orders enabled Israel to assume control over building and planning laws and laws pertaining to agricultural sites.
Before these measures, most demolitions in Areas A and B were carried out during military operations or as reprisals against Palestinians who resisted the occupation. Israel now has an additional legal basis to destroy Palestinian homes by claiming the owners do not have building permits.
Israel systematically denies building permits to Palestinians as part of a broader policy of confiscating Palestinian homes and land, according to human rights groups.
Among the record number of demolitions carried out across the West Bank this year, the UN documented the destruction of 49 structures in Areas A and B.
Under international law, Israel is prohibited from destroying private property anywhere in occupied Palestinian territory and from establishing settlements or outposts.
“The extension of demolitions in Area A and B and the way Israel is changing the legal status in Area B are unprecedented,” said Tahani Mustafa, an expert on the West Bank with the International Crisis Group think tank.
She added that Israel appears to be trying to confine Palestinians to ever smaller pockets of land in Area A. Israel’s ultimate plan, she fears, is to make life increasingly unbearable for Palestinians in urban centres, likely by imposing more checkpoints and barriers to restrict movement and carrying out more raids
Israel’s intensifying assault on Palestinians across the West Bank already has people like al-Mohamed fearing that his family could be evicted again.
He said most Palestinians predict that Israel will turn its attention to the West Bank’s cities after it finishes its military raids in the nearby camps.
“It’s hard for us to go anywhere else other than the West Bank,” he told Al Jazeera.
“This is our land. It’s where we want to live and where we want to die.”
Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refers to it as the “ribbon of shame,” a congressional district that stretches in a reed-thin line 200 miles along the California coast from Oxnard to the Monterey County line. Voters there refer to it as “the district that disappears at high tide.”
Democratic lawmakers drew it that way to make sure one of their own won every election. The party has held the seat throughout the decade — since the last redistricting gave it a big edge in voter registration there.
Critics of that 2001 remapping have cited the coastal ribbon as Exhibit A — the reason, they say, that Californians were right to strip elected officials of the power to choose their voters and give the task of determining political boundaries to more ordinary citizens.
As the new Citizens Redistricting Commission begins its work next month, members say, the 23rd Congressional District will be a good reminder of what not to do.
“It’s been used as an example of how absurd the process is,” said Peter Yao, the commission’s chairman. “It does not allow people to choose the candidate. They are forced to go with the party’s choice.”
Republicans have protected themselves too. Using a spaghetti strip of land along the shore of heavily Democratic Long Beach, for example, they connected a GOP-leaning area of Orange County with a pouch of like-minded voters on the Palos Verdes Peninsula to create the 46th Congressional District.
The whole country, in fact, is marked with districts so distorted by gerrymandering that they are referred to by such names as “Rabbit on a Skateboard” (in Illinois) and “Upside-Down Chinese Dragon” (in Pennsylvania).
California, which voted two years ago to take the job of redrawing state districts from lawmakers, is one of 10 states that have given the job to a citizens group. But most of them are appointed by elected officials and are less independent than the Golden State’s panel.
In the districts drawn by the Legislature the old way, every incumbent member of Congress and the state Legislature on the California ballot was reelected Nov. 2 — even as a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that only 21% of voters approve of the job being done by Congress and 12% like what state lawmakers do.
Now the bipartisan citizen commission, appointed through a process overseen by the state auditor, will draw both the Legislature’s districts and California’s congressional boundaries. Last month, voters added the federal districts to the panel’s job.
Proponents of the change said it could alter campaigns and improve government. The new districts would be more competitive, forcing candidates to appeal to a broader range of voters, according to Tony Quinn, co-editor of the nonpartisan Target Book, which analyzes California legislative races, and a former Republican redistricting consultant.
“They would be more worried about getting elected, so their behavior would change,” Quinn said. “They would reflect their districts much more.”
Under the new rules, boundaries can no longer be drawn according to where an incumbent lives or how the lines would benefit him or her, said advisors to the commission.
Lines must be drawn “for publicly minded good rather than reflecting what gives a particular legislator an advantage,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who advises the commission.
The new rules emphasize compactness, contiguity and the need to keep counties, cities, neighborhoods and other communities of interest together. The aim is to prevent redrawings such as the one that left San Luis Obispo County and some cities scattered among multiple districts.
Rep. Lois Capps (D- Santa Barbara) has easily won reelection every two years since the latest boundaries were drawn to create a district 44.3% Democratic and 32.9% Republican. Previously, she represented a district that was 39.1% Democratic and 39.4% Republican.
The map makers kept heavily Republican precincts out and connected heavily Democratic precincts along the coast, using areas that are just a few blocks wide.
“You can drive a golf ball across [the district] in a couple of places,” said Tom Watson, a Republican businessman who unsuccessfully challenged Capps last month.
The boundaries also split the city of Ventura between Capps, who has about a fourth of it, and Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). In 2000, before the last remapping, Gallegly’s district was 40.6% Democratic and 39.8% Republican. Afterward, it was 45.9% Republican and 34.6% Democrat.
Redistricting expert Alan Clayton is concerned that black and Latino voters could lose ground under the new criteria, which he said are too vague about how much weight should be given to which factors and what constitutes “communities of interest.” And, he said, a citizens panel need not be responsive to constituent groups the way lawmakers would be.
Clayton cites the example of congressional districts that divide the city of Long Beach. Part of that city is split into a district shared with Compton, making it easier, at least theoretically, for an African American to be elected. If Long Beach is kept in one congressional district without Compton, it could mean the loss of an African American seat, Clayton said.
Bob Hertzberg, who was Assembly speaker during the 2001 redistricting, said he doubts the new method will produce significant change in the numbers of Democratic- and Republican-held seats, because that is largely a function of voter registration.
“I don’t think it makes a hill of beans’ difference,” he said. Still, he supported the ballot measure that took the job from the Legislature. “It’s about restoring public confidence in government. You can’t have people thinking that politicians are self-dealing.”
After last month’s election, Schwarzenegger said the old method polarized government and contributed to its dysfunction.
“To win those districts, you had to be far to the left or far to the right,” he said, “and of course that is why it is very tough here in Sacramento to get things done.”
“South Park” wasted no time putting its very existence on the line, again. On Wednesday, the Comedy Central series kicked off its 27th season with a searing indictment of President Trump and its network’s parent company, Paramount. Paramount recently paid the president $16 million toward his future library rather than fighting a lawsuit Trump brought against “60 Minutes” (Paramount is also a parent company of CBS).
It was also announced last week that “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” which airs on Paramount-owned CBS, was being canceled. Colbert is one of the most prominent political satirists in America, and from his pulpit has been a relentless critic of MAGA policy and Trump. Like the payout over the “60 Minutes” lawsuit, Colbert’s cancellation comes just as Paramount is seeking federal approval of an $8-billion merger with Skydance Media.
“South Park” couldn’t have returned at a better time.
The episode, titled “Sermon on the Mount,” opens with Cartman discovering his favorite radio station, NPR, has been canceled. Making fun of its wokeness was part of his identity, and now he’s lost and angry. “The government can’t cancel a show!” he laments before dropping a self-referential joke about “South Park’s” own vulnerability. “I mean, what show are they going to cancel next?”
Paramount might be tempted to cancel “South Park” after Wednesday night’s damning premiere, when the show repeatedly lampooned the company’s costly capitulation to Trump. And Paramount earlier this week announced a $1.5 billion deal with “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for 14 new movies, six more seasons and streaming rights on Paramount+ for the next five years.
The new season continues to plumb the horrifying depths of 2025 when Cartman also finds that his school is demanding students accept the presence of Jesus, literally. Cartman is called to the principal’s office for not letting Jesus sit with his group in the cafeteria at lunch, even though there were no empty seats. There’s always room for the Lord, he’s told.
The townspeople become angry that they voted in a guy who they thought would target other people — like immigrants. They don’t want religion forced on their kids at school, but newscasts make their plight seem hopeless. “More protests today as the president pushes harder for Christianity in our schools. The president stated earlier today that the spirit of Jesus is important to our country and he will sue anyone who doesn’t agree with him.”
The truly wicked satire begins when they cut to Trump at the White House. He’s the only character whose head is an actual photo rather than a drawing, and the president’s image is deftly manipulated to reflect the many faces of the real man: pouting, grimacing, smiling, leering and pouting, again.
He repeatedly demands that everyone relax while he threatens to destroy them. He argues with Canada’s prime minister over tariffs (“You don’t want me to bomb you like I did Iraq,” says Trump. “I thought you just bombed Iran,” the PM replies. “Iran. Iraq. What the hell’s the difference?”). Trump also lies naked in bed with Satan, revealing his minuscule manhood. Disgusted, the devil rebuffs the president’s advances and says, “I can’t even see anything, it’s so small.”
Satan is also perturbed that some rando on Insta keeps commenting about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.
“Epstein, are we still talking about that?” Trump says.
“Are you on the list or not?” Satan asks. “It’s weird that when it comes up you just keep telling everyone to relax.”
Then we jump to a segment of “60 Minutes” where the beleaguered show’s hosts mumble in terror for fear of another lawsuit as the show’s signature stopwatch sound is set to the image of a ticking time bomb. They refer to the president as “a great man” who “is probably watching” before cutting to their reporter who is covering the protests against Trump in South Park, Colorado.
Jesus touches down to address his flock under the guise of fulfilling Trump’s wish to bring Christianity back into public schools. But he’s really there to warn the crowd, and does so in a whisper. “I didn’t want to come back and be in the school, but I had to because it was part of a lawsuit and the agreement with Paramount.”
“The president’s suing you?” a protester asks.
Jesus, through clenched teeth, explains: “The guy can do what he wants now that someone backed down. … You guys see what’s happened to CBS? Well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount! You really want to end up like Colbert? … All of you, shut the f— up or South Park is over!”
The town ends up being sued by Trump, and they, like Paramount, cave. They pay him off, but are also required to sing his praises as part of the settlement.
The episode ends with a pro-Trump ad by the town. It’s a realistic deepfake video of the president trekking through the desert heat in a show of loyalty to his supporters. He strips naked and once again we’re reminded that it’s not just his hands that are small.
That wail you just heard? It’s coming from the White House. A new lawsuit is born.
AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat who represents a slice of the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, won his last congressional election by just over 5,000 votes.
That makes him a tempting target for Republicans, who are poised to redraw the state’s congressional maps this week and devise five new winnable seats for the GOP that would help the party avoid losing House control in next year’s midterm elections. Adjusting the lines of Gonzalez’s district to bring in a few thousand more Republican voters, while shifting some Democratic ones out, could flip his seat.
Gonzalez said he is not worried. Those Democratic voters will have to end up in one of the Republican districts that flank Gonzalez’s current one, making those districts more competitive — possibly enough so it could flip the seats to Democrats.
“Get ready for some pickup opportunities,” Gonzalez said, adding that his party is already recruiting challengers to Republicans whose districts they expect to be destabilized by the process. “We’re talking to some veterans, we’re talking to some former law enforcement.”
Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, died in March.
Gonzalez’s district — and what happens to the neighboring GOP-held ones — is at the crux of President Trump’s high-risk, high-reward push to get Texas Republicans to redraw their political map. Trump is seeking to avoid the traditional midterm letdown that most incumbent presidents endure and hold onto the House, which the GOP narrowly controls.
Trump’s push comes as there are numerous political danger signs for his presidency, both in the recent turmoil over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and in new polling. Surveys from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show most U.S. adults think that his policies have not helped them and that his tax cut and spending bill will only help the wealthy.
The fear of accidentally creating unsafe seats is one reason Texas Republicans drew their lines cautiously in 2021, when the constitutionally mandated redistricting process kicked off in all 50 states. Mapmakers — in most states, it’s the party that controls the Legislature — must adjust congressional and state legislative lines after every 10-year census to ensure that districts have about the same number of residents.
That is a golden opportunity for one party to rig the map against the other, a tactic known as gerrymandering. But there is a term, too, for so aggressively redrawing a map that it puts that party’s own seats at risk: a “dummymander.”
The Texas GOP knows the risk. In the 2010s, the Republican-controlled Legislature drew political lines that helped pad the GOP’s House majority. That lasted until 2018, when a backlash against Trump in his first term led Democrats to flip two seats in Texas that Republicans had thought safe.
In 2021, with Republicans still comfortably in charge of the Texas Legislature, the party was cautious, opting for a map that mainly shored up their incumbents rather than targeted Democrats.
Still, plenty of Republicans believe their Texas counterparts can safely go on offense.
“Smart map-drawing can yield pickup opportunities while not putting our incumbents in jeopardy,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which helps coordinate mapmaking for the party nationally.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature, which starts Monday, to comply with Trump’s request to redraw the congressional maps and to address the flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people this month.
Democratic state lawmakers are talking about staying away from the Capitol to deny the Legislature the minimum number needed to convene. Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton posted that any Democrats who did that should be arrested.
Lawmakers can be fined up to $500 a day for breaking a quorum after the House changed its rules when Democrats initiated a walkout in 2021. Despite the new penalties, Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who led the walkout in 2021, left open the possibility of another.
“I don’t think anybody should underestimate the will of Texas Democrats,” he said.
Texas is not the only Republican state engaged in mid-decade redistricting. After staving off a ballot measure to expand the power of a mapmaking commission last election, Ohio Republicans hope to redraw their congressional map from a 10-5 one favoring the GOP to one as lopsided as 13 to 2, in a state Trump won last year with 55% of the vote.
Some Democratic leaders have suggested that states where their party is in control should counter the expected redraw in Texas. “We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Sunday on CNN.
But Democrats have fewer options. More of the states their party controls do not allow elected partisans to draw maps and entrust independent commissions to draw fair lines.
Among them is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the long-shot idea of working around the state’s commission.
The few Democratic-controlled states that do allow elected officials to draw the lines, such as Illinois, have already seen Democrats max out their advantages.
Trump and his allies have been rallying Texas Republicans to ignore whatever fears they may have and to go big.
On Tuesday, the president posted on his social media site a reminder of his record in the state in the November election: “Won by one and a half million Votes, and almost 14%. Also, won all of the Border Counties along Mexico, something which has never happened before. I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”
Texas has long been eyed as a state trending Democratic because of its growing nonwhite population. But those communities swung right last year and helped Trump expand his margin to nearly 14 percentage points, a significant improvement on his 5½-point win in 2020.
Michael Li, a Texas native and longtime watcher of the state at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said there’s no way to know whether that trend will continue in next year’s elections or whether the state will shift back toward Democrats.
“Anyone who can tell you what the politics of Texas looks like for the balance of the decade has a better crystal ball than I do,” Li said.
One region of the state where Republican gains have been steady is the Rio Grande Valley, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along much of the state’s southern border. The heavily Latino region, where many Border Patrol officers live, has rallied around Trump’s anti-immigration message and policies.
As a result, Gonzalez and the area’s other Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, have seen their reelection campaigns get steadily tighter. They are widely speculated to be the two top targets of the new map.
The GOP is expected to look to the state’s three biggest cities to find its other Democratic targets. If mapmakers scatter Democratic voters from districts in the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas, they could get to five additional seats.
But in doing so, Republicans face a legal risk on top of their electoral one: that they break up districts required by the Voting Rights Act to have a critical amount of certain minority groups. The goal of the federal law is to enable those communities to elect representatives of their choosing.
The Texas GOP already is facing a lawsuit from civil rights groups alleging its initial 2021 map did this. If this year’s redistricting is too aggressive, it could trigger a second complaint.
“It’s politically and legally risky,” Li said of the redistricting strategy. “It’s throwing caution to the winds.”
Riccardi and Lathan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Austin, respectively.