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Millions of YouTube TV subscribers could miss “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and ABC News’ election day coverage as the blackout of Walt Disney-owned channels stretches into a second week.

“Monday Night Football” features the Dallas Cowboys battling the Arizona Cardinals. In addition, several important political contests are on Tuesday ballots, including the New York City mayor’s election, gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and California’s Prop. 50 to decide whether officials can redraw the state’s congressional map to favor Democrats.

Disney on Monday sought a temporary thaw in tensions with Google Inc. after the two sides failed last week to strike a new distribution contract covering Disney’s television channels on Google’s YouTube TV.

“Despite the impasse that led to the current blackout, we have asked YouTube TV to restore ABC for Election Day so subscribers have access to the information they rely on,” a Disney spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “We believe in putting the public interest first and hope YouTube TV will take this small step for their customers while we continue to work toward a fair agreement.”

A Google spokesperson was not immediately available for a comment.

ABC’s “World News Tonight With David Muir” is one of television’s highest rated programs.

More than 10 million YouTube TV customers lost access to ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels late Thursday after a collapse in negotiations over distribution fees for Disney channels, causing one of the largest recent blackouts in the television industry.

The two TV giants wrangled for weeks over how much Google must pay to carry Disney’s channels, including FX, Disney Jr. and National Geographic. YouTube TV — now one of the largest pay-TV services in the U.S. — has balked at Disney’s price demands, leading to the outage.

YouTube TV does not have the legal right to distribute Disney’s networks after its last distribution agreement expired.

“We know this is a frustrating and disappointing outcome for our subscribers,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement last week. “We continue to urge Disney to work with us constructively to reach a fair agreement that restores their networks to YouTube TV.”

YouTube has said that should the outage stretch for “an extended period,” it would offer its subscribers a $20 credit.

Spanish-language TelevisaUnivision-owned channels were knocked off YouTube TV in a separate dispute that has lasted more than a month. Televisa has appealed to high-level political officials, including President Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr.

Last year, after Disney-owned channels went dark on DirecTV in a separate carriage fee dispute, Disney offered to make available to DirecTV subscribers its ABC coverage of the sole presidential debate between President Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

DirecTV viewed ABC’s offer as something of a stunt, noting the debate would be streamed. DirecTV countered by asking Disney to instead make all of its channels available.

That fee dispute resulted in a 13-day blackout on DirecTV, one that was resolved a few days later.

Heightened tensions in the television industry have led to numerous blackouts.

In 2023, Disney and Charter Communications were unable to iron out a new contract by their deadline, resulting in a 10-day blackout of Disney channels on Charter’s Spectrum service. A decade earlier, Time Warner Cable subscribers went nearly a month without CBS-owned channels.

Programming companies, including Disney, have asked for higher fees for their channels to help offset the increased cost of sports programming, including NFL and NBA contracts. But pay-TV providers, including YouTube have pushed back, attempting to draw a line to slow their customers’ ever-increasing monthly bills.

More than 40 million pay-TV customer homes have cut the cord over the last decade, according to industry data. Many have switched to smaller streaming packages. YouTube TV also benefited by attracting disaffected customers from DirecTV, Charter Spectrum and Comcast. YouTube TV is now the nation’s third-largest TV channel distributor.

A new report from the city controller’s office questions the effectiveness of the LAPD’s signature crisis response program, saying clinicians trained in de-escalation too often are forced to defer to armed patrol officers.

For years, Los Angeles Police Department officials have touted the success of the Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, or SMART. But critics say the program, which pairs licensed specialists with officers in unmarked cars, is failing in the crucial initial minutes of encounters when multiple police shootings of mentally ill people have occurred.

Dinah M. Manning, chief of strategic initiatives and senior advisor in the controller’s office, said the report found an “inherent contradiction” in the SMART program.

Even though its purpose is to send in clinicians and tap their expertise to avoid killings, LAPD policy still requires armed patrol officers to clear a scene of any potential threats beforehand.

Traditional police units almost always take charge, even on calls in which no weapon is involved, such as a person threatening to commit suicide, Manning said.

Referring to SMART as a co-response program “is pretty much a misnomer in this case,” she said. “How is it that we’re ending up with so many fatalities?”

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment in response to questions about the report.

LAPD officers have opened fire 35 times this year; in recent years, department statistics showed at least a third of all police shootings involved someone with obvious signs of emotional distress.

The report pointed to other shortcomings with the SMART program, which is housed within the department’s Mental Health Unit. Officers detailed to the units receive no specialized training, the report said, also finding that the department has failed to properly track uses of force on mental health-related calls.

The department’s existing use of force policy “falls short” of best practices for dealing with people in mental distress, the controller’s report said. The LAPD’s policy, it said, “only makes cursory mention of ‘vulnerable populations’ without expounding on the dynamic realities presented in encounters with people who have a mental health condition or appear to be in a mental health crisis.”

Too often in cases in which SMART responds, the report said, the outcome is that the person in crisis is placed on an involuntary 72-hour hold. Such scenarios do not involve an arrest or criminal charges; instead the person is held under state law that allows for detention if a person poses a threat to themselves or others.

The controller’s report comes amid a continued debate in L.A. and elsewhere about how officials should respond to emergencies involving mental health, homelessness, substance use or minor traffic incidents.

The city has expanded its alternative programs in recent years, but proponents warn that looming cuts in federal spending for social safety net programs under the Trump administration could hinder efforts to scale up and have more impact.

LAPD leaders in the past offered support of such programs, while cautioning that any call has the potential to quickly spiral into violence, necessitating the presence of officers.

Trump administration is seeking to deport Abrego Garcia to West African country, in move decried by lawyers.

A federal judge in the United States has requested assurances from the administration of President Donald Trump that officials will not deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia while an injunction barring his deportation remains in place.

The demand from District Judge Paula Xinis on Monday comes after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) filed a notice last week of a plan to deport Abrego Garcia to the West African nation of Liberia.

She asked why the government is not instead deporting Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, a Salvadoran man living in the United States, where he has said he is willing to go because the government there has promised he would be welcomed as a legal immigrant and not re-deported to El Salvador.

“Any insight you can shed on why we’re continuing this hearing when you could deport him to a third country tomorrow?” Xinis asked government lawyers.

Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration March, in violation of a 2019 court order barring him from being sent back to his homeland.

He was returned to the US under a judge’s order in June, but swiftly charged with human smuggling in Tennessee. He is seeking dismissal of that case.

Administration officials have repeatedly accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang, a claim that has never been proven in court.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have said he is being targeted for political retribution.

Responding to the plan to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg called the move “cruel and unconstitutional”. He noted that Abrego Garcia has no ties to the country.

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to deport individuals unable to be sent to their homelands to so-called third countries. Advocacy groups have argued that the deportations violate due process rights and that immigrants are being sent to countries with long histories of human rights violations.

Abrego Garcia has separately applied for asylum in the US.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.

The administration’s newest emergency appeal to the high court was filed a month and a half after a federal appeals court in Washington held that the official, Shira Perlmutter, could not be unilaterally fired.

Nearly four weeks ago, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to reconsider that ruling.

The case is the latest that relates to Trump’s authority to install his own people at the head of federal agencies. The Supreme Court has largely allowed Trump to fire officials, even as court challenges proceed.

But this case concerns an office that is within the Library of Congress. Perlmutter is the register of copyrights and also advises Congress on copyright issues.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his filing Monday that despite the ties to Congress, the register “wields executive power” in regulating copyrights.

Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.

A divided appellate panel ruled that Perlmutter could keep her job while the case moves forward.

“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Judge Florence Pan wrote for the appeals court. Judge Michelle Childs joined the opinion. Democratic President Biden appointed both judges to the appeals court.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote in dissent that Perlmutter “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”

Perlmutter’s attorneys have argued that she is a renowned copyright expert. She has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.

Trump appointed Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 27 (UPI) — The White House asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to allow President Donald Trump to fire a top official in the Library of Congress after a lower court ruled against it.

Shira Perlmutter, director of the U.S. Copyright Office, was dismissed from her role by Trump just days after the president removed Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in May. Hayden was replaced by U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on an interim basis.

In September, a federal appeals court ordered Perlmutter reinstated to her role under the legislative branch, not the executive branch, at the Library of Congress.

On Monday, the Trump administration told the high court in its appeal that the D.C. appeal circuit’s ruling contravened “settled precedent and misconceives the Librarian’s and Register’s legal status.”

“Treating the Librarian and Register as legislative officers would set much of federal copyright law on a collision course with the basic principle that Congress may not vest the power to execute the laws in itself or its officers,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in an emergency filing.

Meanwhile, Robert Newlen is listed as the acting Librarian of Congress.

Oct. 9 (UPI) — InfoWars publisher Alex Jones wants the Supreme Court to pause a $1.44 billion defamation judgment against him for making false claims about a 2012 school shooting.

Conservative conspiracy theorist Jones on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to pause his payments to the surviving families of the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, according to The Hill.

The families successfully sued Jones for defamation after he claimed the school shooting was a hoax and are readying to take control of InfoWars, which they intend to turn over to the satirical news site The Onion.

In Thursday’s emergency filing, Jones says the pause is necessary to stop his InfoWars site from being “acquired by its ideological nemesis and destroyed,” NBC News reported.

A Connecticut court in 2022 ordered Jones to pay $1.44 billion to the surviving families of 20 schoolchildren, who were shot and killed by Adam Lanza on Dec. 14, 2012.

Jones filed for personal bankruptcy soon after several judgments were entered against him, but his petition was denied.

He earlier was fined $25,000 per day by a Connecticut judge for refusing to submit to a deposition in the matter.

Lanza, 20, murdered his mother and used her firearm to shoot and kill 20 school children and six adults at the same elementary school he once attended in Newtown, Conn.

He shot and killed himself when law enforcement arrived at the school, which since has been razed and replaced.

Dolly Parton’s sister has asked fans to pray for the American country singer, who last week postponed a forthcoming Las Vegas residency due to unspecified health issues.

The 79-year-old country music legend has delayed the December concerts, telling fans she needs “a few procedures” to deal with ongoing “health challenges”.

“Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly,” Freida Parton wrote on Facebook. “Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately.

“I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been lead to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me.”

Freida ended her message on an upbeat note.

“She’s strong, she’s loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she’s going to be just fine,” she wrote.

“Godspeed, my sissy Dolly. We all love you!”

A spokesperson for the singer told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that she will be posting a social media message on Wednesday that “will address everyone’s concerns”.

Parton had been scheduled to perform six shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in December.

But she postponed the gigs until September next year, explaining she wouldn’t have enough time to rehearse for them.

Parton did not disclose the nature of her health issues, but she was recently forced to pull out of a Dollywood event after being diagnosed with a kidney stone that she said was causing “a lot of problems”.

Earlier this year, she lost her beloved husband Carl Dean after nearly 60 years of marriage.

She later dedicated a new song, If You Hadn’t Been There, to his memory.

The musician is best known for a string of country crossover hits including Coat of Many Colors, I Will Always Love You, 9 To 5 and Jolene.

Her Las Vegas stint would have been her first visit to the Strip since the 1990s, when she performed alongside her Islands In The Stream duet partner, Kenny Rogers.

Trump had imposed a 40 percent US tariff on Brazilian goods in July on top of a 10 percent one earlier even though the United States has a trade surplus with Brazil.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has asked United States President Donald Trump to lift the 40 percent tariff imposed by the US government on Brazilian imports.

The leaders spoke for 30 minutes by phone on Monday. During the call, they exchanged phone numbers in order to maintain a direct line of contact, and President Lula reiterated his invitation for Trump to attend the upcoming climate summit in Belem, according to a statement from Lula’s office.

Shortly after, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he had had a good conversation with Lula.

“We discussed many things, but it was mostly focused on the Economy, and Trade, between our two Countries,” Trump said.

He added that the leaders “will be having further discussions, and will get together in the not too distant future, both in Brazil and the United States”.

The Trump administration had imposed a 40 percent tariff on Brazilian products in July on top of a 10 percent tariff imposed earlier. Lula reminded Trump that Brazil was one of three Group of 20 (G20) countries with which the US maintains a trade surplus, according to the Brazilian leader’s office.

The Trump administration has justified the tariffs by saying that Brazil’s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro constitute an economic emergency.

Earlier this month, Bolsonaro was convicted of attempting a coup after losing his bid for re-election in 2022, and a panel of the Supreme Court sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.

In September, Trump and Lula had a brief encounter at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, with Trump hailing their “excellent chemistry”.

During Monday’s call, Lula also offered to travel to Washington to meet with Trump, his office said.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to uphold President Trump’s birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The appeal, shared with the Associated Press on Saturday, sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.

Lower-court judges have blocked them from taking effect anywhere. The Republican administration is not asking the court to let the restrictions take effect before it rules.

The Justice Department’s petition has been shared with lawyers for parties challenging the order, but is not yet docketed at the Supreme Court.

Any decision on whether to take up the case probably is months away and arguments probably would not take place until the late winter or early spring.

“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”

Cody Wofsy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said the administration’s plan is plainly unconstitutional.

“This executive order is illegal, full stop, and no amount of maneuvering from the administration is going to change that. We will continue to ensure that no baby’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this cruel and senseless order,” Wofsy said in an email.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term in the White House that would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.

While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or probably violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including formerly enslaved people, had citizenship.

The administration is appealing two cases.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.

Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.

The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

Sherman and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.

A federal judge ruled that terminating Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans violates laws on government conduct.

The United States government has, for a second time, asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency order allowing it to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.

The Department of Justice on Friday submitted an emergency application asking the nation’s top court to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not have the authority to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the migrants.

“So long as the district court’s order is in effect, the Secretary must permit over 300,000 Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so even temporarily is ‘contrary to the national interest’,” the Justice Department argued in its filing to the court.

In May, the Supreme Court sided with the Donald Trump White House, overturning a temporary order from US District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that had blocked the termination of TPS while the case moved through the courts.

On September 5, Chen issued his final ruling, concluding that Secretary Noem’s decision violated a federal law regulating the conduct of government agencies.

“This case is familiar to the court and involves the increasingly familiar and untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this court’s orders on the emergency docket,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court.

“This court’s orders are binding on litigants and lower courts. Whether those orders span one sentence or many pages, disregarding them – as the lower courts did here – is unacceptable.”

Millions of people have fled Venezuela in recent years due to political repression and a crippling economic crisis spurred in part by US sanctions against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Before leaving office, the administration of former US President Joe Biden had extended TPS for about 600,000 Venezuelans through October 2026.

TPS, created by the US Congress in 1990, grants people living in the US relief from deportation if their home country is affected by extraordinary circumstances such as armed conflict or environmental disasters.

An individual who is granted TPS cannot be deported, can obtain an employment authorisation document and may be given travel authorisation. A TPS holder cannot be detained by the US over their immigration status.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to let it enforce a passport policy for transgender and nonbinary people that requires male or female sex designations based on birth certificates.

The Justice Department appealed a lower-court order allowing people use the gender or “X” identification marker that lines up with their gender identity.

It’s the latest in a series of emergency appeals from the Trump administration, many of which have resulted in victories amid litigation, including on banning transgender people from the military.

The government argues it can’t be required to use sex designations it considers inaccurate on official documents. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, say the policy violates the rights of transgender and nonbinary Americans.

The State Department changed its passport rules after Trump handed down an executive order in January declaring the United States would “recognize two sexes, male and female,” based on what it called “an individual’s immutable biological classification.”

Transgender actor Hunter Schafer, for example, said in February that her new passport had been issued with a male gender marker, even though she submitted the application with the female gender marker she has used for years on her driver’s license and passport.

A judge blocked the Trump administration policy in June after a lawsuit from nonbinary and transgender people, some of whom said they were afraid to submit applications. An appeals court left the judge’s order in place.

The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to put the order on hold while the lawsuit plays out.

“The Constitution does not prohibit the government from defining sex in terms of an individual’s biological classification,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote.

He pointed to the high court’s recent ruling upholding a ban on transition-related health care for transgender minors. The courts conservative majority found that law doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and Sauer argued that finding also supports the Trump administration’s decision to change passport rules issued in 2021.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, said the passport rules are discriminatory.

“This administration has taken escalating steps to limit transgender people’s health care, speech, and other rights under the Constitution, and we are committed to defending those rights,” said Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the LGBTQ & HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

Sept. 18 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow him to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

Trump has cited a fraud allegation against Cook for his reasoning for firing her, but Cook has fought back, arguing that he doesn’t have the authority.

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected Trump’s attempt to fire Cook.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 emergency ruling Monday, ahead of the central bank’s start of monetary policy meetings on Tuesday.

The Fed on Wednesday announced a 0.25% rate cut in the wake of Trump’s demands to do so.

The administration waited for the Fed’s meeting to conclude before going to the high court. It has often sided with Trump on emergency issues.

The Fed traditionally is an independent institution that doesn’t follow White House orders.

If the court agrees with Trump, it would be the first time a Fed governor was fired by a president in the central bank’s 111-year history.

Trump moved to fire Cook late last month on allegations of mortgage fraud, prompting Democrats to accuse the president of conducting a power grab.

Cook challenged her removal in court, and won reinstatement. The district found that her firing likely violated the so-called for-cause provision of the Federal Reserve Act and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Twice since Aug. 15, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, a Powell critic, sent criminal referrals for Cook to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing Cook of mortgage fraud, alleging she listed properties she owns inconsistently on different forms. The allegations go back to before she was on the board. No charges have been filed.

Trump points to the mortgage fraud allegations as cause for her removal.

Democrats have backed Cook in the fight to keep her seat. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been among the most vocal and has described Trump’s attempt to remove Cook an “illegal authoritarian power grab.”

“The courts keep rejecting Donald Trump’s illegal attempt to take over the Fed so he can scapegoat away his failure to lower costs for American families,” Warren said in a statement following the ruling.

“If the courts — including the Supreme Court — continue to uphold the law, Lisa Cook will keep her seat as a Fed governor.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump appealed to the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook from the independent board that can raise or lower interest rates.

The appeal “involves yet another case of improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority — here, interference with the President’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause,” wrote Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer.

The appeal is the second this month asking the court to give Trump broad new power over the economy.

The first, to be heard in November, will decide if the president to free to impose large import taxes on products coming into this country.

The new case could determine if he is free to remake the Federal Reserve Board by removing a Democratic appointee who he says may have broken the law.

Trump’s lawyers argue that a Fed governor has no legal right to challenge the president’s decision to fire her.

“Put simply, the President may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a Governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself—and refuses to explain the apparent misrepresentations,” Trump’s lawyer said.

Trump has chafed at the Federal Reserve board for keeping interest rates high to fight inflation, and he threatened to fire board chairman Jay Powell, even though he appointed him to that post in 2018.

But last month, Trump turned his attention to Cook and said he had cause to fire her.

Congress wrote the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 intending to give the central bank board some independence from politics and the current president.

Its seven members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and they serve staggered terms of 14 years, unless “removed for cause by the president.”

The law does not define what amounts to cause.

President Biden appointed Cook in 2023 and she was confirmed to a full term.

In August, however, Bill Pulte, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleged Cook committed mortgage fraud when she took out two housing loans in 2021. One was for $203,000 for a house in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the second was for $540,000 for a condo in Atlanta. In both instances, she signed a loan document saying the property would be her primary residence.

Typically, borrowers obtain a better interest rate for a primary residence. But lawyers say charges of mortgage fraud are extremely rare if the borrower makes the required regular payments on the loan.

About 30 minutes after Pulte posted his allegations, Trump posted on his social media site: “Cook must resign. Now!!!”

Cook has not responded directly to the allegations, but her attorneys pointed to news reports which said she told the lender her Atlanta condo would be a vacation home.

Trump, however, sent Cook a letter on Aug. 25. “You may be removed, at my discretion, for cause,” citing the law and Pulte’s referrral. “I have determined that there is sufficient cause to remove you from your position,” he wrote.

Cook filed a suit to challenge the decision. She argued the allegations did not amount to cause under the law, and she had not been given a hearing to contest the charges.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, agreed she made a “strong showing” the firing was illegal and blocked her removal.

She said Congress wrote the “for cause” provision to punish “malfeasance in office,” not conduct that pre-dated her appointment. She also said Cook had been denied “due process of law” because she was not given a hearing.

The U.S. appeals court in Washington, by a 2-1 vote, refused to lift her order on Monday.

Judges Bradley Garcia and J. Michelle Childs, both Biden appointees, said Cook had been denied “even minimal process — that is, notice of the allegation against her and a meaningful opportunity to respond — before she was purportedly removed.”

Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said “for cause” removal provision was broader than misconduct in office. It means the president may remove an officer for “some cause relating to” their “ability, fitness, or competence” to hold the office, he said.

And because a government position is not the property of office holders, they do not have a “due process” right to contest their firing, he said.

The request comes after a federal court earlier this week blocked Lisa Cook’s firing while her lawsuit challenging her dismissal moves forward.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates.

The request on Thursday represents an extraordinary effort by the White House to shape the board before the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee meets next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the same time, Senate Republicans are pushing to confirm Stephen Miran, Trump’s nominee to an open spot on the Fed’s board, which could happen as soon as Monday.

In a court filing on Thursday, the Department of Justice asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to pause US District Judge Jia Cobb’s Tuesday ruling temporarily blocking Cook’s removal, pending the administration’s appeal.

Trump moved to fire Cook in late August. Cook, who denies any wrongdoing, filed a lawsuit saying Trump’s claim that she engaged in mortgage fraud before she joined the central bank did not give him legal authority to remove her, and was a pretext to fire her for her monetary policy stance.

Cobb’s ruling prevents the Fed from following through on Cook’s firing while her lawsuit moves forward.

In their emergency appeal, Trump’s lawyers argued that even if the conduct occurred before her time as governor, her alleged action “indisputably calls into question Cook’s trustworthiness and whether she can be a responsible steward of the interest rates and economy”.

The administration asked an appeals court to issue an emergency decision reversing the lower court by Monday. If their appeal is successful, Cook would be removed from the Fed’s board until her case is ultimately resolved in the courts, and she would miss next week’s meeting.

If the appeals court rules in Cook’s favour, the administration could seek an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court.

The case, which will likely end up before the US Supreme Court, has ramifications for the Fed’s ability to set interest rates without regard to politicians’ wishes, widely seen as critical to any central bank’s ability to keep inflation under control.

The Supreme Court and lower appeals courts, including the DC Circuit, have temporarily lifted several other rulings that briefly blocked Trump from firing officials at agencies that have historically been independent from the White House.

On Wednesday, however, the DC Circuit blocked Trump from firing US Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter while she appeals a lower court’s refusal to reinstate her to the post.

Trump has demanded that the Fed cut rates immediately and aggressively, repeatedly berating Fed Chair Jerome Powell for his stewardship over monetary policy. Cook has voted with the Fed’s majority on every rate decision since she started in 2022, including on both rate hikes and rate cuts.

Fed’s independence

The law that created the Fed says governors may be removed only “for cause”, but does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal. No president has ever removed a Fed governor, and the law has never been tested in court.

Cobb on Tuesday said the public’s interest in the Fed’s independence from political coercion weighed in favour of keeping Cook at the Fed while the case continues.

She said that the best reading of the law is that a Fed governor may only be removed for misconduct while in office. The mortgage fraud claims against Cook all relate to actions she took prior to her US Senate confirmation in 2022.

Trump and William Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director appointed by the president, say Cook inaccurately described three separate properties on mortgage applications, which could have allowed her to obtain lower interest rates and tax credits.

The Justice Department has also launched a criminal mortgage fraud probe into Cook and has issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan, according to documents seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter.

WASHINGTON — The campaign of likely independent presidential candidate Ross Perot on Sunday confirmed that it has asked electors running on Perot tickets to sign notarized oaths pledging their loyalty to the Texas billionaire and their commitment to vote for him in the Electoral College.

The statement came only two days after a senior campaign spokeswoman had described reports of the oaths as “absurd”–a mistake that appears to highlight continued disorganization within the campaign.

Also, the distribution of the oaths–which have been strongly criticized by some Perot electors asked to sign them–underscored growing tensions between grass-roots Perot volunteers in the states and the campaign hierarchy in Dallas.

Campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Maas on Sunday strongly defended the oaths as necessary to ensure that electors will maintain their support for Perot if he wins a plurality of votes within a state.

Voters who cast ballots for the presidency actually are selecting electors pledged to vote for the candidate when the Electoral College votes in December. But in most states, there is no legal requirement that electors vote for the candidate they are pledged to.

While the Democratic and Republican parties can recruit electors from among a stable of loyal party activists, the Perot campaign has had to find its electors among thousands of volunteers, many of them with no prior ties to Perot and “no history of support for him,” Maas said.

Other Perot aides said Sunday that the campaign is increasingly concerned about many of its volunteers–fearing that some who have signed up as electors might ultimately prove to be uncontrollable or even Republican “moles.”

Wissa has made clear he wants to leave for St James’ Park and has not been training or playing with the first team this season.

According to sources, Brentford originally wanted £40m for Wissa but the price has now increased to about £65m.

The transfer window closes at 19:00 BST on Monday.

Brentford have already lost fellow forward Bryan Mbeumo this summer to Manchester United for £65m, but signed Dango Ouattara from Bournemouth for a club record deal worth up to £42.5m.

Wissa’s possible move to Newcastle is believed to be part of a series of transfers that could result in Alexander Isak joining Liverpool.

Isak is in a similar situation at Newcastle, accusing the club of “broken promises” as he tries to force an exit to the Premier League champions.

In his statement, Wissa – who has scored 49 goals in 149 games since he joined in 2021 – said: “I have stayed silent for much of the summer, but with just hours remaining of the transfer window I feel compelled make it clear that I want to leave Brentford. I believe the club are unduly standing in my way despite a series of fair offers throughout the summer.

“This has left me in a difficult and frustrating position. It saddens me to have to write that, and I maintain total respect for the club and its fans.”

He added: “I ask Brentford’s owners and directors to now honour their promise to let me leave in the final hours of the window.”

BBC Sport reported in July that Wissa flew home early from the club’s summer training camp in Portugal after making clear he wanted the move to Newcastle.

Ever since he has been in a stand-off with the club over his intention to join Eddie Howe’s side.

He did return to first-team training for a short period but has gone back to working away from Keith Andrews’ squad.

Wissa, who scored 19 goals in the Premier League last season, also removed all association with Brentford from his Instagram account.

He says a formal offer was submitted by another Premier League club and he was “under the impression, from all my conversations with Brentford, that there was a mutual agreement to part ways”.

He added: “I want to make it clear that I have not acted unprofessionally, nor do I wish to leave Brentford on bad terms. I have been transparent in my position throughout. I have continued to communicate openly with the club and conduct myself in a way that reflects my values as both a footballer and a human being.

“In the meantime, I must do what I feel is right for my career and family and insist that Brentford honour their promise to let me join a new club and at a fair price.”

BBC Sport has contacted Brentford for comment.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — Hamas has issued a call to Muslims in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem to make their way to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and flood it with prayer amid calls from Israeli settlers to intensify raids on the holy site.

Haroun Nasser Al-Din, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, said in a statement Saturday that recent calls by Israeli settlers for increased raids on the mosque constituted a “dangerous escalation” between Israelis and Palestinians.

Nasser Al-Din cautioned Israeli settlers against such incursions and asked Muslims not to leave the holy site vulnerable to settler groups.

The Quds News Network, a Palestinian youth news agency, reported Sunday that Israeli settlers pointed loudspeakers toward the mosque to drown out the call to Maghrib prayer.

Israeli forces also cut off electricity to the old city in preparation for settlers to storm the Al-Buraq Mosque in Jerusalem, a different structure within the same compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Quds News Network reported.

Earlier this month, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the Israeli Police, marched with a group of Israeli settlers up the Temple Mount to the mosque under police guard, where he led them in a prayer.

He shared footage of himself in front of the mosque in a post on social media in which he condemned what he called “horrific videos” released Hamas.

“I say that it is precisely from here, from the Temple Mount, the place where we have proven that it is possible to exercise sovereignty and governance, that we must send a message,” Ben-Gvir said.

“We must ensure that the entire Gaza Strip is conquered, declare sovereignty over the entire Gaza Strip, remove all Hamas members, and encourage voluntary emigration. Only in this way will we bring back the hostages and win the war.”

Settlers again raided the mosque to perform Talmudic rituals last week under the protection of Israeli Police, the Palestinian state-run news agency WAFA reported.

Ben-Gvir himself has ascended the Temple Mount multiple times since he was sworn in as minister in December 2022, enflaming tensions ahead of the Israel-Hamas war.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is located at the Temple Mount, the highly contested holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians. The site, also known as Haram al-Sharif, is under the management of the government of Jordan and Jewish religious law prevents visiting the site.

In April 2023, Israel claimed without evidence that Muslims had barricaded themselves inside of the mosque and constituted a “dangerous mob” who were “radicalized and incited by Hamas and other terrorist groups.” Raids at the site led to the arrest of hundreds of people and “irreparable damage” to the site, Palestinian officials said at the time.

Reporting from Washington — Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi sent an unusual personal letter to President Obama, complaining about the West’s “unjust war” against his embattled regime but also endorsing Obama for a second term in the White House.

In a three-page letter Wednesday addressed to “Our son, Excellency, President Obama,” Kadafi praised the president as a man “who has enough courage to annul a wrong and mistaken action.”

The Libyan strongman said his country had suffered economic embargos and sanctions in the past, as well as airstrikes against his regime during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Now, Kadafi said, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is “waging an unjust war against a small people of a developing country.”

Despite the conflict, Kadafi assured Obama in somewhat garbled English, “You will always remain our son whatever happened. We still pray that you continue to be president of the U.S.A. We Endeavour and hope that you will gain victory in the new election campaigne.”

He signed the letter with his preferred title: Leader of the Revolution.

White House officials didn’t release the text of the letter, saying they don’t want to help the Libyan with his “messaging.” But they didn’t challenge the text provided by the Associated Press wire service.

Asked about the letter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said only that Kadafi “knows what he must do”: begin a ceasefire, withdraw his forces and leave Libya.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reminded reporters that the letter was “not the first” from Kadafi. On March 19, just before U.S. and British ships launched the first cruise missiles against Libyan forces, Kadafi assured Obama that “even if Libya and the United States enter into war, God forbid, you will always remain my son.”

Also Wednesday, Libya said a British airstrike had hit its major Sarir oil field and damaged a pipeline connecting the deposit to the Mediterranean port of Hariga.

“British warplanes have … carried out an airstrike against the Sarir oil field, which killed three oil field guards, and other employees at the field were also injured,” Reuters news service quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim as saying.

There was no immediate official comment from Britain’s Defense Ministry.

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The Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to free up its mass deportation efforts across Southern California Thursday, seeking to lift a ban on “roving patrols” implemented after a lower court found such tactics likely violate the 4th Amendment.

The restrictions, initially handed down in a July 11 order, bar masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets of Los Angeles and cities in seven other counties without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

Under the 4th Amendment, reasonable suspicion cannot be based solely on race, ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of Los Angeles found in her original decision.

The Trump administration said in its appeal to the high court that Frimpong’s ruling, upheld last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

Lawyers behind the lawsuits challenging the immigration tactics immediately questioned the Trump administration’s arguments.

“This is unprecedented,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys challenging cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests. “The brief is asking the Supreme Court to bless open season on anybody on Los Angeles who happens to be Latino.”

The move comes barely 24 hours after heavily-armed Border Patrol agents snared workers outside a Westlake Home Depot after popping out of the back of a Penske moving truck — actions some experts said appeared to violate the court’s order.

If the Supreme Court takes up the case, many now think similar aggressive and seemingly indiscriminate enforcement actions could once again become the norm.

“Anything having to do with law enforcement and immigration, the Supreme Court seems to be giving the president free reign,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law and a prominent scholar of the country’s highest court. “I think the court is going to side with the Trump administration.”

The Department of Justice has repeatedly argued that the temporary restraining order causes “manifest irreparable harm” to the government. Officials are especially eager to see it overturned because California’s Central District is the single most populous in the country, and home to a plurality of undocumented immigrants.

In its Supreme Court petition, the Justice Department alleged that roughly 10% of the region’s residents are in the U.S. illegally.

“According to estimates from Department of Homeland Security data, nearly 4 million illegal aliens are in California, and nearly 2 million are in the Central District of California. Los Angeles County alone had an estimated 951,000 illegal aliens as of 2019—by far the most of any county in the United States,” the petition said.

President Trump made mass deportations a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and has poured billions in federal funding and untold political capital into the arrest, incarceration and removal of migrants. Though DOJ lawyers told the appellate court there was no policy or quota, administration officials and those involved in planing its deportation operations have repeatedly cited 3,000 arrests a day and a million deportations a year as objectives.

District and appellate courts have stalled, blocked, and sometimes reversed many of those efforts in recent weeks, forcing the return of a Maryland father mistakenly deported to Salvadoran prison, compelling the release of student protesters from ICE detention, preserving birthright citizenship for children of immigrant parents and stopping construction of Alligator Alcatraz.

But little of the President’s immigration agenda has so far been tested in the Supreme Court.

If the outcome is unfavorable for Trump, some observers wonder whether he will let the justices limit his agenda.

“Even if they were to lose in the Supreme Court, I have serious doubts they will stop,” Segall said.

Angela Rayner has given China two weeks to explain why parts of its plans for a new mega-embassy in London are redacted.

The deputy prime minister’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government sent a letter asking for further information and requested a response by 20 August, the BBC understands.

Beijing’s plans for the new embassy have sparked fears its location – very near London’s financial district – could pose an espionage risk. Residents nearby also fear it would pose a security risk to them and attract large protests.

The BBC has contacted the Chinese embassy in London for comment.

A final planning decision on the controversial plans will be made by 9 September, the BBC understands.

In a letter seen by the PA news agency, Rayner, who as housing secretary is responsible for overseeing planning matters, asks planning consultants representing the Chinese embassy to explain why drawings of the planned site are blacked out.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office also received copies of the letter.

It notes that the Home Office requested a new “hard perimeter” be placed around the embassy site, to prevent “unregulated public access”, and says this could require a further planning application.

There are concerns, held by some opponents, that the Royal Mint Court site could allow China to infiltrate the UK’s financial system by tapping into fibre optic cables carrying sensitive data for firms in the City of London.

Pro-democracy campaigners from Hong Kong also fear Beijing could use the huge embassy to harass political opponents and even detain them. Last month, the UK condemned cash offers from Hong Kong authorities for people who help in the arrest of pro-democracy activists living in Britain.

Alicia Kearns, the shadow national security minister, said: “No surprises here – Labour’s rush to appease Xi Jinping’s demands for a new embassy demonstrated a complacency when it came to keeping our people safe. Having deluded themselves for so long, they’ve recognised we were right to be vigilant.”

Responding to security concerns earlier this week, the Chinese embassy told the BBC it was “committed to promoting understanding and the friendship between the Chinese and British peoples and the development of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. Building the new embassy would help us better perform such responsibilities”.

China bought the old Royal Mint Court for £255m in 2018. At 20,000 square metres, the complex will be the biggest embassy in Europe if it goes ahead.

The plan involves a cultural centre and housing for 200 staff, but in the basement, behind security doors, there are also rooms with no identified use on the plans.

Beijing’s application for the embassy had previously been rejected by Tower Hamlets Council in 2022 over safety and security concerns.

It resubmitted an identical application in August 2024, one month after Labour came to power.

On 23 August, Sir Keir Starmer phoned Chinese President Xi Jinping for their first talks. Sir Keir confirmed afterwards that Xi had raised the embassy issue.

Rayner has since exercised her power to take the matter out of the council’s hands amid attempts by the government to engage with China after a cooling of relations during the final years of Conservative Party rule.

Senior ministers have signalled they are in favour if minor adjustments are made to the plan.