WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees is planning to propose adding President Trump’s name to the facility’s exterior in recognition of his saving the building from its “precarious fiscal position,” according to a new court filing in a suit aimed at blocking the move.
It’s the latest development in the case revolving around adding the president’s name to the exterior of the cultural and arts facility that sits along the Potomac River in Washington and reflects the Trump-aligned board’s efforts to honor the president.
The new information came out of a court filing made by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member of the board. Beatty, who has led an effort to block Trump from putting his name on the building, said in a filing she was alerting the court to the proposal because it could implicate a pending decision before the court.
Both the court and the Kennedy Center board are expected to hold meetings Tuesday.
Beatty’s filing includes two exhibits. One is a draft vote to shut the center down, asserting the building is unsafe for occupancy. That assertion incorrectly cites a consulting group’s finding, “which expressly disclaimed providing any such opinion,” according to Beatty.
The other document asserts the center faces dire financial straits. It specifically calls for Trump’s name to be placed in marble beneath the name of the center on the building’s exterior. It offers 10 options for a possible inscription, including “Renovation and endowment overseen by President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.” Another proposes: “With Gratitude for Support from President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
“The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center,” the board wrote in the proposed resolution.
Trump has spent much of his second term reshaping Washington, demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for a ballroom and planning a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery as well as a renovated golf course along the Potomac River.
The Kennedy Center has been a stumbling block in that effort after a judge ruled in May that Trump’s name was added to the building illegally, ordering it to be removed.
Trump and his allies, however, have continued to fight the ruling.
The board voted last month to inscribe his name on the venue’s facade to read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.”
If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading: “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
ATLANTA — Security researchers say rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it more critical to address a flaw in Georgia’s voting equipment that can allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast.
The system’s vulnerability has been drawing increased attention, with election security advocates criticizing state election officials for failing to fix it before the November elections. Georgia election officials say they have taken steps to address the potential harm, but some advocates say the state is not going far enough.
The vulnerability does not allow votes to be changed or cast doubt on election results, but it could let someone see how others voted. That is important because ballot secrecy is a fundamental right under the state constitution, and violations could create an opening for legal challenges.
While the flaw in Georgia has been known for a few years, the widespread adoption of AI tools and the blistering pace of its sophistication have election security experts raising alarms.
This is “a bit of a wake-up call because it illustrates how much more easily vulnerabilities can be exploited now that AI can do all of the technical work for you,” said J. Alex Halderman, a voting technology specialist at the University of Michigan who was part of the team that exposed the flaw.
Other jurisdictions across the country use the same voting equipment made by Liberty Vote, which was known as Dominion Voting Systems before the company was sold. But many have applied a software update to fix the flaw, and some other states do not allow the public release of records that are needed to exploit it, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology.
Georgia, a presidential battleground with one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races this year, is the only place where the system is used statewide. Lindeman said that, combined with an open records law that has allowed access to key documents, creates a “perfect storm.”
“It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility,” Lindeman said.
How does voting work in Georgia?
Georgia voters make their selections on touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots voters insert into scanners to tally the votes.
Such cast-vote records detail the votes from each ballot. Those records and electronic ballot images created by the scanners are randomized. But the software flaw allows them to be put back in the order they were cast, according to a report by researchers who discovered it in 2022.
Along with other publicly available data, that information could be used to match voters to their ballots, the researchers wrote.
Max Springer, a Princeton University researcher who was not involved in the original research and studies AI, said he gave a publicly available AI assistant that research. He said it was able to reverse the shuffling of electronic ballot records from Georgia’s May primary and then tell him what other records it would need to match names to ballots.
He then gave the AI assistant the early voting list for the counties he examined and the cast-vote record file, which could be obtained through a public records request. It was able to create “buckets of ballots and potential voters,” he wrote in a blog post. In many instances, that made it possible to match voters to their ballots.
In cases where ambiguity remained, he wrote, he got the public audit log for the ballot scanners and precinct check-in records and was able to match most ballots to specific voters.
“AI coding tools are essentially supercharging laymen people to exploit vulnerabilities,” Springer said in an interview.
Why does ballot secrecy matter?
Georgia’s Constitution says elections “shall be by secret ballot,” and state law requires voting machines to “permit voting in absolute secrecy so that no person can see or know any other elector’s votes.”
A lack of ballot secrecy can make it easier to buy or sell votes and increase the danger of coercion to vote a certain way by family members, political organizations, employers or government officials. It also is information that could be invaluable to political campaigns.
Gabriel Sterling, special projects manager in the secretary of state’s office, pushed back on the concerns. He said it would be easier to use mail ballots if vote-buying or coercion was the goal and that it probably would be cheaper for campaigns to just increase outreach to voters who fit a certain profile than try to identify voters this way.
State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs proposed a rule during the board’s August meeting that would have required the secretary of state’s office to apply the software update recommended by the manufacturer by Tuesday.
“Each [voter] has one vote, and no one is entitled to know how it was cast,” Grubbs said. “That privacy protects more than the individual voter. It protects the integrity of the entire election.”
In a letter to the election board, an agency lawyer argued that the update has not been certified by the secretary of state, the implementation would take months, and the Legislature has not provided necessary funding. The board rejected Grubbs’ proposal. Some members said they did not believe they had the authority to order the secretary of state to act and they raised concerns about the short timeline before the November midterms.
Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, who voted against the proposal, said it is “intensely frustrating” that the software update has not been applied. But she pointed out that it is a felony to reveal how someone voted, which should serve as a deterrent.
“I hate the fact that it’s even physically possible, but there are very, very severe penalties if somebody were to actually do this,” she said.
What’s being done?
The secretary of state’s office sent guidance to county election officials instructing them to refer open records requests for certain records to the secretary of state’s office. It will release them with the problematic information blacked out and decline to release other information and documents.
Sterling said the office is working with a vendor to scramble the original order of ballot images and cast-vote records before they are made public. Halderman said that precaution would be necessary to keep someone from reconstructing the order.
While some other jurisdictions have applied the software update that reportedly fixes the problem, some have done what Georgia is now trying to do by restricting public access to the records needed to exploit the flaw.
Marilyn Marks is executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election transparency and security and raised the alarm about the vulnerability. She argued that withholding documents is not the solution and that steps need to be taken to ensure ballots cannot be traced to voters in the first place.
“When Georgia’s election records contain identifiers that can be used to trace ballots to voters, the only legal and acceptable answer is to stop recording that information — not restrict public access to sensitive unlawful information to insiders and commercial vendors,” she said.
With time growing short before the elections, Marks said a workable interim solution would be to collect ballots in locked boxes at precincts and then shuffle and scan them at a central tabulating center.
US forces boarded and sank a boat in the eastern Pacific saying it was a floating refueling station for drug-traffickers. The boat’s destruction was captured by a US military recording. The men aboard are suspected of being part of Ecuador’s Los Choneros gang.
Top envoy for the US-led Board of Peace says Gaza is at risk of being ‘gone for good’ without reconstruction, Israeli withdrawal and demilitarisation in the territory. Nikolay Mladenov tells Al Jazeera worsening conditions for Palestinians could fuel another security crisis.
When it comes to asking for travel advice, there is nobody better at giving you hints and tricks than cabin crew who travel multiple times a month for their job
A member of British Airways cabin crew has shared one thing people should do before boarding
A member of British Airways cabin crew has shared one thing she believes everybody should do before they board a plane to make their trip less stressful. When it comes to taking advice from people ahead of travelling, there is nobody better to ask than cabin crew.
With many members of crew doing multiple long and short trips each month, they know all the tips and tricks to make boarding, packing and planning even easier.
This is true for one member of cabin crew who has shared one thing she believes everybody should do before stepping foot on a plane ahead of any holidays.
The member of staff gave people her advice after being asked what her top-tip was for travel on the official British Airways TikTok account.
One of the cabin crew said: “Just screenshot everything. Screenshot your boarding pass. Have a copy of the hotel that you’re going to.
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“A photographic copy, so that you have it on your phone, just in case when you land to your destination, and your phone doesn’t have 4G, you actually have a picture of it.”
It’s common for people to struggle to get a signal in a new country due to phones having been on airplane mode for a number of hours and trying to connect to a new local network. The metal cabin of the airplane can also block out cellular radio waves.
Three more members of crew also gave their advice to holidaymakers, with one coming up with a solution for travellers who treat themselves in duty free.
Another member of BA staff said: “I would say as cabin crew, always pack a portable tote bag. You’re always going to need it, and it’s something to put stuff in, and then you’re not lugging a big suitcase around when you’re travelling.”
A third said: “My top travel tip is to bring electrolytes on board. Having electrolytes in your water makes you rehydrated.”
While a fourth added: “My travel top tip would be to have your phones and devices set to automatic before you depart, so that they’re already synced to the local time before you arrive.”
People took the time to comment on the video and share their own experiences with British Airways.
One person said: “My best customer service was with BA. it was a very long time ago, but I had to travel back from Paris to London and I missed my flight, it was the first flight.
“I was so desperate because I had to go to work straight after arriving. The lady offered me a seat on next flight free of charge. I was so happy because I was on budget and I couldn’t afford another flight ticket, perhaps she sensed it. Thank you for the empathy.”
A second said: “Can you pls start flying from London Southend again.”
A third said: “Always have a great experience on BA.”
The Justice Department’s latest salvo in the battle over the future of the Kennedy Center claims President Trump’s “efforts and prestige provide the sole hope for the Center’s financial survival, and structural renewal,” according to a Monday court filing, which also threatens a possible demolition of the historic building.
Without the president’s interventions, says the filing, “the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site.”
The filing by the administration’s lawyers came in response to the efforts of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) to block the Kennedy Center board from adding the president’s name to the building. The 21-page document argues that the “prestige” afforded by such an addition is both necessary and warranted.
“The Board also underscores, and the undisputed evidence demonstrates, that without the prominent recognition of The Trump Administration, and President Trump’s efforts, the donors will not contribute, and the Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral,” the filing reads. “The Trump Administration, and President Donald J. Trump, should, therefore, be given the respect and dignity of acknowledgement.”
The filing also suggests what could replace the center if the building were to be torn down: “a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River … has been proposed, by some, for many years.”
“Such a replacement will fail to adequately honor President John F. Kennedy, but would be simpler and more economical to build, operate, and maintain,” the administration’s lawyers wrote in the filing.
Such a tear down would face enormous legal pushback, but preservation groups are already on high alert after Trump’s swift demolition of the White House’s East Wing, which was completed before a challenge could be fully mounted.
The Kennedy Center has been mired in controversy since Trump fired its board and had himself appointed chairman in the early months of his second term. Artist and staff defections became common after that, but the question of the center’s survival came into stark relief in early February when Trump declared his intention to shutter the center for two years of renovations.
That decision came after the Kennedy Center board voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building. Both the closure and the renaming were halted in a May ruling by Federal District Court Judge Christopher R. Cooper who is still overseeing the legal back-and-forth over the center’s fate.
Cooper originally gave the administration until mid-June to remove Trump’s name from the building. The administration complied by placing a tarp over the sign, which has remained ever since.
The most recent court filing claiming the center’s survival rests with Trump is in stark contrast to a recent Washington Post investigation that found the center’s revenue plunged after Trump’s name was added to the building.
A woman who frequently flies with Ryanair has shared her experience of travelling with a crossbody bag, warning passengers about the airline’s one-bag rule and the cabin bag fees
She explained what she’s experienced when flying Ryanair (Stock Image)(Image: ASphotowed via Getty Images)
With airport security, liquids limits, boarding deadlines and ever-changing baggage allowances, flying can feel like navigating a rulebook before you’ve even reached the gate – and it’s easy to see how passengers get caught out.
Ryanair travellers know this all too well. As one of Europe’s biggest budget carriers, the airline has a long list of guidelines designed to keep fares low and flights running on time — but they can be easy to miss if you don’t fly often.
One of the most important to get right is Ryanair’s strict hand luggage policy, which has clear limits on what you can bring on board without paying extra. So what do you do if you want to bring a crossbody bag?
A woman who frequently flies with Ryanair has shared that you can take a crossbody on board, but you may need to do some faffing around if staff call you out.
Sarah, who flies the budget airline monthly, said you might be asked to put your crossbody in your personal bag. This is because only one bag is typically permitted per person.
The rules around Ryanair crossbody bags
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Ryanair’s bag policy reads: “All fares include one small personal bag (40 x 30 x 20 cm) that must fit under the seat.
“Additional options include Priority boarding with a second 10kg cabin bag, checked bags of 10kg, 20kg (up to 3), or 23kg (1 allowed). Infants have no cabin allowance but may bring a 5kg baby bag and two baby equipment items free”.
Ryanair’s policy makes no specific mention of restrictions on cross-body bags. However, Sarah, who commutes by air, has yet to encounter any issues.
“You will not find the crossbody bag in Ryanair’s bag policy; all we know is you can only bring one small, personal bag, otherwise you could face a fine at the gate,” she explained.
Sarah revealed the fine could be between 46 and 60 euros (£40- £51). She said: “The most sensible thing I can tell you is if you use a crossbody bag, be prepared to put it inside your small bag”.
To avoid being hit with this charge, it’s wise to ensure there’s enough space in your smaller bag to squeeze it in should the need arise.
However, Sarah added, “But based on my actual experience of flying Ryanair, my crossbody bag is small, and it is kept close to my body, which is never challenged by staff, which is great, because modern airline travel means you need your phone and your wallet available at all times.”
Reaction
In the comments, someone said: “I usually hide the crossbody bag under my hoodie or jacket! Just to be safe”.
Another wrote: “It depends on the staff member and how full the crossbody is. I’ve been asked to put it in my other bag when it looked big and full, but I have noticed tons of people get away with a tiny second crossbody bag”.
A third penned: “My mum has been carrying the FULL backpack plus her everyday purse on every flight without fail and has always gotten away with it”.
A fourth said: “Depends on how rude the gate agents are feeling. 99% of the time it’s fine…. And if they are feeling annoying that day, as long as it fits into your backpack, you are fine”.
People at the United Airlines counter check-in at the main terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., on July 30. President Donald Trump announced a $20 billion plan to rebuild and renovate the airport that includes terminal expansions and an underground U-shaped train to move travelers between terminals, eliminating the need for mobile lounges, or “people movers”, which have been in use since 1962. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 19 (UPI) — The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority on Wednesday approved a $15.5 billion budget for Dulles International Airport, setting the stage for renovations proposed by President Donald Trump.
The board approved the proposal for the Revitalizing Washington Dulles International Airport Project, an initiative launched by the Department of Transportation in December.
The approval includes $3.75 billion for new underground tunnels which will replace the airport’s shuttle system, the renovation of Concourses C and D, and $6.2 million for the reconstruction of the main terminal.
The project is slated to begin in late 2027.
Trump said during a briefing at the White House last month that more than 5 million square feet will be either new or renovated space at the airport. He called the airport in its current state “a terrible place to be.”
The president said in July that the estimated cost of the project is more than $20 billion.
About $14.2 billion of the funding will come from new bond issuances, $200 million from grants and $1.1 billion in Passenger Facility Charges: fees that travelers pay for using the airport.
New expenditures included in the budget amount to about $48 million, MWAA’s report says.
President Donald Trump speaks to the press as he tours a new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday. Photo by Al Drago/UPI | License Photo
Tina Peters was recently released early from prison amid a pressure campaign from President Trump after the former Colorado elections official was convicted of tampering with voting machines.
Now, the top elections official in a conservative California county with a long history of voting controversies is seeking to hire her to help run elections there.
Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters in Shasta County, said on a local radio show Sunday that he planned to hire Peters as the assistant registrar next month, just weeks ahead of the November election.
“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in. She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows,” Curtis told the hosts of “Jefferson State of Mine,” a show hosted by leaders of the State of Jefferson secession movement.
In response to questions from The Times about the hiring process, Curtis said in an email Tuesday afternoon that “counties are very slow” in bringing in new staffers and that Peters would be brought on “as a consultant.”
“Her duties would be to assist with supervision of the November election,” Curtis wrote. “None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims.”
A bank of surveillance screens hangs in the public observation room at the Shasta County elections office in Redding, Calif., in February.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Peters, the former clerk in Mesa County, Colo., was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.
She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert — an associate of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell — gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.
Peters was released from prison in June. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence after months of haranguing from the president. Trump issued a pardon for Peters in December, but since her conviction was for state, not federal, crimes, it fell outside his purview.
‘Monkey business’ and a not-so-open job
In a statement to The Times on Tuesday, Peters’ attorney, Peter Ticktin, said she was “giving consideration to helping in the efforts in Shasta County as there most definitely has been monkey business in the way the election was handled.”
Ticktin, who cited his client’s “effort to get the invasive machines out of our election process,” did not elaborate on which election had alleged problems or what kind of role she had been offered.
The terms of Peters’ parole forbid her from leaving the state without permission from her parole officer, although, after her release, she visited Trump at the White House.
Talk about hiring Peters in Shasta County set off alarm bells across California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office tweeted Monday that Peters “should still be in prison” and that “the state is investigating this.”
“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in,” says Clint Curtis, Shasta County registrar of voters. “She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
And Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat, wrote on Facebook that talk of her hiring “should be stopped immediately. “
Brent Turner, the Shasta County assistant registrar whom Curtis suggested he would replace, said there’s one glaring problem with that plan: He hasn’t quit.
“I am the assistant registrar, last I checked, and until further notice I’m planning on continuing to serve the public in that role,” Turner said in an interview Tuesday.
Turner said he had not spoken to Curtis for days and that he learned his boss was floating Peters’ name as a replacement from a local reporter who called him Sunday for comment.
On the “Jefferson State of Mine” broadcast, Curtis said of Turner: ”He got sick on me. I was hoping he’d just, like, retire on June 2 and go away and let me fill [the position], but he didn’t.”
Turner said it was “inappropriate” for Curtis to speak publicly about his health and that he had not given him permission to do so.
Miranda Angel, a Shasta County spokeswoman, said in an email Monday that “there is no formal proposal or application” to replace Turner and that “any prospective employee or consultant would go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.”
An elections office embroiled in controversy
Shasta County made national headlines in 2023 when its Board of Supervisors ditched Dominion voting machines based on unfounded claims of fraud and opted to hand-count ballots for more than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so.
He was appointed by the county Board of Supervisors to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons that they said were exacerbated by the stress of the job.
Curtis stands in the election counting area on Feb. 25 in Redding, Calif. Curtis installed a controversial election observer area filled with cameras trained on election workers’ hands as they feed ballots into machines.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area, and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Mike Lindell.
In Shasta County, he promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly-rural county’s 13 ballot dropboxes. He accused his predecessors in the elections office, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and he called on federal authorities to raid his office and seize ballots.
Curtis also publicly advocated for Measure B, a voter-approved measure that would eliminate most voting by mail and require ballots to be hand-counted, among other sweeping changes.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County over the citizens’ initiative in mid-June, arguing that it violated numerous state election laws and must be struck down before the November election.
Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin L. Hanna this month issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks implementation of Measure B, which voters approved in the June primary.
In that same election, Curtis was voted out of office. He will be replaced in January by Joanna Francescut, the former longtime assistant registrar, whom he fired.
A censure — and another reprimand
When Curtis spoke on the radio broadcast Sunday about hiring Peters — with whom, he said, he has regular phone conversations — he was under formal censure by the Board of Supervisors for his treatment of staff.
This spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.
An internal investigation and an external probe by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.
He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services.
“Mr. Curtis has demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff,” wrote Fugitt, who recommended Curtis be physically separated from the elections staff, working at a different physical location or remotely because of his “pervasive abusive conduct.”
The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11.
He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he showed them security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building, the news outlet Shasta Scout reported.
A woman walks past a ballot drop box in the Shasta County city of Anderson on Feb. 25.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Curtis allowed reporters to take video of the footage and said he had not discussed the matter with the staffers, Shasta Scout reported.
The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”
Curtis, the county wrote, showed “complete disregard for those procedures as well as employees’ due process rights.”
In an email Tuesday, Shasta County deputy chief executive officer Stewart Buettell said the county and its Board of Supervisors do not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.
“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.
A photo published last week by Shasta Scout shows a pair of doors to a room in the elections office containing ballots from the June election. Curtis sealed the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”
“I had facilities put this lock on and destroy the keys,” Curtis told the news outlet. “So if someone comes … they have to bring a warrant and a bolt cutter. That’s the only way to get in that room.”
Turner, the assistant registrar, told The Times that “Clint seems to be taking issue with some of the ballots in his own race” that he lost.
