challenge

SILVERSTONE, England: Max Verstappen needed about 35 minutes to overcome 100 karting drivers in a Red Bull event at Silverstone on Wednesday.

Verstappen started 101st at the Silverstone karting circuit, and overtook 64 drivers on the first lap alone, with many of his opponents crashing among themselves.

Many got blocked on the track after a pile-up that prompted a full-course yellow flag. Verstappen went off track but was able to return.

“That was simply lovely,” Verstappen said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Verstappen, who finished second in Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, was up to 37th after the first lap, and up to sixth place by the sixth lap.

He went off track again but stayed comfortably faster than most drivers, none of them with any significant professional driving experience.

He said jokingly that the victory ranked as “the best one yet” in his career.

California and other Democratic-led states and localities filed a pair of lawsuits Monday challenging new Trump administration rules giving immigration officials more power to deny green cards to applicants whose families have relied on public assistance programs in the past.

The challenge mirrors another by a similar coalition that successfully halted such changes during the first Trump administration.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is helping lead the states’ challenge, said the rule changes seek to “rewrite more than 100 years of law” by making even brief use of public benefits in years past grounds for the federal government to deny a person’s application for legal permanent residency in the future — which he said was clearly illegal and would push tremendous costs onto states, counties and cities.

“No family should have to choose between accessing healthcare and nutrition assistance today — or protecting their pathway to a green card tomorrow,” Bonta said. “We’re going to court on behalf of the millions of immigrants who call this state home — and we will fight to get this unlawful rule undone.”

San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu, whose office is helping lead a separate challenge from Democratic-led cities and counties, said in a statement that the new Trump administration policies are “a blatant attempt to sow fear and confusion in our immigrant communities and coerce people into withdrawing from critical government services” — which he also said would shift millions in costs to local governments.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which promulgated the new rules, said the lawsuits were proof that immigrants are unlawfully tapping into benefits programs intended for U.S. citizens.

“Sanctuary states are terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs,” the spokesperson said. “This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

President Trump won office on a promise to rein in illegal immigration. Since taking office, his administration has launched a mass crackdown that has targeted both undocumented and documented immigrants. It has done so in part by targeting federal and state programs that offer immigrant assistance — which Trump has derided as diverting resources away from U.S. citizens.

In their lawsuit, the states acknowledge that federal law enacted by Congress in 1882 allows the U.S. to deny noncitizens entry to the country if they would be a “public charge,” or someone who is unable to support themselves and must rely on the government for assistance.

However, the states argue that Congress, the courts and federal government agencies have for “over 140 years” understood the term “public charge” to mean a person “who has become, or is likely to become, primarily dependent on the government for long-term subsistence” — not someone who has ever taken public assistance of any kind in the past, even in the short term.

And yet, the new policy promulgated by Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gives immigration officers “unprecedented, sweeping new discretion to deny admission” to families that have tapped any number of public assistance programs for which both Congress and individual states have chosen to make them eligible, the states wrote.

The lawsuit, joined by Bonta, the attorneys general of 19 other states and the District of Columbia, and the governor of Pennsylvania, was filed in federal court in New York.

A separate lawsuit was filed in the same court by San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California, as well as New York City, Chicago, and Seattle and surrounding King County, Wash.

In a morning news conference, Bonta said the Trump administration’s new rules target families in unprecedented ways.

As one example, he said the new rules would potentially allow immigration officials to deny permanent residency to immigrant parents based on their U.S. citizen children accessing public benefits that they are clearly entitled to under the law.

As another, he said the new rules could penalize immigrant families for accessing basic, preventative healthcare that actually helps control the broader public cost of illness to localities and states.

Chiu said federal limits on residency for those who would be a “public charge” have in the past been applied in a “narrow and consistent way,” focusing on certain cash assistance and long-term medical needs. The new rules, he said, make “almost any” kind of government assistance grounds for residency denial.

The states’ lawsuit — California’s 92nd against the current Trump administration — revises a policy battle that began during Trump’s first administration, when it attempted in 2019 to implement similar policies, was sued by California, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, and lost.

The Biden administration later dropped the plans to change the rules.

Tony LoPresti, county counsel for Santa Clara County — which has per capita one of the largest foreign-born populations in the country — said that it was “déjà vu all over again.” and that the Trump administration will lose again because the new “public charge” policy is “outright illegal.”

It “bullies our community members into dropping health insurance, bypassing food assistance and turning their back on critical services out of fear” and constitutes “a wealth test for residents who are lawfully seeking status,” LoPresti said.

THE Office star Lucy Davis has tackled a terrifying zip-wire challenge amid her terminal cancer fight.

The 53-year-old announced last month that she’s been diagnosed with incurable stage four breast cancer.

She admitted “I don’t know how long I have left” as she revealed the tragic news with her followers in a video on social media.

However, Lucy said she was determined to have as much fun as she can during the time she has left and she’s doing exactly that.

The daredevil shared her pride on Wednesday after completing a gruelling hike followed by a scary zip line through a California canyon.

She took to Instagram to share pictures of herself on the hike as well as video of the moment she bravely took on the zip line.

STRONG SPEECH

Lucy Davis shares emotional message after revealing terminal cancer diagnosis

FAN FAVE

The Office’s Lucy Davis greets fans days after revealing she has incurable cancer

Lucy penned: “I loved this #zipline and I was a bit proud of myself for doing it because they said to be prepared for a 25 minute walk, so I took my pain meds an hour before in preparation.

“In previous zip lines, I’ve always been driven up to the first line, and the walking is in between the lines.

“But no. This was a legit hike up to the first zip. It took me one hour and 15 minutes.

“I was so grateful for the support of the guides and my friend @jharris1231 who helped me up, and the other people on the hike that never judged me or made me feel stupid. Thank you.”

Her fans flocked to the comments section as one expressed: “Still living to the fullest and experiencing life. Good on you!”

Another person commented: “Oh wow, you’re fabulous Lucy. Still chokes me up though.”

Somebody else gushed: “You are such an inspiration. Also, whenever I see you I remember Aunt Hilda, she was so comforting as a character.

“You really played her so well, you’re truly amazing. So talented and inspiring.”

Yet another added: “My gosh Lucy, so much courage! You are such an inspiration.”

Lucy took to Instagram last month to share her heartbreaking news.

She wrote: “Hi friends:) I wanted to share something with you all that I’ve kept to myself for a while but for various reasons would like to share now.

“A year and a half ago I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer, which has metastasized to my bones. Specifically to my spine, right hip, and my ribs. The cancer is incurable, and too late for chemo.

“The initial lump that I felt, wasn’t a ‘lump’ as such; rather a kind of hard spot. Really tiny.

“I almost didn’t bother getting it checked. So I guess I’m saying don’t ignore anything – get everything checked out.”

Lucy told her fans that she’s at peace with “whatever comes next,” as she shared the clip of her ringing the cancer treatment bell.

While she rang the bell, Lucy confessed she has been told by doctors it’s “too late” for her to receive Chemotherapy.

Lucy is best known for playing Dawn Tinsley in Ricky Gervais’ comedy The Office.

Dawn was a receptionist at Wernham Hogg’s Slough branch in the original UK version of The Office.

Her character battled an unfulfilling engagement, failed dreams of becoming an artist and a will-they-won’t they relationship with her colleague Tim.

Thousands of low-income patients, some seriously ill, are scrambling to find new doctors as they lose access to UCLA Health physicians after a longtime Medi-Cal contract was not renewed.

Under the contract that expired June 30, UCLA had been providing specialty care to 9,000 medically frail patients from Health Care LA, an association of nonprofit clinics that serve patients covered by Medi-Cal, the state program for the poor.

“Many of these patients have been waiting for months to be seen by UCLA specialty medicine providers and are now being told they cannot receive the care they desperately need,” Health Care LA said in a Thursday news release.

The patients had gone to UCLA for cancer and infectious-disease treatments, high-risk women’s services, major organ transplants and other specialty medicine care, the association said.

A Friday news conference that Health Care LA had scheduled to detail the problems patients faced in getting care was abruptly canceled when the two sides said they had reached a tentative agreement on how to transition the patients to other doctors over the next year.

“To help ensure a smooth transition for patients, both organizations have agreed that established UCLA Health patients, individuals with existing appointments, and patients requiring other agreed-upon services will continue to be cared for at UCLA Health facilities,” Phil Hampton, a university spokesman, said in a statement.

Although some patients will continue to be seen by UCLA doctors, he said, “accepting an unlimited number of new referrals presents challenges given existing capacity constraints and the need to preserve timely access for existing patients.”

Sabra Matovsky, chief executive of Health Care LA, said in an interview on Thursday that UCLA had declined to renegotiate the contract.

“They never even asked us for a raise,” she said, “They just want us out.”

She said that university officials had pointed to “capacity issues” at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, including in the emergency room and dozens of specialty clinics.

“To solve this by pushing out Medi-Cal patients while you continue to expand and market and take on other patients is not a solution,” Matovsky said.

Hampton said UCLA had offered to extend the contract, but Health Care LA rejected the offer.

The end of the Medi-Cal contract disappointed some UCLA medical professionals who have been urging the public university to provide care to more of L.A. County’s low-income residents.

“It feels like this is profits over patients,” said Dr. Patrick Samones, a fellow at UCLA Health, who trained at the university in family medicine.

“UCLA is one of L.A.’s most important healthcare institutions,” said Samones, who represents members of the Committee of Interns and Residents, which is part of Service Employees International Union. “We feel it has a duty to serve all Californians.”

In recent years, UCLA Health has been expanding fast and now has almost 300 locations throughout Southern California, including in wealthier places such as Montecito, Malibu and Westlake Village.

At the same time, it provides less care to Medi-Cal patients than its sister university health systems: UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco and UC Davis, according to university statistics.

Last year, about 15% of UCLA Health’s net patient service revenue came from Medi-Cal, according to the university health systems’ annual report. The four other UC health systems each received about 22% of that revenue from Medi-Cal.

About 40% of L.A. County residents are insured by Medi-Cal, according to a recent report by the California Health Care Foundation.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data from the annual report doesn’t capture UCLA’s “extensive contributions to caring for Medi-Cal patients” and isn’t “a fair basis for comparing academic health systems.”

He added that with the university’s expansion of clinics, “we are providing substantial specialty care to Medi-Cal and Medicare patients” throughout L.A. County.

“Unlike county-owned hospitals, UCLA Health relies almost exclusively on patient care revenue to fund operations, expand access, recruit clinicians and invest in facilities and technology,” he said.

Hampton said UCLA has other contracts to serve Medi-Cal patients, which will continue. The health system also provides more than $270 million in unreimbursed care for low-income patients each year, he said, as well as primary and urgent care for people experiencing homelessness.

In addition, UCLA is spending $500 million to create a new neuropsychiatric hospital in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, he said.

“We continue to fortify our region’s safety net despite growing access demands and challenges,” Hampton said.

In the most recent fiscal year, he said, Medi-Cal patients comprised 26% of 336,600 inpatient days and 34% of 156,000 emergency department visits.

“UCLA Health’s long-standing commitment to serving vulnerable populations in Southern California is well-established,” he said.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data doesn’t reflect the complexity of care delivered by UCLA and is affected by Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and payment policies, which vary by region and health plan.

“Over time, Medi-Cal reimbursement has not kept pace with the cost of providing care, and UCLA Health has experienced increasing payment denials and delays,” he said.

UCLA specialists had been caring for Health Care LA’s seriously ill patients under the contract since 2009.

“They were the provider that did all the complicated care,” Matovsky said. “UCLA was our go-to.”

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to finish building his new White House ballroom with mostly private money and without approval from Congress.

By a 5-4 vote. the justices granted an emergency appeal from Trump and his lawyers on Monday and set aside a judge’s order that would stop the construction.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, along with the court’s three liberals.

The outcome turned on standing.

The conservative majoritysaid the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its members were not personally injured by the White House ballroom project and therefore, did not have to standing to sue Trump or the National Park Service.

They also said Trump and his appointees had stressed the new ballroom was needed for national security and said the lower courts judges should not have interfered.

The decision in effect gives a green light to Trump’s go-it-alone approach which is in keeping with his history as a hotel builder. He believed the White House needed a grand ballroom that could seat hundreds of dignitaries. And he ordered the East Wing torn down in October to make room of his larger ballroom.

He also said most of the project would be paid for by $400 million in private donations.

But the Constitution gave Congress the power to manage property belonging to the United States. A 1912 law says new buildings “shall not erected…on public grounds within the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”

Trump chose to ignore the law and did not seek approval from Congress which is led by Republicans.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December, contending Trump was a “temporary tenant, not the owner” of the White House.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Trump had no authority to build a new ballroom on the White House grounds without the approval of Congress, and he ordered a halt to the above-ground construction.

The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed his decision by a 2-1 vote.
“Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” wrote Judge Patricia Millett for the appeals court.

Trump’s lawyers sent a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court on Aug. 14.

The court’s majority allowed Trump to fend off the legal challenge by concluding the historic preservationists could not show they were harmed by a huge new ballroom that may dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.

A federal judge on Wednesday lifted a major obstacle to President Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting, even as Democratic state officials filed a new court challenge with the midterm elections fast approaching.

The fresh round of legal wrangling comes just two days after the Supreme Court handed down a procedural ruling in Trump’s favor, and could mean the issue lands before the high court again before the pivotal contests for control of Congress. The first mailed ballots are set to be sent out next week.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston agreed to lift an order prohibiting the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s order for November’s elections. She wrote that she was “compelled” to do so after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a similar injunction she granted in a separate case was premature.

Talwani nevertheless said the executive order could unleash “chaos” and referred to it as “likely unconstitutional.”

The administration can now move forward and implement a Postal Service rule published late Friday. It would require states to follow a uniform envelope style for mail ballots and to give the Postal Service a list of voters eligible to receive them. Talwani found on Tuesday that the rule’s issuance technically violated her injunction, but she declined to penalize the administration.

The new lawsuit, filed by about two dozen Democratically controlled states against the U.S. Postal Service, marked a new phase in the high-stakes litigation creating confusion around the midterm elections.

It came after the Supreme Court ruled against them in a separate case, but did not say Trump’s order was legal.

The high court majority found the initial Democratic lawsuit was premature, but that was before the Republican administration issued a rule governing Postal Service delivery of mail ballots. Election officials warn it will be impossible to implement before the first wave of mail ballots are sent out next week.

“Across the country, states are already deep into preparations for the 2026 elections. Now, at the last moment, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans’ right to vote,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 Democratic attorneys general filing the lawsuit, said in a statement. “USPS has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.”

The Trump administration plan faces a third lawsuit originally filed in May in the nation’s capital, though judges there have so far declined to block it.

All previous challenges were filed before the administration published its mail ballot rule Friday night.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis on Wednesday said the Postal Service’s proposals were “commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots” and that the administration would continue to work to implement them to boost “the safety and security of our elections.”

The Postal Service said it would not comment because of the pending lawsuit.

National Democrats on Tuesday cited the rule in asking the federal judge in the Washington case to block Trump’s order after he declined to do so last spring, saying the administration at the time had not taken concrete action. In Boston, Talwani also found that the administration had violated a separate injunction she had placed on the Postal Service in drafting the new rule, although she did not take any action against the government.

Talwani had issued the injunction against Trump’s executive order in the prior Democratic state case, which is the one the Supreme Court overturned on Monday. She also issued a second injunction Aug. 11 in a case filed by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, while the Supreme Court was considering the administration’s appeal of the judge’s first order.

Trump has long targeted mail voting, which he falsely blames for his 2020 election loss and is disproportionately used by Democrats as a result of Trump’s condemnations. Since returning to power, Trump has tried to claim authority over election rules, saying he thinks Republicans should “take over” vote counting in Democratic areas.

He issued his first election executive order just months after retaking office, attempting to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote, among other changes. He has also been pushing a sweeping election bill that has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats and even some within his own party.

Riccardi and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.

India’s Supreme Court has ordered an inquiry into police conduct during last month’s “cockroach” protests.

Police have rejected an Amnesty International report accusing them of brutality.

With more protests planned, how big a problem has the youth-led movement become for the government?

Presenter: Cyril Vanier

Guests:

Sravasti Dasgupta – senior political correspondent at The Wire in New Delhi

Shaina NC – national spokesperson for Shiv Sena, a political party in India aligned with the governing Bharatiya Janata Party

Uday Chandra – professor of comparative politics and international relations at Ashoka University