Commission

Published on 06/11/2025 – 20:47 GMT+1
•Updated
20:56

The Commission launched on Thursday an investigation into a potential collusion between the two stock exchange groups, Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq, in the market for derivative financial products.

At the heart of EU antitrust enforcer’s concerns is the potential coordination of their conduct in the listing, trading, and clearing of those derivatives, which, if proven, would be in violation of EU’s competition rules.

EU law encourage competition between different economic operators to ensure that prices are set fairly by the market, free from any collusion or abuse of dominant position.

In September 2024, the Commission carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of both financial groups, as permitted under EU rules.

It targeted their practices around financial derivatives, which are contracts whose value changes depending on the price of another asset, such as stocks or commodities.

“Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq entities may have entered into agreements or concerted practices not to compete,” the Commission said in a statement, “in addition, the entities may have allocated demand, coordinated prices and exchanged commercially sensitive information.”

A deal made in 1999

Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq are among the world’s largest stock exchange groups.

According to EU competition commissioner Teresa Ribera, such behaviours could also affect “the proper functioning of the Capital Markets Union – a cornerstone for innovation, financial stability and growth.”

The completion of the European Capital Markets Union — a barrier-free market for capitals aimed at reducing their costs for listed companies and improve investment conditions — is one of the priorities of Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen.

If there was a collusion between Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq, it would constitute “an artificial barrier” on the EU market, Commission’s spokesperson Thomas Regnier told Euronews.

Deutsche Börse reacted in a statement saying : “We are engaging constructively with the European Commission.”

The stock exchange group explained that the Commission’s investigation concerned a 1999 deal, which Deutsche Börse considers “pro-competitive”.

“It aimed to build deeper liquidity in the respective Nordic derivatives markets and create efficiencies,” it argued, adding: “It provided clear benefits for market participants and was public.”

The 1999 deal was made between Deutsche Börse’s derivatives branch Eurex and the Helsinki Stock Exchange, which was acquired by Nasdaq in 2008, for the Nordic derivatives markets, it said.

WASHINGTON — Stewart McLaurin knew it was coming.

An entire wing of the White House, a building he calls “the most special, important building on the planet,” was going to be replaced to make way for a ballroom that President Trump wants to add to the building.

But when McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Assn., saw the first images of backhoes tearing into the East Wing, it still came as a bit of a shock.

“When the reality of things happen, they strike us a little bit differently than the theory of things happening, so it was a bit of a jarring moment,” McLaurin told the Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

McLaurin, who has led the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for more than a decade, did not take a position on the changes. It’s not his job. “Ours is not to make happen, or to keep from happening — but to document what does happen, what happens in this great home that we call the White House,” he said.

But he said he sees a silver lining from the “jarring” images: They have piqued public interest in White House history.

“What has happened since then is so amazing in that in the past two weeks, more people have been talking about White House history, focused on White House history, learning what is an East Wing, what is the West Wing … what are these spaces in this building that we simply call the White House,” McLaurin said.

Trump demolishes the East Wing

The general public became aware of the demolition work on Oct. 20 after photos of construction equipment ripping into the building began to circulate online, prompting an outcry from Democrats, preservationists and others.

In a matter of days, the entire two-story East Wing — the traditional base of operations for first ladies and their staffs — was gone. The demolition included a covered walkway between the White House, the family movie theater and a garden dedicated to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Trump had talked about building a ballroom for years and pushed ahead with his vision when he returned to office in January. His proposal calls for a 90,000-square-foot structure, almost twice the size of the 55,000-square-foot White House itself and able to accommodate 1,000 people. The plan also includes building a more modern East Wing, officials said.

The president ordered the demolition despite not yet having sign-off for the ballroom construction from the National Capital Planning Commission, one of several entities with a role in approving additions to federal buildings and property. The White House has yet to submit the ballroom plans for the commission’s review because it is closed during the government shutdown.

Trump appointed loyalists to the planning commission in July. On Tuesday he also fired the six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, a group of architectural experts that advises the federal government on historic preservation and public buildings. A new slate of members who are more aligned with Trump’s policies will be named, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions. The Washington Post was first to report the firings.

East Wing art and furnishings preserved

It was the job of the White House curator and their staff to carefully remove, catalog and store the art, the official portraits of former first ladies, and furnishings from the East Wing, McLaurin said.

The White House Historical Assn. does not have a decision-making role in the construction. But it has been working with the White House to prepare for the changes.

“We had known since late summer that the staff of the East Wing had moved out. I actually made my last visit on the last day of tours on August the 28th,” McLaurin said.

Working with the curator and chief usher, the association used 3D scanning technology “so that every room, space, nook and cranny of the East Wing, whether it was molding or hinges or door knobs or whatever it was, was captured to the nth degree” to be digitally recreated as an exhibit or to teach the history of that space, McLaurin said.

A photographer also documented the building as it was being taken apart. It will be a while before any images are available, but McLaurin said items were found when flooring was pulled up and when wall coverings were pulled back that “no living person remembered were there. So those will be lessons in history.”

White House has grown over the years

Trump’s aides have responded to criticism of the demolition by arguing that other presidents have made changes to the White House too. Trump said the White House needs a bigger entertaining space.

McLaurin said the building continues to evolve from what it looked like when it was built in 1792.

“There is a need to modernize and to grow,” he said, noting that White House social secretaries for generations chafed at the space limitations for entertaining. “But how it’s done and how it’s accomplished and what results is really the vision of the president who undertakes that project.”

What the White House Historical Assn. does

Jacqueline Kennedy created the historical association in 1961 to help preserve the museum quality of the interior of the White House and educate the public. It receives no government funding and raises money mostly through private donations and sales of retail merchandise.

It is not the mission of the association to take a position on construction, McLaurin said. Its primary mandate is preserving the State Floor and some of the historic bedrooms upstairs in the private living quarters, and teaching the history of the White House, which is an accredited museum. The State Floor is made up of the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, the East Room and State Dining Room, the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer.

“Ours is not to support — or to not support,” McLaurin said. “Ours is to understand, to get the details.”

Since the demolition, McLaurin said he has seen attendance spike at a free educational center the association opened in September 2024 a block from the White House. “The People’s House: A White House Experience” is open seven days a week — including during the shutdown.

The educational center had its busiest days the weekend of Oct. 17-19, with about 1,500 daily visitors, up from a previous average of 900, he said.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

As a Los Angeles City Council aide, Jose Ugarte failed to disclose years worth of outside income he made from lobbying and consulting — and, as a result, was prepared to pay a fine.

But the city’s Ethics Commission has now rejected a $17,500 settlement agreement with the council candidate. Two commissioners said the fine was not quite large enough.

“We need to signal that this is a serious violation,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, the president of the commission, who voted against the settlement.

Ugarte is deputy chief of staff to Curren Price and is running to replace his longtime boss on the City Council. Price has endorsed him. But the council aide failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to Ethics Commission documents.

He said the failure to report the outside income was a “clerical reporting error.”

Although two of the commissioners want a steeper fine against Ugarte, the suggested bump isn’t that large.

Two commissioners voted in favor of the $17,500 settlement, but Kulkarni and another commissioner, Terry Kaufmann, agreed the settlement amount should be around $20,000.

It’s an amount that they believe could send a clearer message.

“There is great concern about what is happening in Los Angeles. … Individuals routinely violate the laws we put in place to ensure trust,” Kulkarni said.

Kaufmann added that she was concerned by the fact that Ugarte still worked for a council member and was running for office.

The proposed settlement with Ugarte included seven counts against him, and each comes with a potential $5,000 penalty. But since Ugarte was cooperative, the commission’s director of enforcement reduced the overall penalty by 50%, bringing it down from $35,000 to the $17,500 figure.

Ugarte told The Times that his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office.

He started working for Price in 2013 but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has begun demolition of the East Wing as he remakes the White House in his image, ignoring rules, breaking promises and taking a wrecking ball to the approval process in an echo of the strategies he deployed in Florida and New York as he built his real estate empire.

An excavator ripped off the facade and parts of the roof on Monday, exposing the stone shell below. Windows have been removed. A truck carried trees outside the White House gates and down Pennsylvania Avenue. A crowd gathered outside to witness the partial tear-down of the historic building — which Trump said just weeks ago would not be touched in his plans to build a new ballroom.

“Over the next few days, it’s going to be demolished,” Trump said at a White House dinner last week for donors to the 90,000-square-foot structure estimated to cost between $200 million and $250 million.

“Everything out there is coming down, and we’re replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms that you’ve ever seen.”

He described the forthcoming structure as “four sides of beautiful glass.”

But similar to the rule-breaking tactics he used when pushing through changes to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and building his Trump Tower in New York, Trump’s sudden and dramatic White House overhaul has been made possible by his disdain for the rules that have protected Washington’s cohesive design. To date, he hasn’t submitted plans for review to the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees renovation and additions to the federal buildings in the capital, including the president’s historic residence.

Not that the commission — now stacked with Trump’s allies — is complaining.

This summer, the president appointed his top aides — staff secretary Will Scharf, deputy chief of staff James Blair and Office of Management and Budget energy official Stuart Levenbach — to sit on the governing body.

Scharf, a longtime loyal Trump aide who hands him his executive orders to sign, was named chairman by the president. The appointments were so sudden that Scharf, at his first commission meeting on July 10, apologized for not connecting with any of his fellow commissioners ahead of time, noting his appointment had happened the night before.

At the commission’s next meeting, on Sept. 4, Scharf launched into a defense of Trump’s building project, arguing the commission does not have jurisdiction over demolition and site preparation work for federal property; that it just deals with construction.

“I think any assertion that this commission should have been consulted earlier than it has been, or it will be, is simply false,” he said.

The commission will just “play a role in the ballroom project when the time is appropriate for us to do so,” he said.

Not so fast, say past commissioners.

Preston Bryant, a former chairman of the commission, told the Miami Herald in an email that in his nine years on the job “the Commission always works on proposed capital projects in three stages — Conceptual, Preliminary Approval, and Final Approval. Even before conceptual, there’s early consultation.”

Trump is familiar with the process. When he and his Trump Organization were remodeling the Old Post Office Pavilion into a Trump Hotel in 2014, they had to get their plans approved by the commission, which was strict in its adherence to preserving the historical structure of the building.

His team submitted a 52-page proposal showing the design changes, drawings of the new interior and exterior, and detailed the effect the changes would have on local traffic.

But now Trump has plowed on, bulldozing any opposition.

“We’ll have the most beautiful ballroom in the country,” he said Monday at an event in the East Room of the White House, apologizing for any construction noise the guests may hear. “It just started today so that’s good luck.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the new ballroom will be “completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!”

As photos and videos of the destruction went viral on social media, his top administration aides took to their accounts to defend the project, pointing out that the ballroom was being paid for with private donations and noting other presidents have made changes to the White House.

Past presidents, however, consulted advisers and architects, along with groups like the White House Historical Association and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House in addition to working with the commission, which is currently closed as part of the government shutdown.

One former commissioner noted that Washington, D.C., is a carefully planned city and that the commission strives to keep to the original vision of Pierre L’Enfant, who designed the layout of the capitol.

“If you don’t have a review process you’re basically saying one individual can say what the capital looks like. Washington doesn’t look this way by accident,” the commissioner, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, said.

Trump’s history of flouting the rules

Brushing aside red tape has long been a Trump strategy when it comes to changes at historic properties.

In 2006, Trump added an 80-foot flagpole with a 5-feet-by-25-feet flag on the front lawn of Mar-a-Lago — without the proper permit or permission. Palm Beach restricts flagpoles to no higher than 42 feet and flags that are a maximum of 4 feet by 6 feet.

The town fined Trump $250 a day. He countered with a $250 million lawsuit, accusing Palm Beach of violating his First Amendment rights and publicly blasted local officials for fining his patriotic display.

Trump and the town government finally came to an agreement: Trump filed for a permit and was allowed an oversized pole that was 10 feet shorter than the original pole. In return he would donate $100,000 to veterans’ charities.

He also warred with Palm Beach over his original plan for Mar-a-Lago, which was to turn its 17 acres into a subdivision. With millions in upkeep and no income generated, the property was costing him a fortune.

The Palm Beach Town Council vetoed all his construction plans. Once again, Trump sued.

Another deal was made: Trump offered to drop his lawsuit if the town let him turn the estate into a lucrative private club. The council agreed but also set a series of requirements, including capping the membership price and its capacity along with a restriction that no one was to spend more than 21 nights a year at the property.

Trump, however, has hiked the membership fees and, after he left the White House in the first term, he named Mar-a-Lago his permanent residence, getting an exemption to the 21-night stay rule.

Similar actions took place when he built Trump Tower in New York.

In 1980, Trump acquired the historic Bonwit Teller building. He demolished the 1929 Art Deco building to build his namesake tower.

Before the project began, several prominent residents expressed concern about the original building’s limestone relief panels, considered prominent works of art.

Trump agreed to preserve the panels and donate them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But as construction continued, Trump changed his mind and had the panels demolished with the building, saying they had little value and were “without artistic merit.”

It’s a slight still felt in some circles in New York society.

‘Pays total respect to the existing building’

Back in Washington, heads are shaking over the demolition of one-third of the White House structure.

After all, in July, Trump said the current building wouldn’t be touched.

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said.

Now, in addition to the destruction of the wing, he may touch parts of the original White House. Trump on Monday indicated part of one of East Wing walls will come down to connect his ballroom to the residence.

“That’s a knockout panel — you knock it out,” he explained.

The East Wing was built in 1902 as a guest entrance and expanded in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It houses the offices of the first lady and her staff, the military office and the visitors office.

It’s unclear what process FDR went through. The planning commission wasn’t established until 1952. But part of the reason he had it built was to cover the underground presidential bunker which was installed for security reasons.

Trump has already made his mark on the White House. He’s added gold gilding to the Oval Office and stacked its walls with portraits. He’s moved around presidential portraits throughout the complex and added paintings of himself.

On the colonnade, which is the walkway leading from the residence to the West Wing, Trump added a photo of each American president. One exception was Joe Biden. Trump instead placed a photo of a pen, referring to his constant criticism for Biden using the auto pen for his signature during his presidency.

He paved over the Rose Garden to make it look similar to the patio at Mar-a-Lago, putting out chairs and tables with yellow umbrellas brought up from his Florida club. And he’s installed two massive flags atop large poles — one on the North Lawn and one on the South Lawn.

And there could be more changes to come.

Scharf, at his September planning commission meeting, mentioned an upcoming beautification and redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue.

He didn’t offer any details but an earlier presentation to the commission showed plans to turn the iconic avenue into a more pedestrian friendly walkway, with a national stage for events, markets and green spaces.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which sits next door to the White House and houses most of the administration staff, could be in his sights. In his first term, Trump mulled adding gold leaf to the white granite building.

But, for now, Trump is working on plans to build a ceremonial arch outside of Arlington National Cemetery, on a traffic circle that sits between it and Memorial Bridge.

It would commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary next year. The president showed off design models and drawings to the ballroom donors, telling them there were three sizes to pick from and he was leaning toward the largest.

“Whichever one would look good. I happen to think the large one,” Trump said as the group laughed. “Why are you shocked?”

The drawings show an arch similar to France’s Arc de Triomphe with columns, eagles, wreaths and a gilded, winged figure.

Trump, earlier this month, had a model of it on his desk in the Oval Office when he was speaking to reporters on another matter.

The journalists noticed the piece and asked who it was for.

“Me,” he replied.

Emily Goodin writes for The Miami Herald and Tribune News Services.

At a car lot just off the 405 in the San Fernando Valley, there is more than meets the eye.

Galpin Motors sells new and used Fords — touting itself as one of the largest dealerships in the world. But next door, it also displays exotic rides: Shelby Cobras. A vintage purple Rolls-Royce. Sylvester Stallone’s Harley from “The Expendables.”

And then there’s the on-site diner, the Horseless Carriage, where the vinyl-covered booths have hosted generations of Valley power brokers and men who have shaped the policies of the Los Angeles Police Department for decades.

Bert Boeckmann, owner and president of Galpin Motors, stands with new Fords in his showroom.

( Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Former Galpin boss Herbert “Bert” Boeckmann was an influential figure in local politics and a member of the city’s Board of Police Commissioners, the civilian panel that oversees the LAPD. A longtime lawyer for car dealer, Alan Skobin, also served on the commission.

Now, another member of the Galpin Motors family is poised to carry on the legacy.

The City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether Jeffrey Skobin, a vice president at Galpin, will follow in his father Alan’s footsteps and join the commission.

Appointed by Mayor Karen Bass, the younger Skobin, 45, already serves on an advisory board that gives the mayor input on issues facing the Valley. He did not respond to an interview request from The Times.

Skobin cleared one hurdle last week, when the council’s public safety committee approved his nomination by a 3-1 vote.

Several committee members professed to knowing Skobin’s family, with one lauding him for the “good stock you come from.”

Skobin said he wouldn’t take the role of commissioner lightly. The five-member panel acts like a corporate board of directors, setting LAPD policies, approving its budget and scrutinizing police shootings.

“I recognize the seriousness of this role and the gravity of this responsibility,” Skobin told the committee. “My story is deeply tied to Los Angeles.”

A mega-dealership with five franchises, Galpin has long wielded influence as a source of jobs and tax revenue for the city. It was Boeckmann who established the business as a powerful player in local politics.

Rare classic Porsche sports cars on display in the Galpin Hall of Customs during the LA Auto Show’s opening day at Los Angeles Convention Center in 2021.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Boeckmann was a self-made millionaire who started out as a car salesman in 1953, seven years after Galpin opened. He eventually bought out the company’s founder, Frank Galpin.

In the decades that followed, he amassed a large corporate empire in the Valley that also included vast land holdings and a film production company.

Boeckmann and his wife, Jane, longtime publisher of the Valley magazine, backed George W. Bush for president, Gray Davis for governor and Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor.

Galpin’s website features a picture of Boeckmann and his wife meeting California Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1974. “When I think about what’s right in America, I will always think of men like Bert Boeckmann,” said the future president, according to the company.

Samantha Stevens, a Los Angeles political consultant and former legislative staffer, said candidates routinely made pilgrimages to the Galpin lot on Roscoe Boulevard to court Boekmann.

“Everybody would go and ask for their support, not just the money. You wanted the name on the endorsement list,” Stevens said.

Although Boeckmann leaned conservative, she said, he was also a force behind the scenes in L.A.’s left-leaning City Hall and seemed to put aside politics when he found causes or candidates that he believed in — including a failed push for the Valley to break away and form its own city.

Ford Explorers on a Galpin storage lot on Woodley Avenue near Van Nuys Airport.

(Los Angeles Times)

“I remember sending my liberal Democrat candidates to meet with them, and they would get donations,” Stevens said.

First appointed to the Police Commission by then-Mayor Tom Bradley in 1983, Boeckmann served two stints under three mayors.

During his 17 combined years on the panel, Boeckmann gained a reputation as its most conservative member — with critics calling him an apologist for former Chief Daryl Gates.

He sat on the commission during two of the darkest chapters in LAPD history: The fallout of the 1991 beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart corruption scandal, which uncovered cops planting evidence, dealing drugs and committing other crimes.

Boekmann died in 2023 at age 93, but the company still maintains close ties with both the LAPD and City Hall.

Campaign finance records show that Galpin and its employees, including Jeffrey Skobin, have made contributions to numerous local, state and politicians, though not Bass’ mayoral campaign.

Yet when Bass announced the possibility of laying off city workers earlier this year, she chose Galpin as the backdrop of her news conference to rally support.

Last November, less than a week after taking over as LAPD chief, Jim McDonnell held a meet- and-greet at the company’s gleaming showroom of exotic cars across the street.

Galpin twice supported McDonnell’s campaigns for Los Angeles County sheriff, with records showing tens of thousands of dollars in donations during his successful run in 2014 and his failed re-election bid four years later.

In years’ past, the company came under scrutiny after it was revealed that Boeckmann leased city land and sold cars to the city. A controversy arose when the City Council spent $2.4 million to help buy a 239-acre parcel from Boeckmann in Mandeville Canyon. For a time, the LAPD stored some undercover vehicles on Galpin properties.

Those deep ties have led to questions about whether Skobin can be an effective police watchdog. The mayor’s office scrutinized Skobin’s business for any conflicts of interest before putting forward his nomination, city officials said.

LAPD Capt. Johnny Smith said Galpin has given to countless charitable causes and regularly provides meeting space for community groups.

“Their support has always come from a place of partnership, grounded in the belief that together, we can do better for this city we all love,” said Smith, who said he has known the Skobin family for years.

Alan Skobin, 74, told The Times his work on the police commission, on which he served from 2003 to 2012, gave his son a unique window into how the department functions — and what it takes to provide police oversight.

An auto enthusiast views the Batmobile, which was formerly a Ford Futura, on display at Galpin Hall of Customs.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Number one, don’t take things that are brought to you at face value. Look beyond the surface,” he said. “Always remember you are a representative of the public, and keep that perspective. Continue to be a good listener of various views.”

The elder Skobin recalled how his teenage son once came home upset over a traffic stop that occurred while he was driving to school with a friend, who was Black. The teens felt they were pulled over for no reason — and the incident left a lasting impression about discrimination by law enforcement, Skobin said.

“One thing I know about LAPD is things slip,” he said. “And Jeff is the kind of person that will look into those things.”

The only vote against the younger Skobin when he appeared before the council’s public safety committee last week came from Hugo Soto-Martinez, who peppered him with questions about his reaction to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration raids.

“Heartbreaking,” Skobin said, noting that roughly half of Galpin’s employees are of Mexican descent. He is also married to a Mexican American woman.

Soto-Martinez also pressed him on how he would respond if he discovered that local law enforcement shares license plate reader data with federal authorities.

The license plate data allows law enforcement to track the movements of Angelenos in their vehicles without court orders, and some worry that they could potentially be used to track people for deportation.

“I think I would take a position to seek to understand the legality of that, what options there are,” Skobin said.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed legislation to study inequalities in youth sports, a move likely to draw ire from Republicans who believe the measure is intended to support transgender athletes.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 749, creates a commission to examine whether a new state board or department is needed to improve access to sports regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income or geographic location.

In an open letter last month to the governor, Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R-Santee) zeroed in on the term “gender identity.”

“The author and supporters of [this legislation] know if they were upfront and put forth a straightforward bill allowing biological males to compete against young women and girls, it would be easily defeated,” Jones wrote on Sept. 26. “So instead they are trying to establish a stacked commission to indirectly rig the issue in their favor.”

Jones urged Newsom to veto the bill and referenced the governor’s previous remarks about transgender athletes. During the first episode of his podcast “This Is Gavin Newsom,” the governor — a longtime ally of the LGBTQ+ community — acknowledged the struggle faced by transgender people but called transgender women’s participation in women’s sports “deeply unfair” and warned it was hurting Democrats at the polls.

Assemblymember Tina S. McKinnor, who introduced the bill, said Jones should keep his focus on Washington.

“Senator Brian Jones’ time would be better spent writing to the Republican controlled Congress to end the Trump Shutdown and reopen the federal government, rather than attacking trans students,” McKinnor (D-Hawthorne) wrote in an email to The Times.

Legislation referencing gender identity tends to be a lightning rod for controversy nationwide, with opinion polls suggesting Americans hold complex views on transgender issues.

A survey conducted this year by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found 66% of U.S. adults favor laws requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. At the same time, 56% of adults supported policies protecting transgender people from discrimination in jobs and public spaces.

During legislative committee hearings on the bill, McKinnor focused on the legislation’s potential racial impact. She said last year’s Play Equity Report found 59% of white youth participated in structured sports programs, compared with 47% of Black youth and 45% of Latino youth.

“Participation in youth sports remains unequal despite the well-documented physical, mental and academic benefits,” McKinnor told the Senate Health Committee in July. “These disparities stem from systemic barriers such as financial limitations, uneven program quality, outdated physical education standards and the lack of a coordinated statewide strategy.”

More than two dozen organizations endorsed the bill, including the Los Angeles Rams, city of San Diego, USC Schwarzenegger Institute, YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles and the Boys and Girls Clubs of West San Gabriel Valley and Eastside.

The legislation directs the state public health officer to convene the commission, which will be composed of 10 members appointed by the governor and three appointed by each the speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Committee on Rules. The health officer will also sit on the panel, or appoint their own designee.

Newsom did not issue a statement when his office announced a slate of bills he signed on Monday.

In March, Newsom infuriated the progressive wing of his party when, while hosting conservatives commentator Charlie Kirk on the governor’s podcast, he broke away from many Democrats on the issue of transgender athletes. Newsom, an outspoken champion of LGBTQ+ rights since he was mayor of San Francisco, publicly criticized the “unfairness” of transgender athletes participating in women’s sports.

A member of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners who led a nationwide search to hire a new LAPD chief and sparked condemnation from activists for his previous counterterrorism research is stepping down.

Erroll Southers confirmed his plans to resign through a spokesperson on Friday, ending a stormy two-year tenure on the influential civilian panel that watches over the LAPD.

The spokesperson said that Southers, 68, wanted to spend more time with his family and pursue other professional opportunities — something that wasn’t always allowed by the demands of serving as a commissioner. The officials often spend time outside their weekly meetings attending community events.

According to the spokesperson, Southers was not asked to submit his resignation, but she declined to say more about the timing of his departure.

Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Mayor Karen Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner.

Southers remained after serving out that term because of a bureaucratic loophole that allows new members to join any city commission if the City Council fails to vote on their appointment within 45 days. When the council members took no action on Southers earlier this month after his re-nomination by the mayor, a seat on the commission remained his by default.

His last commission meeting is expected to be Oct. 21 and he will step down at the end of that week. A replacement has not been announced by the mayor.

Southers had a long career in law enforcement before switching to academia and earning his doctorate in public policy. He worked as police officer in Santa Monica and later joined the FBI. He is currently a top security official in the administration at USC.

During this time on the commission, Southers pushed for changes to the way that the department hires and recruits new officers.

But more than any other commissioner, Southers has accumulated a loud chorus of detractors who point to his work on counterterrorism in the mid-2000s in Israel — which has especially become a lightning rod because of the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

Southers’ abrupt departure underscores the increasing difficulty in filling out one of the city’s most influential commissions. The panel was down a member for months after a former commissioner, Maria “Lou” Calanche, resigned so she could run for a City Council seat on the Eastside.

One previous candidate dropped out of the running after a disastrous hearing before the council, and another would-be commissioner quietly withdrew from running earlier this year.

Next Wednesday, a council committee will consider the nomination of Jeff Skobin, a San Fernando Valley car dealership executive and son of a former commissioner. Skobin’s move to the commission would still need approval from the full council.

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In the midst of negotiating a long-awaited trade deal with India, European Commissioner for Trade Maroš Šefčovič is facing a real headache: how to avoid a clash with Pakistan while resisting pressure from India to recognise the Indian origin of the long-grained, fragrant basmati rice.

“This is of course one of the issues which is on the list,” Šefčovič admitted on 12 September as he was back from a round of negotiation in New Delhi.

New discussions are taking place in Brussels this week, as both India and the European Union have set themselves the goal of reaching a trade deal before the end of the year, with the new tariff policy of the Trump administration putting both partners under pressure to build new trade ties.  

Of course, basmati rice will be among the issues discussed between Šefčovič and his Indian counterparts, as India wants its geographical indication (GI) protected in Europe.

But such recognition would not come easily, since its rival neighbour Pakistan — which has been in conflict with India over the disputed Kashmir region since the partition of the two countries in 1947 — also demands the EU to recognise basmati as of Pakistani origin.

The protection of GIs carries significant economic stakes. Trade talks between the EU and its partners usually include a separate section dedicated to it. Owing to its rich artisanal and culinary heritage, the EU — largely thanks to France, Italy and Spain — holds the largest number of GIs in the world.

In trade negotiations, Brussels seeks to have as many of its products as possible protected by the other party to prevent counterfeiting in that country, with France’s champagne and Italy’s famed Parmigiano Reggiano cheese being the most commonly forged products.

And the other party to the negotiation can accept, provided the agreement also defends its own interests and GIs.

The failure of a joint recognition

If it were up to the EU alone, it would have recognised basmati rice as Indian and Pakistani long ago — but it’s not that simple.

At the beginning, things hadn’t started off so badly. In fact, India and Pakistan had jointly led a fight against a US company RiceTec, which had obtained a patent on basmati rice in the late 1990s. In 2001, the US Patent and Trademark Office revoked that patent.

A few years later, to protect the origin of basmati in the EU, Islamabad and New Delhi collaborated between 2004 and 2008 on a joint application to the European Commission for the recognition of their shared heritage over the rice which comes from the Punjab region, situated on the border between India and Pakistan.

But the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 160 people were killed and which India attributed to Pakistani intelligence services, shattered the joint efforts of the two countries and reshuffled the deck.

After years of deadlock and tension, India unilaterally submitted a request for GI registration to the European Commission in 2018.

The application states that the rice, characterised by “an exquisite aroma, sweet taste, soft texture, delicate curvature,” is grown in the Indo-Gangetic plains, a geographic zone divided between India, Pakistan, Cambodia and Nepal, which also includes the Punjab region.

In the months that followed, Pakistan opposed India’s application, perceiving it as an attempt to secure exclusive use of the term “basmati”.

And after unsuccessful exchanges between the lawyers of both parties, Pakistan submitted its own request for GI status in 2023, listing not only the Indo-Gangetic plains but also four districts of the much-disputed Kashmir — Mirpur, Bhimber, Poonch, and Bagh — as places where basmati rice is grown.

Both sides deny requests for exclusive recognition

After several years of attempting to mediate between the two rival brothers, the EU found itself caught in the trap of territorial recognition of Kashmir — the core of the territorial dispute between India and Pakistan.

“The Commission is trying to defuse a geopolitical conflict,” Matteo Mariano, expert in trademarks at Novagraaf law firm said.

“It could have said ‘first come, first served,’ but it chose not to, considering that the territorial issues between India and Pakistan are not its concern.”

Sources from both Pakistan and India that were contacted by Euronews denied that their country was asking for exclusive recognition of the basmati origin. Yet, the path to a common solution does not seem to be emerging.

In the midst of negotiations for a much broader trade agreement — ranging from automotive markets to dairy products to public procurement — the EU finds itself walking a tightrope.

“If the Commission is strong-handed, it can force a joint registration by Pakistan and India”, Mariano said. “This depends on the importance of the trade agreement for India and whether the EU has time to block negotiations on GIs,” he explained.

According to the lawyer, if India wants to have doors opened for itself, the EU can leverage that to benefit its own companies.

But for that, the Commission will need to be a shrewd strategist, as Delhi is represented by “tough negotiators,” Šefčovič himself conceded in September.

Teresa Sánchez-Gordon was just a girl when federal immigration agents came for her.

She and her mother had been on their way to drop off a jacket at the dry cleaners when they spotted a group of suspicious-looking men, watching intently from down the street.

Sánchez-Gordon remembers her heart pounding with dread that the men were there to haul them away for being in the country without papers. Her mother grabbed her and they beelined back to their house. From their hiding place in a closet, they could hear loud knocks on their front door, Sánchez-Gordon recalled.

The agents’ demeanor turned “cordial,” Sánchez-Gordon suspects, only after her light-skinned father let them in.

“Dad could pass — he had blond hair, blue eyes,” she said in an interview earlier this year. “So when he opened the door and these agents are there, they just assumed he was an American citizen.”

Looking back decades later, Sánchez-Gordon, 74, said that that experience would shape her views and career. In her new role as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, she will help guide a Los Angeles Police Department that faces questions about how to handle the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.

Sánchez-Gordon said she recognizes the fear and desperation felt by the immigrants even while living in so-called sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles, which try to shield immigrants from deportation unless they have committed serious crimes.

“Even my housekeeper today said, ‘I’m a U.S. citizen, but I’m even afraid to go outside and go to the market, because I’ve got the ‘nopal en la frente,’” she said, pointing to her forehead while using a popular expression for someone who appears to be of Mexican descent. “So my perspective, as an East L.A. girl: I’m horrified, I’m angry.”

After her close brush with deportation as a child, Sánchez-Gordon eventually gained citizenship. An early adulthood steeped in Latino activism led to a career in law, first as a federal public defender and later a Los Angeles County judge. She retired in 2017 after two decades on the bench and was appointed last October by Mayor Karen Bass to lead the Police Commission.

Much like a corporate board of directors, the commission sets LAPD policies, approves its multibillion-dollar annual budget and scrutinizes shootings and other serious uses of force to determine whether the officers acted appropriately.

Sánchez-Gordon was born in the western Mexico state of Jalisco. Her father, a butcher by trade, emigrated and found work as a bracero picking crops in fields up and down the West Coast. He sent for his family when Sánchez-Gordon was 3. She recalled how her mother bundled her and her siblings into a bus that took them to the border, where they hired a “coyote,” or human smuggler, to get the rest of the way. They eventually settled in East L.A.

The government granted a path to legal status to laborers like Sánchez-Gordon’s father that no longer exists. In recent months, she said she has been troubled by “the way that people are being treated and the separation of families in our community … and this level of hatred toward the immigrants, the people that sustain this city.”

Of particular concern for Sánchez-Gordon is the perception that LAPD officers are working closely with federal immigration agents.

“The optics of the military being here, the optics of the National Guard being in our city, the optics of our community seeing the LAPD in some of these raids is troubling,” she said.

Sánchez-Gordon said she is open to revisiting “certain language” in Special Order 40, the policy that bars officers from stopping people for the sole purpose of asking them about their citizenship status. But she doesn’t think it necessarily needs to be overhauled in order to add more protections.

At commission meetings, she has pushed harder than her colleagues to get answers from LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell about the department’s response to the immigration raids and the protests that ensued — but stopped short of openly challenging the chief.

Sánchez-Gordon replaces Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent who is now a security official at USC, as president of the commission. Southers may still remain on the body, pending a decision by the City Council.

The commission has been down a member for months, since former member Maria “Lou” Calanche resigned so she could run for City Council. A lack of quorum has led to the cancellation of roughly a third of its meetings this year. To fill Calanche’s seat, the mayor has nominated Jeff Skobin, vice president at Galpin Motors Inc. and the son of a former longtime police commissioner.

Activists have long denounced commissioners as being puppets of the Police Department who are disconnected from the everyday struggles of Angelenos. Week in and week out, some of the board’s most vocal critics show up to its meetings to blast commissioners for ignoring the threat of mass surveillance, hiding their affiliations with special interest groups and failing to curb police shootings, which have risen to 34 from 21 at this time last year.

Sánchez-Gordon said she was surprised at first by the intensity of the meetings, but that she also understands the desire for change. Early in her career, she organized to improve conditions for people who had moved to the U.S. from other countries as part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor Immigrant Assistance Project.

She got her first taste of politics volunteering for the City Council campaign of Edward R. Roybal, who would go on to serve 15 terms in Congress. She later enrolled at the People’s College of Law, an unaccredited law school in downtown, where she rubbed shoulders with other Latino political luminaries such as Gil Cedillo and future L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

She credits conversations around the breakfast table with her husband and father-in-law, both prominent civil rights lawyers, with inspiring her to pursue a law career. After working for several years as a federal public defender, she decided to run for judge at the prodding of a mentor. Like many activists of her generation, she thought that the best way to effect change was from the inside.

Since retiring from the bench, she has continued to work as an arbitrator and is a partner at a local injury law firm.

Sánchez-Gordon said her to-do list on the commission includes understanding the department’s ongoing struggles with recruiting new officers, and getting the department ready for the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games. Once she gets settled, she said she intends to spend more time outside the commission’s meetings attending community events.

Given the recent rise in police shootings, she said it’s also important that officers have the right training and less-lethal options so they don’t immediately resort to using their guns.

She sees her new role as an extension of the work she’s been doing her whole career: “I just see it as what I’ve always done as a judge: You ask questions.”

The Los Angeles Film School is at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit from two former executives who allege the institution unlawfully collected government funds in an elaborate accreditation scheme.

Dave Phillips and Ben Chaib, the school’s former VP of career development and VP of admissions, respectively, allege in a federal lawsuit that the L.A. Film School violated federal employment requirements and accrediting standards. The lawsuit also names LAFS’ Florida counterpart Full Sail University, its main owner James Heavener and two other business partners as defendants.

The lawsuit, originally filed in L.A. federal court in June 2024, was recently unsealed after the Department of Justice opted to not investigate.

Representatives of LAFS could not be immediately reached for comment but have previously denied the claims.

In statement to Variety last week the school’s attorneys said that Phillips and Chaib are attempting “to resuscitate time-barred and erroneous allegations, which were already thoroughly investigated and settled by the Department of Education.”

For a university to be accredited and receive federal funding, the accreditation criteria state that a school must successfully instruct 70% of its students to land and hold jobs for which they are trained. The plaintiffs argue that graduates from the film school are unable to receive entry-level positions, citing an internal report which shows that most graduates earn $5,000 or less in their field of study. Only 20% of students were able to find work, the suit alleges.

LAFS receives over $85 million a year in federal financial assistance, including about $60 million in federal student loans, and more than $19 million in veterans’ financial aid funds. The Winter Park, Fla.-located Full Sail University, which teaches curriculum in entertainment-adjacent fields, also gets over $377 million per year in federal financial assistance, according to the complaint.

“For at least the last ten years, nearly all federal funds bestowed upon and taken in resulted from fraud with the institution using taxpayer funds to finance and facilitate multiple, temporary employment positions for LAFS graduates,” the lawsuit states.

Seeking to continue collecting government funds, the university is alleged to have spent nearly $1 million (between 2010 and 2017) to provide temporary employment from nonprofits and paid-off vendors. These jobs would usually last two days; LAFS would determine who would be hired, their schedule and wage. Students were led to believe these opportunities were “in-house production opportunities” and “post-graduate apprenticeships,” but instead, they were schemes planned and paid for by the school to remain an accredited university, according to the lawsuit.

Federal law prohibits higher education from “provid[ing] any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments.” When LAFS was audited in 2017, the plaintiffs further allege that the school misled the Department of Education auditors, denied the existence of the incentive compensation system and failed to disclose their connection to vendors.

Beyond collecting these federal funds, the former executives argue that the school misled students and potential enrollees by overstating the availability of jobs and making untrue or misleading statements related to employment.

LAFS was created in 1999 and is located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It offers a variety of bachelor’s and associate degrees in areas including film, film production and animation, with tuition ranging between $40,000 and $80,000.

Both plaintiffs, Phillips and Chaib, worked at the film school for 12 years and were members of the senior executive team. Phillips’ contract was not renewed in 2022.

The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges recently renewed the school’s accreditation in 2023 for a five-year period.

L.A. County’s watchdogs suddenly need to ask permission before barking to the press and public.

County oversight officials and civil rights advocates are raising concerns about a new policy they say improperly limits their rights to communicate — including with other members of local government.

The policy, enacted Sept. 11, requires oversight officials to send many types of communications to the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors for approval.

The policy says “press releases, advisories, public statements, social media content, and any direct outreach to the BOS or their staff” must be “reviewed, approved and coordinated” before being released publicly or sent to other county officials.

The policy says the change “ensures that messaging aligns with County priorities, protects sensitive relationships, and maintains a unified public voice.”

Eric Miller, a member of the Sybil Brand Commission, which conducts inspections and oversight of L.A. County jails, said the policy is the latest example of the county “attempting to limit the oversight of the Sheriff’s Department.” He said he made the remarks as a private citizen because he was concerned the new communications policy barred him from speaking to the media in his role as an oversight official.

Michael Kapp, communications manager for the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors, said in an email that he personally drafted the policy shortly after he started in his position in July and discovered there “was no existing communications guidance whatsoever for commissions and oversight bodies.”

“Without clear guidance,” he said, “commissions and oversight bodies – most of which do not have any communications staff – were developing their own ad hoc practices, which led to inconsistent messaging, risks of misinformation, and deeply uneven engagement with the Board, the media, and the public.”

Although it is increasingly common for government agencies to tightly restrict how employees communicate with the press and public, L.A. County oversight officials had enjoyed broad latitude to speak their minds. The watchdogs have been vocal about a range of issues, including so-called deputy gangs in the Sheriff’s Department and grim jail conditions.

Some questioned the timing of the policy, which comes after a recent run of negative headlines, scandals and hefty legal payouts to victims of violence and discrimination by law enforcement.

Long-time Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission Chair Robert C. Bonner presides over the commission‘s meeting at St. Anne’s Family Services in Los Angeles on June 26, 2025. Bonner says he has since been forced out of his position as chair.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Longtime Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission chair Robert Bonner said he was ousted this summer as he and his commission made a forceful push for more transparency.

In February, former commission Chair Sean Kennedy resigned after a dispute with county lawyers, stating at the time that it was “not appropriate for the County Counsel to control the COC’s independent oversight decisions.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced this month that his office is suing L.A. County and the Sheriff’s Department over a “humanitarian crisis” that has contributed to a surge in jail deaths.

Kapp said the policy came about solely “to ensure stronger, more effective communication between oversight bodies, the public, and the Board of Supervisors.”

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called the policy “troubling” and said it appears to allow the county to tell “Sybil Brand you’ve got to tone it down, or telling COC this isn’t the message the board wants to put out.”

“I learn about this policy right around the same time the state attorney general sues the county over horrific conditions in the jails,” Eliasberg said.

“There’s a ton of stuff in that lawsuit about Sybil Brand and Sybil Brand reports,” he added, citing commission findings that exposed poor conditions and treatment inside county jails, including vermin and roach infestations, spoiled food and insufficient mental health treatment for inmates.

Some current and former oversight officials said the new policy leaves a number of unanswered questions — including what happens if they ignore it and continue to speak out.

Kapp, the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors official who drafted the policy, said in his statement that “adherence is mandatory. That said, the goal is not punishment – it’s alignment and support.”

During the Civilian Oversight Commission’s meeting on Thursday, Hans Johnson, the commission’s chair, made fiery comments about the policy, calling it “reckless,” “ridiculous and ludicrous.”

The policy “represents one of the most caustic, corrosive and chilling efforts to squelch the voice of this commission, the office of inspector general and the Sybil Brand Commission,” Johnson said. “We will not be gagged.”

Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.

It cites statements by Israeli leaders, and the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, as evidence of genocidal intent.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.

A spokesperson accused the three experts on the commission of serving as “Hamas proxies” and relying “entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others” that had “already been thoroughly debunked”.

“In stark contrast to the lies in the report, Hamas is the party that attempted genocide in Israel – murdering 1,200 people, raping women, burning families alive, and openly declaring its goal of killing every Jew,” the spokesperson added.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

At least 64,905 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of the population has also been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed food security experts have declared a famine in Gaza City.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The three-member expert panel is chaired by Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief who was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide.

The commission’s latest report alleges that Israeli authorities and Israeli forces have committed four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention against a national, ethnic, racial or religious group – in this case, Palestinians in Gaza:

• Killing members of the group through attacks on protected objects; targeting civilians and other protected persons; and the deliberate infliction of conditions causing deaths
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group through direct attacks on civilians and protected objects; severe mistreatment of detainees; forced displacement; and environmental destruction
• Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part through destruction of structures and land essential to Palestinians; destruction and denial of access to medical services; forced displacement; blocking essential aid, water, electricity and fuel from reaching Palestinians; reproductive violence; and specific conditions impacting children
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births through the December 2023 attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, reportedly destroying around 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilised eggs

To fulfil the legal definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention, it must also be established that the perpetrator committed any one of those acts with specific intent to destroy the group in whole or in part.

The commission says it analysed statements made by Israeli leaders and alleges that President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have “incited the commission of genocide”.

It also states that “genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference” that could be concluded from the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and security forces in Gaza.

The commission says the pattern of conduct includes intentionally killing and seriously harming an unprecedented number of Palestinians using heavy munitions; systematic and widespread attacks on religious, cultural and education sites; and imposing a siege on Gaza and starving its population.

Israel’s government insists that its efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas’s capabilities and not at the people of Gaza. It says its forces operate in accordance with international law and take all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians.

“As early as 7 October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to inflict… ‘mighty vengeance’ on ‘all of the places where Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble’,” Pillay said in an interview with the BBC.

“His use of the phrase ‘wicked city’ in the same statement implied that he saw the whole city of Gaza [Gaza City] as responsible and a target for vengeance. And he told Palestinians to ‘leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere’.”

She added: “It took us two years to gather all the actions and make factual findings, verify whether that had happened… It’s only the facts that will direct you. And you can only bring it under the Genocide Convention if those acts were done with this intention.”

The commission says the acts of Israeli political and military leaders are “attributable to the State of Israel”, and that the state therefore “bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide”.

It also warns all other countries have an immediate obligation under the Genocide Convention to “prevent and punish the crime of genocide”, employing all measures at their disposal. If they do not, it says, they could be complicit.

“We have not gone so far as to name parties as co-conspirators, or being complicit in genocide. But that is the… ongoing work of this commission. They will get there,” Pillay said.

A number of international and Israeli human rights organisations, independent UN experts, and scholars have also accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is meanwhile hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of genocide. Israel has called the case “wholly unfounded” and based on “biased and false claims”.

Published on 15/09/2025 – 15:34 GMT+2
•Updated
15:53

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A French liberal MEP has gathered signatures from 20 other lawmakers for a letter seen by Euronews calling on the European Commission to review its commitment made under the EU-US trade agreement to purchase US energy.

In the document— soon to be sent to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, and Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen—the MEPs led by Christophe Grudler of Renew call on the EU executive to reconsider its pledge to buy $750 billion worth of US energy products over the next three years.

These products include liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil, nuclear fuels, and small modular reactors (SMRs). The signatories argue the deal will undermine the EU’s climate goals, industrial competitiveness, and strategic sovereignty.

“Increasing LNG imports from US shale gas directly undermines our climate agenda and our methane emissions regulation,” the letter says, adding: “LNG is highly polluting when liquefied, shipped across the Atlantic and regasified. Such dependence is a climate time-bomb.”

The initiative was launched by Christophe Grudler, a French MEP from the liberal Renew group.

The letter also warns that beyond energy concerns, the deal risks exposing the EU to “political blackmail”, the US demanding changes to EU climate policies, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, under which the bloc will apply levies on the carbon footprint of foreign imports from 1 January 2026.

The energy purchase commitment forms part of the EU-US agreement reached over the summer.

Some MEPs view the arrangement as deeply unbalanced, given that the US continues to impose 15% tariffs on EU goods, while the EU has agreed to make major investments in the US, including in the energy and defence sectors.

‘Economic imbalance’

In their letter to the Commission, MEPs also slam what they describe as the “economic imbalance” created by the pledge to purchase $250 billion’s worth of energy over three years. 

The letter describes this figure as “astronomical” adding: “To put this in perspective, the entire Competitiveness Fund proposed in the MFF amounts to €362 billion over seven years. How can we ask European companies to massively buy from the US while urging them to strengthen our competitiveness at home?”

The inclusion of US small modular reactors in the deal has also raised concerns among MEPs.

“At a time when the EU is building its own SMR supply chain, opening the door to US competitors is total nonsense.”

They further stress that commercial decisions “should remain the prerogative of companies, not be preempted by political pledges.”

The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to allow Southern California Edison to hike customer bills by nearly 10% next month, and there may be more increases to come.

Edison’s plan would boost the average residential bill by $17 a month or about $200 a year, the commission said. The monthly bill for a customer using 500 kilowatts would jump from $171 to $188 on Oct. 1.

The five commissioners are scheduled to vote Thursday on the PUC administrative law judge’s proposal. It’s just one of multiple rate hikes Edison has asked the commission to approve in the coming year.

Scores of angry customers have written to the commission since Edison proposed the hike, asking the panel to deny it.

Some customers have pointed out that even as Edison has charged more for tree trimming and equipment upgrades meant to make its system safer and more reliable, its electric lines continue to spark fires.

The company now faces dozens of lawsuits from victims of the Jan. 7 Eaton fire, which killed at least 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena. Video captured the fire igniting under an Edison transmission tower. The investigation into the fire’s cause is continuing.

“Please, do not let SCE pass their damages on to their customers,” Sara Green, a Crestline resident, wrote to the commission. “Let them cut executive salaries and forgo dividends, rather than pass this on unilaterally to every customer.”

Other customers have complained about increasing outages, including the preventative blackouts the company uses to try to stop its equipment from sparking fires in hot, windy weather.

William Pilling, a resident of Rovana, a small unincorporated community near Bishop, told the commission last month that he and his neighbors were experiencing “highly frequent service interruptions.”

“This is the very definition of unreliable service,” Pilling wrote. ”We are now being asked to pay more per unit for a lower quality good.”

David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesman, said in an interview that the company was sensitive to concerns about rising rates. “We know that rate changes are challenging for customers,” he said.

“The cost of action is high, but the cost of inaction is higher,” Eisenhauer said. The increases, he said, were needed to support “a reliable and resilient electric grid that is ready to enable the clean energy transition.”

The proposed 10% hike is the result of what the commission calls a general rate case, where the agency allows utilities to propose how much they need to spend to operate and maintain the electrical grid for the next four years.

After months of hearings and debate, an administrative law judge recommended that the commission allow Edison to spend $9.8 billion on those costs this year — 13.7% more than the amount authorized for last year, according to the release. The proposal is less than the nearly $10.5 billion that Edison had initially requested.

Under the plan, Edison will get additional increases for inflation — and customers will see corresponding hikes — for each year through 2028, the commission said.

Edison says it has increased its spending aimed at preventing wildfires, including by undergrounding lines, installing new insulated wires and increasing equipment inspections in areas with high fire risk. The company has also increased the trimming of trees and other vegetation growing near its equipment.

Eisenhauer said that since 2019 wildfire-related investments have helped drive up rates.

He added that demand for electricity is “growing faster than it has in decades” leading to higher costs. In addition, he said, “threats to grid safety and reliability are becoming more frequent and more costly.”

Since 2014, Edison’s rates have risen by 80% — more than twice the rate of inflation, the commission’s public advocates office said in a May report.

More than 860,000 Edison customers — or 19% of the total — are behind in paying their electric bills, the report said. The average unpaid balance was $957.

The proposed 10% hike is one of several increases Edison has asked the commission to approve, or that state officials have already greenlighted.

In November, customers who use little electricity, like those living in small apartments or those owning solar panels, will see higher bills when the company begins adding a $24 monthly fixed charge, according to a recent Edison release.

In return, the price per kilowatt hour will fall, leading to possible savings for those using more power. For example, a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatts per month — double the average — will see their bill decline to $355 from $380, according to the release.

The commission designed the new monthly charge, which applies to customers of the state’s three largest for-profit electric companies, so that revenue increases from the new fees match the loss from the lower price per kilowatt hour.

The new fee was created under a bill pushed through the state Legislature in 2022 by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The utilities asked for the change in how electricity was billed to encourage Californians to switch to electric-powered vehicles and home appliances.

Edison also expects to raise rates for the damages from two catastrophic wildfires that investigators found the utility’s equipment sparked.

It has asked the commission for a nearly 2% increase to cover $5.4 billion in damages from the 2018 Woolsey fire, which killed three people and destroyed more than 1,600 homes and other structures in Malibu and nearby communities.

Earlier this year, the commission agreed Edison could increase rates by less than 1% to collect $1.6 billion from customers for damages from the 2017 Thomas fire. The blaze burned more than 280,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and left barren hillsides that helped set off mudslides in Montecito that killed 23 people. The commission must still sign off on final approval of the hike.

Eisenhauer said that under state law utilities are allowed to shift fire damages to customers if they have operated their system prudently and reasonably. He said the two fires were “largely driven by unprecedented and extreme weather events and other factors outside SCE’s control.”

In another proposal, Edison has asked the commission to raise customer bills by 2.1% to increase profits going to its investors, according to its customer notice. The plan would increase its cost of capital — the rate that helps determine how much profit it earns when it builds electric lines and other infrastructure.

The utility asked for the increase in investor profits after its stock price plummeted in January when lawyers claimed its transmission line had ignited the Eaton fire. The company told the commission that because of California’s high risk of wildfire, it needed to earn higher profits to encourage investors to continue holding its stock and to bolster its credit rating.

Despite Edison’s rapidly rising spending on insulated wires, tree trimming and other fire prevention work, its equipment sparked 178 fires last year — up from 90 in 2023.

Company executives said most of those ignitions were small fires that did not spread. The number of fires each year, they said, depends on the weather. Last year, heavy rain and then hot weather, they said, left more dried vegetation.

Edison has said its increased fire prevention work will decrease the number of times that it must shut off power to communities in hot, windy weather to stop lines from sparking fires.

Yet the company said at an Aug. 19 meeting that it expects the number of days of preventative power shutoffs to increase by 20% to 40% this year and that the number of customers subject to them could be twice as high.

Eisenhauer explained that the number of preventative shutoffs was expected to rise because the utility recently lowered the wind speed thresholds that trigger them. The company also added 47,000 more customers to areas believed to have high fire risk, which are subject to the preventative shutoffs, he said.

At the August meeting, Edison executives touted the success of the company’s fire prevention work.

In a presentation, Timothy O’Toole, an Edison board member and head of its safety and operations committee, noted the devastation the January fires caused in and around Los Angeles.

“Nonetheless, we remain very proud and confident in the progress we’ve made,” he said.

O’Toole said the utility’s fire prevention work had “created ever greater protection for our communities and our customers.”

Later in the meeting, Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the state Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, questioned O’Toole’s repeated praise of the company’s work to prevent fires.

“Your tone sounded defensive and justifying the progress that’s made as opposed to acknowledging the humility of what an event like the January fires I would think would bring,” she said to O’Toole.

The public can comment on the proposed hike at the meeting on Thursday or in the docket for the case.

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday let President Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by Supreme Court.

Trump first moved to fire Rebecca Slaughter in the spring, but she sued and lower courts ordered her reinstated because the law allows commissioners to be removed only for problems like misconduct or neglect of duty.

Roberts halted those decisions in a brief order, responding to an appeal from the Trump administration on the court’s emergency docket.

The Justice Department has argued that the FTC and other executive branch agencies are under Trump’s control and the Republican president is free to remove commissioners without cause.

Slaughter’s lawsuit over her firing will keep playing out, as Roberts asked her lawyers to respond to the Trump administration’s arguments by next week.

The court has previously allowed the firings of several other board members of independent agencies. It has suggested, however, that his power to fire has limitations at the Federal Reserve, a prospect that could soon be tested with the case of Fed Gov. Lisa Cook.

Monday’s order is the latest sign that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has effectively abandoned a 90-year-old high court precedent that protected some federal agencies from arbitrary presidential action.

In the 1935 decision known as Humphrey’s Executor, the court unanimously held that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause.

The decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue the modern administrative state gets the Constitution all wrong because such agencies should answer to the president.

The agency at the center of the case was also the FTC, a point cited by lower-court judges in the lawsuit filed by Slaughter. She has ping-ponged in and out of the job as the case worked its way through the courts.

The FTC is a regulator created by Congress that enforces consumer protection measures and antitrust legislation. Its seats are typically comprised of three members of the president’s party and two from the opposing party.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — The European Commission on Friday fined Google $3.455 billion for violating the European Union’s anti-competitive practices in advertising technology, prompting a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose higher tariffs.

Earlier this week, a U.S. federal judge ordered the U.S.-headquartered company to hand over its search results and some data to rival companies. The Justice Department challenged Google’s dominance in online search. But Google avoided having to sell off its Chrome browser or Android operating system.

The DOJ also is suing Google in another advertising case with the trial set to start later this month.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the fine is “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs.

“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies.”

In a follow-up post five minutes later, Trump said Google has paid in the past “13 Billion in false claims and charged for a total of $16.5 Billion.”

On July 27, Trump reached a deal with EU in July for a 15% levy on most imports from Europe. The European bloc agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of energy from the U.S., and invest $600 billion more in other areas.

The European Commission, which represents 27 nations, said it fined Google “for breaching EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry (‘adtech’). It did so by favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers,” according to a news release.

Google has 60 days how it intends to “bring these self-preferencing practices to an end and to implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain.”

The commission noted that advertisers and publishers rely on digital tools for the placement of real-time ads not linked to a search query, such as banner ads in websites of newspapers.

The EC began investigating Google in 2021. Investigators found that since 2014 Google “abused such dominant positions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.”

“Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers and consumers,” Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s top antitrust regulator, said in a statement. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies.

“Digital markets exist to serve people and must be grounded in trust and fairness. And when markets fail, public institutions must act to prevent dominant players from abusing their power. True freedom means a level playing field, where everyone competes on equal terms and citizens have a genuine right to choose.

Google plans to appeal.

“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement to The New York Times.

A variety of businesses, small and large, advertise on Google’s search engine. Google’s automated system finds and indexes webpages. In 2024, Google began providing artificial intelligence summaries through AI Mode.

Google has an 89.93% woldwide market share of search engines with Microsoft Bing second at 3.95%, Russia’s Yandex third at 2.21% and Apollo Global Management’s Yahoo fourth at 1.48%, according to StatCounter.

Google processes approximately 16.4 billion searches per day.

In 2023, Google had $264.59 billion in ad revenue, mainly from search, according to Statista. The company’s total revenue was 305.63 billion.

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who developed a search algorithm called “BackRub” at Stanford University. In 2021, the ad revenue was 70 million.

The name Google is a misspelling of Googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google’s parent company is Alphabet, which was formed in 2015 through restructuring. It is the world’s third-largest tech company in terms of revenue behind Amazon and Apple. Alphabet’s total revenue was $350 billion in 2024 with the market capitalization now $2.83 trillion.

In mid-day trading on Nasdaq, Alphabet’s stock was up $1.59 to $233.89.

Besides Chrome, Android and its search engine, other Google businesses include Google Cloud, Google Maps and Waze, Google Pixel, Next and YouTube.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida will work to phase out all childhood vaccine mandates in the state, building on the effort by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DeSantis also announced on Wednesday the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives pushed at the federal level by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

On the vaccines, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on people’s rights bordering on “slavery,” and hampers parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.

“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” said Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, at a news conference in Valrico, Florida, in the Tampa area. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”

The state Health Department, Ladapo said, can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”

Florida would be the first state to eliminate so many vaccine mandates, Ladapo added.

In Florida, vaccine mandates for child day care facilities and public schools include shots for measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, Diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP), polio and other diseases, according to the state Health Department’s website.

Under DeSantis, Florida resisted imposing COVID vaccines on schoolchildren, requiring “passports” for places that draw crowds, school closures and mandates that workers get the shots to keep their jobs.

“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida. We want to stay ahead of the curve,” the governor said.

The state “MAHA” commission would look into such things as allowing informed consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food, boosting parental rights regarding medical decisions about their children, and eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by the data,” DeSantis said. The commission will be chaired by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis.

“We’re getting government out of the way, getting government out of your lives,” Collins said.

The commission’s work will help inform a large “medical freedom package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which would address the vaccine mandates required by state law and make permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions, DeSantis said.

“There will be a broad package,” the governor said.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California energy regulators Friday put the brakes on plans requiring oil companies to pay a penalty if their profits climb too high, a temporary win for the fossil fuel industry two years after the governor declared the state had “finally beat big oil.”

The postponement by the California Energy Commission until 2030 comes after two oil refineries accounting for roughly 18% of the state’s refining capacity announced their plans to close in the coming months. The commission has the power to implement a penalty but has not done so since it was given that authority in 2023.

The penalty was considered a landmark piece of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s government and the state’s ambitious goals to curb climate change. The state faces challenges in its efforts to take on the oil industry while ensuring a stable and affordable fuel supply. His administration is also proposing to temporarily streamline approvals of new oil wells in existing oil fields in an effort to maintain a stable fuel supply.

Siva Gunda, the commission’s vice chair, said the state is not “walking back” its efforts to wean itself off fossil fuels but must prioritize protecting consumers at the gas pump.

“I personally truly believe that this pause will be beneficial to ensure that this mid-transition is smooth,” he said.

The commission still plans to set rules that would require oil refineries to keep a minimum level of fuel on hand to avoid shortages when refineries go offline for maintenance.

Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog who supported the law, said the energy commission’s vote is “basically a giveaway to the industry.”

“I’m really disheartened and disgusted by Newsom,” he said. “I feel like this is just a total about-face. And in the end it’s going to result in greater price spikes.”

But the Western States Petroleum Association recommended that the state postpone a penalty for 20 years.

“While today’s action by the CEC stopped short of a full statutory repeal or a 20-year pause, it represents a needed step to provide some certainty for California’s fuels market,” CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd said in a statement. “The vote demonstrates the CEC’s understanding that imposing this failed policy would have likely exacerbated investment concerns contributing to California’s recent refinery closures.”

In 2022, Newsom called the Legislature into a special session to pass a law aimed at holding oil companies accountable for making too much money after a summer of record-high gas prices in California. The governor signed a law the following year authorizing the energy commission to penalize oil companies for excessive profits.

The law also required oil companies to report more data on their operations to the state. It created an independent division at the commission to oversee the oil and gas industry and provide guidance to the state on its energy transition.

Newsom’s office thanked the energy commission for voting to postpone implementing a penalty, saying it was a “prudent step” toward stabilizing the oil market.

“When Governor Newsom signed this legislation two years ago, he promised that we would utilize the new transparency tools to look under the hood of our oil and gas market that had been a black box for decades,” spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said in a statement. “We did exactly that.”

Julia Stein, deputy director of a climate institute at UCLA School of Law, said state officials are still intent on advancing their efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

“But I think there is also a sense at the state level that we’re entering a different phase of the transition where some of these problems are going to be presented more acutely,” she said. “And folks are kind of now trying to understand how they’re going to approach that in real time.”

California has the highest gas prices in the nation, largely due to taxes and environmental regulations. Regular unleaded gas prices were $4.59 a gallon Friday, compared to a national average of $3.20, according to AAA.

The commission has not determined what would count as an excessive profit under the policy.

Setting a penalty could be risky for the state because it could unintentionally discourage production and drive prices up, said Severin Borenstein, an economist and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s pretty clear they are shifting towards more focus on affordability and recognition that the high prices in California may not be associated with the actual refinery operations,” he said of state officials.

Austin writes for the Associated Press.

For Patricia Sinay, one of the highlights of her life was serving on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which spent well over a year painstakingly plotting out the state’s political boundaries.

“I got to witness democracy at its core,” said Sinay, 58, who lives in Encinitas and works as a consultant in the world of nonprofits.

“There were 14 very diverse people who came at this work from different backgrounds,” she said. “Some may have known more than others about redistricting. But by the end we were all experts and focused on the same thing, which was creating fair maps for the people of California.”

Now, a good deal of that work may come undone, as voters are being asked to scrap the even-handed congressional lines drawn by Sinay and her fellow commissioners in favor of a blatantly gerrymandered map that could all but wipe out California’s Republican representation in Congress.

Sinay, a Democrat, is ambivalent.

She understands the impetus behind the move, a tit-for-tat response to a similar Republican gerrymander in Texas, done at President Trump’s behest to shore up the GOP’s chances ahead of a perilous 2026 midterm election.

“I think what President Trump requested is absolutely abhorrent. I think that Texas doing this is absolutely abhorrent,” Sinay said. “I do not support the actions of the current administration. I think that their actions are absolutely dangerous and scary.”

But, she said, “I don’t think this is the best way to stop what the administration is doing.”

Sinay noted Republicans have more gerrymandering opportunities nationwide than Democrats, should political adversaries go that route, and she questioned the cost of California’s Nov. 4 special election, which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

“There are too many people right now that are hurting that could use that money in much better ways,” Sinay said.

Other commissioners disagree.

Sara Sadhwani, 45, a Democrat who teaches political science at Pomona College, spoke at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rally kicking off the gerrymandering effort and testified before the state Senate, urging lawmakers to put the matter before voters so they can give Democrats a lift.

“These are extraordinary times,” Sadhwani said, “and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”

Trena Turner, a pastor in Stockton and fellow commissioner, said she’s tremendously proud of the commission’s work and believes its impartial approach to political line-drawing is a model the rest of America should embrace.

But, she said, “I don’t think we should be playing by individual rules, different rules from state to state,” given what’s taken place in Texas and the threat of GOP gerrymandering in other places, such as Florida.

“The voices that we need to speak up for now are not just our individual congressional districts,” said the 64-year-old Democrat. “We need to speak up for the voices of our nation, for the soul of our nation.”

Neal Fornaciari, a Republican who chairs the redistricting commission, said individual members are speaking strictly for themselves. (Though its map-making function was completed at the end of 2021, the commission remains in existence.)

Commissioners “are exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech,” said Fornaciari, 63, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Shingletown, in the far north of California. But, he emphasized, “The commission is in no way involved in this redistricting effort.”

He even declined to state his personal views on the Democratic gerrymander, lest someone mistakenly assume Fornaciari was speaking on the commission’s behalf.

The body was created in 2008 when California voters approved Proposition 11, also known as the Voters First Act. Spearheaded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure sought to bring balance to legislative races by taking redistricting away from lawmakers, who tended to draw the state’s political lines to suit their interests and minimize competition.

In 2010, voters extended the commission’s oversight to congressional races.

Consisting of 14 members, the panel is divided among five Democrats, five Republicans and four members with no party affiliation. More than 30,000 Californians applied for the positions.

The 14 who landed the job survived a grueling selection process, overseen by the nonpartisan state auditor, which involved detailed questionnaires, multiple essays and face-to-face interviews. The final lineup included a seminary professor, a structural engineer and an investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Over the course of 16 months — and through days sometimes lasting 12 hours or more — commissioners produced 176 maps. They created district boundaries for 52 members of Congress, 120 state lawmakers and four members of the Board of Equalization, which oversees tax collection in California.

Commissioners worked for free, receiving no salary, though they did get a $378 per diem on days they spent in session.

It’s a point of pride that no one sued to overturn the commission’s work, a rarity in the highly litigious field of redistricting.

“Most of the time if you watched our meetings I doubt if you could have correctly guessed all our political affiliations,” Russell Yee, a Republican commissioner, said in an email. “We approved our final maps unanimously. We proved that citizens can rise above political, racial, regional, and generational differences to do the public’s work together in an open and successful manner.”

(All commission meetings were open to the public, with proceedings livestreamed on the internet.)

Yee, 64, the academic director at a small Christian study center in Berkeley, said he was generally opposed to the Democratic gerrymandering effort “because two wrongs don’t make a right. The ends do not justify the means.”

However, while Yee leans against Proposition 50, as the November ballot measure has been designated, he will “keep listening with an open mind.”

Even if voters crumple up and toss the congressional maps Yee and others drafted, none felt as though their labors were wasted. For one thing, they said, the other political boundaries, for state legislative contests and the Board of Equalization, will remain intact. And the congressional lines yielded a set of highly competitive races in 2020 and 2024.

“We’ve shown twice now that independent, citizen redistricting can work well even in a state as populous, demographically diverse, and geographically complex at California,” Yee said.

For her part, Sinay, the nonprofit consultant, is uncertain about Proposition 50.

One thing she wants, Sinay said, is reassurance “this isn’t a permanent power grab” and that congressional redistricting will, in fact, revert to the commission after the next census, as Newsom and gerrymandering proponents have promised. Sidelining self-interested politicians is definitely a better way to draw political maps, she suggested, but ultimately it’s up to voters to decide.

“I will definitely support whatever the people of California want,” Sinay said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — U.S. veterans of the war in Afghanistan are telling a commission reviewing decisions on the 20-year conflict that their experience was not only hell, but also confounding, demoralizing and at times humiliating.

The bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission aims to reflect such veterans’ experiences in a report due to Congress next year, which will analyze key strategic, diplomatic, military and operational decisions made between June 2001 and the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021.

The group released its second interim report on Tuesday, drawing no conclusions yet but identifying themes emerging from thousands of pages of government documents; some 160 interviews with cabinet-level officials, military commanders, diplomats, Afghan and Pakistani leaders and others; and forums with veterans like one recently held at a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Columbus, Ohio.

“What can we learn from the Afghanistan War?” asked an Aug. 12 discussion session with four of the commission’s 16 members. What they got was two straight hours of dozens of veterans’ personal stories — not one glowingly positive, and most saturated in frustration and disappointment.

“I think the best way to describe that experience was awful,” said Marine veteran Brittany Dymond, who served in Afghanistan in 2012.

Navy veteran Florence Welch said the 2021 withdrawal made her ashamed she ever served there.

“It turned us into a Vietnam, a Vietnam that none of us worked for,” she said.

Members of Congress, some driven by having served in the war, created the independent commission several months after the withdrawal, after an assessment by the Democratic administration of then-President Biden faulted the actions of President Trump’s first administration for constraining U.S. options. A Republican review, in turn, blamed Biden. Views of the events remain divided, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered yet another review this spring.

The commission wants to understand the bigger picture of a conflict that spanned four presidential administrations and cost more than 2,400 American lives, said Co-Chair Dr. Colin Jackson.

“So we’re interested in looking hard at the end of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, but we’re equally interested in understanding the beginning, the middle and the end,” he said in an interview in Columbus.

Co-chair Shamila Chaudhary said the panel is also exploring more sweeping questions.

“So our work is not just about what the U.S. did in Afghanistan but what the U.S. should be doing in any country where it deems it has a national security interest,” she said. “And not just should it be there, but how it should behave, what values does it guide itself by, and how does it engage with individuals who are very different from themselves.”

Jackson said one of the commission’s priorities is making sure the final report, due in August 2026, isn’t “unrecognizable to any veteran of the Afghanistan conflict.”

“The nature of the report should be representative of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine experience,” he said.

Dymond told commissioners a big problem was the mission.

“You cannot exert a democratic agenda, which is our foreign policy, you cannot do that on a culture of people who are not bought into your ideology,” she said. “What else do we expect the outcome to be? And so we had two decades of service members lost and maimed because we’re trying to change an ideology that they didn’t ask for.”

The experience left eight-year Army veteran Steve Orf demoralized. He said he didn’t go there “to beat a bad guy.”

“Those of us who served generally wanted to believe that we were helping to improve the world, and we carried with us the hopes, values, and principles of the United States — values and principles that also seem to have been casualties of this war,” he told commissioners. “For many of us, faith with our leaders is broken and trust in our country is broken.”

Tuesday’s report identifies emerging themes of the review to include strategic drift, interagency incoherence, and whether the war inside Afghanistan and the counterterrorism war beyond were pursuing the same aims or at cross purposes.

It also details difficulties the commission has encountered getting key documents. According to the report, the Biden administration initially denied the commission’s requests for White House materials on the implementation of the February 2020 peace agreement Trump signed with the Taliban, called the Doha Agreement, and on the handling of the withdrawal, citing executive confidentiality concerns.

The transition to Trump’s second term brought further delays and complications, but since the commission has pressed the urgency of its mission with the new administration, critical intelligence and documents have now begun to flow, the report says.

Smyth and Aftoora-Orsagos write for the Associated Press.