Congress

At a time when its leadership is in question and its mission challenged, the Library of Congress has named a new U.S. poet laureate, the much-honored author and translator Arthur Sze.

The library announced Monday that the 74-year-old Sze had been appointed to a one-year term, starting this fall. The author of 12 poetry collections and recipient last year of a lifetime achievement award from the library, he succeeds Ada Limón, who had served for three years. Previous laureates also include Joy Harjo, Louise Glück and Billy Collins.

Speaking during a recent Zoom interview with the Associated Press, Sze acknowledged some misgivings when Rob Casper, who heads the library’s poetry and literature center, called him in June about becoming the next laureate.

He wondered about the level of responsibilities and worried about the upheaval since President Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in May. After thinking about it overnight, he called Casper back and happily accepted.

“I think it was the opportunity to give something back to poetry, to something that I’ve spent my life doing,” he explained, speaking from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. “So many people have helped me along the way. Poetry has just helped me grow so much, in every way.”

Sze’s new job begins during a tumultuous year for the library, a 200-year-old, nonpartisan institution that holds a massive archive of books published in the United States. Trump abruptly fired Hayden after conservative activists accused her of imposing a “woke” agenda, criticism that Trump has expressed often as he seeks sweeping changes at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums and other cultural institutions.

Hayden’s ouster was sharply criticized by congressional Democrats, leaders in the library and scholarly community and such former laureates as Limón and Harjo.

Although the White House announced that it had named Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche as the acting librarian, daily operations are being run by a longtime official at the library, Robert Randolph Newlen. Events such as the annual National Book Festival have continued without interruption or revision.

Laureates are forbidden to take political positions, although the tradition was breached in 2003 when Collins publicly stated his objections to President George W. Bush’s push for war against Iraq.

Newlen is identified in Monday’s announcement as acting librarian, a position he was in line for according to the institution’s guidelines. He praised Sze, whose influences range from ancient Chinese poets to Wallace Stevens, for his “distinctly American” portraits of the Southwest landscapes and for his “great formal innovation.”

“Like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sze forges something new from a range of traditions and influences — and the result is a poetry that moves freely throughout time and space,” his statement reads in part.

Sze’s official title is poet laureate consultant in poetry, a 1985 renaming of a position established in 1937 as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. The mission is loosely defined as a kind of literary ambassador, to “raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.”

Sze wants to focus on a passion going back more than a half-century to his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley — translation.

He remembers reading some English-language editions of Chinese poetry, finding the work “antiquated and dated” and deciding to translate some of it himself, writing out the Chinese characters and engaging with them “on a much deeper level” than he had expected. Besides his own poetry, he has published “The Silk Dragon: Translations From the Chinese.”

“I personally learned my own craft of writing poetry through translating poetry,” he says. “I often think that people think of poetry as intimidating, or difficult, which isn’t necessarily true. And I think one way to deepen the appreciation of poetry is to approach it through translation.”

Sze is a New York City native and son of Chinese immigrants who in such collections as “Sight Lines” and “Compass Rose” explores themes of cultural and environmental diversity and what he calls “coexisting.”

In a given poem, he might shift from rocks above a pond to people begging in a subway, from a firing squad in China to Thomas Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia. His many prizes include the National Book Award for “Sight Lines.”

He loves poetry from around the world but feels at home writing in English, if only for the “richness of the vocabulary” and the wonders of its origins.

“I was just looking at the word ‘ketchup,’ which started from southern China, went to Malaysia, was taken to England, where it became a tomato-based sauce, and then, of course, to America,” he says. “And I was just thinking days ago, that’s a word we use every day without recognizing its ancestry, how it’s crossed borders, how it’s entered into the English language and enriched it.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press.

Isadore Hall, a former state legislator and Compton City Council member, launched a campaign Monday to challenge Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

Mejia, a young leftist who electrified the typically staid race for controller in 2022, announced his own reelection bid earlier this month.

Hall, who is backed by a slew of prominent endorsers, argues that Mejia has been more focused on “social media theatrics” than protecting tax dollars.

He said he would bring common sense leadership and accountability, citing his lengthy track record in elected office and master’s degrees in management and public administration, as well as experience weeding out government waste and fraud in Compton.

Hall, who moved to Los Angeles in 2016 and represented parts of the city in both the Assembly and the state Senate, said he launched his bid after being asked by “some elected officials,” along with several pastors and labor leaders, though he declined to provide specifics.

Hall’s endorsements include L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger, L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, California Treasurer Fiona Ma, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and five state legislators. If elected, Hall would be the city’s first Black controller; Mejia, who is Filipino American, previously made history as the first Asian American elected to citywide office in L.A.

“It’s one thing to be a great finance person or an auditor or a person who understands numbers … but you also have to have a temperament. You also have to understand the importance of governance,” Hall said, arguing that Mejia’s office is poorly managed and lacks good communication with city department heads and other local leaders.

Mejia has sought to demystify the city’s complex budget process and finances with frequent social media videos. His office has audited the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of helicopters, homeless shelter bed data and the implementation of an anti-tenant harassment ordinance, among other topics.

It’s still unclear whether other candidates will enter the race for controller — a coveted role that is one of three citywide offices, along with mayor and city attorney.

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has been rumored to potentially be interested in a bid for either mayor or controller, though she declined to discuss her plans with The Times last week.

Hall and Mejia represent vastly different flanks of the Democratic Party, and the coming race will almost certainly pit L.A. establishment politics against the city’s ascendant left.

Three years ago, despite being heavily outspent, Mejia made political mincemeat of Paul Koretz, who had held elected office since before he was born. Young voters who were previously unaware that L.A. even had a controller were galvanized by Mejia’s unorthodox campaign, which directed an unprecedented spotlight toward L.A.’s chief accounting officer, auditor and paymaster.

Mejia’s successful campaign coincided with a moment where faith in L.A. City Hall was at a nadir amid numerous criminal scandals and an explosive leaked recording of some City Council members frankly discussing politics in sometimes racist terms. The question in 2026 will be whether the civic pendulum has shifted and if the phrase “veteran politician” still doubles as an effective slur. Mejia will also now be running as the incumbent rather than an outsider.

Hall, 52, has spent roughly 15 years in elected office, beginning with the Compton school board in his mid-20s.

Like Mejia, who is now 34, Hall found success in politics relatively young. But his career ascended the old-fashioned way — through incrementally higher offices and with the support of the pastors, labor and community groups who have long powered the Democratic political machine in South L.A. and surrounding cities.

After losing a hard-fought bid for Congress in 2016, Hall was appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Agricultural and Labor Relations Board. Hall was originally seen as a shoo-in victor during his congressional campaign, but underdog challenger Nanette Barragán succeeded, in part, by hammering him on his ties to special interests in the oil, alcohol and tobacco industries, according to prior Times reporting.

Mejia first made his name with unsuccessful runs for Congress as a Green Party candidate. He found his stride and exploded as a political pied piper of sorts during the 2022 election, where his energetic TikTok videos, sharp billboards and occasional dances in a Pikachu costume helped fuel the energy of the moment.

Attempts by critics to paint Mejia in 2022 as too “extreme” because of his anti-police positions and past bombastic tweets largely fell flat.

He faced some growing pains in City Hall, including early staff turmoil within his office, but he has largely been a quieter presence than many expected.

As the race heats up, Mejia will almost certainly attack Hall for a number of controversies involving campaign finance.

During his 2014 campaign for state Senate, rivals attacked Hall for his use of campaign funds to pay for expensive dinners, limousine rentals, luxury suites at concerts and trips — expenses he defended as legitimate campaign costs.

In his 2016 congressional run, he was accused of illegally spending general election funds during the primary. A Federal Election Commission audit confirmed some misuse but took no enforcement action.

Hall said last week that he hadn’t been an expert in the complex rules of congressional campaign finance but held his accountant accountable for the error and learned from the experience.

The postponed hearing could lead to the removal of Ozgur Ozel, the Republican People’s Party’s chairman.

A court in Ankara has postponed the hearing of a controversial case that could oust the leader of Turkiye’s main opposition party, amid protests against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Monday, the hearing about alleged internal irregularities during the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 congress was adjourned until October 24.

Prosecutors have accused CHP leaders of vote-buying at the internal event in 2023 in which Ozgur Ozel was elected chairman, allegations the CHP says are politically motivated.

The case is the latest in a long line of challenges faced by the party.

The Turkish government has rejected accusations of political interference, insisting the judiciary acts independently.

Officials said the cases against CHP figures stem from corruption charges, which the party denied and argued are designed to weaken the opposition.

Turkish authorities have jailed hundreds of CHP members this year for alleged corruption, including Erdogan’s main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was arrested in March.

Critics say the crackdown is an attempt to destabilise Turkiye’s oldest political party, which won a large victory over Erdogan’s AK Party, or Justice and Development Party, in local elections last year.

On Sunday, Ozel told thousands of protesters in the national capital that the case was part of Erdogan’s wider attempt to undermine democracy.

“This case is political, the allegations are slander,” said Ozel, who claimed CHP was experiencing the “grave consequences” of government oppression.

“Anyone who poses a democratic threat to the government is now the government’s target,” he suggested.

The government denies the claim. Erdogan has described the CHP network as corrupt, comparing it with “an octopus whose arms stretch to other parts of Turkiye and abroad”.

Reporting from Ankara, Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said the CHP congress case had been criticised by legal experts.

“Many legal experts are against the procedure because, according to the Turkish laws, any irregularity related to a political party’s internal dynamics should be taken care of by the higher election board, not by a local board,” Koseoglu noted.

Imamoglu, the CHP’s presidential candidate, also accused Erdogan and his allies of anti-democratic actions.

“This isn’t about the CHP, it’s about the existence or absence of democracy in Turkiye,” he said, after appearing in court on Friday in an unrelated case.

The CHP has had a chequered history with democracy despite founding modern Turkiye. The CHP pursued authoritarian policies in the past that suppressed ethnic and religious minorities and it has been a key factor in how Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were able to rise to power and hold it.

There is also an historical distrust of the CHP from many communities who will continue to stand with the AKP regardless.

After Imamoglu’s arrest, Turkiye experienced its largest protests in more than a decade.

In advance of the Ankara court ruling, at least 50,000 people took part in a protest in the capital on Sunday.

Over the weekend, the Turkish authorities arrested 48 more people as part of the inquiry into the CHP.

On September 2, a court removed the leadership of the party’s Istanbul branch over the allegations of vote-buying at its provincial congress. The decision was seen by analysts as a test run for the congress case that was adjourned on Monday.

Following the ruling earlier this month, Turkiye’s stock market plummeted by 5.5 percent, raising fears about its already fragile economy.

Actor Martin Sheen, who portrayed a president on television and is the father of admitted drug user Charlie Sheen, testified before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to ask Congress for continued support of drug courts, an alternative criminal justice program.

A drug court is a special docket that addresses the cases of nonviolent drug offenders. Members participate in substance abuse treatment programs – usually for at least one year – and are subject to random drug testing. There are currently more than 2,500 drug courts across the country, treating more than 120,000 Americans.

Drug court advocates contend that the courts help reduce recidivism, reducing the number of people in prison and returning law-abiding, tax-paying citizens to society. Drug court participants reported 25% less criminal activity and had 16% fewer arrests than comparable offenders not enrolled in drug courts, according to a Justice Department study.

“It’s a deeply personal [issue],” Sheen told reporters after the congressional hearing, adding that “it’s no secret I’ve been through a 12-step program.”

Sheen quickly reminded lawmakers that he’s no expert on the subject.

“Celebrity, to a greater or lesser degree, is often confused for credibility. For instance, I am not a former president of the United States,” Sheen said in his opening remarks, a reference to his role as President Jed Bartlet on the Emmy award-winning television show “The West Wing.” Sheen is also well-known for his critically acclaimed role in “Apocalypse Now,” a 1979 film about the war in Vietnam.

Despite his amateur political status, Sheen noted that he helped create a drug court in Berkeley in 1996. Graduates from that drug court helped establish sober-living houses in the area. Since then, he’s been an advocate for drug courts because “it is an extension of my work with the peace and social justice community,” he said.

The hearing was called by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s crime and terrorism subcommittee.

Earlier Tuesday, Sheen joined fellow actor Matthew Perry and more than a dozen members of Congress to address hundreds of people in a rally in support of drug courts.

The advocates, holding up signs that said “Drug Courts $ave Lives,” pressed lawmakers to commit a minimum of $88.7 million in the 2012 budget toward drug courts, noting that the courts offer a significant return on investment. Every dollar spent on drug courts yields an average of $2 in savings for the criminal justice system.

Beyond the dollars and cents, drug courts have helped reclaim the lives of many who had succumbed to drug addiction.

“You have no idea how … far that money really does go,” one drug court graduate said at the rally.

Others charge that with a soaring national debt, drug courts should be funded by states.

“With out-of-control spending and surging public debt threatening our nation’s stability, increased federal funding of state and local courts should not be a priority,” David Muhlhausen, research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said before the subcommittee.

WASHINGTON — Hours after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, FBI Director Kash Patel declared online that “the subject” in the killing was in custody. The shooter was not. The two men who had been detained were quickly released. Utah officials acknowledged that the gunman remained at large.

The false assurance was more than a slip. It spotlighted the high-stakes uncertainty surrounding Patel’s leadership of the bureau when its credibility is under extraordinary pressure, as is his own.

Patel now approaches congressional oversight hearings this week facing not just questions about that investigation but broader doubts about whether he can stabilize a federal law enforcement agency fragmented by political fights and internal upheaval.

Democrats are poised to press Patel on a purge of senior executives that has prompted a lawsuit, his pursuit of President Trump’s grievances over the Russia investigation long after it ended, and a realignment of resources that has prioritized illegal immigration and street crime over the FBI’s traditional pursuits.

The hearings will offer Patel his most consequential stage yet, and perhaps the clearest test of whether he can convince the country that the FBI, under his watch, can avoid compounding its mistakes in a time of political violence and deepening distrust.

“Because of the skepticism that some members of the Senate have had and still have, it’s extremely important that he perform very well at these oversight hearings” on Tuesday and Wednesday, said Gregory Brower, the FBI’s former top congressional affairs official.

The FBI declined to comment about Patel’s coming testimony.

Inaccurate claim after Kirk shooting

Kirk’s killing was always going to be a closely scrutinized investigation, not only because it was the latest burst of political violence in the U.S. but also because of Kirk’s friendships with Trump, Patel and other administration figures and allies.

While agents investigated, Patel posted on X that “the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a near-contemporaneous news conference that “whoever did this, we will find you,” suggesting authorities were still searching. Patel soon after posted that the person “in custody” had been released.

Two people were initially held for questioning in the case, but neither was a suspect.

As the search stretched on, Patel angrily vented to FBI personnel Thursday about what he perceived as a failure to keep him informed, including that he was not quickly shown a photograph of the suspected shooter. That’s according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press. The New York Times earlier reported details of the call.

Asked about the scrutiny of Patel’s performance, the FBI said it had worked with local law enforcement to bring the suspect, Tyler Robinson, to justice and “will continue to be transparent.”

Patel’s overall response did not go unnoticed in conservative circles. One prominent GOP strategist, Christopher Rufo, posted that it was “time for Republicans to assess whether Kash Patel is the right man to run the FBI.”

FBI personnel purge

On the same day Kirk was killed, Patel also faced a lawsuit from three FBI senior executives fired in an August purge that they characterized as a Trump administration retribution campaign.

Among them was Brian Driscoll, who as acting FBI director in the early days of the administration resisted Justice Department demands for names of agents who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Driscoll alleged in the lawsuit that he was let go after he challenged the leadership’s desire to terminate an FBI pilot who had been wrongly identified on social media as having been part of the FBI search for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump, while out of office, was indicted for his role in Jan. 6 and the classified documents case.

The upheaval continues a trend that began before Patel took over, when more than a half-dozen senior executives were forced out under a Justice Department rationale that they could not be “trusted” to implement Trump’s agenda.

There’s since been significant turnover in leadership at the FBI’s 55 field offices. Some left because of promotions or retirements, but others because of ultimatums to accept new assignments or resign. The head of the Salt Lake City office, an experienced counterterrorism investigator, was pushed out of her position weeks before Kirk was killed at a Utah college, said people familiar with the move.

FBI’s priorities shift

Patel arrived at the FBI having been a sharp critic of its leadership, including for the Trump indictments and investigations that he says politicized the institution. Under Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, the FBI and Justice Department have become entangled in their own politically fraught investigations, such as one focused on New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James.

He’s moved quickly to remake the bureau, with the FBI and Justice Department working to investigate one of the Republican president’s chief grievances — the years-old Trump-Russia investigation. Trump calls that probe, which found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him get elected but did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump’s campaign, a “hoax.”

The Justice Department appeared to confirm in an unusual statement that it was investigating former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, pivotal players in the Russia investigation, but did not say for what. Bondi has directed that evidence be presented to a grand jury.

Critics of the new Russia inquiry consider it a transparent attempt to turn the page from the fierce backlash the FBI and Justice Department endured from Trump’s base following the July announcement that those agencies would not be releasing any additional documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.

Patel has meanwhile elevated the fight against street crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration to the top of the FBI’s agenda, in alignment with Trump’s agenda.

The bureau defends its aggressive policing in American cities that the Trump administration contends have been consumed by crime, despite falling crime rates in recent years in the cities targeted. Patel says the thousands of resulting arrests, many immigration-related, are “what happens when you let good cops be good cops.”

Critics say the street crime focus draws attention and resources from the sophisticated public corruption and national security threats for which the bureau has long been primarily, if not solely, responsible for investigating.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — There’s bipartisan support in Congress for extending tax credits that have made health insurance more affordable for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. But the credits are in danger of expiring as Republicans and Democrats clash over how to do it.

Democrats are threatening to vote to shut down the government at the end of the month if Republicans don’t extend the subsidies, which were put in place in 2021 and extended a year later when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House. The tax credits, which are due to expire at the end of the year, go to low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Some Republicans who have opposed the healthcare law, known as Obamacare, since it was enacted in 2010 are suddenly open to keeping the tax credits. They acknowledge that many of their constituents could see steep hikes in coverage if the subsidies are allowed to lapse.

But the two sides are far apart. Republicans are divided, with many firmly opposed. GOP leaders in the House and Senate have been open but noncommittal on the extension, and many of those Republicans who say they support it argue that the tax credits should be reworked — potentially opening up a new healthcare debate that could take months to resolve.

Democrats would be unlikely to agree to any changes in the subsidies, increasing the chances of a standoff and mounting uncertainty for health insurers, hospitals, state governments and the people who receive them.

“In just a few weeks, unless Congress acts, millions of Americans will start getting letters in the mail telling them their health insurance costs are about to go through the roof — hundreds of dollars, thousands in some cases,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week.

Surging enrollment

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans has surged to a record 24 million people in large part due to the billions of dollars in subsidies that have lowered costs for many people. The expanded subsidies allowed some lower-income enrollees to access health plans with no premiums and capped the amount higher earners pay for premiums to 8.5% of their income. It also expanded eligibility for middle-class earners.

With expiration just a few months away, some of those people have already gotten notices that their monthly premiums are poised to surge next year. Insurers have sent out notices in nearly every state, with some proposing premium increases of as much as 50%.

Lawmakers are facing pressure to act from some of the country’s biggest industries, including the insurers that cover people on the marketplace and hospital executives who say they’re already going to be squeezed by the Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s massive spending and tax bill enacted this summer.

“There’s broad awareness that there’s a real spike in premiums coming right around the corner, both Republicans and Democrats,” said David Merritt, senior vice president of external affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield. “It’s certainly lining up for Congress to have an opportunity to head off this problem.”

Companies have said they’ll need to raise premiums without the subsidies because healthier and younger people are more likely to opt out of coverage when it gets more expensive, leaving insurers to cover older and sicker patients.

In Iowa last month, the state’s insurance commissioner weighed increases ranging from 3% to 37% against a stream of angry public comments. One woman who runs a garden center in Cedar Falls said she was considering dropping her health insurance.

“I am already living as frugally as I possibly can while working as hard as I possibly can, putting in as many hours as I am allowed to at my job, never missing a day of work,” the woman, LuAnn, wrote in a public comment published to the commissioner’s website.

Feud over Obamacare

On Capitol Hill, the issue has become entangled in a larger fight over government funding as the threat of a shutdown looms at the end of the month. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have said Democrats will not vote to keep the government open unless an extension of the healthcare tax credits is part of the deal. Republicans have said that they want more time to look at the subsidies and potentially scale them back. They will also have to wait for a signal from Trump, who has not yet weighed in.

Jeffries said last week that “we will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to rip away healthcare from the American people.”

Republican leaders are eyeing a potential stopgap bill that would keep the government open for a few weeks, but they are unlikely, for now, to include the extension. GOP leaders in both the House and Senate are also under pressure from some members who worry that premium increases will be a political liability before next year’s midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said he wants to see a proposal from Democrats on how to extend the subsidies since they are pushing the issue. “Maybe there is something we can do in the middle as a solution,” he said in a Punchbowl News interview Thursday, adding that his members are divided on the issue.

Still, Thune has ruled out quick action, even as he noted that premium notices will go out soon. He has said a short-term spending measure to fund the government for several weeks while Congress finishes its budget bills is not likely to include an extension of the benefits,

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said that many of his members would oppose an extension, but he has not ruled it out.

In recent days, 15 House Republicans in competitive political districts introduced legislation to extend the tax credits for one year. “While the enhanced premium tax credit created during the pandemic was meant to be temporary, we should not let it expire without a plan in place,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), who led the effort with Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).

Middle-class and small-business owners, including many in Kiggans’ coastal Virginia district, will be especially vulnerable to big health insurance hikes if the subsidies are not extended.

Several Senate Republicans also said they’d favor an extension. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said that if Congress doesn’t act, some premiums will “skyrocket, and not by a little bit. We’re looking at massive increases. People will not be able to afford it.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he thinks Congress should scale back the subsidies for the highest-income people who receive them. “I think we all know that access to healthcare is important and we take it very seriously,” he said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose panel has jurisdiction over the tax credits, said he’s working with his colleagues to find a solution. “There are a lot of ideas being thrown out there,” he said. “I’m trying to find a solution; I’m not telling you what the solution is.”

Others were firmly against it. “It’s costing us billions of dollars,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said.

Open enrollment begins Nov. 1, and people will begin to see “real sticker shock” as Affordable Care Act plan prices are posted next month, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said.

“Timing is important,” she said.

Jalonick and Seitz write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer weathered backlash from Democrats earlier this year when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open. But he’s now willing to risk a shutdown at the end of the month if Republicans don’t accede to Democratic demands.

Schumer says he and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries are united in opposing any legislation that doesn’t include key healthcare provisions and a commitment not to roll them back. He argues that the country is in a different place than it was in March, when he vigorously argued against a shutdown, and he says he believes Republicans and President Trump will be held responsible if they don’t negotiate a bipartisan deal.

“Things have changed” since the March vote, Schumer said in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday. He said Republicans have since passed Trump’s massive tax breaks and spending cuts legislation, which trimmed Medicaid and other government programs, and Democrats are now unified — unlike in March, when he voted with Republicans and Jeffries voted against the legislation to fund the government.

A shutdown, Schumer said, wouldn’t necessarily worsen an environment in which Trump is already challenging the authority of Congress. “It will get worse with or without it, because Trump is lawless,” Schumer said.

Democrats’ consequential decision

Schumer’s threat comes as Republicans are considering a short-term stopgap spending measure to avoid a Sept. 30 shutdown and as Democrats face what most see as two tough choices if the parties can’t negotiate a deal — vote with Republicans to keep the government open or let it close indefinitely with no clear exit plan.

It also comes amid worsening partisan tensions in the Senate, where negotiations between the two parties over the confirmation process broke down for a second time on Thursday and Republicans are changing Senate rules to get around Democratic objections to almost all of Trump’s nominees. Democrats are also fuming over the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally claw back $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid just as negotiations over the spending deadline were getting underway in late August.

Republicans move ahead

Republicans say that Democrats clearly will be to blame if they don’t vote to keep the government open.

Trump said Friday to not “even bother” negotiating with Democrats. He said Republicans will likely put together a continuing resolution to keep funding the federal government.

“If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,” Trump said, adding “we will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said in an interview with Punchbowl News on Thursday that he believes Democrats see it as “politically advantageous” to have a shutdown.

“But they don’t have a good reason to do it,” Thune said in the interview. “And I don’t intend to give them a good reason to do it.”

Thune has repeatedly said that Schumer needs to approach Republicans with a specific proposal on healthcare, including an extension of expanded government tax credits for many Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Some Republicans are open to extending those credits before they expire at the end of the year, but Thune has indicated that he is unlikely to add an extension to a short-term spending bill, instead favoring a “clean” stopgap for several weeks without any divisive issues while Congress finishes its budget legislation.

Schumer said he believes his caucus is ready to oppose the stopgap measure if Republicans don’t negotiate it with Democrats. “I think the overwhelming majority of our caucus, with a few exceptions, and same with the House, would vote against that,” he said.

Less realistic is Democrats’ demand that Republicans roll back Medicaid cuts enacted in their tax breaks and spending cuts legislation this summer, what Trump called his “big, beautiful bill.”

Escalating partisan tensions over spending

Schumer said Democrats also want Republicans to commit that the White House won’t take back money they have negotiated and Congress has approved after Republicans pushed through a $9-billion cut requested by the White House in July and Trump blocked the additional foreign aid money in August. “How do you pass an appropriations bill and let them undo it down the road?” Schumer said.

Congress is facing the funding deadline Sept. 30 because Republicans and Democrats are still working out their differences on several annual budget bills. Intractable partisan differences on an increasing number of issues have stalled those individual bills in recent years, forcing lawmakers to pass one large omnibus package at the end of the year or simply vote to continue current spending.

A shutdown means federal agencies will stop all actions deemed nonessential, and millions of federal employees, including members of the military, won’t receive paychecks. The most recent shutdown — and the longest ever — was during Trump’s first term in 2018 and into 2019, when he demanded money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. It lasted 35 days.

Schumer’s March vote

Schumer’s move to support the spending legislation in March put him in the rare position of bucking his party’s base. He said then that of two bad options, a partial government shutdown was worse because it would give Trump even more control to lay off workers and there would be “no offramp” to get out of it. “I think people realize it’s a tough choice,” he said.

He faced massive backlash from within the party after the vote, with some activists calling on him to resign. Jeffries temporarily distanced himself from his New York colleague, saying in a statement immediately after Schumer’s vote that House Democrats “will not be complicit.” The majority of Senate Democrats also voted against the GOP spending legislation.

This time, though, Schumer is in lockstep with Jeffries and in messaging within his caucus. In Democrats’ closed-door lunch Wednesday, he shared polling that he said suggested most Americans would blame Trump, not Democrats, for a shutdown.

“I did what I thought was right” in March, Schumer said. “It’s a different situation now than then.”

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christopher Megerian contributed to this report.

Democrats have to change their ways. Ideally yesterday.

The Democratic Party is the pro-government party, simply speaking, and Republicans the antigovernment party. Democrats want to make the government work for people. Trump-era Republicans might as well wear knock-offs of Melania Trump’s old “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket. For three decades, as actual and threatened government shutdowns have become routine for Washington funding fights, it’s generally been Republicans who’ve provoked them. For Democrats, shutting down the government goes completely against their brand, against their very DNA.

But what are Democrats to do when the federal government is wholly run by Republicans — in Congress, the executive branch and even the Supreme Court — acting in thrall to a president who in eight months has transformed that government into a plaything for his whims, compulsion for chaos, personal enrichment and political retribution?

What to do when the government has stripped states, cities, universities and federal programs of funding Congress appropriated by law for teaching grants, healthcare, scientific research and so much more, and fired hundreds of thousands of public employees without cause, including federal prosecutors, military lawyers and inspectors general who might blow the whistle on administration lawlessness?

What to do when the government sends masked federal agents to seize people, without warrants, and disappear them into unmarked cars (with at least the temporary, precedent-breaking blessing this week of the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority)?

Do Democrats in Congress vote to keep that government running?

That’s the question they face this month as government funding expires with the fiscal year on Sept. 30: Do enough Democrats give Republicans the votes they need in the Senate to keep the Trump train running on Oct. 1 and beyond?

Despite all that is wrong with that track, the answer to whether to keep going isn’t a simple “Hell, no.”

Shutting down the government hurts Americans who work for it, who receive benefits or need information from it, who visit national parks and veterans’ hospitals — people Democrats seek to help. A shutdown further empowers the president, who gets to decide what’s essential and can stay open. A shutdown hurts the economy in the short term. And as Republicans of the past can attest, a shutdown usually exacts a political price for the party that’s blamed for it.

For all those reasons, when Congress last had to vote to fund the government in March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York led a small group of fellow Democratic senators in acquiescing to Republicans’ package. Democrats in the House and the party’s voter base erupted in fury. Morale tanked among Democrats spoiling for a fight, and with it the party’s standing in polls.

All but one House Democrat opposed the March funding bill, but the Republican majority narrowly passed it. Under Senate rules, however, the slim Republican majority couldn’t go it alone; they needed a few Democratic votes to reach a 60-vote supermajority and avoid a filibuster. It’s practically the only leverage Democrats have in Donald Trump’s Washington. In March they didn’t use it.

This time should be different.

I say that as someone who reluctantly supported Schumer’s decision six months ago, even as I and many others were infuriated by his ham-handed execution: his party’s lack of a message against the earlier spending bill, Schumer’s mixed signals and then his eleventh-hour surrender. It was because of Democrats’ message-less morass that I supported his action: because Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries hadn’t made the Democrats’ case ahead of time so that the party could win a shutdown showdown with Republicans in the court of public opinion.

It might already be too late, with less than three weeks before a new fiscal year, but the Senate and House Democrats must prepare their ground and take a stand. It’s a bad sign that they’re only now huddling, that they weren’t ready with a message and strategy when Congress finally returned after Labor Day from its August recess or, better yet, before Congress left.

But here we are, and now the Democrats should do two things:

First, they must demand that Republicans finally negotiate with them. Outline concise conditions for getting any Democrat’s vote on a government funding bill, whether it’s a stopgap measure to buy more bargaining time or a longer-term bill. Show Americans what Democrats are for, not just that they’re against President Trump. Harp daily on the Democratic demands — say, restoration of healthcare money that was slashed to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts; extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits for lower- and middle-income workers; less money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and more for local police. And elevate new, younger Democrats to spread the word — like first-term Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who tweeted on Monday, as party leaders were still noodling: “If the President wants my vote, he has to negotiate. One place to start is to walk back cuts to health care.”

Second, when Trump and the Republicans inevitably don’t compromise — the president has never met with the Democratic leaders since he took office, and his pre-recess message to Schumer in a social media post was “GO TO HELL” — then Democrats should vote no on funding the government. And hold their ground during a shutdown, even as pressure builds when federal offices close and services lapse.

Senate Democrats’ leverage on spending bills is pointless if Democrats don’t use it. Yes, Schumer was correct in March when he defensively wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the victims of a government shutdown are “the most vulnerable Americans” and communities. But the six months since then have shown that, under Trump, the vulnerable are suffering anyway — as he shutters more and more of the government and the innocent are swept up in, or live in fear of, his dragnets. If Democrats can alter that picture, even a little, a temporary shutdown is worth it.

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SACRAMENTO — A popular perk for California drivers of electric and low-emission cars is coming to an end.

Beginning Oct. 1, motorists with a Clean Air Vehicle decal will no longer be able to drive solo in carpool lanes because the program was not extended by the federal government, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The carpool benefit was promoted as a cost-effective incentive to encourage Californians to buy clean and zero-emission vehicles. More than a million motorists have applied for the decal since it became available more than two decades ago. There are roughly a half million vehicles in California with active decals, allowing them to use the carpool lane alone. Last month, the DMV stopped issuing new decals and warned that the program could be ending.

Extending the program would have required approval from Congress and President Trump.

“A Trump traffic jam is on its way to California and other states – all because Republicans in Congress decided to let a wildly successful bipartisan program expire,” Newsom said in a statement. “That’s Trump’s America: more traffic, more smog and a government more committed to slashing proven programs than solving real problems.”

California is one of 13 states offering the benefit. Vehicles that qualified included fuel cell electric, natural gas or plug-in electric cars.

Last year, Newsom signed a bill that extended California’s decal program until 2027, but the state will no longer be able to continue it without federal authority, the governor’s office said. According to the California Energy Commission, 25% of new cars sold in the state are zero-emission vehicles.

Drivers in electric and low-emission cars will only be able to use carpool lanes after the program expires if they meet the multiple occupant requirements. The reduced toll rates available in some areas to drivers with a decal will also end on Oct. 1.

California law indicates that drivers will not be cited for driving in the carpool lane with an invalid decal within 60 days of the program ending.

“Californians are committed to lowering their carbon footprint and these decals helped drivers be good stewards of our highways and environment,” said Steve Gordon, director of the California DMV, in a statement. “By taking away this program, hundreds of thousands of California’s drivers will pay the price. It’s a lose-lose and we urge the federal government to retain this program.”

The program ends at the same time that a $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles expires.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s emergency order over the nation’s capital, which federalized its police force and launched a surge of law enforcement into the city, is set to expire overnight Wednesday after Congress failed to extend it.

But the clash between Republicans and the heavily Democratic district over its autonomy was only set to intensify, with a House committee beginning to debate 13 bills that would wrest away even more of the city’s control if approved.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office said the order expires at midnight. The National Guard and some other federal agencies will continue their deployment and it’s not clear when that might end.

Trump’s takeover of Washington’s policing and Wednesday’s discussions in the House underscore how interlinked the capital is with the federal government and how much the city’s capacity to govern is beholden to federal decisions.

Trump’s order federalized the local police force

For the last 30 days, the city’s local Metropolitan Police Department has been under the control of the president for use in what he described as a crime-fighting initiative.

Local police joined hundreds of federal law enforcement officers and agents on sweeps and roundups and other police operations. About 2,000 members of the National Guard from D.C. as well as seven states were also part of the surge of law enforcement.

Crime has dropped during the surge, according to figures from the White House and the local police department, but data also showed crime was falling in the lead up to the federal takeover.

Congress, satisfied by steps that Bowser has taken to ensure that the cooperation with the city will continue, decided not to extend the emergency, returning the police to district control.

But Bowser, who has walked a tightrope in collaborating with Trump in an effort to protect the city’s home rule, must now pivot to a Congress that has jurisdiction over the city. The next order of business is a series of proposals that will be debated Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Some of the House bills focus on law enforcement

Thirteen of the bills call for repealing or changing D.C. laws. Some provisions in play would remove the district’s elected attorney general, who recently asked a judge to intervene in the takeover. Others would allow the president to appoint someone to the position.

There is also a move to lower the age of trying juveniles to 14 from 16 for certain crimes, and one to change the bail system and remove methods the council can use to extend emergency bills.

Even if the bills pass the committee and House, the question is whether they can get through the filibuster-proof Senate. D.C. activists have already begun lobbying Senate Democrats.

Bowser urged the leaders of the House Oversight Committee to reject those proposals.

She argued that a bill sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, would “make the District less efficient, competitive, and responsive.” She said she looks forward to working with the committee to build a “productive partnership” that “respects the will of D.C. residents and honors the principles of home rule.”

Republican Rep. Ron Estes and several Republican colleagues said they want their constituents to feel safe visiting the capital, and noted the recent murder of an intern who worked in Estes’ office. “We want to make sure that we have a capital that Americans are proud of,” Estes said.

Members of the Republican Study Committee in the House held a news conference Sept. 2 praising Trump’s intervention and supporting codifying his executive order.

“Congress has a clear constitutional authority over D.C., and we will use it without hesitation to continue making D.C. safe and great again,” said Rep. August Pfluger, chairman of that committee.

D.C. mayor says the bills challenge the city’s autonomy

Bowser said the bills are an affront to the city’s autonomy and said “laws affecting the district should be made by the district.”

The district is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed in 1973 but federal political leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C council.

Bowser has said repeatedly that statehood, a nonstarter for Republicans in Congress, is the only solution.

Fields and Askarinam write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily kept in place the Trump administration’s decision to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid.

Roberts acted on the administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. President Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

The high court order is temporary, though it suggests the justices will reverse a lower court ruling that withholding the funding was probably illegal. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled last week that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a letter Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

He used what’s known as a pocket rescission. That’s when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of a current budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent.

The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings relative to the deficit and the possible damage to America’s reputation abroad as foreign populations lose access to food supplies and development programs. The administration turned to the high court after a panel of federal appellate judges declined to block Ali’s ruling.

Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that an additional $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

The case has been winding its way through the courts for months, and Ali said he understood that his ruling would not be the last word on the matter.

“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally appropriated funds,” he wrote.

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out an earlier injunction Ali had issued to require that the money be spent. But the three-judge panel did not shut down the lawsuit.

After Trump issued his rescission notice, the plaintiffs returned to Ali’s court and the judge issued the order that’s now being challenged.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court granted an unusually quick hearing on President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Tuesday, putting a policy at the center of his economic agenda squarely before the nation’s highest court.

The tariffs will remain in place in the lead-up to arguments set for November, a lightning-fast timetable by the Supreme Court’s typical standards.

The court agreed to take up an appeal from the Trump administration after lower courts found most of his tariffs illegal.

The small businesses and states that challenged them also agreed to the accelerated timetable. They say Trump’s import taxes on goods from nearly every country in the world have nearly driven their businesses to bankruptcy.

Two lower courts have agreed that Trump didn’t have the power to impose tariffs on nearly every country on earth under an emergency powers law, though a 7-4 appeals court has left them in place for now.

The Trump administration asked the justices to intervene quickly, arguing the law gives him the power to regulate imports and striking down the tariffs would put the country on “the brink of economic catastrophe.”

The case will come before a court that has been reluctant to check Trump’s extraordinary flex of executive power. One big question is whether the justices’ own expansive view of presidential authority allows for Trump’s tariffs without the explicit approval of Congress, which the Constitution endows with the power to levy tariffs. Three of the justices on the conservative-majority court were nominated by Trump in his first term.

While the tariffs and their erratic rollout have raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth, Trump has also used them to pressure other countries into accepting new trade deals. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by late August, more than double what it was at the same point a year earlier.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued that the lower court rulings are already affecting those trade negotiations. If the tariffs are struck down, the U.S. Treasury might take a hit by having to refund some of the import taxes it’s collected, Trump administration officials have said. A ruling against them could even the nation’s ability to reduce the flow of fentanyl and efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sauer argued.

The administration did win over four appeals court judges who found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act lets the president regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. In recent decades, Congress has ceded some tariff authority to the president and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.

The case involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency: the tariffs first announced in April and the ones from February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.

It doesn’t include his levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, or the tariffs Trump imposed on China in his first term that were kept by Democratic President Biden.

Trump can impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

John L. Burton, the proudly liberal and pro-labor lawmaker who shaped California politics and policy over six decades on topics as varied as welfare, foster care, auto emissions, guns and foie gras, has died. He was 92.

With his brother, Rep. Phillip Burton, and college buddy, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Burton was integral to the organization that dominated Democratic politics in San Francisco and the state starting in the 1960s.

Burton was elected to the Assembly in 1964 and Congress a decade later. Laid low by cocaine addiction, he did not seek reelection in 1982. But he returned to Sacramento after getting clean and became the Capitol’s most powerful legislator as Senate president pro tem from 1998 until term limits forced him to retire in 2004.

“I think government’s there to help the people who can’t help themselves. And there’s a lot of people that can’t help themselves,” Burton said, describing his view of a politician’s job in an oral history interview by Open California.

Burton’s death was confirmed in a statement released by his family on Sunday.

“He cared a lot,” said Kimiko Burton, his daughter. “He always instilled in me that we fight for the underdog. There are literally millions of people whose lives he helped over the years who have no idea who he is.”

An L.A. Times writer described Brown, always dapper and cool, as a piece of living art. In contrast, Burton was performance art — rumpled, often rude, too fidgety to sit in long policy meetings. Some people sprinkle conversation with profanities. Burton doused his sentences with expletives, usually F-bombs.

John Burton with then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2011.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

He was quick to yell but could also be charming. He bought pies from a fruit stand off Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Sacramento and delivered them as apologies to targets of his rants. An aide once gave him a T-shirt with the phrase: “I yell because I care.”

Unlike most politicians, who dress to the nines, Burton wore ties reluctantly and showed up at meetings with governors wearing guayaberas, rarely with his hair in place. When cameras weren’t around, he drove through San Francisco delivering blankets to homeless people.

One of Burton’s many intensely loyal aides was Angie Tate, whom he hired to be his political fundraiser in 1998 knowing she was pregnant with twins. After she gave birth three months early and tried to return to work, Burton insisted that she take a year off, fully paid. She worked with him for the rest of his days.

In later years, he created John Burton Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit group to mentor foster youth and seek policy changes. One such bill extended services for foster youth until age 21, rather than the previous cutoff of 18.

“I don’t think there is a person who has done more for foster kids than John Burton,” said Miles Cooley, a Los Angeles entertainment attorney who was in foster care when he was a child and sits on the board of Burton’s foundation. “He wasn’t speaking truth to power. He was yelling it.”

From his early days in public life, Burton, a lawyer and Army veteran, advocated for greater civil rights, opposed the death penalty, and was an antiwar activist, protesting U.S. involvement in Vietnam in October 1963, when the U.S. had fewer than 17,000 troops there.

As state Senate leader four decades later, Burton joined folk singer Joan Baez at a protest of President George W. Bush’s impending invasion of Iraq. As California Democratic Party chair from 2009 to 2017, he presided as the party changed its platform to oppose capital punishment.

“John Burton was liberal when it was popular to be liberal and he was liberal when it was not popular. I always admired that,” said former state Sen. Jim Brulte, a Republican who tangled with Burton in the Legislature and later when they chaired their respective political parties.

A party chair’s job is to win elections. That requires money. In 2008, the year before Burton took over the state Democratic Party, the California Republican and Democratic parties raised and spent roughly equal sums. By 2016, his final campaign as chair, the Democrats were outspending the Republicans $36.2 million to $17.7 million.

He promoted a ballot measure in 2010 that allows the Legislature to pass the annual budget by a simple majority rather than the previous two-thirds supermajority, allowing the Democrats to pass a legislative session’s most important measure — the budget — without Republican votes, further marginalizing the GOP in Sacramento.

When Burton stepped down from the California Democratic Party in 2017, Democrats held all statewide offices and had supermajorities in both houses of the 120-seat Legislature.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), then-Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis and state Treasurer Fiona Ma were among the politicians, most of them women, who joined Burton on the convention stage in 2017 for his farewell as party chair. Former state Sen. Martha Escutia serenaded him with a rendition of “Bésame Mucho.”

“John is the chief architect of the Democrats’ dominance in California,” Pelosi said at the time.

Burton paid tribute to the people who had helped him, saying, “You’re only as good as your staff,” and closed by exhorting party loyalists to raise their middle fingers and give a Burton-like cheer to then-President Trump.

Although Burton was a partisan, his closest friend in the Senate was Ross Johnson of Fullerton, who was Senate Republican leader. Sharing a quirky love of song, the unlikely duet interrupted a Senate floor session with a rendition of “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

They also shared a distrust of authority and collaborated to curb law enforcement’s ability to seize individuals’ assets without a trial. Burton and Johnson shaped campaign finance law with a ballot measure permitting political parties to accept unlimited donations, enhancing parties’ power. As a sweetener for voters, the measure required rapid disclosure of contributions.

John Lowell Burton, born in Cincinnati in 1932, was the youngest of three brothers. After his father completed medical school in Chicago, the family relocated to San Francisco, where Dr. Burton cared for patients whether they could pay or not.

Burton lettered in basketball at San Francisco State College and kept a clipping of a newspaper box score showing he scored 20 points against a University of San Francisco team that included young Bill Russell, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He met Brown at San Francisco State and they became lifelong friends. A bartender in his younger days, Burton was arrested for bookmaking in 1962, but was cleared.

Burton credited his oldest brother, Phillip, with pushing him to enter politics. A dominant political figure, Rep. Phil Burton might have become House speaker if he had not died in 1983 at the age of 56.

The Burton brothers reflected a dichotomy in California politics, rising from the left while Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan ascended from the right, against the swirl of the Bay Area’s brand of radical politics. John Burton and Brown won their Assembly seats in 1964, the same year that voters approved a ballot measure backed by the real estate industry giving property owners the right to refuse to sell to people of color. Courts later overturned it.

The Burton-Brown organization spawned a who’s who of leaders, including two San Francisco mayors — George Moscone, who was a high school friend, and Brown, the most powerful Assembly speaker in California history. Burton was a friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s father, a state appellate court justice, and watched young Gavin’s high school sports games. Brown gave Newsom his start in politics with an appointment.

Barbara Boxer worked for John Burton during his time in Congress, before succeeding him in 1982 and winning a U.S. Senate seat a decade later. When Boxer retired in 2016, Brown helped promote Boxer’s successor, Kamala Harris.

Pelosi is most consequential of all. Phillip Burton’s widow, Sala Burton, succeeded him in Congress. As she was dying of cancer, Sala Burton told John that she wanted Pelosi to succeed her, and he used all his connections to help Pelosi win the congressional seat in 1987.

Outgoing California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton at the California Democratic State Convention in 2017.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

In November 1978, Burton declined an invitation from Rep. Leo Ryan, a Democrat from San Mateo, to accompany him to Guyana to investigate the People’s Temple cult, once a force in San Francisco politics. On Nov. 18, as Ryan’s plane was about to depart with cult defectors, one of cult leader Jim Jones’ followers assassinated the congressman. Jones led a murder-suicide resulting in more than 900 deaths.

On Nov. 27, 1978, with the city convulsed by the Jonestown cataclysm, Dan White, a former San Francisco supervisor, sneaked into City Hall and assassinated Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Burton fell hard in the months and years after, drinking heavily, huffing nitrous oxide and freebasing cocaine. He missed congressional votes, and aides feared he would be found dead. In 1982, he checked into a rehab facility in Arizona and did not seek reelection.

Back in San Francisco, he built a law practice, stayed clean and returned to politics, winning a special election for an open Assembly seat in 1988. He reunited with Speaker Brown and became his close ally.

Burton’s eclectic circle of friends included national political figures, Hollywood glitterati, football coach John Madden, North Beach topless dancer Carol Doda and, from his bartending days, Alice Kleupfer, a cocktail waitress.

In this small world, Kleupfer’s son James Rogan won an Assembly seat from the Burbank area as a Republican in 1994, was elected to Congress in 1996, and helped lead the impeachment of President Clinton. Politics aside, Burton and Rogan shared a connection through Kleupfer.

That friendship mattered on May 30, 1996, when Republicans, holding a short-lived 41-39 seat advantage in the Assembly, rushed to approve tough-on-crime bills. One bill would have made it a crime for pregnant women to abuse drugs, a response to accounts of babies born addicted to cocaine. The GOP-led Assembly seemed certain to pass it when Burton stood to speak.

Though not a commanding orator, Burton spoke from the heart about how cocaine “takes total control of your life,” and how he spent days freebasing in hotel rooms, refusing maid service because he didn’t want anyone to see him.

“It took me, somebody who at least has got a fair set of brains sometimes, who comes from a background that is not deprived, who at the time I was doing it — and I’m not proud to say — was a member of the House of Representatives, and it took me two years to get off this drug, which is the most insidious drug you can imagine,” Burton said.

Floor speeches rarely change minds. But after Burton pleaded with Republicans not to “turn these young women into criminals,” Rogan, then-Speaker Curt Pringle and a few other Republicans withheld their votes. With the bill pending, Republicans conferred behind closed doors and quietly dropped the bill.

“It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t scripted. It was pure John Burton,” said Rogan, who went on to become a Superior Court judge in Orange County. Burton was the only Democrat who had the relationships and gravitas to derail the bill.

For most of his time in office, Burton served under Republican governors. He butted heads with them and on occasion won them over.

When young Assemblyman Burton sought to decriminalize marijuana, Reagan, implying that Burton was a nut, quipped that the San Franciscan was the one man in Sacramento who had the most to fear from the squirrels that populate Capitol Park. Burton answered by calling reporters to the park and trying to feed squirrels a copy of some Reagan-backed legislation.

“There’s some benefit to people thinking you’re nuts,” Burton said in an interview.

Though he was a relatively junior legislator, Burton took a lead role in Reagan’s 1971 welfare overhaul, pushing for annual cost-of-living adjustments for welfare recipients, something he fought to protect over the years.

He disparaged Gov. Pete Wilson, a Marine Corps veteran, for his efforts to limit welfare by calling him “the little Marine.” Burton had a “wicked sense of humor and a “colorful” way of expressing it” but was “a straight shooter,” Wilson said.

“With respect to legislative leaders, as Democrats, I would say that the combination of John Burton and Willie Brown negotiating budget and policy solutions during a time of crisis in the Reagan Cabinet Room was some of the finest policy and political talent California has ever seen,” Wilson said.

Voters elected Burton to the state Senate in 1996, and senators elected him Senate president pro tem in 1998, the year Gray Davis was elected governor, the first Democrat to hold that office after 16 years of Republicans. The relationship was strained.

In appearance, temperament and approach, they were opposites, and they clashed. Davis was a centrist who tried to be tightfisted. Burton, often dismissive of Davis, tried to pull him to the left. When it suited their interests, however, Davis signed legislation that Burton advocated, and Burton carried administration legislation.

“It ain’t brain surgery,” Burton said in 2021 of the art of turning a bill into a law. But few legislators could handle a lawmaking scalpel like Burton.

As Senate leader, he shepherded legislation to buy the last large stands of old-growth redwoods, increase public employee pensions, restrict guns and expand the right to sue, including for victims of sexual harassment. He was the target of such a suit in 2008. It was settled a few months later.

Burton routinely blocked legislation that increased the length of prison sentences but was a favorite of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which represents prison guards. He was, after all, pro-labor.

In 2002, Burton carried legislation ratifying the prison officers’ contract negotiated by the Davis administration granting officers a raise of roughly 35% over five years, and boosting their pensions. Later that year the union, run by the fedora-wearing Don Novey, celebrated Burton’s 70th birthday by donating $70,000 to his campaign account.

Often, Burton sought no credit for what he helped others accomplish, as Fran Pavley discovered. In 2001, her first year in the Assembly, Pavley, an Agoura Hills Democrat, proposed far-reaching climate change legislation to authorize the California Air Resources Board to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes.

Lobbyists for automakers shifted into overdrive, airing ads warning California that AB 1058 would dictate what cars people could own. The oil industry, drive-time talk radio hosts, and even Cal Worthington and his dog Spot piled on. AB 1058 looked like roadkill.

Burton’s solution: Hijack another bill and insert the contents of Pavley’s bill into it. With that bit of legerdemain, AB 1058 died, AB 1493 was born, and the auto industry’s campaign crashed.

Burton didn’t attend the ceremony when Davis signed the bill. Nor did he accompany Pavley a decade later when President Obama held a Rose Garden ceremony embracing the California concept in nationwide fuel-efficiency standards.

Pavley said she had never seen a politician work so hard for a bill for no credit, ”and I haven’t seen it since.”

Burton took special interest in certain issues. He was, for example, appalled at the force-feeding of ducks and geese to enlarge their livers to produce foie gras. In one of his final bills, he battled restaurant owners and agricultural interests to ban the practice. It passed the Senate by one vote.

In a letter urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the bill against the wishes of some chefs, he included Burtonesque doggerel: “Save Donald Duck. F— Wolfgang Puck.”

Schwarzenegger signed the bill and sent Burton a photo of himself and Burton in the governor’s office looking at the bottom of the governor’s shoe with a note: “I got duck liver on my shoe!” In the background of the photo, there’s an image of Reagan, smiling with his head tilted back as if he’s having a good laugh.

Burton, who was divorced twice, is survived by his daughter, attorney Kimiko Burton, and two grandchildren.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

Morain is a former Times staff writer.

WASHINGTON — More than half the deficit reduction that President Reagan will propose for fiscal 1987 will represent recycled proposals that Congress rejected last year, and about 40% will be such new ideas as selling government property and loans, White House Budget Director James C. Miller III told congressional leaders Tuesday.

But congressional leaders insisted that Reagan, if his spending cuts are to win approval this year, must drop his opposition to a tax increase.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) told reporters that higher taxes are needed to “glue the package together” and reach deficit-reduction targets spelled out by recently enacted balanced-budget legislation.

Some in Congress have predicted that Reagan’s budget, which he will submit formally next month, will be “dead on arrival” in Congress, particularly if he presses for cuts that Congress previously rejected. But Miller has argued that Congress will be more inclined to accept the proposals this year, when it faces the constraints of the new Gramm-Rudman law, which mandates a balanced budget by 1991.

Edwin L. Dale Jr., a spokesman for Miller, said that more than one-third of the new budget’s proposed deficit reduction would be accomplished by terminating government programs.

About one-fourth, he said, would result from selling government assets and charging new or increased fees for government services. The remainder of the savings would come from trimming government programs and making them more efficient.

However, there were few indications Tuesday that Congress, returning to Washington for the opening day of its new session, is likely to accept Reagan’s deficit-reduction formula. Instead, congressional leaders immediately squared off with Reagan for the budget battle that promises to dominate all other issues this year.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) bluntly labeled Reagan’s forthcoming budget proposal–which is expected to protect defense spending growth by cutting domestic programs–a “nonsensical, crazy budget.”

“The time for hard knocks has come for Mr. Reagan,” O’Neill insisted, adding that House Democrats will be trying to focus public attention on the severity of the domestic cuts proposed in the Administration’s budget.

Tax Cuts Blamed

O’Neill noted that Reagan has enjoyed public approval since 1981 for engineering deep tax cuts, which many economists cite as contributing to a record budget deficit that reached a record $212 billion last year. “He got credit for the tax reduction,” O’Neill said. “Now is he going to take credit for the cuts (required under the balanced-budget law)?”

Congressional Republicans were more restrained. Rep. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.), emerging from a White House meeting between Reagan and GOP congressional leaders, told reporters that only “a magician” could accomplish Reagan’s goal of cutting the deficit down to the Gramm-Rudman act’s target–a $144-billion 1987 deficit–without raising taxes or cutting defense spending.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes replied that Reagan remains committed to his budget strategy. “Some voices on Capitol Hill have been saying that the deficit could not be reduced unless taxes go up and military spending goes down,” Speakes said. “Well, they’re wrong, and the President says he is going to prove it.”

Law Mandates Cuts

The Gramm-Rudman law, named for sponsoring Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), requires across-the-board cuts in many defense and domestic programs if Congress and the President cannot agree upon budgets that steadily hack away at the deficit.

Unless the two branches of government can settle their differences over taxes and spending, more than $50 billion in spending cuts will probably be required when fiscal 1987 begins on Oct. 1, just before November’s congressional elections.

The law faces a legal challenge of its constitutionality, but until the litigation is settled, the government is carrying it out.

The process of implementing automatic cuts to take effect March 1 already has begun, and it moved ahead another step Tuesday as the head of the General Accounting Office issued a slight revision of the $11.7 billion in reductions that were unveiled last week by the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office.

Although Miller has said that the first round of spending reductions will not be disruptive, officials in various agencies have forecast hiring freezes, employee furloughs, training cutbacks and other measures. Among the potential consequences, they have said, will be fewer children receiving vaccinations, shorter operating hours at national parks and fewer investigations by the Secret Service.

WASHINGTON — After months of campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump sent a sharply different message Friday when he signed an executive order aimed at rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

Trump said the switch was intended to signal to the world that the United States was a force to be reckoned with, and he complained that the Department of Defense’s name, established in the aftermath of World War II, was “woke.”

“I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength,” Trump said of the change as he authorized the Department of War as a secondary title for the Pentagon.

Congress has to formally authorize a new name, and several of Trump’s closest supporters on Capitol Hill proposed legislation earlier Friday to codify the new name into law.

But already there were cosmetic shifts. The Pentagon’s website went from “defense.gov” to “war.gov.” Signs were swapped around Hegseth’s office while more than a dozen employees watched. Trump said there would be new stationery, too.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Trump has begun referring to as the “secretary of war,” said during the signing ceremony that “we’re going to go on offense, not just on defense,” using “maximum lethality” that won’t be “politically correct.”

The attempted rebranding was another rhetorical salvo in Trump’s efforts to reshape the U.S. military and uproot what he has described as progressive ideology. Bases have been renamed, transgender soldiers have been banned and military websites have been scrubbed of posts honoring contributions by women and minorities.

The Republican president contended that his tough talk didn’t contradict his fixation on being recognized for diplomatic efforts, saying peace must be made from a position of strength. Trump has claimed credit for resolving conflicts between India and Pakistan; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Armenia and Azerbaijan, among others, though some leaders and others have disputed the significance of the U.S. role. (He’s also expressed frustration that he hasn’t brought the war between Russia and Ukraine to a conclusion as fast as he said he would.)

“I think I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong,” Trump said, echoing the “peace through strength” motto associated with President Reagan.

When Trump finished his remarks on the military, he dismissed Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the room.

“I’m going to let these people go back to the Department of War and figure out how to maintain peace,” Trump said.

Rep. Gregory W. Steube (R-Fla.) proposed legislation in the House to formally change the name of the department.

“From 1789 until the end of World War II, the United States military fought under the banner of the Department of War,” Steube, an Army veteran, said in a statement. “It is only fitting that we pay tribute to their eternal example and renowned commitment to lethality by restoring the name of the ‘Department of War’ to our Armed Forces.”

Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

The Department of War was created in 1789, then renamed and reorganized through legislation signed by President Truman in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. The Department of Defense incorporated the Department of War, which oversaw the Army, plus the Department of the Navy and the newly created independent Air Force.

Hegseth complained that “we haven’t won a major war since” the name was changed. Trump said, “We never fought to win.”

Trump and Hegseth have long talked about restoring the Department of War name.

In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”

When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”

“I’m sure Congress will go along,” he said, “if we need that.”

Trump and Hegseth have been on a name-changing spree at the Pentagon, sometimes sidestepping legal requirements.

For example, they wanted to restore the names of nine military bases that once honored Confederate leaders, which were changed in 2023 following a congressionally mandated review.

Because the original names were no longer allowed under law, Hegseth ordered the bases to be named after new people with similar names. For example, Ft. Bragg now honors Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine, instead of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.

In the case of Fort A.P. Hill, named for Confederate Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, the Trump administration was forced to choose three soldiers to make the renaming work.

The base now honors Union soldiers Pvt. Bruce Anderson and 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn, who contributes the two initials, and Lt. Col. Edward Hill, whose last name completes the second half of the base name.

The move irked Republicans in Congress who, in July, moved to ban restoring any Confederate names in this year’s defense authorization bill.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who co-sponsored the earlier amendment to remove the Confederate names, said that “what this administration is doing, particularly this secretary of Defense, is sticking his finger in the eye of Congress by going back and changing the names to the old names.”

Megerian, Kim and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.

Some other year, under some other president, Republican Young Kim might have been a shoo-in to represent a majority-minority congressional district containing pieces of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

Kim’s profile is as compelling as it is rare for someone running under the GOP banner: an immigrant, an Asian American and, perhaps most important, a woman in a year when female voter enthusiasm is surging. If she wins, she would be the first Korean American woman elected to Congress.

All of these facets might help her navigate the demographic changes that have been eroding Republican support for decades in the 39th Congressional District, where roughly two-thirds of residents are either Asian or Latino and immigrants make up about a third of the population.

But in this year’s tough midterm election, likely to be a referendum on Donald Trump’s divisive presidency, Kim will be forced to stitch together a majority out of disparate factions: die-hard Trump supporters, Trump-averse minorities and affluent suburban women. Kim, 55, finds herself in a race that’s virtually tied in a district where retiring GOP incumbent Ed Royce won the last three elections by double digits.

Republicans face big risks in contested California races as Democrats fight for control of the House »

On the campaign trail, she says, she’s faced questions about the president — his tweets, his policies, his tone. Kim says that Trump’s rhetoric concerns her and that his disparaging remarks about immigrants and women can be frustrating.

“I try to tell them I’m not running to be his spokesperson or represent Donald Trump in the White House,” she says.

Many GOP House candidates — in similarly diverse districts from the Virginia exurbs outside Washington to the bedroom communities east of Denver — share her plight.

In Southern California, Republicans’ tactics for dealing with Trump range from avoidance, as with two-term Rep. Mimi Walters of Laguna Beach, to a full embrace by Diane Harkey, who is running for a seat left open by retiring Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista.

Kim’s 39th Congressional District includes Chino Hills, Fullerton, Yorba Linda — the birthplace of Richard Nixon — and Diamond Bar.

Here, a taqueria can share a parking lot with a Taiwanese cafe. Spanish, Korean, Mandarin and Tagalog can be heard along with English in the upscale ethnic supermarkets that dot the area.

Will California flip the House? The key races to watch »

As she travels the region, Kim has tried to drive home two major points: that people living here know her, and that she understands their stories. She’s spent decades in the public arena, first as a longtime district staffer to Royce and then as a one-term state assemblywoman. She was once a TV talk show host on Korean-language television.

Kim speaks with a knowing ease about the sacrifices immigrants make for a shot at prosperity.

She often shares memories of interpreting for her parents and picking up cans and bottles on the beaches of Guam — a way station between Seoul and Hawaii, where her family later settled — to help raise money for their church.

“My personal experience of being an immigrant, having gone through what this diverse immigrant community has gone through, struggling,” Kim said. “Those are real life experiences that really helped me understand … the district.”

Kim, who owns a government affairs consulting business, moved to Southern California 37 years ago to attend USC. She lives in Fullerton with her husband, Charles; they have four adult children.

One recent Saturday at a campaign office in Rowland Heights, Kim bowed and greeted supporters with “Annyeonghaseyo!” — “Hello!” in Korean — before Saga Conroy took the stage.

“President Trump is not on the ballot, but his agenda is totally in this midterm election,” said Conroy, trying to pump up volunteers. “If we lose the majority in Congress, everything he achieved could be lost.”

It was a departure from Kim’s attempts to cast herself as an independent voice who will call out the president when she disagrees but is willing to work with him on policies that help the district. Kim’s campaign manager, wincing at the remarks, felt compelled to point out that Conroy isn’t a staffer but a volunteer coordinator for the California Republican Party.

“Voters want somebody to stand up to Trump and put a check on him,” said Ben Tulchin, a veteran pollster helping strategize for Kim’s opponent, Democrat Gil Cisneros. “A Republican who worked for a Republican member of Congress is not the person they’re looking for.”

As supporters snacked on spicy Korean rice cakes and egg rolls at the campaign office, one young woman approached Kim with a contribution and an invitation to speak at the next Rotary Club meeting in Fullerton.

“There’s three rotary clubs in Fullerton, so which one?” Kim said without missing a beat. “The main one,” the woman replied.

Kim insists that her strategy of showing up to dozens of groundbreakings, cultural fairs and community events will insulate her from national politics in a way she couldn’t manage in 2016, when she sought reelection to her Assembly seat.

Her Democratic opponent plastered the district with mailers featuring Kim’s face alongside the polarizing GOP presidential nominee and even released an ad disguised as a music video featuring lyrics declaring “Young Kim is like Donald Trump.” It contributed to her loss in the swing district.

Back then, Kim tried to sidestep the issue, saying she’d never met Trump and calling the tactic “desperate.” This time, she’s drawing sharper distinctions between her views and the president’s.

In an interview, Kim maintained that her party has not been captured by one man. “There is no party of Trump,” she said, banging her hand on a table. She’s running, she said, “because I’ve been here, I’ve been working here, I’ve raised my family here, I know the district…. I’m not running for the party of Trump.”

Still, Trump so dominates political discussion these days Kim can’t help but be drawn into the conversation. Her strategy is to ignore the president and his serial controversies as best she can. Kim, for instance, declined this week to comment on Trump’s mocking of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Coverage of California politics »

Kim has sought to carve out her own identity on issues by opposing, for instance, Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents who crossed the border illegally, saying it “does not live up” to American values. She vows to fight for a pathway to citizenship for young people brought to the country illegally as children.

She also breaks with Trump by supporting what he refers to as “chain migration,” which allows citizens to sponsor family members to join them. Like many in her district, Kim’s family has benefited from the long-standing policy. Kim’s adult sister, who had married an American serviceman and joined the military herself, was able to sponsor her, both of her parents and four siblings.

But Kim echoes Trump in other ways.

She called California’s so-called sanctuary state law an “affront to law-abiding citizens and a threat to public safety.” She praised a decision by the Trump administration to weigh in on a lawsuit against Harvard that alleges the university’s admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans.

One of her first campaign ads emphasized how her family came to the country legally “and not because we wanted handouts.”

Bernie Overland, left, speaks to Democratic congressional candidate Gil Cisneros, center, at his home in Fullerton.

(Christine Mai-Duc / Los Angeles Times)

Those positions may help Kim hold on to support from the Republican base, but they alienate others who want no part of Trump and his presidency. There are frequent reminders of the fine line she walks.

Bernie Overland, a 78-year-old Republican, opened his door in Fullerton one recent Saturday when Cisneros, the Democrat, came knocking. Cisneros was there to speak to Overland’s wife, who’s a Democrat, but he first asked Bernie what issues he cares about most.

“Well, Trump is certainly one,” he said with a laugh.

He’s angry about Trump’s plans to build a border wall (he called it “a waste”) and is incensed by the risk of ballooning national debt from recently passed tax cuts.

“I just think he is taking this country down the garden path to disaster,” Overland said in an interview later. Overland says that he wants to send a message to Trump in this midterm election and that nothing Kim does and says will change his mind.

His plan: Vote for any candidate who is not a Republican.

[email protected]

Twitter: @cmaiduc

Sept. 5 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1774, the first Continental Congress convened in secret in Philadelphia, calling for a boycott of British goods and writing a petition to King George III to repeal the Intolerable Acts. Both efforts failed to resolve the Americans’ grievances, and the second Continental Congress less than a year later called for a revolution.

In 1836, Sam Houston was elected president of Texas.

In 1877, Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Neb. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory.

In 1882, 10,000 workers marched in the first Labor Day parade — in New York City.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation declaring U.S. neutrality in World War II. The United States joined the war in 1941 after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

In 1972, Palestinian militants invaded the Olympic Village outside Munich, West Germany, and killed 11 Israeli athletes and six other people.

In 1975, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of mass murderer Charles Manson, failed in an attempt to shoot U.S. President Gerald Ford. Fromme was paroled in 2009 after 34 years in prison.

Secret Service agents rush President Gerald R. Ford towards the California State Capitol following an attempt on the president’s life by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme — a disciple of Charles Manson — on September 5, 1975, in Sacramento, Calif. File Photo courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter hosted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David, Md., for Middle East peace talks that laid the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The summit resulted in the Camp David Accords, which earned Sadat and Begin the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1995, France conducted an underground nuclear test at the Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. It was the first of several — all of which were met by protests worldwide.

In 2006, Katie Couric, longtime co-host of the NBC Today show, became the first solo female anchor on a major U.S. television network when she took over the CBS Evening News.

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

In 2014, U.S. officials said Ahmed Abdi Godane, leader of the Somalia-based Islamic militant organization al-Shabab, was killed in a U.S. airstrike. In 2012, the United States had posted a $7 million reward for his arrest.

In 2021, an elite national army unit detained Guinean President Alpha Condé — the country’s first democratically elected leader — and seized control of power. Mamady Doumbouya became interim president.

In 2024, Maori elders selected Ngawai Hono i te Po to be the indigenous group’s eighth’s monarch and second-ever queen. At 27, she was the second-youngest monarch to lead the Maori and is the only daughter of previous leader Kiingi Tuheitia.

The Trump administration must release billions of dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress, including money that President Trump said last week he would not spend, a federal judge has ordered.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington ruled Wednesday that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal. He issued a preliminary injunction ordering the release of $11.5 billion that is set to expire at the end of the month.

“To be clear, no one disputes that Defendants have significant discretion in how to spend the funds at issue, and the Court is not directing Defendants to make payments to any particular recipients,” wrote Ali, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden. “But Defendants do not have any discretion as to whether to spend the funds.”

The administration filed a notice of appeal Thursday.

“President Trump has the executive authority to ensure that all foreign aid is accountable to taxpayers and aligns with the America First priorities people voted for,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, president and chief executive of Global Health Council, one of the groups in the case, said in a statement the decision was a victory for “the rule of law” and reaffirmed that “only Congress controls the power of the purse.”

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a letter on Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

He used what’s known as a pocket rescission, in which a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of the budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent. It’s the first time in nearly 50 years that a president has used the tactic. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September.

Ali said Congress would have to approve the rescission proposal for the administration to withhold the money.

The law is “explicit that it is congressional action — not the President’s transmission of a special message — that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations,” he wrote.

The money at issue includes nearly $4 billion for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to spend on global health programs and more than $6 billion for HIV and AIDS programs. Trump has portrayed the funding as wasteful spending that does not align with his foreign policy goals, and in January, he issued an executive order directing the State Department and USAID to freeze spending on foreign aid.

Nonprofit organizations that sued the government said the freeze shut down funding for urgent lifesaving programs abroad.

A divided panel of appeals court judges ruled last month that the administration could suspend the money. The judges later revised that opinion, reviving the lawsuit before Ali.

In his ruling, Ali said he understood that his decision would not be the last word in the case, adding that “definitive higher court guidance now will be instructive.”

“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally appropriated funds,” he wrote.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Thalia Beaty in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has asked the Supreme Court for a fast-tracking ruling that he has broad power acting on his own to impose tariffs on products coming from countries around the world.

Despite losing in the lower courts, Trump and his lawyers have reason to believe they can win in the Supreme Court. The six conservative justices believe in strong presidential power, particularly in the area of foreign policy and national security.

In a three-page appeal filed Wednesday evening, they proposed the court decide by Wednesday to grant review and to hear arguments in early November.

They said the lower court setbacks, unless quickly reversed, “gravely undermine the President’s ability to conduct real-world diplomacy and his ability to protect the national security and economy of the United States.”

They cited Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s warning about the potential for economic disruption if the court does not act soon.

“Delaying a ruling until June 26 could result in a scenario in which $750 billion-$1 trillion have already been collected and unwinding them could cause significant disruption.” he wrote.

Trump and his tariffs ran into three strong arguments in the lower courts.

First, the Constitution says Congress, not the president, has the power “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and a tariff is an import tax.

Second, the 1977 emergency powers law that Trump relies on does not mention tariffs, taxes or duties, and no previous president has used it to impose tariffs.

And third, the Supreme Court has frowned on recent presidents who relied on old laws to justify bold new costly regulations.

So far, however, the so-called “major questions” doctrine has been used to restrict Democratic presidents, not Republicans.

Three years ago, the court’s conservative majority struck down a major climate change regulation proposed by Presidents Obama and Biden that could have transformed the electric power industry on the grounds it was not clearly based on the Clean Air Acts of the 1970s.

Two years ago, the court by the same 6-3 vote struck down Biden’s plan to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars in student loans. Congress had said the Education Department may “waive or modify” monthly loan payments during a national emergency like the Covid 19 pandemic, but it did not say the loans may be forgiven, the court said. Its opinion noted the “staggering” cost could be more than $500 billion.

The impact of Trump’s tariffs figure to be at least five times greater, a federal appeals court said last week in ruling them illegal.

By a 7-4 vote, the federal circuit court cited all three arguments in ruling Trump had exceeded his legal authority.

“We conclude Congress, in enacting the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, did not give the president wide-ranging authority to impose tariffs,” they said.

But the outcome was not a total loss for Trump. The appellate judges put their decision on hold until the Supreme Court rules. That means Trump’s tariffs are likely to remain in effect for many months.

Trump’s lawyers were heartened by the dissent written by Judge Richard Taranto and joined by other others.

He argued that presidents are understood to have extra power when confronted with foreign threats to the nation’s security.

He called the 1977 law “an eyes-open congressional grant of broad emergency authority in this foreign-affairs realm” that said the president may “regulate” the “importation” of dangerous products including drugs coming into this country.

Citing other laws from that era, he said Congress understood that tariffs and duties are a “common tool of import regulation.”

WASHINGTON — Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse made their voices heard Tuesday on Capitol Hill, pressuring lawmakers to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier and pushing back President Trump’s effort to dismiss the issue as a “hoax.”

In a news conference on the Capitol lawn that drew hundreds of supporters and chants of “release the files,” the women shared — some publicly for the first time — how they were lured into Epstein’s abuse by his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. They demanded that the Trump administration provide transparency and accountability for what they endured as teenagers.

It was a striking stand as the push for disclosure of the so-called Epstein files reached a pivotal moment in Washington. Lawmakers are battling over how Congress should delve into the Epstein saga while the Republican president, after initially signaling support for transparency on the campaign trail, has been dismissing the matter as a “Democrat hoax.”

“No matter what you do it’s going to keep going,” Trump said Wednesday. He added, “Really, I think it’s enough.”

But the survivors on Capitol Hill, as well as at least one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, disagreed. Some of the women pleaded for Trump to support their cause.

“It feels like you just want to explode inside because nobody, again, is understanding that this is a real situation. These women are real. We’re here in person,” said Haley Robson, one of the survivors who said she is a registered Republican.

Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges that said he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls. The case was brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of nearly identical allegations. Epstein was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.

Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant and former girlfriend, was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for luring teenage girls for him to abuse. Four women testified at her trial that they were abused by Epstein as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at his homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico. The allegations have also spawned dozens of lawsuits.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is usually closely aligned with Trump, described her support for a bill that would force the Justice Department to release the information it has compiled on Epstein as a moral fight against sexual predation.

“This isn’t one political party or the other. It’s a culmination of everyone work together to silence these women and protect Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal,” Greene said at the news conference.

She is one of four Republicans — three of them women — who have defied House GOP leadership and the White House in an effort to force a vote on their bill. House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to quash the effort by putting forward his own resolution and arguing that a concurrent investigation by the House Oversight Committee is the best way for Congress to deliver transparency.

“I think the Oversight probe is going to be wide and expansive, and they’re going to follow the truth wherever it leads,” Johnson, R-La., said.

He added that the White House was complying with the committee to release information and that he had spoken with Trump about it Tuesday night. “He says, ‘Get it out there, put it all out there,’” Johnson told reporters.

The Oversight Committee on Tuesday night released what it said was the first tranche of documents and files it has received from the Justice Department on the Epstein case. The folders — posted on Google Drive — contained hundreds of image files of years-old court filings related to Epstein, but contained practically nothing new.

Meanwhile, the White House was warning House members that support for the bill to require the DOJ to release the files would be seen as a hostile act. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who is pressing for the bill, said that the White House was sending that message because “They’ve dug in.”

“They decided they don’t want it released,” he said. “It’s a political threat.”

But with Trump sending a strong message and Republican leadership moving forward with an alternative resolution, Massie was left looking for support from at least two more Republicans willing to cross political lines. It would take six GOP members, as well as all House Democrats, to force a vote on their bill. And even if that passes the House, it would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by Trump.

Still, the survivors saw this moment as their best chance in years to gain some justice for what had been done by Epstein, who died in as New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

“Justice and accountability are not favors from the powerful. They are obligations decades overdue” Jess Michaels, a survivor who said she was first abused by Epstein in 1991, told the rally on the Capitol lawn. “This moment began with Epstein’s crimes. But it’s going to be remembered for survivors demanding justice, demanding truth, demanding accountability.”

Groves writes for the Associated Press.