declaration

UN chief says 700 million people live in extreme poverty as Qatar calls for doubling efforts to support Palestinians.

Doha, Qatar – A declaration of intent to fight deepening global inequality is a “booster shot for development”, the head of the United Nations declares.

At the Second World Summit for Social Development in Qatar on Tuesday, the president of the UN General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, announced the adoption of the Doha Political Declaration.

“Social development and inclusion is essential for strong societies,” she said, adding that the declaration must “end social injustice and guarantee dignity for everyone, prioritising a people-first approach.”

In a keynote speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on global leaders to unite behind the “bold people’s plan”.

“It’s unconscionable that nearly 700 million people still live in extreme poverty while the richest 1 per cent own nearly half of global wealth,” he told the delegations.

“It’s intolerable that almost four billion people lack access to any form of social protection at all.”

The summit in Qatar’s capital, Doha, was convened to build on the development goals established 30 years ago during the Copenhagen Summit.

According to the UN, about 40 heads of state, 170 ministerial-level representatives, heads of NGOs and 14,000 delegates from around the world were expected to attend.

The declaration calls for commitments in several areas, including poverty eradication, access to “decent work”, social integration, gender equality and climate action.

Guterres noted the progress that has been made over the past three decades.

“Over one billion people have escaped extreme poverty. Global unemployment is at a near-historic low. Access to healthcare, education and social protection has dramatically expanded. People are living longer, and child and maternal mortality have declined. And more girls are attending school with rising graduation rates for all students,” he said.

However, he insisted that more challenges must be faced, saying the Second World Summit “opens at a moment of high global uncertainty, divisions, conflicts and widespread human suffering”.

“Developing countries are not getting the level of support they need,” he warned. “We are not moving fast enough to mitigate the volatility and outright destruction wrought by a warming planet.”

Peace and stability

Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, opened the event by calling for sustained efforts to support the Palestinian people amid the devastation of Israel’s two-year war on Gaza.

“It’s impossible to achieve social development in any society without peace and stability,” he said, adding that only “constant peace, not temporary settlements, is just peace.”

Calling on the international community to increase support for reconstruction, he added: “It goes without saying that the Palestinian people need all forms of aid to be able to recover from the devastation” caused by “the apartheid system in Palestine”.

The UN estimates more than $70bn is needed to rebuild Gaza.

Addressing reporters on the sidelines later, Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by “continued violations of the ceasefire” in the enclave.

“They must stop, and all parties must abide by the decisions of the first phase of the peace agreement,” he demanded.

The emir also condemned the war crimes being carried out in Sudan.

“We express our collective shock at the horrific atrocities committed in the city of el-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region and reaffirm our condemnation of these acts in the strongest terms,” Sheikh Tamim said after the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group captured the capital of North Darfur State last week.

Oct. 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump landed in Malaysia on Sunday and presided over the signing of a peace declaration between Thailand and Cambodia amid a flurry of news related to trade deals with Asian nations and ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The text of the joint declaration, which seeks to end recent conflict between Thailand and Cambodia over a long-running border dispute, was released by the White House and said its signing was witnessed by Trump.

“We committed to de-escalating tensions and restoring confidence and mutually beneficial relations between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Thailand,” the declaration reads.

Thailand and Cambodia said they agreed to remove heavy weapons systems and de-mine along the border, as well as release prisoners of war and refrain from disseminating “harmful rhetoric” to “foster an environment conducive to peaceful dialogue.”

Additionally, the White House announced that it had separately reached nonbinding understandings with Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia to cooperate and expand U.S. access to rare earth minerals.

It also announced a framework for new reciprocal trade deals with each of the countries.

Thailand, for example, has agreed to eliminate tariffs on 99% of goods from the United States while the United States said it would maintain 19% tariffs imposed on the Asian country while granting tariff-free access for certain products.

The agreements included a pledge by Malaysia to invest $70 billion in the United States over the next decade while Thailand promised to buy 80 U.S. aircraft for $18.8 billion and Air Cambodia committed to working with Boeing to boost the development of its aviation industry.

The White House later announced that it had reached framework for a similar trade agreement with Vietnam, which would “provide preferential market access” for U.S. industrial and agricultural exports. The United States will maintain 20% tariffs on Vietnamese imports.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Kuala Lumpur ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea.

“I think we reached a substantial framework for the two leaders who will meet in Korea next Thursday,” Bessent said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.

“The president had given me maximum leverage when he threatened 100 percent tariffs if the Chinese impose their rare earth global export controls. So, I think we have averted that. So, the tariffs will be averted,” he said.

Trump also met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit Sunday, stating afterward that he believed they would eventually reach a trade deal.

The news came after Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil in August after former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, was sentenced to prison for plotting a coup.

“I think we’ll make a deal with Brazil. We get along very well,” Trump said, as reported by CNN. “We have a lot of respect for your president, as you know, a lot of respect for Brazil. So we’ll see. We’ll probably work out some deals.”

The operation, on paper, appeared to be a typical government crackdown on drug traffickers.

In late 2024, more than two dozen masked officers descended on an alleged narcotics lab on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where they found materials for processing cocaine and automatic weapons.

There was only one problem: The evidence, including the firearms and cocaine, seems to have disappeared from the public record.

That is according to a Honduran prosecutor specialising in cases of state corruption who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, for fear of professional reprisal.

The prosecutor believes there is a strong possibility the police may have kept the weapons and drugs to resell them on the black market.

Experts say questions of corruption and abuse have come to typify Honduras’s “state of exception”, an emergency declaration that has suspended certain constitutional rights while granting greater powers to the military and police.

Such measures are meant to be temporary. The state of exception was first declared in December 2022, in the name of fighting drug traffickers and gangs.

But it has been extended at least 17 times since, often without the explicit approval of Honduras’s Congress.

For human rights observers, the continued renewals have raised alarms over whether the state of exception is being used as a shield for law enforcement excesses.

In May, for instance, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) urged the Honduran government to “put an end” to the state of exception, citing systematic abuses at the hands of security forces.

“The implementation of the state of exception has led to serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and raids without judicial oversight,” the UN office wrote.

It added that Honduras’s National Commission for Human Rights (CONADEH) had arrived at similar conclusions.

Joaquin Mejia — an investigator with the Team for Reflection, Investigation and Communication, a Honduran human rights advocacy group — believes such abuses are a trend under the state of exception.

“The biggest negative effect is what the National Commission for Human Rights registered: that, from December 2022 to December 2024, 798 complaints at the national level over human rights abuses are attributed to state security forces,” Mejia said.

If the Trump administration succeeds in barring undocumented immigrants from federally funded “public benefit” programs, vulnerable children and families across California would suffer greatly, losing access to emergency shelters, vital healthcare, early education and life-saving nutritional support, according to state and local officials who filed their opposition to the changes in federal court.

The new restrictions would harm undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens — including the U.S.-born children of immigrants and people suffering from mental illness and homelessness who lack documentation — and put intense stress on the state’s emergency healthcare system, the officials said.

Head Start, which provides tens of thousands of children in the state with early education, healthcare and nutritional support, may have to shutter some of its programs if the new rules barring immigrants withstand a lawsuit filed by California and other liberal-led states, officials said.

In a declaration filed as part of that litigation, Maria Guadalupe Jaime-Milehan, deputy director of the child care and developmental division of the California Department of Social Services, wrote that the restrictions would have an immediate “chilling effect” on immigrant and mixed-status families seeking support, but also cause broader “ripple effects” — especially in rural California communities that rely on such programs as “a critical safety net” for vulnerable residents, but also as major employers.

“Children would lose educational, nutritional, and healthcare services. Parents or guardians may be forced to cut spending on other critical needs to fill the gaps, and some may even be forced out of work so they can care for their children,” Jaime-Milehan said.

Rural communities would see programs shutter, and family providers lose their jobs, she wrote.

Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction, warned in a declaration that the “chilling effect” from such rules could potentially drive away talented educators who disagree with such policies and decide to “seek other employment that does not discriminate against children and families.”

Thurmond and Jaime-Milehan were among dozens of officials in 20 states and the District of Columbia who submitted declarations in support of those states’ lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s new rules. Six other officials from California also submitted declarations.

The lawsuit followed announcements last month from various federal agencies — including Health and Human Services, Labor, Education and Agriculture — that funding recipients would be required to begin screening out undocumented immigrants.

The announcements followed an executive order issued by President Trump in which he said his administration would “uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans.”

Trump’s order cited the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, commonly known as welfare reform, as barring noncitizens from participating in federally funded benefits programs, and criticized past administrations for providing exemptions to that law for certain “life or safety” programs — including those now being targeted for new restrictions.

The order mandated that federal agencies restrict access to benefits programs for undocumented immigrants, in part to “prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States.”

California and the other states sued July 21, alleging the new restrictions target working mothers and their children in violation of federal law.

“We’re not talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, we’re talking about programs that deliver essential childcare, healthcare, nutrition, and education assistance, programs that have for decades been open to all,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said.

In addition to programs like Head Start, Bonta said the new restrictions threatened access to short-term shelters for homeless people, survivors of domestic violence and at-risk youth; emergency shelters for people during extreme weather; soup kitchens, community food banks and food support services for the elderly; and healthcare for people with mental illness and substance abuse issues.

The declarations are part of a motion asking the federal judge overseeing the case to issue a preliminary injunction barring the changes from taking effect while the litigation plays out.

Beth Neary, assistant director of HIV health services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, wrote in her declaration that the new restrictions would impede healthcare services for an array of San Francisco residents experiencing homelessness — including undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens.

“Individuals experiencing homelessness periodically lack identity and other documents that would be needed to verify their citizenship or immigration status due to frequent moves and greater risk of theft of their belongings,” she wrote.

Colleen Chawla, chief of San Mateo County Health, wrote that her organization — the county’s “safety-net” care provider — has worked for years to build up trust in immigrant communities.

“But if our clients worry that they will not be able to qualify for the care they need, or that they or members of their family face a risk of detention or deportation if they seek care, they will stop coming,” Chawla wrote. “This will exacerbate their health conditions.”

Greta S. Hansen, chief operating officer of Santa Clara County, wrote that more than 40% of her county’s residents are foreign-born and more than 60% of the county’s children have at least one foreign-born parent — among the highest rates anywhere in the country.

The administration’s changes would threaten all of them, but also everyone else in the county, she wrote.

“The cumulative effect of patients not receiving preventive care and necessary medications would likely be a strain on Santa Clara’s emergency services, which would result in increased costs to Santa Clara and could also lead to decreased capacity for emergency care across the community,” Hansen wrote.

The Trump administration has defended the new rules, including in court.

In response to the states’ motion for preliminary injunction, attorneys for the administration argued that the rule changes are squarely in line with the 1996 welfare reform law and the rights of federal agencies to enforce it.

They wrote that the notices announcing the new rules that were sent out by federal agencies “merely recognize that the breadth of benefits available to unqualified aliens is narrower than the agencies previously interpreted,” and “restore compliance with federal law and ensure that taxpayer-funded programs intended for the American people are not diverted to subsidize unqualified aliens.”

The judge presiding over the case has yet to rule on the preliminary injunction.

WASHINGTON — Around 2 a.m., noisy revelers emerging from clubs and bars packed the sidewalks of U Street in Washington, many of them seeking a late-night slice or falafel. A robust but not unusual contingent of city police cruisers lingered around the edges of the crowds. At other late-night hot spots, nearly identical scenes unfolded.

What wasn’t apparent in Friday’s earliest hours: any sort of security lockdown by a multiagency flood of uniformed federal law enforcement officers. That’s what President Trump had promised Thursday, starting at midnight, in the administration’s latest move to impose its will on the nation’s capital.

In short, that law enforcement surge to take control of the District of Columbia’s streets did not appear to unfold on schedule. A two-hour city tour, starting around 1 a.m. Friday, revealed no overt or visible law enforcement presence other than members of the Metropolitan Police Department, the city’s police force.

That might change in the coming evenings as Trump puts into action his long-standing plans to “take over” a capital city he has repeatedly slammed as unsafe, filthy and badly run. According to his declaration last week, the security lockdown will run for seven days, “with the option to extend as needed.” In an online post Saturday, the Republican president said the Democratic-led city would soon be one of the country’s safest and he announced a White House news conference for Monday, though he offered no details.

On Friday night, a White House official said Thursday night’s operations included arrests for possession of two stolen firearms, suspected fentanyl and marijuana. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said more than 120 members of various federal agencies — the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service — were to be on duty Friday night, upping the complement of federal officers involved.

“This is the first step in stopping the violent crime that has been plaguing the streets of Washington, D.C.,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, who publicly faced off against Trump in 2020 when he called in a massive federal law enforcement response to disperse crowds of protesters denouncing police brutality and racial profiling, has not said a public word since Trump’s declaration. The Metropolitan Police Department has gone similarly silent.

A crackdown came after an assault

The catalyst for this latest round of takeover drama was an assault Aug. 3 during an attempted carjacking on a high-profile member of the White House’s government-slashing team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly headed by Elon Musk.

Police arrested two 15-year-olds and were seeking others. Trump quickly renewed his calls for the federal government to seize control.

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site.

He later told reporters he was considering a range of alternatives, including repealing Washington’s limited “home rule” autonomy and “bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly,” as he did in Los Angeles in response to protests over his administration’s immigration crackdown.

The threats come at a time when Bowser’s government can tout a reduction in the number of homicides and carjackings, both of which surged in 2023. The number of carjackings overall dropped significantly in 2024, from 957 to just under 500, and is on track to decline again this year, with fewer than 200 recorded so far.

The proportion of juveniles arrested on suspicion of carjacking, though, has remained above 50%, and Bowser’s government has taken steps to rein in a recent phenomenon of rowdy teenagers causing disarray and disturbances in public spaces.

Emergency legislation passed by the D.C. Council this summer imposed tighter youth curfew restrictions and empowered Police Chief Pamela Smith to declare temporary juvenile curfew zones for four days at a time. In those areas, a gathering of nine or more people younger than 18 is unlawful after 8 p.m.

Within presidential authority

Trump is within his powers in deploying federal law enforcement assets on D.C. streets. He could deploy the National Guard, although that is not one of the dozen participating agencies listed in his declaration. The first Trump administration called in the National Guard during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and again on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters overran the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his election defeat.

Further steps, including taking over the Police Department, would require a declaration of emergency. Legal experts believe that would most likely be challenged in court. Such an approach would fit the general pattern of Trump’s second term in office, when he has declared states of emergency on issues ranging from border protection to economic tariffs. In many cases, he moved forward while the courts sorted it out.

Imposing a full federal takeover of Washington would require a congressional repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973. It’s a step that Trump said his administration’s lawyers are examining.

That law was specific to Washington, not other communities in the United States that have their own home rule powers but generally retain representation in their state legislatures, said Monica Hopkins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.

Signed into law by President Nixon, the measure allowed D.C. residents to elect their own mayor, council and local commissioners. The district had been previously run by federally appointed commissioners and members of Congress, some of whom balked at having to deal with potholes and other details of running a city of 700,000 residents.

So far, Trump’s criticisms of Washington can be felt most directly in the actions of the National Park Service, which controls large pieces of land throughout the capital. In Trump’s current administration, the agency has stepped up its clearing of homeless encampments on Park Service land and recently carried out a series of arrests of people smoking marijuana in public parks.

The agency said last week that a statue of a Confederate military leader that was toppled by protesters in 2020 would be restored and replaced, in line with an executive order.

Khalil and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Pesoli, Michael Kunzelman and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

In the final weeks of philanthropist Wallis Annenberg’s life, her family and closest friends were consumed by a fierce power struggle over her medical care, court records show.

Three of her children — Gregory, Lauren and Charles — believed their mother was being mistreated during her most vulnerable time, wrongfully confined to her bed, isolated from family and longtime staff and overmedicated to the point of stupor.

They blamed their mother’s longtime partner, Kris Levine, and Kris’ older sister, Vikki Levine.

Vikki, who served as Annenberg’s personal assistant and held authority over her medical decisions, was exerting control over their mother in “likely fatal” ways, hastening her decline with excess narcotics, the children alleged in court documents. The children said they were shielded from information about their mother and were distressed that the Levine sisters had indicated plans to remove Annenberg’s body from her Century City villa within hours of her death and send her remains for composting before a proper goodbye.

“If there is anything suspicious about her death — which is appearing more and more likely given Vikki’s ongoing abuse of Wallis — it will render it impossible to conduct an autopsy,” the children’s legal team asserted in court filings.

The dispute drew in some of the city’s top lawyers, triggered calls to police and led the Annenberg children to march into Los Angeles County Superior Court in a frantic effort to dislodge Vikki Levine from overseeing their mother’s medical care.

Vikki and Kris Levine adamantly denied over-medicating or mistreating Annenberg, the heiress to her father’s publishing empire who, through her family’s foundation, gave about $1.5 billion to scores of organizations and nonprofits across Los Angeles County.

In court filings, Vikki Levine said the children’s “vicious and false accusations” stemmed from sadness that their mother didn’t disclose to them that her cancer had returned, that they weren’t in charge of her care, that her death was rapidly approaching and that she wanted to die “as gently as possible.”

“The Children have misdirected their pain, grief and anger at the wrong person, which is so much easier than confronting reality,” Vikki Levine said in a court filing in which she also accused the Annenberg children of creating a “toxic environment” when they visited.

Kris Levine, who started dating the heiress in 2009 and had lived with her since 2012, submitted a declaration stating that the Annenberg children had engaged in a campaign of “lies” to their mother, including telling her that her partner was trying to kill her. She insisted that the children had been permitted to visit but lamented that her home had become engulfed by acrimony.

“No one is attempting to hurt Wallis — we love her. No one is keeping her children from her. Despite the outrageous behavior they exhibit in my home at such a sensitive time, they are still welcome,” Kris Levine said in a declaration.

Annenberg had opted to go into hospice in the final weeks of her life, and Kris Levine questioned why the children would defy their mother’s wishes and disparage her choices, particularly in such a public way.

“Nobody controlled Wallis Annenberg and for anyone to say otherwise would contradict the truth and be disrespectful of her and her legacy as one of the most transformative philanthropists of our time,” said Stuart Liner, an attorney for Kris Levine, in a statement to The Times.

This account of the Annenberg family’s internal conflict is based on court records that provide a window into one of Southern California’s most prominent families. Wallis Annenberg’s estate lawyer, Andrew Katzenstein, and the children’s lawyer, Jessica Babrick, declined comment. Representatives for Vikki Levine did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Wallis Annenberg, center, sits between her son Charles Annenberg Weingarten and Kris Levine at a 2015 event.

(Chris Weeks / Getty Images)

Annenberg died Monday at age 86, drawing tributes from former President Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and luminaries in the worlds of art, business and philanthropy.

The public mourning has highlighted Annenberg’s generosity toward elder care, animal welfare and USC, where she was a life trustee, among other causes. The turmoil among those closest to her, however, has persisted following the intense legal battle over her final days.

The dispute, at least so far, has not touched on the Annenberg family’s wealth — or what either side stood to financially gain or lose with the matriarch’s death. It originated, in part, in an advance healthcare directive that Annenberg allegedly signed on July 11, 2023, the year after she was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to court records.

The directive, which was notarized and executed with assistance from Annenberg’s attorney, Katzenstein, endowed Vikki Levine with primary authority over medical decisions and designated Annenberg’s son Gregory Weingarten as an alternate.

Annenberg’s children have since cast doubt on the document, asserting in a court filing that the signature appears to be right-handed, while Annenberg was left-handed.

Vikki Levine, with David Dreier, attends The Wallis Delivers: A Benefit Evening To Support Wildfire Recovery at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on April 30 in Beverly Hills.

(Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images)

Why Annenberg installed Vikki Levine in the role is unclear. In court papers, she is described as Annenberg’s best friend, personal assistant and sister to “life partner” Kris Levine. Voting records show that all three women resided at Annenberg’s home. Vikki Levine had worked for the heiress since at least the mid-2000s, when Annenberg installed her as trustee over a granddaughter’s trusts, court records show.

Although Kris Levine was not listed among Annenberg’s survivors in several obituaries, she was a mainstay in her life, publicly accompanying her to events and co-chairing philanthropic events.

Last fall, after being in remission, Annenberg’s cancer returned. According to a court filing by Vikki Levine, the philanthropist decided not to tell her children or anyone but her “closest friends.”

“Wallis determined not to seek treatment, but to enjoy as much as possible, the time she had left,” according to the filing.

In April, after Vikki Levine told Annenberg’s children about their mother’s health, they “had nearly unlimited access to Wallis,” the filing said, asserting that the children’s claims rest on scores of in-person interactions with her, making it unlikely that she was forcibly isolated.

“Wallis has been visited virtually daily by her Children and/or grandchildren, and has 24 hour care by experienced medical staff,” Vikki Levine’s attorneys said.

Wallis Annenberg, seated, with her children Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, Lauren Bon and Charles Annenberg Weingarten.

(Hamish Robertson)

Around early May, Annenberg began hospice, with medication aimed to alleviate pain and anxiety from her decreased lung function, according to a declaration from one of her hospice nurses that was reviewed by The Times.

But the Annenberg children were growing increasingly alarmed, they said in court filings.

In June and early July, Vikki Levine had dismissed longtime household staff and was demanding that a new team overmedicate their mother, “administering excessive amounts of powerful narcotics and opioids, such as Fentanyl, Morphine, Ativan and other similar drugs,” the children alleged in a court filing.

The cocktail of narcotics kept their mother “in a vegetative state” and risked catastrophe, the children claimed, writing, “When Wallis is able to emerge from this near-comatose state, she is adamant that this is not what she wants and that she believes, in her own words, that Vikki is ‘kidnapping her.’”

To back their accusations, the children provided a judge with signed declarations from three of their mother’s caregivers, who said they had been ousted around late June after observing shocking scenes, including forgery of records and misrepresentations to Annenberg’s doctors.

“I witnessed Vikki forcing pills in Ms. Annenberg’s mouth when she clearly did not want to take them. I told Vikki that Ms. Annenberg seemed calm and did not need more medication,” said Annenberg’s housekeeper and caregiver of nearly 20 years. “Vikki told me the pills were for her upset stomach, but I told her that I knew they were Ativan because I saw the bottle.”

Another healthcare worker — a registered nurse of 40 years employed by a concierge medical service — said she was dismissed shortly after she objected to providing Ativan to Annenberg, who at the time was sleeping and did not appear anxious or agitated.

The nurse alleged that Vikki Levine forbade the staff from keeping a proper medication log and allowed Annenberg to drink alcohol, even while on medication.

“It is difficult for me to believe that this kind of conduct can happen to anyone, let alone Ms. Annenberg. No one deserves to be rushed to death,” the nurse said in her sworn declaration.

Lawyers for Vikki Levine said that all three former staffers supporting the Annenberg children had been fired “for cause,” but did not elaborate.

Before turning to the courts, the children asked Dr. Peter Phung, of Keck Medicine of USC, to visit their mother. Phung “determined that she was, indeed, being overmedicated” and trimmed her dosage, the children claimed in court filings.

“As a result, Wallis had her best day in weeks,” the children said. “Unfortunately,” they continued, Vikki Levine blocked access to the doctor, and she and her sister “completely barred” the children’s visits on July 13.

The following morning, the children petitioned a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to suspend Vikki Levine’s authority as Annenberg’s healthcare agent and appoint one of her sons or a third-party professional instead. The children also asked the judge to impose a three-day period before Annenberg’s body could be transported out of L.A. or cremated.

In a 73-page filing, the children provided extraordinary details about their mother’s medical care, along with their concerns, situating their petition as an act of desperation.

“We have been informed that my mother may only have weeks to live, and I do not want those weeks to be spent in a medically-induced coma due to Vikki’s actions, which are contrary to medical advice and harmful to her well-being,” daughter Lauren Bon said in a declaration.

Annenberg’s daughter, artist Lauren Bon, stands in an L.A. River project site in 2023.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Vikki Levine and her sister vehemently contested the allegations, denying any abuse and claiming that the children were misinformed or omitted key information.

“Dr. Phung did not determine that Wallis was being over-medicated as alleged,” said one of Vikki Levine’s filings. “To the contrary, Dr. Phung confirmed to Vikki that there has been ‘no mismanagement of symptoms.’”

Annenberg, they said, was confined to the bed because of doctor’s orders, not cruelty.

A hospice nurse who saw Annenberg nearly daily in the final weeks of her life also contested many of the claims of the children and the former caregivers.

The nurse, according to a signed declaration reviewed by The Times, said Annenberg’s care relied on direct orders from her physicians and was carried out by registered nurses from VITAS, a hospice service. The medical team kept all appropriate records, and Annenberg was confined to her bed because moving would have risked dangerous falls, respiratory distress and other calamities.

The Levine sisters portrayed the Annenberg children as improperly interfering in their mother’s affairs.

“They crowd around Wallis’ bed while the nurses are caring for her, tell Wallis that she doesn’t need the medication, refuse to get out of their way, ask numerous questions about the medication and procedures being employed, and generally make the situation untenable for a care-provider to work,” Kris Levine said in a declaration submitted to the judge.

While Kris Levine acknowledged that she had halted visits from the children on July 13, she said in a court declaration that she asked them not to come that day because of a series of heated confrontations, and that she had wanted to impose visiting hours to give Annenberg some rest and continuity.

“The children, particularly Gregory Weingarten, have aggressively refused my requests. Indeed, he has insisted that my name is ‘not on the deed,’ that I have ‘no rights’ to our home, and that he had ‘more rights’ to be there than I did,” Kris Levine said in her declaration.

The tensions boiled over with “multiple” calls to police by Annenberg’s children.

Vikki Levine said that when officers arrived on a recent Friday night, they “determined that there was no mistreatment of Wallis, no elder abuse as alleged, and told Vikki that she did not need to let the Children back into the house.”

Nevertheless, both Vikki and Kris Levine said they made it clear to the children that they could still visit their mother.

On July 22, Judge Gus T. May found that there was “good cause” to suspend Vikki Levine from serving as Annenberg’s healthcare agent.

In her place, the judge appointed Jodi Pais Montgomery, a professional fiduciary who has held roles in other celebrity cases in probate court, including Britney Spears and Carol Burnett’s grandson.

Montgomery was instructed to follow Annenberg’s advance healthcare directive and share confidential medical information with the Annenberg children, as well as with the Levine sisters.

Annenberg died less than a week later.

July 19 (UPI) — The Democratic Republic of Congo and M23 rebels backed by Rwanda signed a declaration of peace after nearly four years of fighting in Central Africa.

The signing took place in Doha, Qatar, three weeks after Congo and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Washington, D.C., that didn’t involve the rebels, who emerged in 2012. There have been 30 years of conflict between the two nations.

The BBC obtained a copy of the declaration, which must follow the Washington Accords brokered by the United States.

At the White House, both sides agreed to recognize and respect each other’s territorial borders, committed to not supporting any armed groups and to establish a joint security mechanism to target militias.

And they plan to expand trade and investment opportunities, including U.S. access to critical minerals.

Massad Boulos, the U.S. special envoy for Africa, witnessed Saturday’s agreement.

In the accord brokered by Qatar officials, both sides agreed to “resolve their disputes by peaceful means” by July 9 with a final peace deal by Aug 18.

“The parties acknowledge that peace, security and stability are essential to increase development opportunities, improve living conditions and protect human dignity,” the accord said.

Also, there is a commitment to reinstate state authority in eastern Congo.

The deal took the government’s “red line” into account, including the “non-negotiable withdrawal” of M23 from occupied areas, according to DR Congo spokesman Patrick Muyatya.

But M23 negotiator Benjamin Mbonimpa said in a video the deal didn’t mention a pullout

African Union Commission Chairman Mahmoud Ali Youssouf called the declaration a “major milestone in the ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace, security, and stability in eastern DRC and the wider Great Lakes region.

Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe appeared at a signing ceremony in the White House’s Oval Office on June 27.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Qatar began negotiations with the two foreign ministers in April. The agreement was announced by the State Department on June 18.

“At least 6 million people were killed during that period of time,” Trump said at signing. “It’s incredible. And somebody said that was actually, it’s the biggest war on the planet since World War II. It’s a shame but we’re going to bring it to an end.”

Around 7 million people have been displaced in Congo, which has a population of 106 million. Rwanda’s population is 14 million. They both gained independence from Belgium in the early 1960s.

Congo has agreed to “neutralize” the rebels in eastern Congo. They are linked to perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus.

In January, M-23 rebels were aided by Rwandan forces in escalating the conflict, according to a United Nations expert panel.

July 4 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming U.S. independence from Britain.

In 1826, in one of history’s notable coincidences, former U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

In 1863, Union troops defeated Confederate forces in a battle at Vicksburg, Miss.

In 1895, the poem “America the Beautiful,” by Wellesley College Professor Katherine Lee Bates, was published. The poem with music by Samuel A. Ward was published as a song in 1910.

In 1910, American boxer Jack Johnson took on former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries, beating him in 15 rounds, to stake his claim as the as the greatest heavyweight in the world.

File Photo by Library of Congress/UPI

In 1939, Lou Gehrig gave his “luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech in announcing his retirement from the New York Yankees. Gehrig had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating motor neuron disease. United Press writer Jack Cuddy wasn’t impressed with the Yankees’ “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” saying doctors made up his ailment to explain his unexpected retirement.

In 1976, Israeli commandos raided the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages held by Arab militants.

In 1986, more than 250 sailing ships and the United States’ biggest fireworks display honored the Statue of Liberty in its 100th birthday year.

In 1995, the British Parliament reconfirmed John Majors as prime minister.

In 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder reached Mars to become the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the planet in more than two decades. Pathfinder returned more than 16,000 images and some 8.5 million measurements back to Earth before its final transmission on September, 27, 1997.

File Photo courtesy of NASA

In 2006, North Korea test-launched seven ballistic missiles in what it called “routine military exercises,” causing a firestorm of anger among its neighbors and the United States.

In 2010, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus took command of the Afghan war, acknowledging the “tough fight” ahead for NATO forces while pledging “We are in this to win.”

In 2013, the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public nine months after it was closed because of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

In 2018, Hong Kong’s high court ruled unanimously that same-sex couples are entitled to spousal visas like married heterosexual couples.

In 2022, seven people died and dozens others were injured in a mass shooting during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., near Chicago. Far-right activist Robert Crimo III, then 22, was charged with murder for the shooting.

A participant of the March Fourth rally to ban assault weapons holds a sign for Eduardo Uvaldo, a victim of the Highland Park shooting, outside the Senate office buildings at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2022. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

It’s the 249th birthday of the United States. And as Americans begin to prepare for our nation’s grand semiquincentennial celebration next year, it is worth reengaging with the document whose enactment marks our national birthday: the Declaration of Independence.

The declaration is sometimes championed by right-libertarians and left-liberals alike as a paean to individualism and a refutation of communitarianism of any kind. As one X user put it on Thursday: “The 4th of July represents the triumph of American individualism over the tribalistic collectivism of Europe.”

But this is anything but the case.

We will turn to lead draftsman Thomas Jefferson’s famous words about “self-evident” truths in a moment. But first consider the majority of the text of the declaration: a stirring enumeration of specific grievances by the American colonists against the British crown. In the declaration’s own words: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

One might read these words in a vacuum and conclude that the declaration indeed commenced a revolution in the true sense of the term: a seismic act of rebellion, however noble or righteous, to overthrow the established political order. And true enough, that may well have been the subjective intention of Jefferson, a political liberal and devotee of the European Enlightenment.

But the declaration also attracted many other signers. And some of those signers, such as the more conservative John Adams, took a more favorable view of the incipient America’s inherited traditions and customs. These men thought that King George III had vitiated their rights as Englishmen under the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights that passed Parliament the following year.

It is for this reason that Edmund Burke, the famed conservative British statesman best known for his strident opposition to the French Revolution, was known to be sympathetic to the colonists’ cause. As my Edmund Burke Foundation colleague Ofir Haivry argued in a 2020 American Affairs essay, it is likely that these more conservative declaration signers, such as Adams, shared Burke’s own view that “the Americans had an established national character and political culture”; and “the Americans in 1776 rebelled in an attempt to defend and restore these traditions.”

The American founding is complex; the founders themselves were intellectually heterodox. But suffice it to say the founding was not a simplistic renouncement of the “tribalistic collectivism” of Britain. There is of course some truth to those who would emphasize the revolutionary nature of the minutemen and soldiers of George Washington’s Continental Army. But a more historically sound overall conception is that 1776 commenced a process to restore and improve upon the colonists’ inherited political order. The final result was the U.S. Constitution of 1787.

Let’s next consider the most famous line of the declaration: the proclamation that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We ought to take this claim at face value: Many of the declaration’s signers did hold such genuine, moral human equality to be self-evident.

But is such a claim self-evident to everyone — at all times, in all places and within all cultures?

The obvious answer is that it is not. Genuine, moral human equality is certainly not self-evident to Taliban-supporting Islamic extremist goat herders in Afghanistan. It has not been self-evident to any number of sub-Saharan African warlords of recent decades. Nor is it self-evident to the atheists of the Chinese Communist Party politburo, who brutally oppress non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities such as the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang.

Rather, the only reason that Jefferson — and Locke in England a century prior — could confidently assert such moral “self-evidence” is because they were living and thinking within a certain overarching milieu. And that milieu is Western civilization’s biblical inheritance — and, specifically, the world-transforming claim in Genesis 1:27, toward the very beginning of the Bible, that “God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him.”

It is very difficult — perhaps impossible — to see how the declaration of 1776, the 14th Amendment of 1868, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or any other American moral ode to or legal codification of equality, would have been possible absent the strong biblical undergird that has characterized our nation since the colonial era.

Political and biblical inheritance are thus far more responsible for the modern-day United States than revolution, liberal rationalism or hyper-individualism.

Adams famously said that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Indeed, each year we should all celebrate this great nation we are blessed to call home. But let’s also not mistake what it is we are actually celebrating.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

An attorney for R. Kelly is painting a picture of corruption and deceit among the ranks of the federal Bureau of Prison’s staff and inmates, alleging there is a target on his client’s back that can be removed only if the disgraced R&B singer is sent home.

Beau Brindley is asking that Kelly be placed in temporary home confinement while serving his decades-long sex trafficking sentences. He alleges that a trio of prison officials plotted to have the singer killed by a terminally ill member of the Aryan Brotherhood who — except for a brief stint when he escaped from prison — has been in federal custody since 1982.

An emergency motion for that temporary furlough was filed Tuesday in federal court, and documents were obtained and reviewed by The Times.

In addition to detailing the supposed murder plot, the motion alleges that Kelly’s private communications while in custody were “stolen” from him by people working with various prosecutors who took the information and used it against the singer at trial. One witness never intended to testify against Kelly, the motion says, until she was approached by one of the people who allegedly stole those communications.

The motion alleges that three prison officials, including a warden and an assistant warden, conspired to have Kelly killed by another inmate, Mikeal Glenn Stine. Stine, a self-proclaimed “Commissioner” of the Aryan Brotherhood who joined the racist gang in prison, said in a declaration that an official who was not one of the wardens had previously directed him to order multiple “assaults, beatings, and killings of inmates.” That official approached him in February 2023 about ending Kelly’s life.

Stine said he first met that official during the 13 years he spent at a federal Supermax prison in Colorado, and that the alleged victims were targeted because they had been making things rough for the BOP. Stine said he had “ordered multiple assaults and murders” at the official’s requestand at various federal prisons, and he participated in some of the attacks himself.

The official told him in 2023 that there was a high-profile inmate in North Carolina “whose high-priced lawyers are going to expose a bunch of damaging information that will harm other Bureau of Prisons officers and higher-ups” and that he wanted Stine “to help to eliminate the problem,” according to Stine.

After asking Stine if he knew who R. Kelly was, the declaration said, the official told him “that Kelly is a rapist. He told me Kelly raped little white girls. He told me Kelly was scum. And he told me that Kelly was someone the A.B. would want gone. It is R. Kelly who poses the threat to the BOP.”

Stine said he was transferred to North Carolina in October 2023. He was in the medical unit from then until March 2025 when he finally wound up in Kelly’s unit, the court document said.

Stine, who says he has terminal cancer, said he was told that once he got into Kelly’s unit he should “execute” the singer. He said he was told he would be charged for the murder, but that evidence would be “mishandled” and he wouldn’t be convicted. Then, Stine said, he would be “permitted to escape” while in transit, as he had done when he escaped previously, and could live out his final months as a “free man.” Stine said he agreed to the deal but changed his mind after keeping an eye on Kelly for a few weeks.

Instead of killing the singer, Stine said in his May 19 declaration, “I told him the truth. I told him that I had been sent to kill him. I told him how and by who. And I told him his life was absolutely in danger.”

Stine said that a prison execution was nothing new for him, but killing Kelly “to hide misconduct by [Bureau of Prisons] officers and government officials is something that should not happen. … And it is going to happen to him if no one takes action.” He stated that time was “of the essence.”

Kelly’s attorney, Brindley, said in his motion that his client’s “continued incarceration while he knows his life is in jeopardy constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,” a violation of his constitutional rights. The attorney said Kelly has already been attacked in prison by others.

In his motion, Brindley accused the U.S. Attorney’s Office of knowingly conspiring to use information protected by attorney-client privilege, including information procured from one of Kelly’s cellmates. That cellmate provided a declaration stating he had stolen privileged legal documents and delivered them to a BOP investigator who copied them and sent them for use by prosecutors in both of Kelly’s trials.

“This conspiracy involved the Bureau of Prisons and was apparently orchestrated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” the motion says. “There is no room left to speculate about some way that the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not know about the corrupt conduct of these cooperating persons.”

According to the motion, Kelly got a call from a prison official in North Carolina, who warned him that the government knew his attorneys had been meeting with the cellmate who provided the declaration.

“The official then advised Mr. Kelly that he was in danger and that Mr. Kelly needed to be careful. The BOP official intimated that Mr. Kelly was not safe in Bureau of Prisons custody,” the motion says. “The BOP official further advised that Mr. Kelly should avoid the mess hall.”

The motion alleges that Kelly was already attacked by another inmate who, after the fact, wrote a letter saying had put him up to it. It says Stine approached Kelly and came clean about the alleged murder plot on April 11.

“On June 6, 2025, the defense learned that a second member of the Aryan Brotherhood, who is housed at FCI Butner, had just been approached by [a BOP official] and directed to carry out the execution of Mr. Kelly and Mr. Stine,” the motion states. Methods of murder that were discussed allegedly included mixing poison into the food at the chow hall and in the commissary.

“Time is now of the essence,” Brindley wrote. “It is with these breathtaking facts in mind that Mr. Kelly asks this Court for an extraordinary legal remedy: his release from Bureau of Prisons custody.”

Admitting that Kelly was asking for an “extraordinary” remedy to his problem, the attorney cited the allegations in his motion and offered a sweeping indictment of the federal prison system.

“The circumstances set forth above are as extraordinary as they are terrifying,” Brindley wrote. “Incarcerated persons have no redress for protection outside of the guards that are hired to keep them safe. When the hierarchy under which those guards work has sanctioned and ordered an inmate’s execution, then there is no safety for that inmate.

“The declaration of Mr. Stine shows that inmate murder at the behest of prison officials is neither new nor uncommon. It happens regularly and without consequence. Hence, the threat to Mr. Kelly’s life continues each day that no action is taken.”

June 6 (UPI) — Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration in March for deportation over his pro-Palestinian views, offered a public declaration that details what he’s experienced since his arrest.

In a case document filed Thursday, Khalil listed what he described as the “irreparable harms” he has suffered, which he claimed have affected several parts of his life that “include dignitary and reputational harm, personal and familial hardship, including constant fear for personal safety, continued detention, restrictions on my freedom of expression, and severe damage to my professional future.”

The declaration, which was made from inside the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., where Khalil has been held since March 9, puts focus on the birth of his son, which happened during his incarceration.

“Instead of holding my wife’s hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored alone.” Khalil described.

“I listened to her pain, trying to comfort her while 70 other men slept around me. When I heard my son’s first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.”

Khalil described that the first time he saw his son was through a window, and the first time he held him was in an immigration courtroom, to which his wife had to travel ten hours to reach, with their newborn.

“I speak to her as often as possible, but these conversations are not private, everything is monitored by the government,” Khalil said, which makes it impossible for them to comfortably speak freely.

“We leave so much unsaid, and that silence weighs heavily on both of us.”

Khalil said that not only has the situation been “devastating” for him, but that his wife has dealt with harassment since his arrest. Khalil further described the anguish of seeing Trump administration officials post statements and photos of him on social media that he purports as “accompanied by inflammatory language, grotesque and false accusations, and open celebration of my deportation.”

Khalil expressed concern for his future as well. He said he was hired by the nonprofit equality-focused Oxfam International group only days before his arrest as a Palestine and Middle East/ North Africa policy advisor, and was scheduled to start work in April, but the job offer was formally revoked. He says “I strongly believe” his arrest and continued detention is the reason for this.

He added that should the charges against him stand, “the harm to my professional career would be career-ending.”

Khalil further worried his arrest would result in a lifetime of “being flagged, delayed, or denied when traveling, applying for visas, or engaging with consular authorities anywhere in the world,” and not just him, but his wife and son.

His mother had also applied for a visa in March to visit the United States to see their child be born, and although that was approved, the U.S. embassy returned her passport without a stamp, and now her case is under “administrative processing,” and remains unapproved. Khalil’s elderly father, whom he describes as “severely disabled,” lives in Germany, and he ponders whether any country allied with the United States will ever grant him entry should the charges stand.

Khalil detailed the allegations under which he has been held for deportation, which not only did he deny as testimony at his May immigration court hearing, at which he purports “The government attorneys did not ask me any questions regarding these issues.”

However, Khalil maintained his greatest concern of all is a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio based on a law that an “alien” can be deported should his presence in the United States “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

“I understand that the Rubio Determination is not only a ground for deportation, but it is also a bar to entry,” said Khalil.

“In other words, no matter what happens to the other charge against me, it is the Rubio Determination that will make this country, the country of my wife and child, a country I cannot return to in the future.”