fight

A day or two after the March 3, 1991, beating of Rodney King, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.’s law firm got a call from the victim’s family, wondering if the popular, but sometimes controversial, litigator would take the case.

Cochran was in court at the time doing what some say he does best: convincing a jury to fork over taxpayer dollars–about $2 million in this instance–to a citizen who had been abused by a person with a badge.

So his secretary told the caller that Cochran wouldn’t be available for several weeks, Cochran says, dropping his head into his hands in mock despair.

Fourteen months later, as the riots triggered by the King verdicts waned, Cochran got another call. A community group wondered if he’d represent the men accused of beating trucker Reginald Denny at the corner of Florence and Normandie.

Cochran turned them down.

Then came an offer to represent the nation’s second most visible beating victim–Denny–and Cochran finally got a piece of this complex and pivotal moment in city history. In a sense, it was a moment to which Cochran’s whole career had pointed, leading like a long fuse from the 1965 Watts riot.

“What makes it ironic,” he says, “is that I’m black and he’s white.”

If that’s an irony, it’s not the only one.

Over the past decade, juries have awarded Cochran’s clients an estimated $35 million in county and city funds, mainly from lawsuits charging law officers with excessive force. Now Cochran’s anticipated civil suit for Denny and three other clients–a black, a Latino and an Asian–will charge that the LAPD failed to act with sufficient force in quelling April’s riots.

“That’s an irony,” Cochran allows, nodding. “It really is . . . “

*

Reggie Denny walks into Cochran’s office like a schoolboy visiting the principal for the first time.

“May I sit down?” he asks, as his 8-year-old daughter, Ashley, plops onto a couch wearing a T-shirt Cochran brought her from the Barcelona Olympics.

As usual, Cochran careers through topics, his mind working at the frenetic pace of Robin William’s animated genie in “Aladdin.”

The 55-year-old attorney never breaks into the cartoon genie’s refrain–”You ain’t never had a friend like me!” But Denny leaves little doubt that he views Cochran as a new best friend with almost magical powers.

As a photographer shoots, Cochran begins a semi-staged discussion of the claim he has filed with the city on Denny’s behalf, for an as-yet-unspecified–but “very substantial”–sum.

“I suspect that between now and the first of the year, we’ll get these massive rejections of the claims. Then we’ll come out and file our lawsuit. We’re ready. We’ve got a few little surprises for them. It’s going to be interesting,” Cochran says.

“Well,” Denny replies, his soft voice filled with admiration, “you know ‘em better than anyone.”

Later, when the meeting winds down, Cochran looks out the window of his Wilshire Boulevard office. In the parking lot 10 floors below, Cochran’s Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, license plate JC JR is visible, parked across from the white crew-cab truck that was a gift to Denny–license plate IBARIOT.

Cochran gestures to a landscape that six months ago was dotted with plumes of smoke from the riots, but now is clear and calm.

“It looks like Utopia, doesn’t it?” he says, chuckling. “Unfortunately, it’s not, yet.” Then, with the charm of a master litigator addressing a jury, he turns to Ashley: “It’s going to be better when you grow up, OK, Ashley? It’s going to be a better world out there.”

Johnnie Cochran sees the pivotal point in his life as the day the 6-year-old and his family boarded a train to California, leaving his Shreveport, La., birthplace.

“This may not be the land of total promise, but I tell you, it’s a lot better than having been raised in Louisiana,” he says.

For a time, Cochran and his two sisters lived with their parents in the Alameda projects, before the family moved to San Diego and finally Los Angeles.

His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr., rose through the ranks of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co., while Hattie Cochran raised the children in a small house on 28th Street. The tight-knit family became a part of an old-fashioned watch-out-for-each-other community, attending Second Baptist Church, the political powerhouse to which Cochran still belongs.

After skipping a grade in elementary school, Cochran attended Los Angeles High School, where Dustin Hoffman was a classmate, and then went to UCLA and Loyola Law School.

Cochran had just moved into private practice from the city attorney’s office when Watts exploded amid charges of police brutality in 1965. Nine months later, a police officer made a routine traffic stop of a young black named Leonard Deadwyler, who was accompanied by his pregnant wife and young daughter.

The officer shot and killed him, and the case reignited the city’s simmering racial tensions.

Representing Deadwyler’s family, Cochran played the media, turning the case into a cause. In the end, though, his firm lost the case.

Still, the case showed Cochran that his “burning passion” lay in pursuing this social-change-through-lawsuit strategy.

Today, his firm’s blue-and-gilt brochure says that he and the eight attorneys working for him “have dedicated themselves to being the best that they can be, to eradicating injustice wherever encountered, and to enhancing the quality of life whenever possible for all citizens.”

The attorneys’ quality of life hasn’t suffered either.

Built into the counter that separates the firm’s reception area from its plush offices is an electronic message sign. Lately, its red dots have flashed this message to one of the firm’s young attorneys who just won a nice judgment: “Congratulations, Carl! Welcome to the million-dollar club!”

Cochran had earned his first Rolls-Royce by the mid-1970s.

In 1978, though, he took “a five-fold pay cut” to become third in command of the 900-person Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. He arrived just after controversy erupted over the shooting of Eula Love, a black woman killed by police after she threatened them with a kitchen knife. Cochran helped create a special “roll-out” team to investigate officer-involved shootings.

Despite his growing legal stature, he was not immune to racial stereotypes.

One evening as he drove his three children home after a show at Magic Castle, red lights appeared in the rear-view mirror of Cochran’s Rolls.

“Out of the car!” the loudspeaker boomed. “Get your hands over your head.”

Cochran knew enough to comply. With his children watching, he edged over to the sidewalk as police officers kept him fixed in the sights of their service revolvers.

When the officer rummaging through the designer bag Cochran carries spotted his D.A.’s badge, the scene changed abruptly. But it taught Cochran a lesson–the same one he gets each time he goes to New York City and watches helplessly as a stream of cabbies refuse to pick him up, he says: “It can happen to anyone who’s black.”

Cochran’s work as a prosecutor was widely lauded. In 1979, the California Trial Lawyers Assn. named him its “Outstanding Law Enforcement Officer.” He left the D.A.’s office in 1981, and nine years later the same group named him “Attorney of the Year”–in part because of his success in suing law-enforcement officers.

Cochran’s skills landed him posts teaching trial tactics and techniques at UCLA and Loyola law schools. His vita grew into a seven-page catalogue of awards, appointments and commendations that range from inclusion in the Los Angeles High School Alumni Hall of Fame in 1987 to being profiled this year by National Law Journal as one of “Ten Litigators Who Stand Apart From the Crowd.”

“He is not a person that pounds the table and screams at the jury,” says Superior Court Judge Stephen M. Lachs, who presided over a trial in which Cochran sued the state on behalf of a man killed by the California Highway Patrol. “He is just very nice and likable. There’s no doubt that he was very, very effective in reaching jurors’ emotions. But in a subtle way.”

Adds Ricardo Torres, presiding judge of Los Angeles County Superior Court: “He’ll charm everybody, but especially the jury. He just exudes ability. . . . I can’t think of anyone, especially a trial litigator, I’d rather talk to.”

Other powerful figures also seem to enjoy Cochran’s company.

On the cabinet behind his desk is a large picture of Cochran with Mayor Tom Bradley, his Kappa Alpha Psi “big brother” at UCLA, and two smaller shots of him shaking hands with President-elect Bill Clinton.

Cochran hit Little Rock, Ark., for the victory celebration, and recently ricocheted on a round-trip red-eye from Washington–where he has an office–to chat with Vernon Jordan about getting minorities into the Clinton Administration.

“Do you know that only one U.S. President in history has ever gone to Africa?” he asks. “There’s never been an undersecretary for African affairs who’s been an African-American. . . . We talked about that.”

Cochran’s encouragement of African-American inclusion doesn’t stop at the top, people say. “As a kid,” says community activist Kerman Maddox, “I remember watching the Deadwyler case on TV. We’d have family dinners and talk about this young, smart, black attorney who was taking on that case.”

Later, when he and his friends saw themselves as young, smart, African-American “nobodies,” Maddox says, Cochran took time to help them figure out “how does one make it in Los Angeles?”

Cochran’s way has not won universal approval.

Attorney Stephen Yagman objects to the way Cochran–whom Bradley appointed to the prestigious Board of Airport Commissioners in 1981–straddles Los Angeles’ legal and political fences.

“Johnnie Cochran trades on the fact that he is politically connected to the Establishment,” says Yagman, who often is listed alongside Cochran as one of the nation’s top police-abuse litigators. “He long has had intimate connections with Mayor Tom Bradley and City Atty. Jimmy Hahn, while at the same time bringing suits against the LAPD.

“In my opinion, there is a conflict of interest between a person who is a city official–who, in fact, administers one of the city’s police forces, the airport police–suing the city . . . It creates the appearance of favoritism by the city attorney’s office and the mayor’s office.”

Earlier this year, a deputy city attorney with the police litigation unit raised just that issue when Cochran’s firm filed suit on behalf of a teen-age girl who had been molested by an off-duty LAPD officer. Jim Pearson, chief assistant city attorney under Hahn, told the deputy that the office had long ago decided there was no conflict in such matters.

The deputy’s motion to disqualify Cochran was withdrawn, Cochran won a record $9.4-million judgment against the city and was awarded another $300,000 in attorney’s fees.

In 1990, The Times included Cochran in its investigation of dubious dealings by Bradley appointees.

The stories pointed out that Cochran and his wife, Sylvia Dale, hosted a Bradley fund-raising dinner at their home, which was attended by people who did business with the airport commission. The stories also noted that Betty Dixon, wife of Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles), received a concession contract at LAX two years after her husband appointed Cochran to an important House ethics commission post.

Cochran acknowledges that such matters could well lead to suspicions of conflict of interest. He maintains, however, that he has never knowingly solicited contributions from people doing business with his commission.

As for Dixon, Cochran says that the commission granted a contract to a respected concessionaire, which contracted Dixon as part of its aggressive minority hiring program. He says that he was not involved.

On Dec. 4, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, in one of his last actions before departing office, closed an investigation of Cochran and 12 other Bradley aides and appointees that had been spurred by The Times’ report. Because of insufficient evidence and the statute of limitations, Reiner concluded that no charges would be filed.

Again, eyebrows might raise, Cochran concedes, since he has raised funds for Reiner in the past, and lists him, Bradley, and James Hahn among others as personal references.

Cochran says that such entanglements are unavoidable for anyone with his political involvement. And there are plenty of political types who value those ecumenical connections. There are, in fact, fans who suggest Cochran should run for mayor.

His answer: “Absolutely not. You’re looking at a guy who is extremely happy with what he is doing.”

Plus, he says, he can do more behind the scenes: “I don’t want to sound like a conservative all of a sudden. But government’s not going to be able to solve all our problems.”

Some big settlements he’s won, Cochran says, allow him to plow money back into the community. He sponsors a UCLA scholarship fund for young African-Americans, and a 10-unit housing project named after his parents, which he contributed to in collaboration with the Community Redevelopment Agency, opened last week on Redondo Boulevard, just west of the Crenshaw district.

Even with such contributions, some contend that many judgments and settlements Cochran wins do more harm than good.

“Mr. Cochran and the attorneys who do those lawsuits . . . have created the perception that law enforcement and peace officers aren’t accountable to anyone,” says Shawn Matthers, president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. Brutality-case attorneys, whom he calls “the ambulance chasers of the ‘90s,” have turned that misperception “into a cash cow of deep-pocket liability at an enormous cost to the taxpayers.

“Our perception is that Los Angeles County is an increasingly violent place. . . . Until the politicians respond to the fact that there’s that level of violence, nothing is going to change.”

Cochran, however, thinks that hitting government in the pocketbook is often the only way to make it change.

He cites the highly publicized Ron Settles case in 1983. By exhuming the young black man’s body, Cochran was able to convince a jury that Settles had not hung himself in a Signal Hill jail as alleged, but rather had been killed by the Signal Hill police.

As a result, that allegedly racist police department instituted sweeping reforms.

Now Cochran believes the King case may have a similar effect in Los Angeles.

* When the rioting triggered by the King verdicts broke out, Cochran was at a television station urging calm.

“I don’t care if you’re black, brown, Anglo, Asian or Native American,” he says, “all of us were fearful of what we saw that day. If you love Los Angeles, you don’t want to see it burn down. That doesn’t take away for one minute the sense of frustration people felt over that verdict. But you can vent your frustrations without burning down your entire community.”

After the riots, when he was asked to represent members of the so-called “Reginald Denny 4,” Cochran recoiled. He has little patience with those who would excuse whomever attacked Denny: “If anyone is totally honest with themselves, there is no justification to what happened there. . . .” The people who attacked Denny, whoever they are, “are not heroes and I hope they don’t become martyrs.”

Nor does he agree that the system that failed to convict King’s attackers should be overthrown. “It’s not a perfect system,” Cochran argues, “but it’s the best system that the world has devised. So what we have to do is keep fighting and talking about it.”

When he was approached to represent Denny, some dissension surfaced in his all-black firm. Cochran told his colleagues that the case was not about race, but rather “about human beings versus human beings, about the kind of conduct you can engage in.”

Cochran smiles at the irony that the man who has hammered the LAPD for excessive force now charges that it abandoned part of the city to the lawless.

But, he says, “I don’t think it’s necessarily a contradiction. . . . One of the burdens we have to prove in a violation of civil rights case is that the officers have a callous disregard for the safety of an individual. That’s pretty much the same burden I’ve got to prove in this case for Denny.

“I think that it’s a variation on a theme. But I think it’s totally consistent. We’re saying, would you have done this in Westwood? Would you ever have pulled back?

“The answer is ‘no.’ ”

It’s not a surprise that Donald Trump has pushed Texas Republicans to redraw congressional district lines to find five more GOP seats for the U.S. House of Representatives in time for the 2026 midterm elections. He just signed a deeply unpopular bill to cut taxes for the wealthy and cut healthcare for millions of people, and his approval rating keeps dropping. In an election based on district maps as they stand — and should stand until the next census, in 2030 — his party’s 2026 prospects for holding the House are grim. Unlike his predecessors, he’s proven willing to break our democracy to get what he wants.

If Trump’s gambit succeeds — and right now it looks as if it will — then California and other states that could counter the premature Texas redistricting have only one choice — to respond in kind.

Consider the stakes: A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance and have done so since within a month of his taking office. Yet he is undercutting the institutions that we’d otherwise depend on to speak independently and resist presidential excesses — judges, journalists, university leaders and even government officials who make the mistake of neutrally reporting facts like economic data.

With history as a predictor, Democrats would succeed in the 2026 midterms, retake the House and provide checks and balances on the Trump administration. The framers regarded Congress as the primary actor in the federal government, but it is now a shell of its former self. Elections are how America holds presidents in check. But if Trump gets his way, voters may vote but nothing will change. The already tenuous connection between the ballot box and the distribution of power will evaporate.

One can understand why Democratic legislators might not want to mimic Trump’s tactics. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who represented New York for nearly a quarter century, warned decades ago about the tendency to “define deviancy down” and normalize actions that are anything but normal. But we don’t get to pick and choose the times we live in or the type of response that is required to meet the moment.

When voters in California approved independent redistricting 15 years ago, they would have reasonably expected that many other states would follow their lead. They would have hoped that Congress or the Supreme Court would step in to create a federal standard. They would have understood other states changing the rules for purely political reasons as unconscionable. And yet here we are.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom succinctly put it: “California’s moral high ground means nothing if we’re powerless because of it.”

The solution Newsom has proposed is a prudent one — redrawing just the congressional lines, not those for the state Legislature as well, and only doing so until the next census, when Trump will have passed from the scene.

Every objection to the proposal falls apart under inspection.

A radical left-wing plot? Even many moderate members of the Democratic Party, such as Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, have praised it as a necessary response.

An end run around voters? Unlike in Texas, California voters themselves will decide whether to approve the plan.

An expensive special election? Cost was a reason to oppose the wishful-thinking 2021 recall election launched against Newsom (which he defeated with more than 60% of the vote), but the argument applies less so today given that Trump’s extreme unilateral actions — budget cuts and slashed programs, ICE raids, the attack on higher education, including the University of California — are putting California’s fiscal future at risk.

A race to the bottom? The University of Michigan game theorist Robert Axelrod demonstrated that if we want to foster cooperation, a tit-for-tat strategy outperforms all others. As a summary of his research succinctly put it: “Be nice. Be ready to forgive. But don’t be a pushover.” California officials have indicated that they will withdraw the proposal if Texas Republicans stand down.

A political risk? Certainly, but the leader taking on the risk is Newsom. If the proposal is defeated at the ballot, voters will be in the same position they are in right now.

Czech dissident-turned-statesman Vaclav Havel, in his famous essay “The Power of the Powerless,” described the Prague Spring not only as a “clash between two groups on the level of real power” but as the “final act … of a long drama originally played out chiefly in the theatre of the spirit and the conscience of society.”

We do not know how the current drama will play out. But the choice that Havel set out — of living within a lie or living within the truth — is as potent as ever. If Trump continues to goad Texas into abandoning its commitment to the norms of our election rules, Americans who hold onto hope that their voices still matter will be counting on California to show the way.

Vivek Viswanathan is a fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He served in the Biden White House as senior policy advisor and special assistant to the president, and previously worked for Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Undefeated UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria once again expressed his desire to cross over to professional boxing and face the winner of the upcoming fight between Mexican superstar Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Terence Crawford.

Topuria said his goal is to face Álvarez, whom he has considered a role model and idol for years. The Spanish-Georgian fighter hopes the UFC will allow him to follow in the footsteps of Conor McGregor, who fought and lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in August 2017 while under contract with the mixed martial arts promoter.

Topuria said he feels ready to compete in the boxing ring and that this is the ideal opportunity to do so.

“Why not me? I would love to box against the winner of Canelo and Crawford. But if I could choose, I want Canelo. He was my idol for many years and I feel I can do it,” Topuria told reporters. “Let’s do it, now is the best time.”

Topuria, who knocked out Charles Oliveira in June to win his second UFC belt, is enjoying the best moment of his career. He has knocked out figures such as Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovski, establishing himself as one of the biggest stars in mixed martial arts. However, he is now turning his attention to boxing and wants to prove that he can also excel in the ring.

His prediction for the fight between Álvarez and Crawford, which will take place on Sept. 13 in Las Vegas, is that the Mexican will win.

“Canelo, obviously. He’s a role model for me. I want my chance against him,” Topuria said. “I feel like I can beat him. If I get the chance to fight him, why not? Come on, [Saudi Arabian promoter] Turki [Alalshikh], give me the chance to win the title.”

For his part, Canelo responded respectfully when asked about Topuria but did not commit to a fight.

“I haven’t seen him fight a full fight, but I like him a lot, I respect him, and I admire him. We’ll see. First things first, right now I’m focused on what’s in front of me,”

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.

MOSES ITAUMA and Dillian Whyte will go head-to-head in a mammoth heavyweight clash THIS WEEKEND!

Itauma will be aiming to take another huge step towards a world heavyweight title shot with victory over his fellow Brit.

3

3

3

MOSES ITAUMA VS DILLIAN WHYTE: ALL THE DETAILS YOU NEED AHEAD OF HUGE HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT

WATCH ITAUMA VS WHYTE LIVE ON DAZN

The exciting youngster is ranked No1 by the WBO after he knocked out Mike Balogun in May to take his flawless record to 12-0.

Itauma is the big favourite to beat veteran Whyte, who is almost double his age.

The Bodysnatcher is looking to pull off a huge upset as he looks to revive his career after underwhelming wins against Christian Hammer and Ebenezer Tetteh in 2024.

A win for Whyte could potentially set up a blockbuster rematch with Anthony Joshua or a trilogy bout against Derek Chisora.

But defeat may see the 37-year-old’s time as a top heavyweight come to an end.

SunSport brings you all the details you need ahead of Itamua vs Whyte.

Moses Itauma vs Dillian Whyte – all the info

One of the biggest fights of the year has arrived

The highly-touted Moses Itauma faces the biggest test of his fledgling career as he steps into the ring with Dillian Whyte on Saturday night.

Itauma, 20, has great expectations on his shoulders – he has been compared to Mike Tyson and is expected by many to dominate boxing’s heavyweight division over the next decade.

But the Slovakian-born star – who sits at 12-0 (10KOs) is yet to face a test anywhere close to what Whyte can offer.

The Body Snatcher is now 37 and has not looked great in his last couple of fights, but the former world title challenger knows an upset win would catapult him right back to the top table.

Watch Itauma vs Whyte LIVE on DAZN

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the fight…

INFO

LATEST NEWS

When is Itauma vs Whyte?

• Itauma vs Whyte will take place on Saturday, August 16.
• The main card will get underway at 5pm BST.
• The ring-walks for the main event are scheduled for around 10pm BST.
• The bout will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but a venue has not yet been confirmed.

What TV channel is Itauma vs Whyte on and can it be live streamed?

• Itauma vs Whyte will be broadcast live on DAZN.
• The whole fight card will stream live on DAZN in over 200 countries across the globe via a DAZN subscription.
• If you are not currently a DAZN member, then monthly and annual subscription options are available to watch over 185 fights a year across boxing, bare knuckle boxing, MMA and kickboxing.
• An Annual Super Saver subscription is a one-off payment of £119.99 / $224.99 for 12-months access (£14.99 / $19.99 per month if paying in monthly instalments).
• A Monthly Flexible pass, which can be cancelled at any time, is £24.99 / $29.99 per month.
• Alternatively, SunSport’s live blog will bring you round-by-round updates from the huge card.

Who else is on the card?

Here are all the bouts taking place in Saudi Arabia:

Subject to change

• Moses Itauma vs Dillian Whyte; Heavyweight
• Nick Ball vs Sam Goodman; Featherweight, for the WBA title
• Ray Ford vs Abraham Nova; Super featherweight
• Filip Hrgovic vs David Adeleye; Heavyweight
• Hayato Tsutsumi vs Qais Ashfaq; Super featherweight

One of California’s most influential labor organizations endorsed redrawing the state’s congressional maps to counter President Trump’s effort to push Republican states, notably Texas, to increase his party’s numbers in Congress in next year’s midterm election.

The California Federation of Labor Unions voted unanimously Tuesday to support putting a measure on the ballot in November. The proposal, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many of the state’s Democratic leaders, would ask voters to temporarily change congressional district boundaries that were drawn by an independent redistricting commission four years ago, with some conditions.

Republicans could potentially lose up to a half dozen seats in California’s 52-member delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. After it returns for its summer recess on Aug. 18, the California Legislature is expected to vote to place the measure on the statewide ballot in a special election.

“President Trump has said that Republicans are ‘entitled’ to five more congressional votes in Texas. Well, they aren’t entitled to steal the 2026 election. California’s unions refuse to stand by as democracy is tested,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the federation, said in a statement. “California Labor is unified in our resolve to fight back against President Trump’s anti-worker agenda.”

Redistricting — the esoteric redrawing of the nation’s 435 congressional districts — typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. census tallies the population across the nation. Population shifts can result in changes in a state’s allocation of congressional seats, such as when California lost a seat after the 2020 census the first time in the state’s history.

The political redistricting process had long been crafted by elected officials to give their political parties an edge or to protect incumbents — sometimes in brazen, bizarrely shaped districts. Californians voted in 2010 to create an independent commission to draw congressional maps based on communities of interest, logical geography and ensuring representation of minority communities.

The ballot measure being pushed by Newsom and others would allow state lawmakers to help determine district boundaries for the next three election cycles if Texas approves a pending measure to reconfigure districts to increase Republican-held congressional seats in that state. Line-drawing would return to the independent commission after the 2030 census.

The California Federation of Labor is committed to spending several million dollars supporting a mid-decade redistricting ballot measure, on top of what it already planned to spend on competitive congressional races next year, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the strategy.

A spokesperson for several organizations devoted to fighting any effort to change the state’s redistricting process said that Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire, and who bankrolled the ballot measure to create the independent commission, is committed to making sure it is not weakened.

“While Charles Munger has been out of politics since 2016, he has said he will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting,” said Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition. “His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard.”

LeShon Johnson’s shameful career operating a dogfighting enterprise of immense magnitude is as long as it is grisly, far longer than his stint as a running back, even if his season as the leading rusher in college football is included along with his five years in the NFL.

The Department of Justice announced Monday that a federal jury in Oklahoma convicted Johnson of violating federal Animal Welfare Act prohibitions against possessing, selling, transporting and delivering animals to be used in fighting ventures.

Johnson, who operated in the open plains of east Oklahoma not far from where he grew up, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison, five years for each of the six felony counts. He also faces a fine of up to $250,000 on each count.

Authorities took 190 pit bulls and other dogs from his property, the most ever seized from an individual in a federal dogfighting case. Many were scarred and injured. Authorities also uncovered treadmills, bite sticks, steroids and records that detailed fight arrangements and wagering.

The verdict culminated a two-year investigation that included raids on Johnson’s properties in Broken Arrow and Haskell, Okla. Operating under the name Mal Kant Kennels, Johnson was found to have bred, trained and fought dogs in multiple states.

The former ballcarrier who finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting in 1993, also had a conviction in Oklahoma state court for dogfighting in 2005, which preceded the much-publicized dogfighting conviction of star NFL quarterback Michael Vick by three years.

Twenty years ago, Johnson had a breeding operation called Krazyside Kennels, and its most famous dog, Nino, was the topic of an online narrative that chronicled the pit bull’s fights in several states, his last match approaching two hours despite having his ankle snapped in the first 30 seconds.

When Johnson was arrested in Tulsa in May 2004, agents found a calendar that detailed his breeding and fight schedules. Fights were listed so far back that investigators believed Johnson fought dogs during his NFL career, which ended in 1999.

A 2007 Sports Illustrated story that focused on Vick’s involvement in dogfighting rings included information about Johnson’s case. George Dohrmann — who was a Los Angeles Times reporter before moving to Sports Illustrated — wrote that Johnson was one of several athletes who had been charged with dogfighting or spoken openly of their links to the practice.

“[Fighting dogs] is a fun thing, a hobby, to some [athletes],” an NFL Pro Bowl running back who asked not to be named told Dohrmann. “People are crazy about pit bulls. Guys have these nice, big fancy houses, and there is always a pit bull in the back. And everyone wants to have the biggest, baddest dog on the block.”

Johnson avoided prison after his 2005 conviction, getting a deferred sentence and probation. This time he likely won’t be so fortunate.

“Dogfighting is a vicious and cruel crime that has no place in a civilized society,” U.S. Atty. Christopher J. Wilson for the Eastern District of Oklahoma said Monday. “I commend the hard work of our law enforcement partners in investigating this case and holding the defendant accountable for his crimes.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel also issued statements condemning dogfighting and lauding the conviction of Johnson.

“This criminal profited off of the misery of innocent animals and he will face severe consequences for his vile crimes,” Bondi said.

Added Patel: “The FBI will not stand for those who perpetuate the despicable crime of dogfighting. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, those who continue to engage in organized animal fighting and cruelty will face justice.”

Johnson was a Green Bay Packers third-round draft pick in 1994 after he led the nation with 1,976 yards rushing at Northern Illinois in 1993. His best day in the NFL came on Sept. 4, 1996, when he rushed for 214 yards for the Arizona Cardinals in a win over the New Orleans Saints, scoring touchdowns of 70 and 56 yards.

Nicknamed “the Cowboy” because he had been a bull rider on the junior rodeo circuit growing up in Oklahoma, Johnson’s NFL career was interrupted by lymphoma cancer in 1998. He made a comeback with New York Giants in 1999 and also played in the XFL for the Chicago Enforcers.

DILLIAN WHYTE’S trainer Buddy McGirt sensationally admitted he has never watched his fighter’s upcoming opponent Moses Itauma box before.

McGirt, 61, made that stunning revelation just two weeks before Whyte, 37, faces Itauma, 20, on August 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

2

2

And that could come back to haunt the Body Snatcher and his trainer as his upcoming foe has won all of his 12 fights heading to their clash in the Middle East.

“But can that kid ask the same question? Can Dillian do something that this kid has never seen before?”

McGirt has worked with with several other world champions, such as Sergey Kovalev, Arturo Gatti and Hasim Rahman

And the American rarely watches tape in the lead-up to any of his boxers’ fights.

Ever since the New Yorker and Whyte linked up in 2022 following the Brit’s loss to Tyson Fury, the heavyweight counts three victories.

McGirt added: “We’re training hard like it is a championship fight, but we aren’t training like we are fighting Clubber Lang or anybody.

CASINO SPECIAL – BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS

“Moses is a good young prospect, but we’re working every day like we’re fighting for the title, whether it is against this kid or anybody else.”

But Itauma is not to be underestimated by Whyte and the rest of his camp.

The southpaw demolished his first 12 opponents in a way that has brought back memories of a teenage Mike Tyson.

April 3, 2005. It’s 02:00 in Washington.

Stephan Weiler is woken by a “dreaded call”. A voice said: “Is Becky Zerlentes your wife?’

“I said ‘yes’, and the official from Denver Health Medical Center and Hospital told me I need to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Her condition was deteriorating.”

Up until that day, a female boxer in the United States had never died in a sanctioned fight.

In succumbing to that devastating blow, Zerlentes – who three years previously won a regional boxing title – had rewritten history.

While the tales of fighters like Johnny Owen and Jimmy Doyle, external are enshrined in history, the impact of Zerlentes’ death on the community in Denver and on those who loved her has remained private.

Zerlentes’ love affair with combat sports defined her life, an overwhelming rush every time she stepped inside the confines of a boxing ring or MMA cage.

Like most amateur fighters, 34-year-old Zerlentes embraced a career away from the ropes, working as a geography and economics professor at Front Range Community College’s Larimer County campus, earning a master’s and PhD.

The buzz she enjoyed inside the classroom was complemented by her love of sport, especially in combat.

On that fight night, Weiler remained in the capital of the US, continuing his three-year stay at the Federal Reserve, the country’s central banking system.

He had constantly been asked by Zerlentes to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he soon would.

Facing Heather Schmitz, Zerlentes was taking part in the Colorado State Boxing Senior Female Championships at the Denver Coliseum in Colorado, a venue that has crammed more than 10,000 people in when the Rolling Stones or Rage Against the Machine have been in town. Both women wore protective headgear.

For two rounds Zerlentes worked, trading punches with Schmitz until the third.

With a blow to the head, just above her left eye, Zerlentes staggered forward, struck the canvas and fell unconscious – a state she would remain in until her death the following morning.

“The doctor in the ring said her pupils were fixed and dilated when he saw her first and already there was a chance that brain damage had occurred,” Weiler, now a professor, said.

By 06:30 Weiler was on a flight to Denver and immediately made his way to the hospital. There he saw Zerlentes.

“The amount of damage to Becky’s brain was remarkable given that it was a fairly glancing blow,” he said.

“It was not a hard hit… but the brain had become bruised to such an extent that it could no longer operate.”

The life support Zerlentes had been placed on was beginning to fail, and that “clinically she was probably already dead in the ring”, Weiler recalled.

And then he had to make a choice.

“At about noon that morning, the decision was made, knowing that her condition was deteriorating, I made the choice that it was time,” he said.

The reaction to her death was immediate.

Tributes flooded in across Denver. Colleagues, students and others who knew Zerlentes described the warmth and tenacity of one of the college and community’s pillars.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he’s considering calling a special election on Nov. 4 to ask voters to approve new congressional maps in California in an effort to thwart President Trump’s plan to redistrict Republican-controlled states and hold onto power of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections.

“I think there’s a growing recognition in this country, not just with Democrats, independents, but also Republicans, that de facto the Trump presidency ends in November of next year if the American people are given a fair chance and a voice and a choice. We’ll take back Congress,” Newsom said. “The President of the United States recognizes that, so he wants to rig the game, wants to change the rules midterm.”

The governor has cast his call to gerrymander California as a response to Trump’s request for Texas and other states to reconfigure their maps to pick up seats in 2026.

“We’re going to respond in a transparent way, an honest way, but it’s in response,” Newsom said. “But I’m not going to sit back any longer in a position, a fetal position, in a position of weakness, when in fact California could demonstrably advance strength and that’s what we intend to do.”

Under Newsom’s plan, the California Legislature would need to take a vote to send a ballot measure to voters.

Newsom said voters would be given the maps of new congressional districts. A special election would be held on the first Tuesday in November asking voters to adopt the maps and allow the new districts to remain in effect through 2030 when California would return to the independent redistricting system that’s currently in place.

California’s Independent Redistricting Commission would craft new maps after the next census to be put into effect in 2032.

The governor said he’s in the early planning states of the process and doesn’t have an estimate yet for the price tag of a statewide special election. Newsom called the cost of preserving Democracy “priceless.”

“There are many local elections that first Tuesday already on the ballot, so it requires significant less resources than a special election that didn’t already have regular elections considered,” Newsom said. “So that could be very meaningful in mitigating the cost.”

Newsom promised more information in the weeks ahead.

WASHINGTON — It’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s turn to defend her record and battle accusations that she’s lost touch with her district.

The out-of-nowhere winner of 2018′s most spectacular election upset, the New York Democrat faces a June 23 primary in which her chief rival, a former Republican, has adopted the mantra “AOC is MIA.” The mighty U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a digital ad, with English and Spanish versions, asking why Ocasio-Cortez isn’t supporting “good-paying jobs in the tech industry.”

As Congress’ youngest woman and one of its most recognizable faces, the 30-year-old former activist and bartender remains a heavy favorite to win. Yet with her hard-left views, her celebrity status and the job losses that have staggered her New York district during the COVID-19 pandemic, her opponents say they sense weak spots.

“There’s a real contrast here between AOC’s record, what she’s done for the district, and this perception of her being this Hollywood glam girl,” said Scott Reed, the chamber’s senior political strategist.

The congresswoman’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview. Her pollster, Celinda Lake, said Ocasio-Cortez stands little chance of losing.

“They’re out of touch with the district,” Lake said of the chamber, the nation’s largest business organization.

Ocasio-Cortez began airing a TV spot this week that underlines the importance of turnout in what’s likely to be a low-turnout primary. “Listen, if we want change, we’ve also got to vote for it,” she said.

“She knows how dangerous primaries can be and she’s taking it seriously,” said Sean McElwee, who conducts research for progressive candidates.

The chamber and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Ocasio-Cortez’s top challenger, are focusing chiefly on two things. One is Ocasio-Cortez’s March vote against a $2 trillion economic relief package, the other her opposition to Amazon’s plan to build a jobs-rich headquarters in a Queens neighborhood in the district, which the company abandoned in 2019.

“She voted against the interests of my neighbors,” Caruso-Cabrera said in an interview, citing the bill’s money for the unemployed and small businesses. Congress approved the legislation.

Caruso-Cabrera has cast Ocasio-Cortez as a divisive elitist who ignores the district, which also covers parts of the Bronx. Caruso-Cabrera said that after Congress approved the coronavirus bill and the pandemic was ravaging New York, Ocasio-Cortez “stayed in a luxury apartment in D.C. with a Whole Foods in the lobby.”

Ocasio-Cortez, the only Democratic vote against the relief legislation, said in a debate last week that she opposed it because its help for large corporations was a gift “for Donald Trump and his friends.” She also said the bill denied benefits to many immigrants. She said the Amazon headquarters plan guaranteed no jobs for district residents and would have cost taxpayers money and boosted rents.

Ocasio-Cortez campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said the lawmaker has been in New York and Washington 96% of the time, attending over 200 events in the district.

She said the campaign has helped raise over $1 million to help community groups weather the pandemic, and Ocasio-Cortez has attended two protests in the district against police treatment of African Americans, helping distribute protective masks. She said she remained in Washington for days after the relief bill passed feeling ill but wasn’t tested for the coronavirus.

Caruso-Cabrera, 51, has vulnerabilities in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. A registered Republican until several years ago, she’s a former CNBC anchor who lived in Trump Tower before moving to the district last year.

A 2010 book she wrote proposed eliminating entire government agencies including the Education Department. It suggested ending Social Security’s and Medicare’s automatic benefits and instead giving people money to control themselves, risky proposals Congress has rejected. A foreword by her co-anchor Larry Kudlow, now Trump’s economic advisor, called her ideas “long-overdue reforms.”

Caruso-Cabrera said she favors strengthening Social Security and Medicare. “I’m a Democrat,” she said.

Reed said the chamber urged Caruso-Cabrera to run last fall. Ocasio-Cortez is expected to have one of the lowest scores when the chamber releases rankings next week on lawmakers’ votes on business-oriented bills.

The organization tangled with Ocasio-Cortez in a Texas primary in March, when she backed an unsuccessful liberal challenger to pro-business Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.

This time, Ocasio-Cortez’s advantages will be tough to overcome.

Her household name is a major edge, and her Hispanic heritage is a strong suit in her multiracial district. The $8.2 million she’s raised is more than seven times what Caruso-Cabrera has collected.

“Given how she came into office, she should be the last person to take anything for granted, and obviously she’s not,” said Howard Wolfson, a longtime New York Democratic strategist.

In a stunner of a primary two years ago, Ocasio-Cortez ousted Rep. Joe Crowley, who overwhelmingly outspent her and was considered on track to become House speaker. She accused him of being detached from the district, which grew increasingly diverse during his two decades in office. It currently is half Hispanic, with many of the rest Asian and African American.

Since coming to Washington in 2019 with a huge class of first-term lawmakers who gave Democrats the House majority, Ocasio-Cortez has established a marquee niche.

A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, she’s an author of the Green New Deal, a plan for curbing planet-warming emissions that’s gone nowhere in Congress.

She’s pushed other liberal efforts on health care and immigration and has clashed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for defying the party line. Those confrontations have diminished, and Ocasio-Cortez, after campaigning for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, has now said she’ll vote for the party’s presumed nominee, Joe Biden.

Much of her clout comes from Twitter, where she has 7.2 million followers. All of this has earned her a cameo in countless Republican ads that depict her, Pelosi and Sanders as dangerous radicals.

Reed said the chamber’s digital ads target 30,000 likely voters with pro-business views and will cost six figures. He said the group may spend more.

“We play to win, but sometimes we play to make a statement,” Reed said. If she prevails, he said the chamber would warn anti-business lawmakers that “we’re going to keep an eye on them.”

SHOCKING footage shows the moment youths armed with large knives fought in broad daylight.

Locals and pedestrians watched on in horror as the chaos unfolded on what appears to be a residential street, in a video going viral on social media.

3

3

3

The footage is believed to have been taken in Normanton, Derby, according to the original source.

Footage filmed by a passerby shows a number of young men lunging towards each other while they shout threats.

More than one appear to be brandishing large knives which they waved in their rivals’ faces.

The youths are caught on camera feinting towards one another with most dressed in tracksuits and hoodies.

A road sign reading Grove Street is visible during the shocking confrontation.

One man is seen with a bike while only one yob is seen without a face covering.

In the video, the mask-less man was seen tumbling to the floor during the confrontation but manages to get up just in time.

As he and a man in a grey tracksuit run away, they appear to be chased by two youths dressed in dark colours.

The skirmish ends when the yobs are seen running off in different directions.

The footage then cuts away as they run out of sight behind a bush.

Derbyshire Police have been contacted for comment.

It comes after horrifying footage shows the moment a car ploughed into machete-wielding thugs brawling on the street in broad daylight.

The bare-chested yobs were captured on camera fighting on Clements Place in Dundee, Scotland.

As many as eight people were involved in the brutal street fight as shocked motorists watched on in horror.

A number of thugs were armed with metal poles and machetes as the scrap spilled across a pavement outside residential properties.

Meanwhile, violent thugs armed with foot-long machetes were seen fighting on a tube station platform in full view of terrified commuters.

Shocking footage shows hooded yobs armed with knives at Queensbury station in North West London.

For female state lawmakers in Kentucky, choosing when to go to the bathroom has long required careful calculation.

There are only two bathroom stalls for women on the third floor of the Kentucky Statehouse, where the House and Senate chambers are located. Female legislators — 41 of the 138-member Legislature — needing a reprieve during a lengthy floor session have to weigh the risk of missing an important debate or a critical vote.

None of their male colleagues face the same dilemma because, of course, multiple men’s bathrooms are available. The Legislature even installed speakers in the men’s bathrooms to broadcast the chamber’s events so they don’t miss anything important.

In a pinch, House Speaker David Osborne allows women to use his single-stall bathroom in the chamber, but even that attracts long lines.

“You get the message very quickly: This place was not really built for us,” said Rep. Lisa Willner, a Democrat from Louisville, reflecting on the photos of former lawmakers, predominantly male, that line her office.

The issue of potty parity may seem comic, but its impact runs deeper than uncomfortably full bladders, said Kathryn Anthony, professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Architecture.

“It’s absolutely critical because the built environment reflects our culture and reflects our population,” said Anthony, who has testified on the issue before Congress. “And if you have an environment that is designed for half the population but forgets about the other half, you have a group of disenfranchised people and disadvantaged people.”

There is hope for Kentucky’s lady legislators seeking more chamber potties.

A $300-million renovation of the 155-year-old Capitol — scheduled for completion by 2028 at the soonest — aims to create more women’s restrooms and end Kentucky’s bathroom disparity.

The Bluegrass State is among the last to add bathrooms to aging statehouses that were built when female legislators were not a consideration.

In the $392-million renovation of the Georgia Capitol, expanding bathroom access is a priority, said Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff with the state’s Building Authority. It will introduce facilities for women on the building’s fourth floor, where the public galleries are located, and will add more bathrooms throughout to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We know there are not enough bathrooms,” he said.

Evolving equality in statehouses

There’s no federal law requiring bathroom access for all genders in public buildings. Some 20 states have statutes prescribing how many washrooms buildings must have, but historical buildings — such as statehouses — are often exempt.

Over the years, as the makeup of state governments has changed, statehouses have added bathrooms for women.

When Tennessee’s Capitol opened in 1859, the architects designed only one restroom — for men only — situated on the ground floor. According to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks, the toilet could only be “flushed” when enough rainwater had been collected.

“The room was famously described as ‘a stench in the nostrils of decency,’” Weeks said in an email.

Today, Tennessee’s Capitol has a women’s bathroom located between the Senate and House chambers. It’s in a cramped hall under a staircase, sparking comparisons to Harry Potter’s cupboard bedroom, and it contains just two stalls. The men also just have one bathroom on the same floor, but it has three urinals and three stalls.

Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who was elected in 2023, said she wasn’t aware of the disparity in facilities until contacted by the Associated Press.

“I’ve apparently accepted that waiting in line for a two-stall closet under the Senate balcony is just part of the job,” she said.

“I had to fight to get elected to a Legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn’t exist — or at least didn’t have bladders,” Behn said.

The Maryland State House is the country’s oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women’s restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office.

Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the “Ladies Rest Room Committee,” and presented her with a fur-covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women’s caucus the following year.

It wasn’t until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure that position, ordered the addition of more women’s restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building.

‘No longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic’

As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds.

In Nebraska’s unicameral Legislature, female senators didn’t get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber’s cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the Senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature’s clerk.

In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber’s hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state’s first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility.

The plaque, now inside a women’s bathroom in the Capitol, reads: “Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we’d have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall … Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.”

The poem concludes: “In mem’ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we’ll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.”

New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women’s restroom in the chamber’s lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female-majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said.

“It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn’t,” she said. “To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.”

The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn’t open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn’t until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to female lawmakers.

Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916.

Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn’t designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard.

“This building was not designed for me,” she said. “Well, guess what? I’m here.”

Kruesi and Rush write for the Associated Press. AP writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — Federal immigration judges fired by the Trump administration are filing appeals, pursuing legal action and speaking out in an unusually public campaign to fight back.

More than 50 immigration judges — from senior leaders to new appointees — have been fired since President Trump assumed office in January. Normally bound by courtroom decorum, many are now unrestrained in describing terminations they consider unlawful and why they believe they were targeted.

The reasons, they believe, include gender discrimination, decisions on immigration cases played up by the Trump administration, and a courthouse tour with the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat.

“I cared about my job and was really good at it,” Jennifer Peyton, a former supervising judge, told the Associated Press last week. “That letter that I received, the three sentences, explained no reason why I was fired.”

Peyton, who received the notice while on a Fourth of July family vacation, was appointed judge in 2016. She considered it her dream job. Peyton was later named assistant chief immigration judge in Chicago, helping to train, mentor and oversee judges. She was a visible presence in the busy downtown court, greeting outside observers.

She cited top-notch performance reviews and said she faced no disciplinary action. Peyton said she’ll appeal through the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent government agency Trump has also targeted.

Peyton’s theories about why she was fired include appearing on a “bureaucrat watchdog list” of people accused by a right-wing organization of working against the Trump agenda. She also wonders about a courthouse tour she gave Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the minority whip, in June.

Durbin blasted Peyton’s termination as an “abuse of power,” saying he’s visited before as part of his duties as a publicly elected official.

The nation’s immigration courts — with a backlog of about 3.5 million cases — have become a key focus of Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown. The firings are on top of resignations, early retirements and transfers, adding up to 106 judges gone since January, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents judges. There are currently about 600 immigration judges.

Several of those fired, including Peyton, have recently done a slew of interviews on local Chicago television stations and with national outlets, saying they now have a platform for their colleagues who remain on the bench.

“The ones that are left are feeling threatened and very uncertain about their future,” said Matt Biggs, the union’s president.

Carla Espinoza, a Chicago immigration judge since 2023, was fired as she was delivering a verdict this month. Her notice said she’d be dismissed at the end of her two-year probationary period with the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

“I am personally committed to my career. We’re not political appointees,” she told AP. “I’m entitled to a reason.”

She believes the firings have disproportionately affected women and ethnic minorities, including people with Latino-sounding surnames like hers. She plans to take legal action before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has also shifted focus under Trump.

“There’s a very strong pattern of discriminatory factors,” she said.

Espinoza thinks another reason could be her decision to release a Mexican immigrant falsely accused of threatening to assassinate Trump. Ramón Morales Reyes was accused by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of writing a threatening letter. But the claims fell apart as Wisconsin authorities determined that Morales Reyes was framed by a man who had previously attacked him.

Espinoza said she felt pressure given the public scrutiny, media coverage and Noem’s statements about Morales Reyes, which weren’t corrected or removed from social media.

“It’s hard to silence the noise and just do your job fairly when there’s so much distraction,” she said. “I think I did. And I stand by my decision as having been a fair one to release an individual who I believe was twice victimized.”

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, part of the Justice Department that oversees the immigration courts, declined to comment on the firings through an agency spokesperson.

Peyton said she isn’t sure that working as an immigration judge is still her dream job.

“It’s important that everyone in our country knows what’s happening in our immigration courts,” she said. “The Department of Justice that I joined in 2016 is not the same one now.”

Tareen writes for the Associated Press.

Reinier de Ridder survives a brutal knockdown to win by split decision against Robert Whittaker in the main event at Etihad Arena in the UAE.

Reinier de Ridder secured the biggest win of his Octagon career at UFC Abu Dhabi, narrowly securing a hard-fought split decision over former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker at the Etihad Arena in the United Arab Emirates.

De Ridder (21-2) earned his third win of 2025 by defeating the Australian by split decision; two of the three judges scored the 84kg (185-pound) bout 48-47 for de Ridder, while a third had it 48-47 for Whittaker.

“I don’t want to fight like this [Whittaker], man, this guy was too tough,” de Ridder said in a post-fight interview on Saturday. “I expected to take him down. He was so tough, so durable. Heavy f****** hands.”

The Dutch fighter had to survive a brutal knockdown in round three when Whittaker dropped him with a right hand to the chin in the opening minute.

De Ridder managed to survive the attack, and consolidated his overall superiority in strikes – de Ridder landed 169 in total, compared with 100 for Whittaker, according to official UFC statistics – and recovered to win the final two rounds by wearing down the 34-year-old with repeated knees to the body and constant grappling.

Throughout the five-round fight, there was little to separate the pair. When the final bell sounded, the split decision reflected the closeness of the contest.

De Ridder’s victory was his fourth Ultimate Fighting Championship career victory. Whittaker (27-9) has now lost two straight and three of his five most recent fights.

Following his victory, de Ridder, ranked 13th heading into the Whittaker fight, called for a title shot against the winner of the middleweight championship bout between Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 on August 16.

“I want to finish a guy in the first round, so maybe it would be better if I fought Khamzat [Chimaev] or Dricus [Du Plessis]. Give me my title shot.”

In the co-main event, former UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan defeated Marcus McGhee by unanimous decision. Yan outpaced his opponent in total strikes, significant strikes, control and takedowns.

In the middleweight match, Shara Magomedov bounced back from his first professional loss, which came against Michael Page in February, to win over Marc-Andre Barriault by unanimous decision. Magomedov earned a 30-27 score from all three judges.

Chris Newman was carrying two bags when we recently sat down for breakfast at Homegirl Café in downtown Los Angeles.

One was a newish satchel holding his laptop and papers for the cases he’s working on, which happen to involve some of the most infamous moments in the Trump administration’s deportation deluge.

Newman assisted on a lawsuit that won a temporary restraining order against the indiscriminate immigration raids that have afflicted Southern California since June. He also represents the family of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a day laborer who was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador in the spring, then returned on the order of a federal judge. At the Border Patrol’s takeover of MacArthur Park earlier this month, Newman was there shooting video and deriding the spectacle as “a dystopian episode of ‘The Apprentice.’”

“If we can litigate the calamity [of Trump] at the local level to the widest degree, that can help democracy survive, dude,” Newman told me as he picked at black beans and two eggs over easy.

The other bag, a big straw tote, was filled with anti-Trump and anti-migra T-shirts, posters and stickers. Wherever Newman goes these days, he hands them out like a progressive Santa Claus.

“I want to keep the proper amount of anger to have the fuel to do all this,” he said. “The pendulum is sweeping so wide and so fast. We need to be ready.”

For the past 21 years, Newman has been a pivotal, omnipresent part of Southern California’s immigrant rights movement as legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, better known as NDLON. His work takes him from street corners advising jornaleros about their rights to my alma mater, UCLA, where he’s on the faculty of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

Newman’s influence extends far past Los Angeles, however. He’s a regular presence on national media outlets, quick and eloquent with insights and righteous anger. Politicians from Sacramento to Washington know he isn’t afraid to tear into them if he thinks they’re too timid to publicly call out xenophobia or support laws that protect the undocumented.

“He does not mind being the bad cop,” said Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco public defender’s office. In her previous job last decade, she and Newman helped craft a trio of bills that made California a sanctuary state.

“It can make a meeting very uncomfortable, but Chris is cutting all the bulls— so you get much closer to having an honest conversation,” Chan said. “He does not expect or pursue pomp or circumstance.”

Chris Newman, legal council for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, outside Homegirl Cafe in Los Angeles.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Salvador Reza, a longtime organizer in Phoenix, first worked with Newman in the mid-2000s after asking NDLON to help pressure the city to let day laborers seek work. Newman participated in forums, organized rallies and ultimately convinced city officials to lay off by citing a 2006 lawsuit against Redondo Beach that he had worked on. In that case, an ordinance banning day laborers was ruled unconstitutional.

Newman and Reza went on to wage many successful campaigns in Arizona, from defeating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the ballot box to fighting local law enforcement agencies partnering with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The two even convinced music legends like Zack de la Rocha, Los Tigres del Norte and the late Jenni Rivera to bypass the Copper State during their tours in 2010 to protest a state bill that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants.

“He cares a lot about people, and he’ll go out of his way to help out anyone who needs it who’s being abused by the system,” said Reza, who saw Newman earlier this year when the two met with Home Depot managers over allegations that their stores in Phoenix were chasing off day laborers. “He’s super busy over there in California right now, isn’t he?”

A fast talker who exudes confidence but isn’t a braggart, Newman looks far younger than 49. His full head of hair, round-framed glasses and freshly sprouted mustache gives the Chicagoland native the look of a Depression-era do-gooder.

“I’m trying to hold onto the anger stage so I don’t get into the sad stage,” he said. “And I don’t want to get there because that’ll lead to the acceptance stage, and too much of L.A. is already there.”

Newman never planned for a career like this, even though his mother was from Denmark, his father is a Hungarian Jew and his brother is of Salvadoran descent. He attended law school in Denver, set on becoming a death penalty lawyer, until realizing “it wasn’t like I thought it was in the movies.”

A mentor suggested that Newman recharge his bleeding heart by volunteering with Minsun Ji, founder of Denver’s first day laborers’ center. “I didn’t even know day laborers were a thing,” Newman admitted. But he immediately “loved everything — just hanging out there, chewing the fat and hearing the stories of the jornaleros.”

Ji assigned him to help clean the restrooms his first few weeks. Newman eventually graduated to handling wage theft cases and volunteered for whatever was needed, including driving a van full of day laborers to an NDLON conference in suburban Maryland in 2002. There, he heard Thomas Saenz, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who led a successful lawsuit against Prop. 187, the 1994 California anti-immigrant ballot initiative. Saenz told the crowd about MALDEF’s lawsuits against Southern California cities that were trying to ban day laborers.

“That’s when I realized I could use my law degree to do the exact same thing,” Newman said. “[It was] something that I loved in theory, but I didn’t realize it was happening in real life.”

About a year later, he called NDLON co-founder Pablo Alvarado.

“It was at eight at night, and I was still at the [NDLON] office,” Alvarado said in a phone interview. “And Chris said, ‘I want to do a fellowship with you. The fellowship deadline is at three in the afternoon the next day. Can I go right now so we can write it?’”

He began to laugh. “We didn’t sleep all night, but we did it — we finished his application. And Chris never left.”

(Newman remembers the moment differently. He said he applied for the fellowship, but Alvarado forgot about it until the day before it was due.)

Twenty-one years later, Alvarado says Newman’s energy and verisimilitude haven’t changed.

“Even though he’s a lawyer, his feet are on the ground — he’s not an elitist. By 8 in the morning, he will have read every article written that day about immigration. He’ll tell me what we need to do, and then he goes out and does it.”

Like the Abrego Garcia case.

Newman called Abrego Garcia’s lawyer to offer help, then connected with the family to organize a GoFundMe campaign through NDLON. Next was enlisting artists in a social media campaign to make Abrego Garcia’s predicament go viral. Soon, Newman was on a flight to El Salvador in an unsuccessful bid to visit the imprisoned Abrego Garcia, something he would try two more times.

“It felt like a Venn diagram of everything I’ve worked for over the past 20 years,” said Newman, who has yet to speak to Abrego Garcia. “At the time, we had no idea whether he was innocent or guilty. What mattered is that he deserved due process.”

Soon after Newman’s last visit to El Salvador, L.A.’s summer of deportation raids began.

Chris Newman, right, hands Veronica Wyninger, a trainee-employee, a sign at Homegirl Cafe.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

I concluded our breakfast by asking if Newman was optimistic that things might get better. Instead of cowering under Trump’s boot, L.A. has stood up. The day we met, the Pentagon announced that half of the 4,000 National Guard members deployed in Southern California in the wake of anti-ICE protests would leave.

“I’m a Cornel West disciple,” Newman responded. “And he said there’s a difference between hope and optimism.”

West defined optimism as based on a rational analysis of what’s out there, while hope is an act of courage against what seems like impossible odds.

“No one has ever accused me of being an optimist,” Newman said.

He kept thinking about it.

“I don’t know, but I think the tide will turn. I remember when Arpaio had an 85% approval rating. And he went down.”

He got more animated. “I know people can turn the tide, but they have to do their part.”

He reached into his straw tote and brought out his anti-migra swag — a T-shirt emblazoned with “Arrest Trump, Not Migrants,” bumper stickers reading “ICE Out of LA!” with the “LA” in Dodgers style, red-and-white signs declaring “I.C.E. Off My Property Get A Warrant!”

Our waitress came with the bill, then looked at the T-shirt. “That’s really cool!” she exclaimed.

“Want it?” Newman replied as he handed it to her. Other Homegirl staffers grabbed stickers and signs.

As we exited the cafe, Newman left a stack on a table next to the door.

“I’m going to go to Highland Park later to ask businesses if they want to post them on their windows,” he said as a customer eyed the signs.

“Go ahead and take it, man,” Newman urged. “Take a bunch!”

Moira Dingle has thrown several punches throughout her years in Emmerdale. But Natalie J Robb, who portrays her, remembers one real-life fight that left her injured.

She’s survived a brain tumour, kept Cain steady through the heartbreak of Nate’s death, and somehow held her family together.

Emmerdale’s Moira Dingle is about to face even more drama. “It’s all kicking off,” says Natalie J Robb, who plays the farmer. “She’s still in recovery, her tumour was only diagnosed last year.”

Moira has stood strong for hubby Cain, who’s still reeling after the discovery of Nate’s body in a lake. “She knows what it’s like to lose a child, so she knows the pain he’s feeling,” Natalie says, referring to the death of Moira’s daughter Holly. “But there’s just so many different emotions going on.”

Guilt is one of them. Before Nate’s death, he was beaten by Cain – fuelled by a rumour that Moira tried to kiss him. Believing Nate and Moira’s old affair had sparked again, Cain lashed out. “That fight they had,” Natalie says, “Moira believes she caused it.”

Moira is well-known for her intensity and her strong temper and fans often tell Natalie they wish they had Moira’s fire. In some ways, Natalie gets it.

Raised just outside Glasgow, she was a tomboy in a farming community. “There were more boys than there were girls. I didn’t get on with girls,” she admits. “I was into playing football.”

But life was tough early on – Natalie was picked on by other girls and sometimes, it was brutal. “I was walking home from school one night,” she says.

“I had a bit of a black eye, my lip was bleeding. My mum said, ‘Come with me.’ She dragged me to one of the girls’ house and said, ‘You’re going to fight her one-to-one.’”

The fight was stopped before it escalated but the lesson stuck. “I was terribly shy and quite sensitive,” she says. “But I’ve definitely changed. Maybe Moira has helped.”

READ MORE: Dog food monthly subscription creates ‘tailored menu’ to meet each pups needs

Now, the Dingle-Barton clan is about to be dealt another blow. Joe Tate’s gunning for Moira’s land, hoping to hand it over to Kim Tate, his step-grandmother.

“Moira can be a bit crazy, fierce and protective,” says Natalie. “But she’s a fair woman when it comes to farming and her business. What they’re trying to do to her is awful, it’s really bad. Her hands are tied.”

Butlers Farm is already struggling but losing it would leave Moira and Cain homeless. “The outcome is going to be much worse,” Natalie says.

“Ultimately, she thinks they’re going to have to sell. But Joe tells her fibs about her being a tenant farmer. She’s going to try to do everything to save it. But working with Joe? He gets right under Moira’s skin.”

As pressure mounts, Cain also locks horns with his brother Sam – who works for Kim and is friends with her through wife Lydia. Things boil over when two intruders are found hiding in Moira’s barn. Cain blames Joe, and tensions erupt.

“I go to punch Joe Tate, but as I do that, I punch Lydia in the ear,” Natalie says. “It’s very convoluted but it creates a big rift betweenSam and Cain.”

Luckily, the off-screen atmosphere is far calmer. Natalie and Jeff Hordley (Cain) have been filming together for over a decade. “We can work together with our eyes shut,” she says.

“We have a nice friendship and a good working relationship. But it was also nice to work with Ned Porteous, who plays Joe,and do things with Home Farm. It’s been talked about for a while, they’ve always wanted this land. They want the land for access, they don’t care about the farm.”

For Natalie, the storyline hits close to home. “I’ve got some farmer friends, they said that is the way it’s going a lot of the time. They’re making a lot of tenant farmers so they work their land,” she says.

“But they don’t have the same responsibility. It’s not theirs anymore, which is really sad. Farmers are a different breed, they have a different mindset and they don’t have time to mess around. They’re survivors. Even Jeremy Clarkson realises now how hard it is.”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

SACRAMENTO — In a common insult the Trump administration uses against dissidents of federal policy, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called a California judge a “communist” after she blocked roving immigration arrests based on race alone.

The MAGA-embraced epithet from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s official press office in response, however, was hardly typical for a Democratic politician.

“This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the Constitution, and his attempt to replace the sovereignty of the people with autocracy,” the California governor’s office posted on social media. “Sorry the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. Cry harder.”

Popular among the far right and the gutters of social media, the term is used to insult liberals as weak and is also short for “cuckold,” which refers to the husband of an unfaithful wife.

The low blow sanctioned by a potential 2028 presidential candidate set a new paradigm for the political left that has long embraced Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” motto to rise above the callousness of Trump and his acolytes.

It’s also an example of Newsom’s more aggressive social media strategy.

This week the governor posted memes of Trump with child molester and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Shortly after the Department of Homeland Security detained and handcuffed U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla at a news conference in June, state Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rockland) alleged on X that he would be treated the same way if he interrupted an event held by the governor.

“I’d politely ask you to leave,” retorted Newsom’s communications director, Izzy Gardon. “Though you do not deserve politeness in this moment for this grotesque tweet, you bald little man.” (Patterson later added “Bald little man” to his profile on the social media site.)

The governor and his taxpayer-supported press office joked that HBO had cast Miller as Lord Voldemort — the pasty, hairless super villain in the “Harry Potter” stories — and mocked the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general after he accused Newsom of fomenting lawlessness.

The governor defended the more combative posture at a recent news conference. He noted that Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, had used the word last month when he called Newsom “the biggest cuck in politics.”

“I don’t think they understand any other kind of language, so I have no apologies for standing tall and firm and pushing back against their cruelty,” Newsom said.

Newsom’s advisors say the governor reached a turning point after the president sent California National Guard troops into Los Angeles to protect federal agents from clashes with protesters during immigration sweeps. Since Trump took office in January, the Democratic leader had been walking a fine line between calling out the president and playing nice in hopes of being able to work together after the California wildfires.

The governor said publicly said that the decision to militarize Los Angeles showed him that you can’t work with the president, only for him. With federal troops on the ground, his aides said, Newsom also wanted to stand up for California, concerned about what would happen if he didn’t.

The directive was to match the tactics emanating from the White House and meet Trump and his allies where they are. Forget the high road.

Over the last month, they’ve taken on more fights with Newsom’s critics, reacted more quickly to shoot down misinformation about the governor or California, challenged narratives they find to be untrue, or unfair, and taken many of their own shots.

“Sometimes the best way to challenge a bully is to punch them in the metaphorical face,” said Bob Salladay, Newsom’s top communications advisor. “These tactics may seem extreme to some and they are, but there’s a significant difference here: We’re targeting powerful forces that are ripping apart this country, using their own words and tactics. Trump and Stephen Miller are attacking the powerless like every fascist bully before them.”

Newsom’s aides say the strategy is working.

The governor’s personal social media accounts gained 2.3 million new followers, including over 1 million each on TikTok and Instagram, and more than 883 million views from June 6 to July 6, according to his tallies.

Podcasters and social media influencers, such as Fred Wellman and Brian Tyler Cohen, boosted the interest with their own posts about the governor. On TikTok in particular, there’s a growing ecosystem of people who make videos about his videos.

Newsom’s official state accounts also experienced an exponential rise in followers and engagement in June.

The attention bodes well for a politician considering a bid for president. His aides argue that the strategy benefits California by shutting down misinformation and helping people understand what’s really going on.

“The thing that he does so well these days is that he responds rapidly, and he responds rapidly in a way that’s very snackable to the average consumer of news,” said Karen North, a professor of digital social media at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.

North pointed to the adage that “it takes a minute to say a sound bite, but an hour to explain why it is false.”

Republicans have been considered masters of sound bites for decades, and Democrats are often criticized for trying to explain the details of policies when people just want to hear the bottom line.

Newsom is breaking that mold, she said.

“He has emerged as the person willing and able to take on the president, but in some ways, they use the same playbook of quick, engaging responses that are easy for people to understand without any analysis,” North said. “Newsom has the advantage of playing defense as an offense. So when the president says something that is problematic to California or problematic to everyday citizens, Gavin Newsom is laser-focused and ready to strike back without any hesitation, and in a way that’s very simple and very engaging.”

In some ways, the governor learned the hard way after Trump used his platforms to label Newsom as “incompetent” and blame him for the Los Angeles wildfires in January. The president made a barrage of claims at news conferences and on the social media site Truth Social about dry reservoirs, the need to transfer more water from Northern to Southern California, a lack of forest management and empty fire hydrants that went viral, leaving Newsom on the back foot defending himself.

When Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles, the governor almost immediately went on the attack to counter the president’s claims that he deployed troops to control lawlessness that Newsom had allowed. The governor’s office said his June 10 speech, which framed Trump as unnecessarily invading an American city for his own political gain, received 41 million views.

Although Newsom’s aggression has received praise from some Democrats, it’s also a “a massive pivot from being a Bannon bro,” said Eric Jaye, a former senior advisor to Newsom turned critic who opposed his 2018 gubernatorial bid.

Jaye is referring to the “This is Gavin Newsom” podcast, where the governor flummoxed Democrats who thought he appeared too chummy with Trump campaign architect Steve Bannon, conservative personality Charlie Kirk and others close to the president.

Newsom billed the show as an opportunity to speak to people with other viewpoints and he delivered on that premise. The governor also received criticism from within his own party for not forcefully challenging the perspectives that directly contradicted Democratic values, such as opposition to abortion rights, and agreeing with Kirk that it’s unfair for transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.

Jaye credited Newsom with “a very quick turnaround,” which “saved himself.”

But now, with his amped-up social media presence, Newsom runs the risk of offending voters who miss respectful political discourse.

Trump’s derogatory nicknames for his opponents, such as calling Newsom “Newscum” or Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” have not appeared to cause the president much political harm. He embraced “lock her up” chants about Hillary Clinton in 2016 and constantly mocked Joe Biden before the former president dropped out of the 2024 presidential contest. Trump still won both races.

North said Trump also has the benefit of saying things that appear “passionate and reckless,” but people don’t believe he’s going to follow through.

As a potential presidential contender, the question is whether Newsom can use words such as “cuck” and say he wants to change laws to redistrict California to benefit Democrats in the midterm elections without worrying people and seeming too Trump-like to be palatable to voters who detest the president’s antics.

“It has to be disturbing to a lot of people if the new era of politics involves hostile personal attacks,” North said.

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao pushed back against his doubters, the odds and even Father Time on Saturday night — and nearly made some history.

But Pacquiao, in the end, fell just short on the judges’ scorecards as Mario Barrios escaped with a majority draw to retain the WBC welterweight championship. Two judges scored the bout a draw, and judge Max DeLuca awarded Barrios a 115-113 victory.

The Associated Press scored the fight 115-113 in favor of Pacquiao.

“I thought I won the fight,” Pacquiao said.

Barrios landed more total punches (120-101), according to Compubox, but Pacquiao had the edge in power shots (81-75).

Pacquiao, enshrined into the International Boxing Hall of Fame last month, was trying to break his own record for oldest welterweight champion. He was 40 when he emerged victorious in a 2019 split decision over Keith Thurman. This also was the first appearance in the ring in nearly four years for the 46-year-old Filipino, following a loss by unanimous decision to Yordenis Ugás.

Barrios, a 30-year-old from San Antonio, was a -275 favorite at BetMGM Sportsbook. He hoped to bounce back from a split-decision draw on Nov. 15 against Abel Ramos, but didn’t exactly come away with an emphatic victory in improving to 29-2-2. The heavily pro-Pacquiao crowd loudly booed the decision.

“It was an honor to share the ring with him,” Barrios said. “This is by far the biggest event I’ve had to date, and we came in here and left everything in the ring. I have nothing but respect for Manny.

“His stamina is crazy. He’s still strong as hell and his timing is real. He’s still a very awkward fighter to try to figure out.”

Mario Barrios, left, and Manny Pacquiao pose for photos in the ring after fighting to a majority draw in Las Vegas on Saturday.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Pacman (62-9-2) moved swiftly around the ring from the beginning, often looking more like the younger champion who captured 12 world titles in eight divisions. He began to be take control in the seventh, landing several big left hands to win the following three rounds on two cards and two on the other.

But Barrios was the better fighter at the end, coming out more aggressive knowing he might be in trouble with the judges. All three, in fact, awarded Barrios each of the final three rounds.

“I didn’t think the fight was getting away from me, but I knew I had to step it up to solidify a win,” Barrios said.

Both sides said they would be interested in a rematch.

“I hope this is an inspiration to boxers that if you have discipline and work hard, you can still fight at this age,” Pacquiao said.

Sebastian Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs) retained his WBC super welterweight title when Tim Tszyu (25-3) didn’t come out for the eighth round in the co-main event. Fundora floored Tszyu with a left hand in the first round and dominated the action with 118 power punches, according to Compubox, by repeatedly backing down the Australian.

“I’m the bigger guy,” said Fundora, who led 69-63 on all three judges’ cards. “Everyone says I’m a bully in the ring, so I thought I should start really bullying these guys. I just kept working on aggression my whole career and we’ve just been adding.”

It was a big week for Fundora, who was accepted into Harvard and then won the rematch with Tszyu. The first fight on March 30, 2024, was much closer, with Fundora emerging with a split-decision victory.

The Coachella, Calif., resident also had been the WBO champion, but that organization stripped him of his belt for not fighting mandatory challenger Xander Zayas.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

Justin Poirier couldn’t secure a dream sendoff in final fight of his 16-year storied UFC career, losing to Max Holloway.

The trilogy fight between Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier may not have been a microcosm of their first two encounters, but it delivered an electrifying final 15 seconds when Holloway and the retiring Poirier traded blows in the fifth round.

The result was a victory for lightweight Holloway by unanimous decision on the three judges’ cards – 48-47, 49-46, 49-46 – at UFC 318 in New Orleans on Saturday night.

Holloway (27-8 MMA) was classy in victory against Poirier, as he had lost the first two fights of the series before returning the favour in Louisiana native Poirier’s last mixed martial arts bout.

“The baddest man alive, bro,” said Holloway, 33. “Give it up for Dustin Poirier.”

A first-round knockdown from the Hawaiian set the tone early as Holloway nearly finished Poirier (30-10), but his 36-year-old opponent persevered.

By the fourth round, Poirier had little energy left but admitted post-fight that he was impressed that the former featherweight champion Holloway’s striking was still as sharp as ever. According to the final stats on the broadcast, Holloway outlanded Poirier 113-99 in significant head strikes.

“I thought he was going to be in here cracking a little bit harder, which he was,” Poirier said of Holloway. “This guy is tough to deal with when he’s in front of you. He’s slick. He’s crafty. He’s fast. He’s the [BMF] champ. I got nothing but respect for Max, man. He’s one of the good guys.”

Holloway made his first defence of the “BMF” title a successful one since winning it last April at UFC 300. It is unclear what direction the belt takes, as it is not associated with a division and has been used infrequently since November 2019.

In earlier matches, Paulo Costa of Brazil got back in the win column with a unanimous decision over Roman Kopylov, utilising his boxing to sweep the cards 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. Costa (15-4) remains in the middleweight title picture, while Kopylov (14-4) has won his last two fights.

The next two fights also saw another string of decisions, with welterweight Daniel Rodriguez outlasting Kevin Holland despite a late rally from Holland, nearly finishing him in the third round with strikes. The cards read 29-28, 29-28, 29-28, as Holland (28-14) was another betting favourite at the expense of Rodriguez (20-5).

Patricio Pitbull earned his first UFC victory with a win by unanimous decision over featherweight Dan Ige by identical 29-28 scores. Pitbull’s wrestling was too much for Ige, who entered the fight having lost two of his last three fights. Pitbull (37-8) last fought in April at UFC 314, where Ige (19-10) earned a win on the same card.

UFC 318’s pay-per-view got under way with lightweight Michael Johnson earning a unanimous decision in an upset of Daniel Zellhuber. The 39-year-old Johnson (24-19) was a significant underdog entering the fight but won the cards with matching 29-28 scores. A second-round knockdown swung the fight in Johnson’s favour, as Zellhuber (15-3) has now lost back-to-back outings.