fires

WASHINGTON — The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said.

The bureau last spring had reassigned the agents but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with the Associated Press. The number of FBI employees terminated was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

The photographs at issue showed a group of agents taking the knee during one of the demonstrations after the May 2020 killing of Floyd, a death that led to a national reckoning over policing and racial injustice and sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the arrest. The kneeling had angered some in the FBI but was also understood as a possible deescalation tactic during a period of protests.

The FBI Agents Assn. confirmed in a statement late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful. It called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel’s disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees.

“As Director Patel has repeatedly stated, nobody is above the law,” the agents association said. “But rather than providing these agents with fair treatment and due process, Patel chose to again violate the law by ignoring these agents’ constitutional and legal rights instead of following the requisite process.”

An FBI spokesman declined to comment Friday.

The firings come amid a broader personnel purge at the bureau as Patel works to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

Five agents and top-level executives were known to have been summarily fired last month in a wave of ousters that current and former officials say has contributed to declining morale.

One of those, Steve Jensen, helped oversee investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol. Another, Brian Driscoll, served as acting FBI director in the early days of the second Trump administration and resisted Justice Department demands to supply the names of agents who investigated Jan. 6.

A third, Chris Meyer, was incorrectly rumored on social media to have participated in the investigation into President Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. A fourth, Walter Giardina, participated in high-profile investigations like the one of Trump advisor Peter Navarro.

A lawsuit filed by Jensen, Driscoll and another fired FBI supervisor, Spencer Evans, alleged that Patel communicated that he understood that it was “likely illegal” to fire agents based on cases they worked but was powerless to stop it because the White House and the Justice Department were determined to remove all agents who investigated Trump.

Patel denied at a congressional hearing last week taking orders from the White House on whom to fire and said anyone who has been fired failed to meet the FBI’s standards.

Trump, who was twice impeached and is the only U.S. president with a felony conviction, was indicted on multiple criminal charges in two felony cases. Both cases were dismissed after he was elected, following long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

The DeShaun Foster era is over after 15 games and just five victories, the former UCLA star running back’s storybook rise to head coach at his alma mater coming to an abrupt, deflating end.

After an 0-3 start that included back-to-back losses to Mountain West Conference teams, Foster was dismissed on Sunday in a move that showed the Bruins will no longer accept their status as the laughingstock of the college football world.

Tim Skipper, the former Fresno State interim coach who was brought in as a special assistant to Foster before this season, will serve as the interim coach for the rest of the season as the school commences a search for a permanent replacement.

UCLA was outscored by a 108-43 margin in its first three losses, leading to trolling tweets from the Big Sky and Pac-12 conferences in addition to widespread ridicule from national media figures who noted that the Bruins had clinched last place in the Mountain West and were the only remaining winless team in the Big Ten.

Athletic director Martin Jarmond said he made the decision to remove Foster after consultation with UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk, acting swiftly because there was no clear path to success in the Big Ten even with an extra week to prepare for the conference opener against Northwestern on Sept. 26.

“I felt with the timing, the bye week,” Jarmond said, “it gave our young men the opportunity to just take a breath, recalibrate and change some things that give them the best chance to finish out the season strong and also as a signal to our fans that this is not what Bruin football is going to be.”

Jarmond accepted responsibility for having hired Foster in February 2024 after a process lasting less than 72 hours and said he regretted putting the rookie coach in a difficult situation going into a new conference after national signing day with just half a year to prepare.

“I think you make the best decisions with the circumstances and the resources that you have to work with,” Jarmond said, referring to the constraints of still having the reduced revenue of Pac-12 membership combined with a condensed timeline.

Foster, who compiled a 5-10 record in a little more than one full season, is owed roughly $6.43 million in buyout money per the terms of his five-year contract, barring a new job that offsets that amount. UCLA said it would pay Foster’s buyout from athletic department-generated funds.

“Serving as the head coach at UCLA, my beloved alma mater, has been the honor of a lifetime,” Foster said in a statement. “While I am deeply disappointed that we were unable to achieve the success that our players, fans, and university deserve, I am grateful for the opportunity to have led this program.”

Starting Monday, the coaching change will open a 30-day transfer window for UCLA players who want to leave for other teams. Since the Bruins have not played four games, departing players will have the option to use a redshirt season but not immediately play for their new team.

The Bruins already appear to have lost three high school recruits after Johnnie Jones, a four-star offensive tackle from Bradenton, Fla.; Anthony Jones, a three-star defensive lineman from Irvine Crean Lutheran High; and Yahya Gaad, a three-star edge rusher from Medina, Tenn., said they were no longer committed to the school.

Foster’s dismissal shifts the spotlight onto Jarmond, who made the unconventional move to hire Foster despite Foster’s having no experience as a coordinator or head coach. Jarmond’s reluctance to fire coach Chip Kelly at the end of the previous season after the Bruins had absorbed embarrassing home losses to Arizona State and California necessitated the need for a quick replacement once Kelly left to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, leading some to blame the athletic director for leaving the football program in such a bind.

“I understand the criticism,” Jarmond said. “What I’ll remind you is these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. There are many stakeholders and factors that go into where and when and how to make a coaching change. That said, ultimately, I’m the athletic director. I’m the steward of this program, and the buck stops with me.”

Foster’s biggest selling points were his status as a legendary UCLA player who had appeared in the Bruins’ last Rose Bowl game in 1999 and his success as a running backs coach at the school under previous head coaches Jim Mora and Kelly.

During a meeting at Jarmond’s home the night before Foster’s hiring, the candidate told his future boss that he would win through a relentless approach.

DeShaun Foster, left, holds up a UCLA jersey with athletic director Martin Jarmond after being introduced as UCLA’s new football coach on Feb. 13, 2024.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

“He said, ‘Listen, Martin, no one’s going to outwork me, no one’s going to outwork this program,’” Jarmond said on the day of Foster’s introductory news conference. “ ‘If we lose a game, it’s going to be because we just weren’t good enough that day. But I guarantee you, I’m going to do everything I can and in my power to make this program successful.’ ”

In announcing the move, UCLA said a comprehensive national search for Foster’s replacement would involve Jarmond and executive senior associate athletics director Erin Adkins, who would be assisted by a committee composed of accomplished sports and business executives and UCLA greats that would be announced once finalized.

What will the Bruins be seeking in their next coach during a search that’s expected to last several months unless an ideal candidate who is available suddenly materializes?

“It’s got to be someone who exemplars our true Bruin values — respect, integrity and just understands those four letters,” Jarmond said, “but we’ll be looking for a coach quite frankly who sees the vision to take UCLA to the playoffs. We want to win at the highest level.”

Jarmond emphasized that this search was very different than the one that led to Foster’s hiring, noting the increased resources available because of UCLA’s move to the Big Ten and the extended timeline that will presumably lead to a wider pool of attractive candidates.

Jarmond touted Foster’s passion and integrity among the biggest factors that led to his hiring, and it didn’t hurt that the coach was wildly popular among returning players, allowing the Bruins to keep much of their roster intact heading into his debut season.

But Foster’s inexperience showed in his first game, the coach admitting he was nervous and unsure about how to address reporters after his team rallied for a victory over Hawaii. The Bruins started the season 1-5 before winning four of their last six games, momentarily steadying Foster’s standing with donors and fans.

A flurry of offseason moves in which Foster overhauled his coaching staff and scored a number of big recruiting wins, including the acquisition of star Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava from the transfer portal, appeared to show signs of growing on the job. Another promising development came during Big Ten media days in July, when Foster delivered a coherent opening message one year after stumbling his way through widely mocked and memed remarks that included the coach telling reporters, “We’re in L.A.”

But there was also a curious step backward. The coach who initially said he wanted to give his program a family feel, holding a carnival-like spring practice complete with a fire twirler and putting names on the backs of jerseys to help reporters identify players, severely curtailed access to practices and player interviews during training camp.

Foster shrugged off a season-opening 43-10 loss to Utah, saying his team was close to making the plays it needed to be competitive. But a 30-23 setback against Nevada Las Vegas that was followed by a 35-10 blowout against New Mexico showcased a series of worrisome trends.

Foster’s team couldn’t consistently move the ball, get defensive stops or avoid penalties. The Bruins are still seeking their first lead of the 2025 season after having fallen behind 20-0 against Utah, 23-0 against UNLV and 14-0 against New Mexico.

Foster’s pillars of discipline, respect and enthusiasm clearly never took hold given his players’ repeated penalties, lagging preparation for lesser opponents and lack of passion on the sideline.

In his final meeting with reporters before his dismissal, Foster initially blamed his team’s shortcomings on a lack of execution before finally accepting culpability when pressed by a reporter about who was ultimately responsible.

“Everything that happens can fall on me,” said Foster, who turns 46 in January. “I’m the head coach, so it can fall on me.”

Trying to sound upbeat in a monotone voice, Foster said he would use the bye week to make tweaks before the Bruins opened Big Ten play on the road against Northwestern.

“You know, we’ve got two weeks to fix this,” Foster said, “and just looking forward to this opportunity to get it fixed.”

A proud Bruin having met an inglorious ending, those fixes will now be in the hands of someone else.

Israeli forces bombed a residential building causing fires to spread in an intense night of Israeli strikes on Gaza City. The army says its forces are “increasing the pace of attacks” and told hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to move south.

Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has released new pictures from testing of a prototype electromagnetic railgun aboard the testbed warship JS Asuka earlier this year. ATLA also asserts that it is the first time anyone has successfully fired a ship-mounted railgun at an actual target vessel. Japan continues to push ahead with railgun development, a technology the U.S. Navy notably halted work on in the early 2020s, despite showing promise, due to significant technological hurdles.

JS Asuka, a one-of-its-kind dedicated experimental vessel with a 6,200-ton-displacement belonging to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), was first spotted with the railgun in a turret installed on its stern flight deck in April, as TWZ reported on at the time. Additional views of the ship in this configuration emerged afterward.

“ATLA conducted the Ship-board Railgun Shooting Test from June to early July this year with the support of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force,” according to a post yesterday on the agency’s official Instagram page. “It’s the first time that a ship-mounted railgun was successfully fired at a real ship.”

One of the pictures accompanying ATLA’s Instagram post, seen at the top of this story, which was also shared on the agency’s other social media accounts, shows the railgun being fired. What looks to be a radar array and an electro-optical and/or infrared camera system are also seen in the image on a separate turret.

Another, seen below, shows a tug-like ship in the crosshairs of a targeting system. Additional pictures of the tug have now also emerged clearly showing target boards on the port and starboard sides of its funnel, as well as one facing the stern.

So far, ATLA has not released any imagery of target vessels actually being struck by projectiles fired from the railgun mounted on Asuka. The agency says more details will be provided at its upcoming Defense Technology Symposium in November.

Back in 2023, ATLA said it had conducted the first-ever successful firing of a railgun from any ship. The agency did not name the vessel used in those tests.

#ATLA has accomplished ship-board firing test of railgun first time in the world with the cooperation of the JMSDF. To protect vessels against air-threats and surface-threats by high-speed bullets, ATLA strongly promotes early deployment of railgun technology. pic.twitter.com/MG5NqqENcG

— Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (@atla_kouhou_en) October 17, 2023

ATLA has been working on railguns since the mid-2010s and has also conducted test firings at facilities on land. The agency and the JMSDF have a clear eye toward developing an operational weapon that could be integrated onto Japanese warships.

ATLA has previously shown renderings of potential railgun installations on the future 13DDX destroyer, as well as existing Maya class destroyers (also known as the 27DDG class). The Japanese Ministry of Defense has also publicly shown a model of a railgun in a much more streamlined turret compared to the one tested aboard Asuka.

The video from ATLA below, which the agency put out last year, also depicts ground-based truck-mounted railguns.

Speaking through an interpreter at a panel discussion at the DSEI Japan 2025 exposition earlier this year, Kazumi Ito, principal director of the equipment policy division at ATLA, said his country’s railgun efforts were “progressing,” but acknowledged “various challenges,” according to National Defense Magazine.

Railguns use electromagnets instead of chemical propellants to fire projectiles at very high velocities. Historically, they have had significant power generation and cooling requirements, which has, in turn, typically made them physically very bulky. As TWZ has previously noted, mounting the experimental railgun turret on Asuka‘s flight deck made good sense given the ample open space it offered. A more traditional installation on an operational warship would require finding sufficient space, especially below deck, for the various components, which could require extensive modifications that are costly and time-consuming.

The wear and tear that comes from sustained firing of projectiles at very high speeds presents additional challenges for railguns. Rapidly worn-out barrels can lead to degraded range and accuracy, and increase the risk of a catastrophic failure.

ATLA has reportedly been able to demonstrate the ability to fire rounds at a velocity of around 4,988 miles per hour (2,230 meters per second; Mach 6.5) while using five megajoules (MJ), or 5 million joules (J), of charge energy in previous tests. The agency has at least previously had a goal of achieving a muzzle velocity of at least 4,473 miles-per-hour (2,000 meters-per-second) and a barrel life of 120 rounds are among previous testing goals, according to Naval News. Separate reports have said that ATLA has been trying to reduce the weapon’s power demands, as well.

At the same time, the potential rewards from developing a practical railgun suitable for operational military use are great. In addition to applications against targets at sea and on land, the weapons have long held promise in the anti-air role. As TWZ has written in the past:

“In principle, a practical electromagnetic railgun would offer a highly capable and flexible weapon system that can rapidly engage a wide array of targets at sea, on land, and even in the air, and at considerable ranges. Japan has previously expressed interest in this capability explicitly to help protect against incoming hypersonic threats. Such a weapon would also offer benefits in terms of magazine depth and cost compared to traditional surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, given the small size and lower unit price of the individual rounds.”

“When it comes to warships, in particular, where physical space is at a premium and where options for reloading missiles at sea can be at best extremely limited, having a weapon system firing lower-cost munitions from a large magazine and that can engage a broad swath of target sets would be a clear boon.”

With its potential capabilities, Japan has not been alone in pursuing railguns, especially for naval applications. The U.S. Navy was notably active in this realm between 2005 and 2022, but, despite promising progress for a time, shelved that work in the end in the face of persistent technical issues. By that point, plans for an at-sea test had been repeatedly pushed back. The U.S. Army also experimented with ground-based railguns in the same general timeframe. The Army is now leveraging the ammunition technology from the Navy’s abortive railgun effort as part of a new program to develop a mobile 155mm howitzer for use as an anti-air weapon, as you can read more about here.

ATLA has reportedly met with U.S. Navy officials to discuss leveraging its past railgun work and raised the possibility of greater collaboration in the future.

Back in 2018, a turreted railgun also emerged on a ship belonging to China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The current status of that design or other Chinese railgun developments is unclear. China has at least been experimenting with this technology since the 1980s.

Work on railguns, including for potential naval use, in Turkey has received public attention in recent years, as well. Other countries globally are at least exploring future railgun capabilities. Last year, Japanese authorities signed a deal with their counterparts in France to cooperate on railgun developments.

ATLA is now set to share more details about progress on its railgun program, including test firing against actual target ships, in November, and more details could begin to emerge in the interim.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Nestle has fired its chief executive after just one year in the job because he failed to disclose a “romantic relationship” with a “direct subordinate”.

The Swiss food giant, which makes Kit Kat chocolate bars and Nespresso coffee capsules, said Laurent Freixe had been dismissed with “immediate effect” following an investigation led by Nestle’s chair and lead independent director.

The BBC understands the inquiry was triggered by a report made through the company’s whistleblowing channel.

Nestle chair Paul Bulcke said: “This was a necessary decision. Nestlé’s values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestlé.”

The relationship was with an employee who is not on the executive board and the investigation began because it represented a conflict of interest, the BBC has learned.

As well as Mr Bulcke, independent director Pablo Isla oversaw the inquiry into Mr Freixe “with the support of independent outside counsel”.

The Financial Times has reported that concerns were raised about Mr Freixe’s relationship with an employee earlier this year and, after an internal investigation, the claims were found to be unsubstantiated.

After the complaints persisted, the newspaper reports that Nestle conducted another investigation with help from outside counsel after which the claims were upheld.

A spokesperson for Nestle said: “We acted at all times in line with best practice corporate governance.

“The external investigation was opened shortly after the initial internal investigation, and today’s decision shows that we are taking allegations and investigations seriously.”

Mr Freixe had been with Nestle for nearly 40 years but stepped up to the global chief executive role last September, replacing Mark Schneider.

Nestle confirmed that he will not receive an exit package.

The BBC has contacted Mr Freixe for comment.

Philipp Navratil, who has been with Nestle since 2001, has been appointed as Mr Freixe’s successor.

Mr Bulcke said the company was “not changing course on strategy and we will not lose pace on performance”.

Mr Bulcke is set to step down as chair next year and Mr Isla, the former boss of Zara-owner Inditex, has been proposed as his replacement.

Other companies have parted ways with their chief executives following investigations into their personal relationships with colleagues.

BP chief executive Bernard Looney, who led the oil giant for three years, quit after admitting he was not “fully transparent” initially.

Steve Easterbrook was fired by McDonald’s in 2019 after it found he had a consensual relationship with an employee.

But McDonald’s said a further investigation found that the British executive had three additional relationships with staff.

He initially received $105m (£77.5m) in a severance package which he later returned. In 2023, he was fined $400,000 by the US financial watchdog for misleading investors. He paid the penalty without admitting or denying the claims.

Additional reporting by Dearbail Jordan.

Sept. 1 (UPI) — Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage company, on Monday fired CEO Laurent Freixe after disclosing a romantic relationship with a subordinate one year after he took over the Swiss company.

The public company, based in Vevey, announced Philipp Navratil, who headed the Nespresso coffee unit, as the immediate successor of Freize, 63.

The employee was not on the executive board, the BBC reported.

“The departure of Laurent Freixe follows an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate which breached Nestle’s Code of Business Conduct,” the company said in a news release. “In line with best practice corporate governance, the Board ordered an investigation overseen by Chairman Paul Bulcke and Lead Independent Director, Pablo Isla, with the support of independent outside counsel.”

Bulcke, who announced in June that he was stepping down next year, said: “This was a necessary decision. Nestle’s values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestle.

“We are not changing course on strategy and we will not lose pace on performance.”

Nestle ousted his predecessor, Mark Schneider, last September.

Freixe joined the company in France in 1986 in marketing and sales. In 2007, he took over as head of operations in Europe.

Navratil, born in 1976, began his career with Nestle in 2001 as an internal auditor. He held various commercial roles in Central America, including leadership of the coffee and beverage business in Mexico.

He was named the leader of Nespresso in July 2024, and became a member of the company’s executive board on Jan. 1.

“Philipp is recognized for his impressive track record of achieving results in challenging environments,” Nulcke said. “Renowned for his dynamic presence, he inspires teams and leads with a collaborative, inclusive management style. The Board is confident that he will drive our growth plans forward and accelerate efficiency efforts.”

Nestle’s largest operation is in the United States with 36,000 employees. Nestle USA was named in 2024 as No. 30 of top workplaces by The Washington Post.

Worldwide there are 275,000 workers.

Nestle was founded in 1866 as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co by Henri Nestle.

The company’s annual revenue in 2024 was 91.72 billion, a decrease of 1.75% in one year. The company’s net profit was 10.88 billion, a decrease of 2.9%.

Pepsi is the second-largest company in the world.

Nestle owns thousands of brands, including food and beverage products, pet care and nutrition. Some of them were acquired from other companies.

“Nestle’s makes the very best chocolate” was a TV advertising jingle for 10 years starting in 1955.

Beverages include Nescafe, Nespresso, Coffee-Mate, Milo, Perrier and S. Pellegrino.

Pet care products are Purina, Friskies, Fancy Feast and Tidy Cats.

Chocolate and confectionery are Kit Kat, Milky Bar, Smarties, Aero and Nestle Toll House.

Culinary, chilled and frozen food are DiGiorno, Stouffers and Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine, Maggi, Thomy and Sweet Earth.

Dairy and ice creams are Carnation, Nido, Haagen-Daz, Dreyer’s/Edy’s.

Nutrition products are Gerber, Cerelac, Boost, Vital Proteins and Narue’s Bounty.

Ed Hodgkiss is no longer the football coach or co-athletic director at Bishop Montgomery. Principal Michele Starkey and president Patrick Lee made the announcement in a letter to parents on Saturday, writing Hodgkiss is “no longer employed at Bishop Montgomery.”

Bishop Montgomery and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have been scrambling to deal with the fallout from weeks of turmoil in the football program.

It started with the Southern Section declaring five transfer students ineligible this season for violation of CIF bylaw 202, which is providing false information. Then the team had numerous players suspended after a first-game loss in Hawaii when they left the bench with 24 seconds left. That forced Bishop Montgomery to forfeit Friday’s game against Santa Ana Mater Dei because of a lack of players.

The Archdiocese announced it would conduct an investigation into the transfer issues.

Hodgkiss came to Bishop Montgomery in 2010 from the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League.

Bishop Montgomery changed principals and presidents last school year and appeared to move to a different sports philosophy, accepting numerous transfer students with the hope of elevating the football program to a higher level of competition. The school is scheduled to leave the Camino Real League after this season.

No new coach was announced. Messages left for Hodgkiss and Lee were not returned.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — The remaining 532 employees at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent agency of the Voice of America, have received termination notices.

Kari Lake sent the pink slips to the respective workers on Friday evening, according to The Washington Post.

“Tonight, the U.S. Agency for Global Media initiated what is known as a reduction in force, or RIF, of a large number of its full-time federal employees,” Lake said in the termination notice.

“We are conducting this RIF at the President’s direction to help reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service and save the American people more of their hard-earned money.”

Lake is the Trump administration’s official in charge of overseeing the eventual end of Voice of America.

The VOA originally was created to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II, and all of its staff members were put on administrative leave in March, Politico reported.

The Trump administration then stopped production at most of the VOA’s publishing outlets.

About 600 contractors were let go in May, and hundreds of employees received termination notices in June.

Many of the termination notices temporarily were rescinded due to errors, but they were told the agency would undergo an RIF sometime soon after.

Legal challenges were filed against the initial firings and likely will for Friday’s action, according to Politico.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Robert Primus, member of the Surface Transportation Board, was fired by the White House Thursday, though he contends that the move is illegal.

The Surface Transportation Board is an independent regulatory agency that has been considering the merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroad companies.

“Robert Primus did not align with the president’s America First agenda and was terminated from his position by the White House,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “The Administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order.”

In a statement on LinkedIn, Primus said the email he got telling him he was fired was “deeply troubling and legally invalid.”

“Ironically, this comes at a time when the Board is considering significant, pressing matters of critical importance to both our national freight rail network and supply chain that would directly affect large swaths of our manufacturing, agricultural, industrial and energy sectors,” he wrote.

He noted that he was hired by President Donald Trump in his first term, was kept on during the President Joe Biden administration, and was unanimously confirmed by the House and Senate.

“I have worked tirelessly to build bipartisan trust and have demonstrated myself to be truly an independent Board member that has consistently rendered fair and impartial decisions,” he said. “My record during my four and a half years at the Board reflects this, and I strongly believe the actions of the White House would weaken the Board and adversely affect the freight rail network in a way that may ultimately hurt consumers and the economy.”

He ended his statement saying he doesn’t plan to step down.

“I plan to continue to discharge my duties as a member of the Board and, if I’m prevented from doing so, I will explore my legal options,: he said.

The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers — Transportation Division said it strongly condemns the “unprecedented and unjustified” removal of Primus.

“Appointed bodies established through federal code are not designed to be erased at the whim of powerful corporate interests. This action is unprecedented, unlawful in spirit, and reeks of direct interference from hedge funds and the nation’s largest rail carriers,” SMART-TD, the largest rail labor organization in the United States, said in a statement.

“It sends a chilling message: that regulators who dare to stand up for fairness and balance in the rail industry can be swept aside to serve Wall Street’s agenda,” SMART-TD said.

The Surface Transportation Board started the review of the merger in July after Union Pacific announced it would buy Norfolk Southern for $85 million. The merger faces criticism from labor unions and those who believe it would hurt competition in the rail industry.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Monday fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook as he continues to feud with her boss over lowering interest rates.

The legality of Cooks’ firing was unclear, and has prompted Democrats to accuse the Republican president of perpetrating an “illegal authoritarian power grab.”

Trump informed Cook of her dismissal in a letter he made public on his Truth Social platform, informing the first Black woman to sit on the Reserve Board that he has “determined that there is sufficient cause to remove you from your position” over allegations of making false statements on mortgage agreements.

“In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity,” Trump said in the letter.

Trump fired Cook following months of applying political pressure on her boss, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. Amid the insults and demands Trump has made of Powell, the Trump-nominated chair from his first administration has stated economic policy will not be influenced by politics.

On Aug. 15, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, a Powell critic, sent a criminal referral for Cook to Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing Cook of falsifying documents as well as mortgage, bank and wire fraud for signing mortgage documents. She is accused of signing two separate mortgage documents for two separate properties that claim each is her primary residence. One property is in Michigan and the other is in Atlanta. The two documents were allegedly signed two weeks apart during the summer of 2021.

After Pulte made the criminal referral public, Trump called for Cook to resign, which she did not do.

In his Monday letter, Trump cited the allegations against Cook, saying her signing of both mortgage documents “exhibits the sort of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”

Cook was fired under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which stipulates that the president may only remove members of the board for cause.

“The illegal attempt to fire Lisa Cook is the latest example of a desperate president searching for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, ranking member of the Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

“It’s an authoritarian power grab that blatantly violates the Federal Reserve Act, and must be overturned in court.”

Pulte on Monday night thanked Trump for his “commitment to stopping mortgage fraud” by firing Cook.

“Fraud will not be tolerated in President Trump’s housing market,” he said on X.

Trump campaigned on using the office of the presidency to retaliate against his political rivals. Since returning to the White House in January, he has used his executive powers to strip security clearances from perceived political rivals, including lawyers who prosecuted his criminal cases, as well as law firms and former security officials.

Along with Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff of California have also been accused of mortgage fraud.

Early this month, Trump has also fired Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after job growth was slower than expected, claiming the numbers were inaccurate. Democrats and critics accused Trump of dangerously politicizing economic data.

Cooks’ firing is expected to be challenged in court, but her vacancy permits Trump to nominate a replacement.

Following Cooks’ firing on Monday, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., described Trump’s move as “reckless” and clearly unlawful.”

“The Federal Reserve Act permits removal only for cause, serious misconduct, not partisan smears dressed as ‘referrals’ from a hack like Ed Martin,” Nadler said in a statement. Martin has been tapped to be the special attorney on mortgage fraud cases.

“Trump undermining the Fed for political reasons endangers financial stability and every American’s livelihood, and must be challenged in court immediately.”

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said.

No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Trump, who has demanded loyalty across the government. The administration also stripped security clearances this week from additional current and former national security officials.

Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.

Agency’s assessment contradicted Trump

Kruse’s firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of U.S. airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months by the military bombardment, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his long-running distrust of intelligence assessments, including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA — has been declassifying years-old documents meant to cast doubt on those previous findings, which have been endorsed by bipartisan congressional committees.

After the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.

Democrats raise concerns

While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired, or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

Other military and intelligence changes

The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would slash its staff and budget and revoked more security clearances, a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second-highest-ranking officer and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies purge DEI efforts.

The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Toropin, Jalonick and Price write for the Associated Press.

TWO more ferocious forest fires have erupted in Portugal – and this time cops suspect the work of arsonists.

Entire villages were forced to evacuate and hundreds of firefighters rushed to the scene of the latest blazes in a disastrous summer across the Iberian Peninsula.

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The two fires sparked nearby within an hour in Pedrógão Grande, central Portugal.

Locals here are already scarred by the memory of a terrible wildfire which killed 66 people just eight years ago.

The first erupted in the village of Pedrógão Grande, terrifyingly close to people’s homes, at around 2:30pm.

A second then burst through trees near the village of Graça at roughly 3:20pm, rousing the suspicion of police who are investigating possible foul play.

Flaming material was reported shooting out of this blaze, endangering the crews tackling it.

Five entire villages in the area were forced to evacuate as smoke cascaded into the sky.

Hundreds of firefighters battled the two blazes with from planes and from the ground.

A firefighter elsewhere in Portugal became the fourth person to be killed by the fires this summer.

Four have also lost their lives in Spain – where the blazes are finally being brought under control.

Daniel Esteves, 45, worked for the forest protection company Afocelca.

He was seriously injured on Tuesday night alongside four colleagues, and tragically died on Saturday.

Daniel suffered burns to 75 percent of his body and was the worst injured of the group – the rest of whom are still in hospital in Coimbra.

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, sent his condolences to Daniel’s family who “tragically lost his life after directly combating the forest fires in Sabugal municipality”.

The amount of land burnt across the Iberian peninsula has hit a total area about the size of the US state of Delaware, based on EU statistics.

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Spain had lost a record 403,000 hectares, while Portugal lost 278,000 hectares this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Spanish authorities said the tide seemed to have turned in the fight against the fires, which are mainly raging in the country’s west and northwest.

But the head of Spain’s civil protection and emergencies service, Virginia Barcones, warned there were still 18 “treacherous” blazes alight.

The record-breaking year has been fuelled by dry conditions, heatwaves and strong winds.

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Spain is tackling several major wildfires in one of its most destructive fire seasons in decades, fuelled by climate change, as the end of a severe 16-day heatwave and expected rainfall raised hopes that an end may be in sight.

Thousands of firefighters aided by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft continued on Tuesday to fight fires tearing through parched woodland that were especially severe in northwestern Spain, where the country’s weather agency AEMET reported a still “very high or extreme” fire risk — particularly in the Galicia region.

Authorities have suspended rail services and cut access to roads in the regions of Extremadura, Galicia, and Castile and Leon.

Firefighting units from Germany arrived in northern Spain on Tuesday to help fight the blazes, Spain’s Ministry of the Interior announced. More than 20 vehicles were deployed to help fight an ongoing blaze in Jarilla in the Extremadura region that borders Portugal, the ministry said.

Visiting the fires in Extremadura, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government would declare many of the affected areas as emergency zones, which in practice means they will be eligible to receive aid for reconstruction.

Blaming the fires on the effects of climate change, he also said he would propose a plan next month to turn climate emergency policies into permanent state policies.

“We’re seeing the climate emergency accelerate and worsen significantly, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, each year,” he said.

Opposition leaders have said his proposal is a way to divert attention from his government’s poor handling of the fires.

AEMET, which on Monday declared the end of one of the longest heatwaves in the past five decades, now expects temperatures to fall and humidity to rise. However, it said that adverse conditions would remain in southern Spain, including in part of Extremadura.

The fires in Spain have killed four people this year and burned more than 382,000 hectares (944,000 acres) or about 3,820 square kiolometres (1,475sq miles), according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Many fires have been triggered by human activity. Police have detained 23 people for suspected arson and are investigating 89 more, Spain’s Civil Guard said.

The Spanish army has deployed 3,400 troops and 50 aircraft to help firefighters, while the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia have sent hundreds of firefighters, vehicles and aircraft.

Along the Iberian Peninsula in Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters were tackling blazes, including four major ones in the north and centre.

Wildfires there have burned about 235,000 hectares or 907 square miles, according to EFFIS — nearly five times more than the 2006-2024 average for this period. Two people there have died.

“The devastation [from the wildfires] is enormous, it looks like an apocalyptic landscape,” said Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from Coutada, Portugal.

“What is of immense concern to the firefighters is not just putting out the flames, which have gone out of control … but also the danger of reignition,” said Gallego.

Another challenge facing firefighters, she noted, is accessing “a source of water which is close enough where they can collect water and extinguish those flames.”

Most of Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.

San Bernardino police responded to what they described as “an officer-involved shooting” involving federal immigration officers Saturday morning.

When police officers responded to the area of Acacia Avenue and Baseline Street shortly before 9 a.m., they encountered immigration agents who said they had fired at a suspect who then fled the scene.

Soon after, according to the San Bernardino Police Department, a man — who has not been identified — contacted the dispatch center, saying that masked men had tried to pull him over, broke his car window and shot at him. He said he didn’t know who they were and asked for police assistance.

In a statement Saturday night, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said agents had been conducting a targeted enforcement operation in San Bernardino and said that “Customs and Border Protection] officers were injured during a vehicle stop when a subject refused to exit his vehicle and tried to run them down.”

“In the course of the incident the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two CBP officers with his vehicle,” the statement read. Because of that, the official said, a CBP officer discharged his firearm “in self-defense.”

According to a news release from the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, federal agents broke the driver and passenger windows of the vehicle and fired three times. Video the group uploaded on Facebook appeared to capture the interaction, showing agents wearing “police” vests and shouting at those inside to roll down the window.

“No la voy a abrir,” the man said from inside, saying he wasn’t going to open it.

Soon after, the video captured the sound of shattering glass and what sounded like three shots being fired. The video showed a man wearing a hat with CBP on it.

The video appears to show the vehicle leaving after the windows are smashed, but does not capture the driver striking the officers.

“This was a clear abuse of power,” the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice said in its release. “Firing at civilians, harassing families without cause, and targeting community voices must stop.”

According to the San Bernardino Police Department, officers later located the vehicle in the 1000 block of Mt. View Drive and made contact with the man, but they said it was unclear what federal agents wanted him for.

“Under the California Values Act, California law enforcement agencies are prohibited from assisting federal officials with immigration enforcement, so our officers left the scene as the investigation was being conducted by federal authorities,” police said in a news release.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson misidentified the police department, describing it as the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and said local authorities had the man in custody but then set him free.

“This decision was made despite the subject refusing to comply and wounding two officers — another terrible example of California’s pro-sanctuary policies in action that shield criminals instead of protecting communities,” the unidentified spokesperson said.

At 1:12 p.m., federal officials requested assistance from the department because a large crowd was forming as they attempted to arrest the suspect, the police said. At that time, federal agents told police he was wanted for allegedly assaulting a federal officer.

Police responded and provided support with crowd control, according to the department.

The Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice said in a news release that the agents didn’t present a warrant and remained outside the home until 3:45 p.m., “pressuring the individual to come outside.”

The group added that two community members “were detained using unnecessary force, including one for speaking out.”

“Federal agents requested assistance during a lawful arrest for assaulting a federal officer when a crowd created a potential officer safety concern,” the police department said in a statement. “This was not an immigration-related arrest, which would be prohibited under California law.”

Federal investigators are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting, according to the police.

WASHINGTON — A man charged with a felony for hurling a sandwich at a federal law-enforcement official in the nation’s capital has been fired from his job at the Justice Department, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a social media post Thursday.

A video of Sean Charles Dunn berating a group of federal agents late Sunday went viral online. Dunn was arrested on an assault charge after he threw a “sub-style” sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent, a court filing said.

Dunn, 37, of Washington, was an international affairs specialist in the Justice Department’s criminal division, according to a department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.

“This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ,” Bondi wrote. “You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.”

A multiagency flood of uniformed federal law enforcement officers had fanned out across the city over the weekend after the White House had announced stepped-up measures to combat crime. That was before President Trump’s announcement Monday that he was taking over Washington’s police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard.

The Justice Department still employs a former FBI agent who was charged with joining a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol and cheering on rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege, repeatedly yelling, “Kill ‘em!” as they attacked police. The former FBI supervisory agent, Jared Lane Wise, is serving as a counselor to Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin Jr., who was a leading figure in Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Around 11 p.m. on Sunday, Dunn approached a group of CBP agents, pointed a finger in an agent’s face and swore at him, calling him a “fascist,” a police affidavit says. An observer’s video captured Dunn throwing a sandwich at the agent’s chest, the affidavit says.

“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, according to police.

Dunn tried to run away but was apprehended, police said.

An attorney for Dunn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Dunn’s charge.

The incident coincided with Trump’s push to flood the city with National Guard troops and federal officers. Trump claims crime in the city has reached emergency levels, but city leaders point to statistics showing violent crime at a 30-year low.

Kunzelman and Richer write for the Associated Press.

Manchester United loanee Marcus Rashford debuts for Barca as Lamine Yamal scores twice in 5-0 win against Como.

Reigning Spanish champions Barcelona completed their pre-season preparations by thrashing Italian side Como 5-0 in a game which signalled a thawing of relations with goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen.

Barca also gave Marcus Rashford a substitute’s appearance on Sunday, two weeks after the England forward joined on loan from Manchester United.

Double strikes from Fermin Lopez and Lamine Yamal and a first-half goal from Brazilian Raphinha completed the rout in the Joan Gamper Trophy.

With the game played at the Johan Cruyff Stadium within the team’s training complex, while Barcelona wait for the heavily delayed modernisation of the Camp Nou to be completed, Hansi Flick’s team showed fluency as they prepare to begin their Liga title defence away to Mallorca on Saturday.

Before kickoff on Sunday, Ter Stegen gave the traditional captain’s speech from the pitch, just days after his dispute with the club over the handling of his back injury broke to the surface.

“I think it was important to resolve the issue between the club and me, and now it’s time to look forward,” said the 33-year-old German goalkeeper, two days after having his captaincy restored.

“We’re going to fight again for all the trophies and we hope that with your help we can win all the titles possible,” Ter Stegen told the fans.

Rashford saw mixed fortunes, providing the cross for Raphinha to score but also blowing the chance to tap into an empty net.

Como, who are managed by former Barcelona and Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas, had seen their previous match – at Real Betis – descend into violence.

The Italians are touring Spain as part of their warm-up for the new season, but the friendly on Wednesday with former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini’s Betis saw two players sent off as punches were exchanged during a brawl. Como eventually won the match 3-2.

It’s been seven months since I looked up from my desk here in The Times’ El Segundo office and saw smoke roiling over the horizon.

The sky behind the billowing dove-gray clouds was still blue and clear. Across the county, people who would not live to see the next sunrise still watered their plants and chatted with neighbors and went about their business. I snapped a photo of the Palisades fire, unaware that I was looking at an entity already in the process of changing Los Angeles irrevocably.

The Eaton fire erupted hours later. By the following afternoon there was no distinction between smoke and sky, just that acrid, asphyxiating gray that made eyes water and chests tighten throughout Los Angeles County.

For days, we breathed in each other’s lives. Flames took the contents of our homes — photographs, plastic toys, car batteries, attic insulation, every coat of paint and varnish applied across the decades — and reduced them to microscopic particles that wafted across the region, went into our windpipes, leached into our blood and settled in our brains.

At work I wrote obituaries, sorted through the medical examiner’s database, and listened to grieving people describe their loved ones’ finest qualities and heartbreaking final hours.

A total of 31 people died as a direct result of injuries sustained in the Palisades and Eaton fires. The remains of the last known victim, 74-year-old Juan Francisco Espinoza, were discovered just weeks ago in the wreckage of his Altadena home.

Smoke from the Palisades fire, seen from the window of the L.A. Times’ office in El Segundo, on Jan. 7.

(Corinne Purtill / Los Angeles Times)

The disaster’s true toll is likely far higher. Just this week, a research team compared the number of deaths Los Angeles County logged between Jan. 5 and Feb. 1 to those counted in previous, non-pandemic years. This year’s count was much higher than expected. Researchers estimate that the fires led to the deaths of an additional 440 people in January alone, through interrupted healthcare and hazardous air quality.

It’s the beginning of a long reckoning with the potential health consequences of the toxic pollutants that the fires unleashed into our air, soil and water.

It will almost certainly be impossible to attribute any individual case of cancer, dementia or cardiovascular failure — to name a few of the health issues associated with exposure to wildfire smoke — to a person’s proximity to the L.A. fires.

Similarly, it’s impossible to pinpoint the degree to which climate change exacerbates any individual natural disaster. But it’s highly likely that a chaotic climate contributed to the intensity of January’s firestorms.

Two extraordinarily wet years produced an explosion of vegetation that dried out over an unusually warm summer and unusually dry winter. The region was a tinderbox, and when the Santa Ana winds hit with the force of a hurricane, ignitions turned quickly into uncontrolled catastrophes.

In the last decade, wildfires have unleashed enough fine particulate pollution to reverse years’ worth of hard-won improvements under the Clean Air Act and other antipollution measures.

These itty-bitty particles of soot, measuring 2.5 microns or less in diameter, are fine enough to cross the barriers between the outer branches of our lungs and the blood, and the blood and the brain.

Such particles can originate from vehicle exhaust, construction projects, campfires and even volcanic eruptions. But wildfires are a particularly insidious source.

Compared with other sources, wildfire smoke “contains a higher fraction of ultrafine particles — particles 25 times smaller than PM2.5 — that can move directly from the nose into the brain, potentially damaging brain cells and eventually leading to dementia,” said Joan Casey, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Washington.

“The other thing that differs is how people are exposed to wildfire smoke. Unlike other sources of PM2.5, [in which] exposure might be relatively constant throughout the year, people are often exposed to a few days of extreme wildfire smoke annually,” Casey said. “Think about it this way: it might be fine to drink one glass of wine per day, but some of these wildfire smoke events are like drinking four bottles of wine in an evening, which can overwhelm the body’s defense and harm health.”

That punch may land particularly heavy when the smoke comes from urban fires like January’s disaster.

Casey pointed to a paper that came out earlier this year looking at the relative toxicity of different types of wildfire smoke.

That research team found that smoke originating from fires that burned buildings had higher concentrations of lead, nickel and other carcinogenic substances than smoke from fires that burned primarily organic material.

After examining air pollution data captured at 700 air quality monitors over a 15 year-period, the researchers found that the share of pollutants that could be attributed to wildfire “significantly increased over time,” they wrote, “with wildfire-attributed concentrations of multiple carcinogenic metals significantly higher by the end of our sample.”

The team estimated that exposure to wildfire smoke may have caused 47 additional cases of cancer in the U.S. between 2006 and 2020 that would not have otherwise developed.

Momentous as a cancer diagnosis is for any individual, in the context of the national population this is a minuscule and statistically insignificant increase in context, they pointed out — there are more than 1 million new cancer diagnoses in the U.S. per year.

But most of that wildfire smoke was generated by “traditional” wildfires that mostly burn trees, brush and plants. We don’t know what the burden will be from increasing exposure to incinerated batteries, machinery, plastic and cars, said Emma Krasovich Southworth, a doctoral candidate at Stanford and co-author of the study.

“Given that we’re seeing more urban fires . . . we would expect that this risk to public health could change,” she said. “Even though [wildfire smoke] hasn’t added a significant cancer burden in the past, that’s not to say it won’t in the future.”

As anyone affected by January’s fires in any capacity knows, disasters of this magnitude also create an enormous amount of acute and chronic stress, which itself alters brain structure and function.

In a paper exploring the potential health effects of the fires, Casey and colleagues noted multiple ways that the upheaval and displacement they caused could contribute to ongoing mental health issues.

“Those evacuating face extreme stress and impacts on mental health, even years after the events,” they wrote. “Even when homes are not damaged or destroyed, evacuation disrupts multiple dimensions of people’s lives, including work, education, community gatherings, and health care access.”

This column looks often at the economic costs and consequences of a changing climate. There is also a toll our brains and bodies, a physical burden we all take on when the environment falls apart.

L.A.’s fires have reshaped the city. It is also possible that they have triggered changes in our very cells whose consequences we can’t yet see, and will become apparent to us long after the last lot has been cleared.

“I think [the fires have] the potential to be devastating to human health, especially over the long term,” Krasovich Southworth said. “We might see the immediate uptick of certain things that we know happen when exposed to [fire], like asthma or other respiratory issues. But I think the longer-term exposures to these chemicals . . . could be really devastating to the community.”

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Trump administration has dismissed five out of seven members on Puerto Rico’s federal control board that oversees the U.S. territory’s finances, sparking concern about the future of the island’s fragile economy. The five fired are all Democrats.

A White House official told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the board “has been run inefficiently and ineffectively by its governing members for far too long and it’s time to restore common sense leadership.”

Those fired are board Chair Arthur Gonzalez, along with Cameron McKenzie, Betty Rosa, Juan Sabater and Luis Ubiñas. The board’s two remaining members — Andrew G. Biggs and John E. Nixon — are Republicans.

Sylvette Santiago, a spokesperson for the board, said they are in touch with the White House.

The board was created in 2016 under the Obama administration, a year after Puerto Rico’s government declared it was unable to pay its more than $70-billion public debt load and later filed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

In remarks to the AP, the White House official claimed the board had operated ineffectively and in secret and said it “shelled out huge sums to law, consulting and lobbying firms.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject, also accused the board’s staff of receiving “exorbitant salaries.”

Puerto Rico is struggling to restructure more than $9 billion in debt held by the state’s Electric Power Authority, with officials holding bitter mediations with creditors demanding full payment.

It’s the only Puerto Rico government debt pending a restructuring, with the White House official accusing the board of preferring to “extend the bankruptcy.”

In February, the board’s executive director, Robert Mujica Jr., said it was “impossible” for Puerto Rico to pay the $8.5 billion that bondholders are demanding. He instead unveiled a new fiscal plan that proposed a $2.6-billion payment for creditors. The plan does not call for any rate increases for an island that has one of the highest power bills in any U.S. jurisdiction as chronic power outages persist, given the grid’s weak infrastructure.

Alvin Velázquez, a bankruptcy law professor at Indiana University, said he worries the dismissal of the board members could spark another crisis in Puerto Rico.

“This is really about getting a deal out of [the power company] that is not sustainable for the rate payers of Puerto Rico,” he said.

Velázquez, who was chair of the unsecured creditors committee during the bankruptcy proceedings, also questioned whether the dismissals are legal, since board members can only be removed for just cause.

“What’s the cause?” he said. “What you’re going to see is another instance in which the Trump administration is taking on and testing the courts.”

The dismissals were first reported by the Breitbart News Network, a conservative news site.

Coto writes for the Associated Press.

US President Trump alleged that the data had been manipulated to make him look bad.

United States President Donald Trump has removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.

Trump, in a post on his social media platform on Friday, alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired. He provided no evidence for the charge.

“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”

Trump later posted: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”

After his initial post, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said on X that McEntarfer was no longer leading the bureau and that William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as the acting director.

“I support the President’s decision to replace Biden’s Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS,” Chavez-DeRemer said.

Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated. The report suggested that the economy has sharply weakened during Trump’s tenure, a pattern consistent with a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year and an increase in inflation during June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by the president’s tariffs.

“What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger,” Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Friday speech.

Revisions to hiring data

Trump has sought to attack institutions that rely on objective data for assessing the economy, including the Federal Reserve and, now, the BLS. The actions are part of a broader mission to bring the totality of the executive branch – including independent agencies designed to objectively measure the nation’s wellbeing – under the White House’s control.

McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the commissioner of the BLS in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms, but since they are political appointees, they can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants.

The Senate confirmed McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now Vice President JD Vance among the yea votes.

Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from 125,000, and for June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent.

“No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump wrote. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”

The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent US market indexes about 1.5 percent lower on Friday.

While the jobs numbers are often the subject of political spin, economists and Wall Street investors – with millions of dollars at stake – have always accepted US government economic data as free from political manipulation.