Florida

WASHINGTON — A Florida janitor and his wife identified themselves Monday as the source of a clandestine tape recording of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his aides and said that they had turned it over to the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee not knowing that it might be illegal.

John Martin, a school custodian in the small town of Fort White, Fla., and his wife, Alice, a teacher’s aide, insisted that they were not motivated by partisan politics when they hand-delivered the tape recording to Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

Republicans deny that the speaker said or did anything improper by participating in the call. Moreover, they suggest that McDermott has tainted the ethics process and possibly violated federal law by providing the tape recording to the news media. McDermott has declined to discuss the accusations.

“This case is so open and shut that even Barney Fife could solve it,” said GOP Conference Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was vacationing in northern Florida when the call occurred and used his wife’s cellular phone to participate. The Martins’ police scanner apparently picked up the transmission from the Boehner phone.

Boehner criticized the Justice Department for not quickly launching an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the tape recording, as requested Friday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.).

McDermott declined to comment on the Martins’ account of events. He issued a brief statement late Monday noting that he had discussed the matter with Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.), who chairs the Ethics Committee.

“I have not made comments about the substance before the committee in the past,” McDermott said. “I have no comment now.”

*

“These are very serious allegations,” Johnson said. “I would need more information before commenting further.”

Rich Galen, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, asked: “How can the Democrats allow James McDermott to participate any further in this case knowing he is implicated in a potential felony?

“Secondly, what do the leaders of the Democrats in Congress intend to do with their colleague or is this the beginning of a cover-up?”

Appearing at a news conference with their lawyer in Gainesville, Fla., the Martins said that they were listening to a police scanner in their car during a Christmas shopping trip on Dec. 21 when the scanner picked up a telephone conference call between the speaker and other top Republicans.

The couple said they began taping the call, using a hand-held tape recorder that they had with them in the car, after hearing the Georgia Republican’s ethics case mentioned in the conversation and deducing that the participants were prominent congressional Republicans. Public disclosure of the conference call has sparked a political firestorm.

The conference call occurred on the same day that Gingrich admitted wrongdoing to the Ethics Committee and pledged not to organize a campaign to counter the effects of his admissions. Democrats say that the recording shows Gingrich was orchestrating the Republican response to the Ethics Committee’s initial findings.

Gingrich has admitted violating House rules in connection with a college course he once taught and is awaiting a decision on the punishment he will receive.

While the interception of cellular telephone calls is a violation of federal law, there was disagreement among attorneys on whether a case against the Martins or McDermott would stand up in court.

Former House Counsel Stanley Brand cited an exemption in the federal wiretap law for transmissions of “private land mobile communications, including police or fire or information readily accessible to the general public.”

“It seems like nobody in the chain of the transaction is without some serious defenses to any charge,” Brand said.

The Martins’ attorney, Larry Turner, acknowledged that the couple had unknowingly risked state and federal prosecution when they taped the conversation. Still, he said, the facts ought to discourage officials from pursuing charges against them.

“Once it’s understood that these folks are Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen, who happened to discover something they thought was pertinent to the Ethics [Committee] and did what I think we want citizens to do. . . . my hope is that those who are responsible for making prosecuting decisions will decide [that] it shouldn’t be prosecuted,” Turner said. “If they determine to prosecute it, we’ll defend it.”

Although disclosure of the Dec. 21 conference call has raised questions about Gingrich’s compliance with the agreement he struck with the ethics panel, it appears to have created significant political problems for Democrats as well.

“I think you’re going to see Republicans jump on [the tape controversy] and say, ‘Look at what the Democrats are willing to stoop to in order to politicize the ethics process,’ ” said David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.). “I bet McDermott will hear from his own people: ‘What did you do? You just blew it for us.’ ”

Asked what should happen to McDermott if it were proved that he leaked the tape, McIntosh said: “I think he should certainly step down from the ethics panel and consider resigning his seat in Congress.”

McDermott sent the tape to the Ethics Committee Monday afternoon. The committee’s chief counsel, Theodore J. Van Der Meid, wrote McDermott that “the material you sent to the committee at 4:33 p.m. this afternoon was not accepted.

“By direction of the chair and after consultation with the chief of the criminal division of the Department of Justice, the contents of the envelope including the audio cassette tape and the cover letter were hand delivered to the Department of Justice early this evening,” Van Der Meid’s letter said.

The cover letter was from McDermott to the committee, Van Der Meid said. He did not release it.

The Martins said that, first, they delivered the tape in a sealed envelope to the Gainesville office of their local congresswoman, Rep. Karen L. Thurman (D-Fla.). Staff members there sent it by overnight mail to Thurman’s Washington office but the congresswoman returned it to the Martins unopened when the couple visited Washington several days later.

Thurman suggested that the Martins give the tape to the Ethics Committee, aides said. The Martins proposed to deliver the tape to the highest-ranking Democrat on the panel and Thurman aides said that they provided the name of McDermott.

The Martins are both active Democrats in northern Florida. John Martin served as treasurer of the Columbia County Democratic Party, while Alice Martin served as secretary. The couple recently attended a campaign event for freshman Rep. Allen Boyd Jr., who invited them to Washington for last week’s congressional swearing-in ceremony.

Speaking outside their lawyer’s office with their grown children nearby, the Martins downplayed any political motives and said that they are simply interested citizens who suddenly found themselves at the center of a political maelstrom.

“This fell into their laps,” said Robert Griscti, one of their attorneys. “They follow the news and knew it was significant. These are common, everyday, ordinary American people but they’re not stupid people. While they’re Democrats and somewhat politically active, they felt it was their responsibility as Americans to do what they did.”

*

John Martin, 50, said that he purchased a 200-channel police scanner from Radio Shack in the fall and had picked up some cellular telephone conversations before. Alice Martin, 48, said she began taping the conversation because she was excited about passing along a piece of history to her grandson, who is due to be born at the end of the month.

“I was so excited to think that I actually heard a real politician’s voice,” said Alice Martin, who appeared to be fighting back tears at one point during the news conference. “We were thrilled.”

After their recent trip to Washington, the couple gushed about the magnificence of the Capitol, how they had become lost while trying to find the Ethics Committee’s basement offices, and how they had relied on a Capitol Hill police officer to point out McDermott.

“We told [McDermott] we had something to turn over to the Ethics Committee,” Alice Martin said. “He took the envelope in his hand and said he would listen to it.”

Nov. 26 (UPI) — Four fire rescuers in Florida were arrested on multiple charges after an alleged waterboarding-related hazing ritual turned violent, deputies said.

The four employees in the Marion County Fire Rescue unit were arrested for the alleged waterboarding incident after sheriff’s deputies responded to Fire Rescue Station 21 in Ocala, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials said the incident allegedly took place Nov. 16. The unidentified victim reportedly was in the middle of performing his duties, at which point Tate Trauthwein, a 19-year-old co-worker, threw the victim’s boots into a wooded area.

Edward Kenny III, 22, reportedly tried to grabbed the victim from behind and both fell.

Upon arriving, law enforcement learned it allegedly started as a harmless tease but violently escalated.

According to Marion County Sheriff Bill Woods, the victim was smeared with grease and the attackers sought a TikTok video on a locked phone.

The group removed the victim’s belt and then pants during the brutal attack, police said.

Trauthwein and Kaylee Bradley, 25, allegedly took the victim’s phone but refused to give his passcode. Trauthwein proceeded to strike the victim with the belt, police say.

An emergency service call interrupted the assault, authorities say.

Hazing incidents intended to be harmless have led to serious charges.

Last month, a Rutgers University fraternity in New Jersey was permanently shut down after a student was critically injured in an alleged hazing incident.

And earlier this year, nearly a dozen New York students were given an ultimatum to turn themselves in to authorities or be prosecuted as adults following an alleged high school lacrosse team hazing incident.

Meanwhile, Trauthwein, Kenn and Day face multiple criminal counts in Florida, including kidnapping, robbery and battery. Bradley was charged as an accessory to robbery.

Reporting from Tampa, Fla. — Mitt Romney won the Florida presidential primary Tuesday, taking a long stride toward capturing the GOP nomination and dealing a potentially mortal blow to the hopes of the once-resurgent Newt Gingrich.

The television networks called the race for the former Massachusetts governor soon after polls in the westernmost part of the state closed; by that time Romney already held a big lead in the votes already tabulated. The result ended what had become a suspenseless campaign over the last few days, as multiple opinion surveys showed Romney opening a commanding lead.

FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Mitt Romney the governor of Massachusetts. He is a former governor of that state.

His victory handed Romney Florida’s 50 delegates, the biggest cache yet, but more than that the win shows his ability to capture support in a big, costly and diverse state that will be a major battleground in the fall contest against President Obama.

Speaking to reporters before the polls closed, Romney said he learned a lesson from the double-digit loss he suffered at Gingrich’s hands 10 days ago in South Carolina.

“If we’re successful here, it’ll be pretty clear that when attacked you have to respond and you can’t let charges go unanswered,” Romney said after visiting campaign volunteers at a Tampa phone bank. “I needed to make sure that instead of being outgunned in terms of attacks that I responded aggressively. I think I have and hopefully that will serve me well here.”

For his part, Gingrich showed no signs of backing down, or leaving the race any time soon.

“This is a long way from being over,” the former House speaker said while shaking hands Tuesday morning at a church polling place in Orlando. “I’d say June or July, unless Romney drops out earlier.”

“The same people who said I was dead in June, or the people who said I was dead in Iowa, those people?” Gingrich said. “They’re about as accurate as they have been the last time they were wrong.”

Romney’s victory, while expected, marked a sharp turnabout in fortunes and could be a pivot point in the race for the Republican nomination.

From here, the contest heads Saturday to Nevada, a caucus state that will probably play to his organizational strength, then enters a relative lull. Just a few contests, all of them caucuses, are scheduled before the next big primaries Feb. 28 in Michigan — a Romney state, where his father served three terms as governor — and Arizona.

Gingrich came soaring into Florida after his landslide win in South Carolina and quickly surged to the top of some polls. But his momentum dwindled just as quickly after a pair of lackluster debate performances.

Romney, by contrast, revamped his approach in Florida to demonstrate a new, more pugnacious side onstage and undercut one of the major props of Gingrich’s candidacy: that he alone has the stuff to take it to Obama. Two-thirds of Florida voters said the debates were important in making up their minds, and Romney apparently helped himself with his well-received showings in Tampa and Jacksonville.

He also benefited from the diluted power of religious conservatives, a group that has been, at best, lukewarm to his candidacy. Fewer than 4 in 10 Florida voters described themselves as evangelicals or born-again Christians; in South Carolina, they made up nearly two-thirds of electorate.

The issues Romney raised in Florida were not new. For weeks, he has assailed Gingrich over his conduct in Congress, which resulted in a bipartisan reprimand and record $300,000 ethics fine, and his inside-the-Beltway consulting work after leaving office.

Romney focused in particular on the $1.6 million that Gingrich’s firm received from Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage guarantor, which many Republicans blame for the housing crisis that ravaged the nation’s economy and imposed outsized pain on Florida. He accused Gingrich of “selling influence in Washington at a time when we need people who will stand up for the truth.”

With the help of a new speaking coach, Romney pressed his assault without letup, something he had not done since Gingrich’s fifth-place finish in Iowa — a performance that many thought was the end of the former speaker’s campaign.

Romney’s attacks also took on an unusually personal tone. At one point, he scoffed that Gingrich should “look in the mirror” to understand why his campaign was struggling.

The former congressman responded in kind, calling Romney “totally dishonest” and saying it was impossible to debate someone with his casual relationship with the truth.

But Romney was able to pack far more punch in his attacks. While the two candidates were at rough parity on TV in South Carolina, Romney and his allies outspent Gingrich on the Florida race by nearly 5-to-1, or more than $15 million for Romney to Gingrich’s roughly $3 million.

For all of that, Gingrich may end up sticking around longer than Romney and many party leaders would prefer. Because most of the delegates over the next two months will be awarded on a proportional basis, Gingrich can keep adding to his total even if he loses to Romney. Contests in big states like Ohio, New York, Texas and California are weeks or even months away.

Also lurking in the presidential contest are Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Both gave up on Florida, showing up for the debates but not mounting a serious effort.

Paul, who has a small but devout band of followers, is targeting organizationally intensive caucus states in an effort to win delegates to influence the party platform at the Tampa convention.

Santorum, the victor in Iowa by a small margin, has already proved his ability to wage a subsistence campaign and signaled his intention to compete in Colorado and Minnesota, two of this month’s caucus states.

[email protected].

Times staff writers Seema Mehta in Orlando and Maeve Reston in Tampa contributed to this report.

“Can you just give me one of your leftover sharks?”

It was early in Jay Stein’s tenacious pursuit to turn a throwaway business into a sweet spot for Universal Studios, then owned by Lew Wasserman’s powerhouse entertainment firm MCA.

In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” was a cultural sensation and Stein wanted to capitalize on the movie’s success. He asked his colleagues in film production for props so his crews could re-create the fictional Amity Island coastline in the studio’s hilly back lot miles from downtown L.A.

“He convinced them: ‘Can you just give me one of the leftover sharks and I’ll put it on the studio tour, and we’ll get some promotion out of that,’ ” author Sam Gennawey told The Times, recalling Stein’s brilliance and his pioneering use of intellectual property.

Jay Stein with his wife, Connie, in Oregon.

(Connie Stein)

Stein died Nov. 5 at his home in Bend, Ore., according to his wife, Connie Stein. He was 88 and had been suffering from complications related to Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer.

“He left a big hole — but he also left a wonderful legacy,” she said in an interview Sunday. “Not a lot of people have the opportunity to leave a legacy that touches generations. But he’s still making people smile every day.”

The tram tour’s shark attack, which terrified tourists when it debuted in 1976, has long been a staple. It was among Stein’s many theme park enhancements during his more than 30 years as a top MCA executive, which included Universal’s push into Florida to compete with Walt Disney Co.

The “Jaws” attraction helped cement Universal’s decades-long relationship with Spielberg, a span that would include such films as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and “The Fabelmans.” It also spawned other movie-themed attractions that included a “Waterworld” live show and a “King Kong” ride.

Stein insisted that the ape would spew “banana breath,” his wife said.

Within Universal, such jolts and flourishes became known as “JayBangs,” which Gennawey used as the title for his 2016 book about Stein’s contributions to the industry, “JayBangs: How Jay Stein, MCA, & Universal Invented the Modern Theme Park and Beat Disney at Its Own Game.”

“Jay wanted to put you in the movie,” Gennawey said. “He wanted to grab you by the collar and shake you a bit.”

The “Runaway Train” attraction on the Universal Studios backlot tour, one of its many exhilarating “JayBangs.”

(NBCUniversal Archives & Collections)

Stein was born in New York City on June 17, 1937, to Samuel and Sylvia “Sunny” (Goldstein) Stein.

His father was a watch salesman who moved the family to Los Angeles when Stein was young. As a teenager, he occasionally skipped school to go to Hollywood Park Racetrack to bet on horses. He had finagled some blank report cards and used them to bring home self-inserted high marks.

But the scam was revealed when the family briefly moved back to New York and Stein was nearing the end of high school. His parents were summoned for a conference, where they learned Stein lacked the credits to graduate. Summer school remedied that.

The family returned to L.A. Stein attended UC Berkeley, majoring in political science, but he left about a semester shy of graduating.

He served in the Army National Guard and, near the end of his service, in 1959, began working in MCA’s mailroom. Initially he wanted to get into film production, but by the mid-1960s, he was steered into the fledgling tour unit.

The company had launched the tram tour in 1964 to make a little money from its ample real estate. But some executives viewed the endeavor as tacky. Its prospects looked dim.

“It started out as two trams and a Quonset hut on Lankershim Boulevard,” Stein told The Times in a 2023 interview. “Quite frankly, the tram was considered something that interfered with television production.”

“I worked for the production office and was given the task of trying to coordinate how close we could come on the backlot without interfering. Everyone I worked for said it was an annoyance and disruptive and will not ever be welcomed.”

Stein was able “to convince others of the benefits of having the studio tour,” Gennawey said. “That’s what saved it.”

Early signage advertising Universal Studios as a tourist attraction.

(NBCUniversal Archives & Collections)

Gennawey considers Stein a key pioneer of U.S. theme parks.

“He was remarkably competitive. He recognized that Disney had its thing — but Universal could create something different and complimentary, particularly in the early days,” Gennawey said.

Disneyland was, of course, a top draw.

“But if you are a Los Angeles resident and had relatives coming in town, you knew they [also] wanted to see Hollywood,” Gennawey said. “But Hollywood was kind of scary, so you took them to Universal Studios.”

Stein’s contributions have only recently been appreciated, according to Gennawey. That’s largely because Stein subscribed to Wasserman’s edict that the “stars were the stars,” and executives should blend into the background. Stein also retired early, leaving Universal by the mid-1990s, after Japanese electronics giant Matsushita bought MCA.

Visitors line up for the studio tour of Universal Studios.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Stein worried that Universal’s new owner (and a string of subsequent buyers) would fail to recognize the value of the theme parks, Gennawey said, an observation that proved correct.

That changed in 2011 when Comcast acquired NBCUniversal and began investing heavily.

The company opened its $7-billion theme park, Universal Epic Universe, near Orlando, Fla., to raves earlier this year.

The theme park unit — which includes destinations in Los Angeles, Florida, Japan and China — has become one of the most reliable profit engines for NBCUniversal. Last year, Universal theme parks produced $8.6 billion in revenue.

“Jay was the visionary behind Universal’s expansion from the Studio Tour in Hollywood to the creation of our world-class theme park destination at Universal Orlando and beyond,” Mark Woodbury, chairman and chief executive of Universal Destinations & Experiences, said in a statement.

“He had tremendous creative instincts and defined our style of immersive storytelling, making us the brand that brings great movies to life for generations to come,” Woodbury said.

Stein is survived by his wife, son Gary Stein, daughter Darolyn Bellemeur, and their spouses, children and grandchildren, his brother Ira Stein, a nephew, cousins as well as Connie Stein’s children and grandchildren.

MIAMI — U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida has been indicted on charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster funds and using some of the money to aid her 2021 campaign, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The Democrat is accused of stealing Federal Emergency Management Agency overpayments that her family healthcare company had received through a federally funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract, federal prosecutors said. A portion of the money was then funneled to support her campaign through candidate contributions, prosecutors allege.

“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement. “No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”

A phone message left at Cherfilus-McCormick’s Washington office was not immediately returned.

Cherfilus-McCormick was first elected to Congress in 2022 in the 20th District, representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, in a special election after Rep. Alcee Hastings died in 2021.

In December 2024, a Florida state agency sued a company owned by Cherfilus-McCormick’s family, saying it overcharged the state by nearly $5.8 million for work done during the pandemic and wouldn’t give the money back.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management said it made a series of overpayments to Trinity Healthcare Services after hiring it in 2021 to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations. The agency says it discovered the problem after a single $5-million overpayment drew attention.

Cherfilus-McCormick was the chief executive of Trinity at the time.

The Office of Congressional Ethics said in a January report that Cherfilus-McCormick’s income in 2021 was more than $6 million higher than in 2020, driven by nearly $5.75 million in consulting and profit-sharing fees received from Trinity Healthcare Services.

In July, the House Ethics Committee unanimously voted to reauthorize an investigative subcommittee to examine allegations involving Cherfilus-McCormick.

Twelve years ago, coach Lane Kiffin was humiliated, fired by USC athletic director Pat Haden on an airport tarmac at 3 a.m. moments after the Trojans had flown in from Phoenix after getting crushed by Arizona State, 62-41.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t the tarmac, maybe that’s just Trojan lore, maybe the abrupt firing took place in a small room next to the runway.

Either way, the memory has been burned in Kiffin’s heart and mind, helping motivate him to increased success on the field and seemingly heartfelt balance in his personal life.

Now the tables have turned. Kiffin, 50, has led Ole Miss to a No. 5 national ranking and 10-1 record, the fourth year in the last five the Rebels have won at least 10 games. He seemingly shed the reputation for aloofness and me-first attitude that dogged him as a failed NFL head coach at age 32 and as an Alabama assistant let go by Nick Saban days before a national title game for focusing too much on his next job.

Yet, here we are again, Kiffin apparently contemplating the unthinkable. Would he really abandon Ole Miss on the eve of the College Football Playoff for Florida or Louisiana State, fellow SEC schools and established national powers hunting for head coaches?

A young fan shows his support for Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin during the second half of a game against Florida in Oxford, Miss., on Nov. 15, 2025.

(Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press)

Kiffin’s ex-wife Layla — they are on friendly terms — and 17-year-old son Knox recently were flown on private jets to Gainesville, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., presumably to check out the livability and vibes of the potential next entry on Kiffin’s resume.

Ole Miss is well aware of Kiffin’s impending decision and clearly want to know the answer ahead of the Rebels’ regular-season finale Nov. 28 against Mississippi State. Kiffin, however, denied rumors that Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter had given him an ultimatum to decide before then.

“Yeah, that’s absolutely not true,” Kiffin told “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN on Tuesday. “There has been no ultimatum, anything like that at all. And so I don’t know where that came from, like a lot of stuff that comes out there. Like I said, man, we’re having a blast. I love it here.”

In fairness to Kiffin, the urgency to decide now rather than at season’s end is a function of today’s college football recruiting calendar and transfer portal. The high school signing period begins Dec. 3 and the transfer portal opens Jan. 2.

The first round of the CFP will be Dec. 19 and 20. The quarterfinals are on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Florida and LSU can’t wait that long to hire a coach.

What should he do? Most seasoned pundits believe he should not budge.

“Kiffin should stay and see the season out; attempt to win, try to reach the Final Four or beyond, make the memories, and forge the deep bonds that coaching is supposed to be about,” longtime columnist Dan Wetzel wrote for ESPN.

Reasons to jump to LSU or Florida are that both schools are in talent-rich states with massive fan bases and deep tradition. The ceiling is higher and the stands fuller than in Oxford, Miss. Also, coaches at those established SEC powers tend to dig in for years. Who knows when a similar opportunity will present itself?

Kiffin’s quandary is understandable. Old Miss administrators, however, vividly recall 2022 when Kiffin was courted by Auburn and allowed the issue to linger and sabotage a potentially great season. The Rebels were 8-1 when the rumors began and then lost four in a row.

Nobody at Ole Miss wants another collapse because Kiffin — again — had a wandering eye. His decision is difficult, and won’t wait.

LAS VEGAS — Gabriela Jaquez scored 17 points to lead six UCLA players in double figures, and the No. 3 Bruins dominated from the beginning to beat South Florida 94-61 on Saturday night in the WBCA Challenge.

Charlisse Leger-Walker added 16 points for the Bruins, including 12 in the first quarter.

Katie Davidson led South Florida (2-2) with 16 points, and Stefanie Ingram scored 13.

UCLA controlled the entire game and was especially effective inside in outscoring the Bulls 56-18 in the lane. The Bruins also made 61% of their shots.

They scored the game’s first 14 points and led 29-8 after the first quarter. Underscoring the total team dominance, usual standouts Kiki Rice and Lauren Betts combined for just two points. They later made their presence felt with Betts scoring 14 points and Rice 12.

UCLA is showing all signs of a team that looks primed to return to the Final Four for the second year a row. In addition to this victory, the Bruins beat two ranked teams this past week — No. 6 Oklahoma 73-59 and No. 11 North Carolina 78-60 — by double digits.

They will have a chance to build on their resume when the Bruins return to Las Vegas in two weeks to play in the Players Era in which three of the four teams are ranked in the top four.

South Florida is playing under interim coach Michele Woods-Baxter, though she is in her 18th season in the program. She stepped into that role when the WNBA’s Dallas Wings hired Jose Fernandez, the Bulls’ coach for 25 seasons, before South Florida’s season opened.

Up next for UCLA: hosts Southern on Nov. 23.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The daughter of a Hollywood screenwriter who was imprisoned and blacklisted during the anti-communist Red Scare has decried Florida’s new social studies teaching standards that other critics have warned rehabilitate shameful aspects of the McCarthy era.

“The new Florida standards you write about are appalling,” Mitzi Trumbo said late Thursday in an email to the Associated Press. “History should never be rewritten to match the politics of the day, as history has valuable lessons to teach.”

The standards approved Thursday for middle- and high-school students by the Florida Board of Education include instruction on the use of “‘McCarthyism’ as an insult” and how using the terms “red-baiter and Red Scare” is identified with “slander against anti-communists.”

The standards soften decades of criticism of former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led a political movement to root out what he labeled communism in government, the civil rights movement and artistic communities in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The public inquisitions, ideological loyalty tests and firings of that period are often viewed as a shameful chapter in U.S. history.

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union fueled concerns in the late 1940s about communist Soviet spies infiltrating American life, including the movies and U.S. government. Many of the targets of McCarthy and the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee were banned from jobs and career opportunities for a decade or more.

One of them, Dalton Trumbo, who wrote the screenplays for classics including “Roman Holiday” and “Spartacus,” used other names or had colleagues take credit for screenplays he wrote in the 1950s because he was on a Hollywood blacklist.

Mitzi Trumbo said she and her two siblings had “some difficult and painful experiences growing up in the 1950s” because of their father’s time in prison and the repercussions of him being on the blacklist.

During the 1940s, Trumbo had been the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood. He was also a member of the Communist Party, supporting unions, equal pay and civil rights.

When Trumbo and nine other members of the film industry were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, they refused to answer questions about their communist affiliations and were found in contempt. Trumbo landed in federal prison for 11 months.

While blacklisted, Trumbo wrote screenplays under a pseudonym or fronted by others, including “Roman Holiday” and “The Brave One,” whose scripts won Academy Awards. It wasn’t until 1960 when Trumbo was able to get public credit for the screenplays “Exodus” and “Spartacus.” This period of his life was recounted in the 2015 film, “Trumbo,” starring actor Bryan Cranston.

Other blacklisted Hollywood figures included actress Lee Grant, singer and actress Lena Horne and actor and director Charlie Chaplin.

Florida’s new teaching benchmarks were prompted by a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024 requiring instruction on “the consequences of communism” to prepare students against purported indoctrination in higher education.

“It is our responsibility to make sure future generations can thrive and they learn how to think, not what to think,” Layla Collins, a member of the State Board of Education, said during Thursday’s standards meeting.

The move follows the Republican-controlled Legislature’s designation of Nov. 7 as Victims of Communism Day in Florida’s public schools, to include at least 45 minutes of instruction on figures such as Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.

Under the new standards, Florida teachers should instruct on efforts by “anti-communist politicians,” such as McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee and Presidents Truman and Nixon.

Teachers also are instructed to identify “propaganda and defamation” used to “delegitimize” anti-communists.

“Instruction includes using ‘McCarthyism’ as an insult and shorthand for all anti-communism,” the new standards said. “Instruction includes slander against anti-communists, such as red-baiter and Red Scare.”

Trumbo, who exchanged email messages with the Associated Press from her Northern California home, said she didn’t want to be interviewed by telephone or video because she wasn’t comfortable talking about politics, “especially in today’s political climate.”

“I am glad people are speaking out about the actual history of the period and are explaining how careers and lives were destroyed by HUAC and McCarthyism,” she said, “and how dangerous such political repression is to our freedom of speech and to democracy itself.”

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.

This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.

“The most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said to MSNBC a few hours after a shooter killed at least 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. “Inevitably, when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work.”

The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.

Broad agreement on some steps

And yet, significant agreement does exist.

Poll after poll has shown for years that large majorities of the public agree on at least some, limited steps to further regulate firearms.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”

The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.

So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?

One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.

Asked in that same Pew survey if mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.

The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.

Esmeralda Bravo, 63, holds a photo of her granddaughter, Nevaeh, one of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims, during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.

Go back roughly 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Since then, California repeatedly has tightened its gun laws, while Florida and Texas have moved in the opposite direction.

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.

California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods earlier this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.

The overall pattern is clear, nonetheless, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.

Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.

Hardcore opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.

Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.

Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.

Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.

Finally, in an era defined by “negative partisanship” — suspicion and fear of the other side — it’s easy to convince voters that a modest gun control proposal is just an opening wedge designed to lead to something more dramatic.

That leads to a common pattern when gun measures appear on ballots: They do less well than polling would suggest.

The same thing happens to measures in Congress. Nine years ago, for example, supporters of gun control made their last big push for legislation, after the slayings of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Then, as now, polls showed strong support for requiring background checks for sales that currently evade them. But support for the legislation was sharply lower than support for the general idea, Pew found.

Almost 8 in 10 Republican gun owners favored background checks in general, they found, but when asked about the specific bill, only slightly more than 4 in 10 wanted it to pass. When asked why they backed the general idea but opposed the specific one, most of those polled cited concerns that the bill would set up a “slippery slope” to more regulation or contained provisions that would go further than advertised.

Faced with that sort of skepticism from voters, Republican senators who had flirted with supporting the bill mostly walked away, and it failed.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden led the unsuccessful effort to pass that bill. Nearly a decade later, the political factors impeding action have only grown more powerful.

Texas school shooting

The recent string of devastating shootings has renewed calls for tighter gun restrictions. But as Kevin Rector reported, a loosening of gun laws is almost certainly coming instead, largely because of an expected decision from the Supreme Court, which is likely to strike down a broad law in New York that doesn’t allow individuals to carry guns in public without first demonstrating a “special need” for self-defense.

For all the impassioned speeches and angry tweets, for all the memes and viral videos of gun control proponents quaking with rage, most of the energy and political intensity has been on the side of those who favor greater gun laxity, Mark Barabak wrote.

The shooting has generated a lot of questions from parents about what their own schools are doing for safety. Howard Blume looked at what California officials say about school security.

The latest from Washington

Biden marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer by signing an executive order aimed at reforming policing at the federal level. As Eli Stokols reported, Wednesday’s order falls short of what Biden had hoped to achieve through legislation. It directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and provides grants to incentivize state and local police departments to strengthen restrictions on chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

Sluggish response and questionable decisions by the Food and Drug Administration worsened the nation’s infant formula shortage, agency officials told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. “You’re right to be concerned, and the public should be concerned,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. The agency’s response “was too slow and there were decisions that were suboptimal along the way,” Anumita Kaur reported.

Only a couple of months ago, U.S. and European officials said a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal was “imminent.” But with little progress since then, and a shifting global geopolitical scene, the top U.S. envoy for the Iran negotiations testified Wednesday that prospects for reviving the Iran deal are “at best, tenuous,” Tracy Wilkinson reported. “We do not have a deal,” the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Cuba will not attend next month’s Summit of the Americas, a major conference to take place in Los Angeles, after the U.S. refused to extend a proper invitation, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced Wednesday. As Wilkinson reported, the decision throws the summit, which is crucial to the U.S.’ ability to demonstrate its influence in the Western Hemisphere, into further disarray.

The latest from California

GOP Rep. Young Kim would seem to have a relatively easy path to reelection in November — the national mood favors her party, she has a lot of money and the newly drawn boundaries for her Orange County district give her more Republican constituents. But Kim is suddenly campaigning with a sense of urgency, Melanie Mason and Seema Mehta report. She’s unleashed $1.3 million in advertising, and outside allies are coming to her aid with more spending. Most of it is aimed at fending off Greg Raths, an underfunded GOP opponent who has been a staple on the political scene in Mission Viejo, the district’s largest city.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and top legislative Democrats pledged Wednesday to expedite gun legislation. Among the bills are measures that would require school officials to investigate credible threats of a mass shooting, allow private citizens to sue firearm manufacturers and distributors, and enact more than a dozen other policies intended to reduce gun violence in California, Taryn Luna and Hannah Wiley reported. “We’re going to control the controllable, the things we have control of,” Newsom said during an event at the state Capitol. “California leads this national conversation. When California moves, other states move in the same direction.”

The Los Angeles mayor’s race has seemingly devolved in recent days into a rhetorical brawl between two of the city’s richest men, Benjamin Oreskes wrote. Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who supports Rep. Karen Bass, says Rick Caruso’s history of supporting Republican candidates and being registered as a Republican a decade ago disqualifies him from being mayor. That came after Variety published an interview with Caruso in which he attacked the former Walt Disney Studios chairman for “lying” about him in ads by a pro-Bass independent expenditure committee predominantly funded by Katzenberg.

The growing corruption scandal in Anaheim has cost the city’s mayor his job, endangered the city’s planned $320-million sale of Angel Stadium to the team and provided a rare, unvarnished look at how business is done behind closed doors in the city of 350,000. Read our full coverage of the FBI probe into how the city does business.

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Brad Marchand scored two goals and Sam Reinhart got the go-ahead goal on his 30th birthday in the Florida Panthers’ 5-2 victory over the Kings on Thursday night.

Anton Lundell got a shorthanded goal in the third period and Sam Bennett also scored for the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Panthers, who rebounded from a 7-3 loss against the Ducks to get their first victory on their four-game West Coast road trip.

Marchand has scored a goal in three straight games since returning to the Panthers from a one-game absence to travel to Nova Scotia to support a close friend who lost his daughter to cancer last month. The veteran tied the game late in the first period after taking the puck from Anton Forsberg behind the Kings’ net, and he added his ninth goal of the season in the third.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves.

Anze Kopitar got the first goal of his 20th NHL season and Corey Perry also scored for the Kings, who have lost three of four.

Forsberg stopped 19 shots for the Kings, who have started 1-4-2 at their downtown arena after being the NHL’s best home team last season.

Bennett put the Panthers ahead just 2:06 in, controlling and converting the rebound of Jeff Petry’s long shot.

Kopitar scored on the power play midway through the first, and Perry put the Kings ahead on a breakaway set up by a spectacular long pass from Mikey Anderson.

Reinhardt put the Panthers back ahead in the second, getting to the slot and firing a backhand for his seventh goal.

Lundell scored on a short-handed breakaway in the third after a turnover by Adrian Kempe.

Several members of the back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers were the Kings’ guests at the game, getting multiple loud ovations.

Up next for Kings: at Pittsburgh on Sunday to open a six-game trip.