Government

A Christian engineer with L.A. County claims his bosses discriminated against him by forcing him to pass by a Pride flag on the way to his office, the latest legal challenge to the government’s policy of requiring many government buildings display the flag throughout June.

Eric Batman, a 24-year veteran of the Department of Public Works, sued the county March 10 for refusing to let him work remotely in June, when the rainbow-striped flag hangs in front of his department’s Alhambra headquarters.

It’s the second lawsuit to target the county’s 2023 policy ordering the raising of the “Progress Pride Flag,” a modified version of the traditional rainbow flag with additional stripes representing people of color and transgender and nonbinary people.

In May 2024, Jeffrey Little, an evangelical Christian county lifeguard, sued the county for requiring he work feet away from the flag. That case, filed by conservative Catholic legal group Thomas More Society, is ongoing.

Batman said he first asked to work remotely for the month of June in 2024 to avoid the flag, which he found “highly offensive,” according to the suit.

A supervisor rejected his request, according to the filing, noting the county was “committed to fostering an inclusive workplace, including for our LGBTQ+ employees.” The supervisor suggested he use another entrance, Batman’s suit claimed.

“They wouldn’t give it to him because the county said ‘Our interest is in inclusivity — regardless of whether or not that includes you,”’ said Daniel Schmid, an attorney with Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group representing Batman.

Liberty Counsel frequently takes on high-profile plaintiffs who oppose same-sex marriage, including the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

A spokesperson for the county’s public works department said she could not comment on the suit as it had not yet been served.

March 11 (UPI) — The United States resumed Global Entry, a program that allows trusted travelers to quickly get through U.S. customs, on Wednesday after a short break.

The service began again at 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said.

“We are working hard to alleviate the disruptions to travelers caused by the Democrats’ shutdown,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

The program was suspended to preserve staff and resources during the partial government shutdown that began Jan. 31. When it was announced, the department said it would also suspend TSA PreCheck, which allows low-risk travelers to speed through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, but quickly reversed course on that decision.

Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said the organization was pleased with the decision.

“Over the last two weeks, the travel industry has been clear about the role programs like Global Entry and TSA PreCheck play in both security and efficiency,” Freeman said in a statement. “Through outreach to members of Congress and administration officials, collaboration across the travel sector and strong public engagement, we highlighted a simple reality: Trusted Traveler Programs enhance security while keeping travel moving.”

Travelers at airports have seen long lines for TSA checkpoints, some lasting several hours with lines stretching out onto sidewalks.

The DHS, which includes TSA, is shut down because Congress couldn’t agree on a funding bill for the department. Democrats don’t want to fund it until guardrails are put on the agency, and Republicans haven’t agreed to Democrats’ demands.

Because of this, TSA workers got a partial paycheck on Feb. 28 and will miss their first full check Saturday. There have been more work absences while staff are not getting paid, which slows the TSA lines at major airports.

A new report has expressed alarm at what it describes as backsliding press freedoms across the Americas, with the United States seeing the steepest decline.

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) released its latest press freedom index on Tuesday, ranking last year as the lowest point for freedom of expression since the report began in 2020.

Researchers found that the Americas have experienced a “dramatic deterioration” in unrestricted speech, according to the report.

“This is one of the worst years for journalism in the region, marked by murders, arbitrary arrests, exile, and rampant impunity in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela,” the report said.

It added that enhanced restrictions on free speech have occurred in countries of various ideological persuasions, whether right-wing or left-wing.

The US, however, was singled out as an area of “alarming decline”. In a ranking of 23 countries across the hemisphere, the US dropped from fourth place to 11th, indicating that journalists operate with increased restrictions.

Changes under President Donald Trump, who returned to office last year, were cited as a primary factor.

“Even though journalistic practice in the United States remains protected by the Constitution and laws, last year’s events saw the erosion of safeguards,” the report explained.

Trump, it said, had contributed to the “stigmatisation of critical journalism”. The report also pointed to developments like cuts to public media funding and the closure of Voice of America, a government-funded broadcaster, as detriments to the free press.

In total, the report tallied 170 attacks against journalists in the US last year, and it cited interactions with federal immigration agents as an area of concern.

The report also noted that Nicaragua and Venezuela continue to rank as “without freedom of expression”.

In Venezuela’s case, for instance, it cited the closure of more than 400 radio stations and the detention of 25 journalists in the wake of the controversial 2024 presidential election.

On a scale of 100, the report ranked press freedom in the country at 7.02. It remains in last place on the report’s list of 23 countries.

El Salvador also dropped in the index’s latest evaluation, now in 21st position on the press freedom list, just ahead of Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In an accompanying statement, Sergio Arauz, the president of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), denounced what he called the “escalating repression” under the government of President Nayib Bukele.

Arauz noted that 50 Salvadoran journalists had been pushed into exile in the last year amid a campaign of harassment by the government.

“There are no possibilities of practicing journalism fully without facing consequences when there is an Executive branch with virtually unlimited powers and no effective legal oversight,” said Arauz.

Since 2022, Bukele and his government have placed the country under a state of emergency that suspended key civil liberties and granted wide latitude to state security forces, in the name of addressing crime.

Tuesday’s report pointed to the state of emergency as a factor in undermining free speech, and also cited El Salvador’s new Foreign Agents Law, which gives the government the power to dissolve organisations that receive funding from abroad.

El Salvador is one of eight nations categorised in the index as “high restriction”, along with Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba.

The Dominican Republic, Chile, Canada and Brazil were ranked among the highest for protecting press freedoms.

Washington, DC – Several Democrats in the United States have emerged from a classified briefing about the war on Iran, saying they still have little clarity about President Donald Trump’s justifications and end goals, even 11 days into the conflict.

“I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, following Tuesday’s briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Their statements marked the latest wave of condemnation from congressional Democrats, who have a slim minority in the Senate and the US House of Representatives.

Party members in both chambers had recently voted in near unison on resolutions seeking to halt the war, which the US and Israel launched on February 28.

But their efforts to pass a “war powers resolution” to rein in Trump failed amid widespread Republican opposition.

More recently, Democrats have pledged to delay proceedings in the Senate unless top officials from the Department of State and the Pentagon testify under oath about the war.

Following Tuesday’s briefing, Democrats like Blumenthal argued that the Trump administration owes the US public more clarity about the war.

Blumenthal added that the meeting piqued concerns that US forces may be deployed to either Iraq or Iran.

“I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war,” he said.

“I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iraq. We seem to be on a path towards deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, said that the Trump administration “cannot explain the reasons that we entered this war, the goals we’re trying to accomplish and the methods for doing that”.

She also pointed to the high cost of the military operations against Iran, which some have estimated to exceed $5.6bn in the first two days alone.

Warren pointed out that Republicans cut healthcare subsidies last year in an effort to reduce federal spending, but appear to have no problem approving military expenses.

“While there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their healthcare”, she noted, “there’s a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran”.

While approached by reporters, Senator Jacky Rosen indicated she was limited in her ability to comment on classified briefings. Still, she offered brief remarks to voice her frustration.

“I can tell you what I heard is not just concerning. It is disturbing,” she said. “And I’m not sure what the end game is or what their plans are. They certainly have not made their case.”

‘On our timeline and at our choosing’

The latest round of criticism came shortly after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged to conduct the “most intense day” of strikes since the war began.

As of Tuesday, the war had killed at least 1,255 people in Iran, 394 people in Lebanon, 13 in Israel, six in Iraq and 14 across the Gulf.

Trump has repeatedly said the war would not be prolonged, but his officials have offered shifting timelines. Hegseth, for instance, said the fighting would not stop “until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated”.

“We do so on our timeline and at our choosing,” he said.

The Trump administration has also offered an array of justifications for launching the war, which came amid indirect talks with Iran on the future of its nuclear programme.

Trump has blamed Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the conflict, though Tehran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon, and his administration has also said the war was necessary to end Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Experts have said that available evidence does not support the Trump administration’s claims that either posed an immediate threat to the US.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last week that the US attacked because its close ally Israel had planned to attack Iran, which would have led to retaliation against US assets.

Rubio and Trump subsequently backed away from the circular rationale, with Trump claiming last week that Iran was the one planning to strike first.

Another rationale the Trump administration offered is that the totality of Iran’s actions since the 1979 Islamic revolution represented a threat to the US, thereby necessitating an attack.

Trump and his top officials have not provided evidence for any of their claims.

Calls for hearings, investigation

Democrats have been largely sidelined since the war began. Only a handful of Republicans have joined the left-leaning party in its efforts to rein in Trump through legislative means.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war. But presidents can still use the military to respond to imminent threats in instances of self-defence.

Still, there are limits to how long such operations can proceed. Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, presidents must withdraw forces within 60 to 90 days of an unauthorised military campaign, or else seek congressional approval.

Trump, however, has denied he needs congressional backing for the military campaigns he has conducted since returning to office.

The latest attacks in Iran have sparked widespread public opposition, with polls suggesting a majority of US citizens oppose the war effort.

Earlier this week, six Democratic senators called for an investigation into a strike on a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. Several investigations have indicated that the US was responsible for the attack, which killed at least 170 people, mostly children.

Last week, nearly 30 members of Congress called for an investigation into reports that US military leaders had used biblical motivations to justify the war to subordinates.

Some reportedly invoked “religious prophecy and apocalyptic theology” in statements to other enlisted personnel.

On Monday, Senator Cory Booker said Democrats had “collectively agreed” to use an array of procedural mechanisms in the chamber to block legislative business until Trump officials agree to testify under oath.

“Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate, as well as certain privileges that we can exercise,” Booker said.

“And what we have agreed right now is that we’re not going to let the Senate continue business as usual, which seems to be ignoring the urgent issues the American people are dealing with.”

A Maronite Catholic priest has been killed by Israeli tank fire after it targeted a home in southern Lebanon. Father Pierre al-Rahi was reportedly killed when an Israeli tank fired on the home of a local couple a second time after several people had rushed there to try to help.

At the inaugural “Shield of the Americas” summit in South Florida, United States President Donald Trump announced the creation of what he calls the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition: a group of a dozen politically aligned countries committed to fighting drug trafficking.

But as he signed a declaration to cement that commitment, Trump signalled that it came with the expectation that cartels would not be confronted with law enforcement action, but instead military might.

“ The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our military. So we have to use our military. You have to use your military,” Trump told the audience of Latin American leaders.

“You have some great police, but they threaten your police. They scare your police. You’re going to use your military.”

Saturday’s summit was the latest step in a larger foreign policy pivot under Trump.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has distanced himself from some of the US’s traditional allies in Europe, instead forging tighter partnerships with right-wing governments around the world.

The attendance at the Shield of the Americas summit reflected that shift. Right-wing leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, were among the guest list.

But notably absent was top-level leadership from Mexico, the US’s biggest trading partner, and Brazil, the largest country in the region by economy and population.

Both Mexico and Brazil are led by left-wing presidents who have resisted some of Trump’s more hardline policies.

The growing rift between the US and some of its longtime partners was a feature in the brief remarks delivered by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who praised attendees for their cooperation.

“They’re more than allies. They’re friends,” Rubio said of the leaders present.

“At a time when we have learned that oftentimes an ally, when you need them, maybe may not be there for you, these are countries that have been there for us.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, reiterated his view that criminal networks and cartels pose an existential crisis for the entire Western Hemisphere, which he described as sharing the same cultural and religious roots.

“ We share a hemisphere and geography. We share cultures, Western Christian civilisation. We share these things together. We have to have the courage to defend it,” Hegseth said.

A military-first approach

Latin America is one of several areas where Trump has launched military operations since returning to office in January 2025.

His rationale for authorising deadly operations in the region has centred primarily on the illicit drug trade.

Trump has repeatedly argued that Latin American criminal networks pose an imminent threat to national security, through the trafficking of people and drugs across US borders.

Experts in international law have pointed out that drug trafficking is considered a criminal offence — and it is not accepted as justification for acts of military aggression.

But the Trump administration has nevertheless launched lethal military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America.

Since September, for instance, the Trump administration has conducted at least 44 aerial strikes on maritime vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing nearly 150 people.

The victims’ identities have never been publicly confirmed, nor has evidence been publicly released to justify the deadly strikes.

Some families in Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have stepped forward to claim the dead as their loved ones, out on a fishing expedition or travelling between islands for informal work.

In Saturday’s remarks, Trump justified the attacks by arguing that cartels and other criminal networks had grown more powerful than local militaries — and therefore necessitated a lethal response.

“Many of the cartels have developed sophisticated military operations. Highly sophisticated, in some cases. They say they’re more powerful than the military in the country,” Trump said.

“Can’t have that. These brutal criminal organisations pose an unacceptable threat to national security. And they provide a dangerous gateway for foreign adversaries in our region.”

He then compared cartels to a disease: “They’re cancer, and we don’t want it spreading.”

A ‘nasty’ operation in Venezuela

In late December and early January, Trump also initiated attacks on Venezuelan soil, again defending his actions as necessary to stop drug traffickers.

The first attack targeted a port Trump linked to the gang Tren de Aragua. The second, on January 3, was a broader offensive that culminated in the abduction and imprisonment of Venezuela’s then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

On Saturday, Trump reflected on that military operation, which he characterised as an unmitigated success.

Maduro is currently awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges in New York, though a declassified intelligence report last May cast doubt on Trump’s allegations that the Venezuelan leader directed drug-trafficking operations through groups like Tren de Aragua.

“America’s armed forces also ended the reign of one of the biggest cartel kingpins of all, with Operation Absolute Resolve to bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice in a precision raid,” Trump told Saturday’s summit.

He then described the military operation as “nasty”, though he underscored that no US lives were lost.

The early-morning raid, however, killed at least 80 people in Venezuela, including 32 Cuban military officers, dozens of Venezuelan security forces, and several civilians.

“We went right into the heart. We took them out, and it was nasty. It was about 18 minutes of pure violence, and we took them out,” Trump said of the operation.

Trump has since held up Venezuela as a model for regime change around the world, particularly as it leads a war with Israel against Iran.

Maduro’s successor, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, has so far complied with many of Trump’s demands, including for reforms to the country’s nationalised oil and mining sectors.

Just this week, the two countries re-established diplomatic relations for the first time since 2019, under Trump’s first term as president.

In Saturday’s remarks, however, Trump reiterated that his positive relationship with Rodriguez hinged on her cooperation with his priorities.

“She’s doing a great job because she’s working with us. If she wasn’t working with us, I would not say she’s doing a great job,” he said.

“In fact, if she wasn’t working with us, I’d say she’s doing a very poor job. Unacceptable.”

‘We’ll use missiles’

Trump did, however, express consternation with other presidents in the Latin American region, accusing them of allowing cartels to run amok.

“Leaders in this region have allowed large swaths of territory, the Western Hemisphere, to come under the direct control” of the cartels, Trump said.

“Transnational gangs have taken over, and they’ve run areas of your country. We’re not going to let that happen.”

He even delivered an ominous warning to the summit’s attendees: “Some of you are in danger. I mean, you’re actually in danger. It’s hard to believe.”

Many of the leaders in attendance, including El Salvador’s Bukele, have launched their own harsh crackdowns on gangs in their countries, employing “mano dura” or “iron fist” tactics.

Those campaigns, however, have elicited concerns from human rights groups, who have noted that presidents like Bukele used emergency declarations to suspend civil liberties and imprison hundreds of people, often without a fair trial.

Still, Trump dismissed alternative approaches in Saturday’s speech. Though he did not mention Colombia by name, he was critical of efforts to negotiate for the disarmament of cartels and rebel groups, as Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sought to do.

Instead, he offered to deploy military might throughout the region.

“We’ll use missiles. If you want us to use a missile, they’re extremely accurate — pew! — right into the living room, and that’s the end of that cartel person,” Trump said.

“A lot of countries don’t want to do that. They say, ‘Oh, sure. I’d rather not have that. I’d rather not have it. I believe they could be spoken to.’ I don’t think so.”

A call to ‘eradicate’ Mexico’s cartels

One country he did single out, though, was Mexico. Trump suggested that it had fallen behind other countries in the region in its efforts to combat crime.

“We must recognise the epicentre of cartel violence is Mexico,” he said.

“The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere, and the United States government will do whatever’s necessary to defend our national security.”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has pressured Mexico to step up its security efforts, threatening tariffs and even the possibility of military action if it does not comply.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded by increasing military deployments throughout the country.

In February 2025, for instance, she announced 10,000 soldiers would be sent to the US-Mexico border. For the upcoming FIFA World Cup, her officials have said nearly 100,000 security personnel will be patrolling the streets.

Just last month, her government also launched a military operation in Jalisco to capture and kill the cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, nicknamed “El Mencho”. She has also facilitated the transfer of cartel suspects to the US for trial.

But Trump reemphasised on Saturday his belief that Sheinbaum had not gone far enough, though he called her a “very good person” and a “beautiful woman” with a “beautiful voice”.

“I said, ‘Let me eradicate the cartels,’” Trump said, relaying one of his conversations with Sheinbaum.

“We have to eradicate them. We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us, too close to you.”

‘Last moments of life’ in Cuba

Trump also used his podium to continue his threats against Cuba’s communist government.

Since the January 3 attack on Venezuela, Trump has increased his “maximum pressure” campaign against the Caribbean island, which has been under a full US trade embargo since the 1960s.

His administration severed the flow of oil and funds from Venezuela to Cuba, and in late January, Trump announced he would impose steep economic penalties on any country that provides the island with oil, a critical resource for the country’s electrical grid.

Already, the country has been struck with widespread blackouts, and the United Nations has warned Cuba is inching closer to humanitarian “collapse”.

But Trump framed the circumstances as progress towards the ultimate goal of regime change in Cuba.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he told Saturday’s summit.

“Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time.”

He added that he thinks changing Cuba’s government will be “easy” and that a deal could be struck for the transition of power.

“Cuba’s in its last moments of life as it was. It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is,” Trump said.

But while Trump’s remarks largely focused on governments not represented at the summit, he warned that there could be consequences even for the right-wing leaders in attendance.

Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” coalition comes as he seeks to bring the whole of Latin America in line with US priorities. It’s a policy he has dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”, a riff on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which claimed the Western Hemisphere as the US’s sphere of influence.

To Trump, that means ousting rival powers like China as they seek to forge relationships and economic ties with Latin America. Trump has even mused about retaking the Panama Canal, based on his allegation that the Chinese have too much control in the area.

“As these situations in Venezuela and Cuba should make clear, under our new doctrine — and this is a doctrine — we will not allow hostile foreign influence to gain a foothold in this hemisphere,” Trump said.

He then made a pointed remark to Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, who was in the audience.

“That includes the Panama Canal, which we talked about. We’re not going to allow it.”

Pro-Palestinian German activist Yasemin Acar told Al Jazeera about what she says was harassment at a Berlin airport where she recorded a border guard asking about her destination because of concerns over “hostility towards Israel”.

The government in Havana has claimed that the 10 people on board the speedboat had planned to unleash terrorism in Cuba.

The government of Cuba has announced that a fifth person died as a consequence of a fatal shootout last month involving a Florida-flagged speedboat that allegedly opened fire on soldiers off the island nation’s north coast.

The island’s Ministry of Interior said late on Thursday in a statement that Roberto Alvarez Avila died on March 4 as a result of his injuries.

It added that the remaining injured detainees “continue to receive specialised medical care according to their health status”.

On February 26, authorities in Cuba said that Cuban soldiers confronted a speedboat carrying 10 people as the vessel approached the island and opened fire on the troops.

They said the passengers were armed Cubans living in the United States who were trying to infiltrate the island and “unleash terrorism”. Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others.

“The statements made by the detainees themselves, together with a series of investigative procedures, reinforce the evidence against them,” the Cuban Interior Ministry said in its statement.

It added that “new elements are being obtained that establish the involvement of other individuals based in the US”.

Earlier this week, Cuba said it had filed terrorism charges against six suspects who were on the speedboat. The government also unveiled items it claimed to have found on the boat, including a dozen high-powered weapons, more than 12,800 pieces of ammunition and 11 pistols.

Cuban authorities have provided few details about the shooting, but they said the boat was roughly 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) northeast of Cayo Falcones, off the country’s north coast.

They also provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press news agency was unable to readily verify the details because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.

The shooting threatened to increase tensions between US President Donald Trump and Cuban authorities.

The island’s economy was, until recently, largely kept economically afloat by Venezuela’s oil, which is now in doubt after a US military operation abducted and deposed former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Over the past two decades, China has quietly eclipsed the United States as the dominant trading partner in parts of Latin America.

But since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has pushed to reverse Beijing’s advance.

That includes through aggressive manoeuvres directed at China’s allies in the region.

Already, the Trump administration has stripped officials in Costa Rica, Panama and Chile of their US visas, reportedly due to their ties to China.

It has also threatened to take back the Panama Canal over allegations that Chinese operatives are running the waterway. And after invading Venezuela and abducting President Nicolas Maduro, the US forced the country to halt oil exports to China.

But on Saturday, Trump is taking a different approach, welcoming Latin American leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate for an event dubbed the “Shield of the Americas” summit.

How he plans to persuade leaders to distance themselves from one of the region’s largest economic partners remains unclear.

But experts say the high-level meeting could signal that Washington is prepared to put concrete offers on the table.

Securing meaningful commitments from Latin American leaders will take more than a photo op and vague promises, according to Francisco Urdinez, an expert on regional relations with China at Chile’s Pontifical Catholic University.

Even among Trump’s allies, Urdinez believes significant economic incentives are required.

“What they’re really hoping is that Washington backs up the political alignment with tangible economic benefits,” he said.

‘Reinforcing the Donroe Doctrine’

Already, the White House has confirmed that nearly a dozen countries will be represented at the weekend summit.

They include conservative leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Mexico and Brazil, the region’s largest economies, have been notably left out. Both are currently led by left-leaning governments.

In a post on social media, the Trump administration framed the event as a “historic meeting reinforcing the Donroe Doctrine”, the president’s plan for establishing US dominance over the Western Hemisphere.

Part of that strategy involves assembling a coalition of ideological allies in the region.

But rolling back Chinese influence in a region increasingly reliant on its economy will not be an easy feat, according to Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research and advocacy group.

The US “is trying to get countries to agree that they’re not going to have China be one of their primary trading partners, and they really can’t at this point”, Sanchez said.

“For most countries, China is either their top, second or third trading partner.”

China, after all, has the second-largest economy in the world, and it has invested heavily in Latin America, including through infrastructure projects and massive loans.

The Asian giant has emerged as the top trading partner in South America in particular, with bilateral trade reaching $518bn in 2024, a record high for Beijing.

The US, however, remains the biggest outside trade force in Latin America and the Caribbean overall, due in large part to close relations with its neighbour, Mexico.

As of 2024, US imports from Latin America jumped to $661bn, and its exports were valued at $517bn.

Rather than choosing sides, though, many countries in the region are trying to strike a balance between the two powers, Sanchez explained.

Still, she added that the US cannot come empty-handed to this weekend’s negotiations.

“If the US is very boldly telling countries to cut off strengthening ties with China”, Sanchez emphasised that “the US is going to have to offer them something.”

What’s on the table?

Trump has already extended economic lifelines to Latin American governments politically aligned with his own.

In the case of Argentina, for instance, Trump announced in October a $20bn currency swap, meant to increase the value of the country’s peso.

He also increased the volume of Argentinian beef permitted to be imported into the US, shoring up the country’s agricultural sector, despite pushback from US cattle farmers.

Trump has largely tied those economic incentives to the continued leadership of political movements favourable to his own.

The $20bn swap, for instance, came ahead of a key election for Argentinian President Javier Milei’s right-wing party, which Trump supports.

Isolating China from resources in Latin America could also play to Trump’s advantage as he angles for better trade terms with Beijing.

A show of hemispheric solidarity could give Trump extra leverage as he travels to Beijing in early April to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Urdinez pointed out.

Then there’s the regional security angle. The US has expressed particular concern about China’s control of strategic infrastructure in Latin America and the critical minerals it could exploit in the region to bolster its defence and technology capabilities.

Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, for instance, are believed to hold the world’s largest deposits of lithium, a metal necessary for energy storage and rechargeable batteries.

The Trump administration referenced such threats in its national security strategy, published in December.

“Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse,” the strategy document said, blaming the “political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors”.

But Trump’s security platform nevertheless asserted that Latin American leaders were actively seeking alternatives to China.

“Many governments are not ideologically aligned with foreign powers but are instead attracted to doing business with them for other reasons, including low costs and fewer regulatory hurdles,” the document said.

It argued that the US could combat Chinese influence by highlighting the “hidden costs” of close ties to Beijing, including “debt traps” and espionage.

‘More aspiration than reality’

Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believes that many Latin American countries would prefer to deepen economic engagement with the US over China.

But in many cases, that hasn’t been an option.

She pointed to Ecuador’s decision to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with China in 2023 after it failed to negotiate a similar agreement with the US under President Joe Biden.

Some US politicians had opposed the deal as a threat to domestic industries. Others had encouraged Biden to reject it due to alleged corruption in Ecuador’s government.

Critics, though, said the resistance pushed Ecuador into closer relations with China.

“ When Ecuador signed their free trade agreement with China a couple years ago, their leader actually made quite clear that they had wanted an FTA with the US and would’ve preferred that,” said Levin.

“But the US didn’t want to negotiate such an agreement, and China did.”

As a result, Ecuador became the fifth country in Latin America to ink a free trade pact with China, after Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

For Levin, the question looming over this weekend’s summit is whether the Trump administration will step up and provide alternatives to the economic engagement China has already delivered.

Options could include trade agreements, financing for new development and investments with attractive terms.

But without such offers, Urdinez, the Chilean professor, warns that Trump will face limits to his ambitions of checking China’s growth in Latin America.

“Until Washington is willing to fill the economic space it’s asking countries to vacate, the rollback strategy will remain more aspiration than reality,” said Urdinez.

The head of US Central Command says B-2 bombers have dropped dozens of 2,000-pound bombs on buried Iranian ballistic missile launchers, contributing to a 90% drop in missile attacks. The commander added an Iranian “drone carrier ship” is currently on fire after being hit.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump explained that he had reassigned Noem to be a special envoy for a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere, dubbed the “Shield of the Americas”.

The staffing change, he added, will take effect starting March 31. It marks the first major cabinet-level shake-up of Trump’s second term so far.

Trump praised Noem upon her departure from the cabinet-level post, writing that she “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”

But Noem has played a prominent role in some of the administration’s most controversial immigration policies, and her tenure at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spurred questions about government spending and conflicts of interest.

The announcement that she would be leaving her post comes a day after she faced a grilling from Democrats during congressional hearings this week, with several politicians called for her resignation.

“DHS is supposed to be protecting our residents and upholding constitutional protections. But you’ve turned that on the head. You have actually turned the United States government against its own residents,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, said during Wednesday’s hearing.

“Yours is a case of failed leadership. Secretary, you need to resign, be fired or be impeached because you don’t have the right to lead this agency.”

The announcement of Noem’s removal also comes as DHS continues to weather a partial government shutdown.

Democrats have opposed approving new funding for the department in response to deadly shootings involving immigration agents under Noem’s leadership.

Those shootings were brought up again this week during Noem’s appearances before judiciary committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, for instance, repeatedly accused Noem of launching a “smear campaign” against two US citizens shot dead during interactions with immigration agents: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“There have been three homicides in Minneapolis in 2026, and your agents committed two of them,” Raskin told Noem.

He also highlighted comments Noem made calling Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists“, despite evidence undercutting the administration’s depiction of the events leading to their deaths.

“Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve these homicides, you barred Minnesota’s investigators from the crime scenes,” Raskin said.

“It smells like a coverup, and it makes me wonder who the real domestic terrorists are.”

Noem, formerly the Republican governor of South Dakota, has also been scrutinised for a $220m advertising campaign promoting border security.

The advertising campaign shows Noem riding a horse near Mount Rushmore, a well-known national memorial in her home state.

The news outlet ProPublica previously reported that a government contract for the campaign went to a Republican consulting firm with ties to senior DHS officials.

Noem has denied any wrongdoing, stating that the bidding process was “competitive” and that the contract was “all done correctly, all done legally”.

On Thursday, before announcing the staffing change, Trump denied any connection to the advertising campaign, telling the news service Reuters that he “never knew anything about it”.

Noem played a key role in the administration’s mass deportation push, and she has frequently used rhetoric that vilified immigrants as dangerous and violent.

Though DHS’s mandate focuses on domestic security, Noem has made several international trips over the last year, including visits to Ecuador in July and November.

Trump has called a “Shield of the Americas” summit at his Mar-a-Lago estate this weekend, inviting world leaders from multiple countries to discuss regional security and combatting Chinese influence in Latin America.

Noem’s replacement as DHS head, Mullin, has served as a US senator since 2023. He was a representative in the House for a decade before that, representing Oklahoma.

Trump highlighted his membership in the Cherokee Nation, writing that Mullin would be a “fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal Communities” as DHS leader.

“Markwayne will work tirelessly to Keep our Border Secure, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, End the Scourge of Illegal Drugs and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” Trump said on Thursday.

The United States-Israeli war with Iran continues to rage, as Washington pledges to send more troops and military assets to the Middle East and Tehran widens its retaliatory strikes across the region.

But on Thursday, top officials under US President Donald Trump shifted focus to another military front: Latin America.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has indicated he plans to exert US dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere. His push for control has coincided with military operations against alleged criminal networks across the region.

At Thursday’s inaugural “Americas Counter Cartel Conference”, speakers such as White House security adviser Stephen Miller assured reporters that Latin America would remain a top military priority for the US, regardless of events in the Middle East.

“We are not going to cede an inch of territory in this hemisphere to our enemies or adversaries,” Miller said, adding the US was “using hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland”.

Miller further maintained there is no “criminal justice solution” to drug cartels, which he likened to armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

Organised crime, he concluded, “can only be defeated with military power”.

Since Trump took office last year, his administration has applied what experts describe as a “global war on terror” approach to Latin America, including by labelling drug cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Figures like Miller, a key architect behind Trump’s hardline immigration policies, have championed the president’s militaristic approach, even as critics warn it raises human rights and legal concerns.

Last September, for instance, the administration began striking alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in what rights groups have decried as extrajudicial killings.

And in early January, the US launched an extraordinary operation to abduct Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. It has since pursued a pressure campaign against Cuba designed to weaken its communist government.

Just this week, on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced it had launched joint operations with Ecuador’s military “against Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the South American country.

The announcement indicated a new front for US military actions in the region, which officials have said could include land operations.

But the broadening scope of Trump’s military involvement in Latin America, combined with the nascent war with Iran, has raised questions about the US’s ability to sustain such intense military activity.

Prepared to ‘go on offence alone’

The “Americas Counter Cartel Conference” came as Latin American leaders arrived in South Florida to attend a regional summit hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Attendees included officials from the Trump-allied conservative governments in Argentina, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

But despite support from several regional governments, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth nevertheless told the audience that the US was “prepared to take on” Latin America’s cartels and “go on the offence alone, if necessary”.

“However, it is our preference — and it is the goal of this conference — that, in the interest of this neighbourhood, we all do it together,” Hegseth added.

The secretary also praised Trump’s take on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which sought to establish a US sphere of influence, separate from Europe, in the Western Hemisphere. Administration officials have dubbed Trump’s parallel approach the “Donroe doctrine”.

Hegseth framed the administration’s attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats as a keystone of Trump’s effort to maintain regional influence.

The US military has carried out at least 44 aerial strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in an estimated 150 known deaths.

The identities of the victims have not been released, with several family members saying fishermen and informal workers were among those targeted.

The Pentagon chief said the approach was meant to “establish deterrence”.

“If the consequence was simply to be arrested and then released, well, that’s a consequence they’d already priced in a long time ago,” Hegseth said.

He then pointed to a “few weeks” in February in which there were no strikes on alleged drug boats.

The pause in attacks, he said, was evidence of the strategy’s success. But that break notably came as the US surged assets to the Middle East.

Emphasis on ‘heritage’

Neither Hegseth nor Miller specifically referred to the war with Iran, but the pair touched on themes that have been present in the administration’s messaging on the war.

Trump, for example, said Iran’s government “waged war against civilisation itself”. There have been reports, meanwhile, that US military officials have referenced the biblical “end times” as a religious underpinning for the war.

Those remarks have reflected what critics consider Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism and his view of the Americas as a European-derived “civilisation” threatened by outside forces.

At Thursday’s conference, Miller himself referenced violence in European history as justification for the modern-day military actions in Latin America.

There were periods in European history throughout the 18th and 19th centuries during which “ruthless means were used to get rid of the people who were raping and murdering and defying established systems of order and justice,” Miller said.

He also echoed Trump’s allegation that Europe was facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of left-wing leadership and immigration.

“The reason why many Western countries are struggling today is they’ve forgotten the eternal truth and wisdoms they once followed,” Miller said.

Hegseth, meanwhile, described all the countries at Thursday’s meeting as “offsprings of Western civilisation”.

Representatives in attendance, he said, faced a test “whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people ruled not by violence and chaos but by law”.

He added that foreign “incursions” represent “existential questions” for the region, seemingly referencing the growing influence of China as an economic and political partner in the Americas.

In Iran’s major turning points, Hassan Rouhani’s name tends to resurface – even when he is no longer at the centre of decision-making. And as the Islamic Republic enters a sensitive transitional phase after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint United States-Israeli strike, the question of which figures might be used to calm the domestic arena or rebalance power inside the system has returned to the forefront.

Rouhani, Iran’s former president (2013–2021), a Muslim leader with a doctorate in law, is not an outsider to the system he once promised to “reform”. He is a product of it: a longtime parliamentarian, a veteran of the national-security apparatus, and a former chief nuclear negotiator who rose to the presidency in 2013 as a pragmatist offering economic relief through diplomacy.

The long road through parliament

Rouhani was born in 1948 in Sorkheh, in Iran’s Semnan province. He received religious training in the Hawza system (Islamic religious seminary), then studied law at the University of Tehran, before earning a PhD in law from Glasgow Caledonian University in 1999.

After the revolution, he built his career through parliament. He was elected to the Majlis (Iran’s legislature) for five consecutive terms between 1980 and 2000, giving him practical political experience and longstanding relationships within the elite.

That background explains part of his later image as a “consensus man” more than an ideological confrontational leader: someone who moves within the rules of the game, not outside them.

A ‘third road’ in Iran’s post-revolution politics

To understand Rouhani’s political brand, it helps to place it in a longer arc of post-1979 ideological currents inside the Islamic Republic – an arc often described in Iranian political writing as a sequence of competing “discourses” that nonetheless remained anchored to the revolution and the system’s religious-constitutional framework.

Iran moved through phases that emphasised different priorities: currents sometimes described as “Islamic left”, “Islamic liberalism”, and a more market-oriented turn under former leader Hashemi Rafsanjani; then a period of “Islamic democracy” and “civil society” associated with Mohammad Khatami; followed by a social-justice-heavy, populist register under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

That’s when Rouhani arrived with the language of e‘tedal –or “moderation”.

Within that framework, “moderation” presents itself as an attempt to balance what supporters call the system’s two pillars: the “Republic” (pragmatism, governance, responsiveness) and the “Islamic” (ideals, clerical authority, revolutionary identity). This balance became central to Rouhani’s pitch in 2013: He promised to reduce external pressure, restart economic growth and lower domestic polarisation without challenging the authority structure that ultimately constrains any elected president in Iran.

The negotiator and president

Between 2003 and 2005, Rouhani led Iran’s delegation in nuclear negotiations with the “European troika” (Britain, France and Germany). He gained a reputation as a “pragmatist” among Western diplomats, while Iranian hardliners accused him of making concessions.

Later, that record became a pillar of his 2013 presidential campaign: a negotiator rather than a confrontationist.

In June that year, Rouhani won the presidency in the first round with more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a run-off in an election that saw high turnout.

Rouhani’s signature achievement was the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 – the US, China, Russia, France, United Kingdom and European Union.

Under the deal, the US and its allies lifted the bulk of sanctions imposed on Iran, and allowed Tehran access to more than $100bn in frozen assets. In exchange, Iran agreed to major caps on its nuclear programme.

At home, Rouhani sold the deal as a route to normalise the economy and curb inflation.

2017: A second mandate – and first brush with Trump

In May 2017, Rouhani won a second term with about 57 percent of the vote. Many inside Iran read the result as a bet by the country’s people on continued “opening” and reduced isolation.

But the power equation within Iran did not change. The presidency manages day-to-day governance, but it does not decide alone on the security services, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards or the core media architecture.

The diplomatic opening proved short-lived. In 2018, US President Donald Trump, in his first term, withdrew Washington from the JCPOA and reimposed sweeping sanctions, sharply limiting the economic gains Rouhani had promised. The reversal weakened Iran’s pragmatists and reformists, who had invested political capital in defending the agreement as the best available route out of isolation–while giving hardliners new ammunition to argue that negotiations with the US cannot deliver durable relief.

Post-presidential year – and a return from political exile?

Rouhani’s presidency ended in 2021, and with the rise of conservative dominance within Iran’s politics, he appeared to be gradually pushed to the margins. He then became a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts – the body constitutionally empowered to choose the supreme leader.

But in January 2024, the Reuters news agency reported that the Guardian Council barred Rouhani from running again for the Assembly of Experts.

Two years later, after the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei, the country – according to the constitution– entered a temporary arrangement phase until the Assembly of Experts selects a new leader. President Masoud Pezeshkian, Supreme Court Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Guardian Council member Ayatollah Alireza Arafi form the interim leadership council that are in charge until the Assembly of Experts announces its pick for the next Supreme Leader. 

And from the hushed conversations and chatter that have emerged from within Iran’s elite circles over potential candidates for the supreme leader’s role, Rouhani’s name has resurfaced.

That possible return to political life, analysts say, is a testament to what Rouhani represents in Iran’s factional geometry: a governing style that privileges tactical compromise, economic management and controlled engagement – while remaining fundamentally loyal to the Islamic Republic’s constitutional-religious architecture.

As Iran plans Khamenei’s succession, it faces a central question: whether to broaden legitimacy by incorporating pragmatic faces or double down on a security-first posture. Rouhani sits at that crossroads – not the architect of the system, and no longer a principal decision-maker, but a durable indicator of how far Iran’s establishment is willing to bend without breaking.

Kathmandu, Nepal – On the eve of Valentine’s Day last month, a former king in Nepal was on a helicopter, making his way to the capital, Kathmandu, from Jhapa, a district to the southeast where he has business interests.

Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah landed in Kathmandu to a red carpet welcome by thousands of supporters, with chants of “Raja aau, desh bachau!” (“Come back, king, save the country!”), a slogan popular among Nepal’s royalists, ringing out.

Four days later, on the eve of Nepal’s Democracy Day, the 78-year-old former monarch released a video message with English subtitles, speaking of his “unwavering sense of duty and responsibility” towards a nation he suggested was trapped in an “unusual whirlwind of distress”.

“The country is in one of the most painful situations in its history,” he said.

“In a democracy, it is appropriate for state systems and processes to operate in accordance with constitutional principles. While periodic elections are natural processes in a democratic system, prevailing sentiments suggest that elections should proceed only after national consensus to avoid post-election conflict or unrest.”

Shah’s explicit opposition to the parliamentary election – scheduled for Thursday – was aimed at Nepalis who have a lingering nostalgia for the monarchy, which was abolished in 2008 after seven years of Shah on the throne.

Why Shah is hopeful

Since the 239-year-old monarchy was abolished in 2008, Nepal, an impoverished nation of 30 million people, has been plagued with political instability.

It has seen 14 governments and nine prime ministers since, with power rotating between the ⁠former Maoist rebels’ party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified ⁠Marxist-Leninist), and the Nepali Congress.

However, a Gen Z-led uprising in September last year challenged the dominance of Nepal’s established political parties and forced the formation of an interim government, which is overseeing the March 5 election.

The youth-led challenge to an ageing political class has reignited debates in Nepal about a possible return of monarchy, and whether the prospect has significant public support.

There is marginal political support, too.

The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which won 14 of the 275 seats in the 2022 parliamentary election, openly advocates for the restoration of a constitutional monarchy. Its leader, Rabindra Mishra, told Al Jazeera that Shah’s call for consensus on the issue echoed his own thoughts.

“I believe we need national consensus and a systemic overhaul of the system,” Mishra said, while campaigning in his constituency in Kathmandu. “I have been saying the election should be slightly postponed to forge consensus before announcing new dates. But we are not a formidable political force. The major parties are moving ahead with the election regardless.”

A year ago, Shah had put up a similar show of support in Kathmandu, fuelling speculation about whether he was trying to test the waters to push for the restoration of the constitutional Hindu monarchy. The demonstration turned violent after Durga Prasai, the royalist businessman who had mobilised crowds for the rally, broke the police barricade with his car and entered the restricted zone, which was not designated for demonstrations. Two people were killed, more than 100 were injured, and more than 100 were arrested for clashing with police.

‘Trying to remain relevant’

Critics see calculated political signalling behind Shah’s public appearances.

Baburam Bhattarai, an ex-prime minister and former Maoist leader, said Shah’s statements were concerning.

“These kinds of public statements during crucial times are not good,” Bhattarai told Al Jazeera. “The Constituent Assembly lawfully abolished the monarchy and established a democratic republic. He should think about how to contribute responsibly as a citizen. Suggesting elections should not happen just before they take place sends the wrong message.”

Political analyst CK Lal offered a more tempered view.

“He [Shah] has seen power, and that nostalgia does not fade easily,” Lal told Al Jazeera. “Perhaps he hopes that if circumstances change, keeping the idea alive may prove useful. But at present, he appears to be trying to remain relevant. It is difficult for anyone who once held absolute authority to accept irrelevance.”

‘Unifying symbol’

The RPP’s election manifesto describes the monarchy as a “guardian institution”, necessary for a country in crisis.

“To move forward, both wheels must be strong,” said party leader Mishra, using the metaphor of a royal chariot. “We are not proposing the monarchy will run the government. Political parties will govern. The monarchy would serve as a unifying symbol above partisan politics.”

Mishra said Nepal faces internal security challenges and regional geopolitical pressures, and a ceremonial monarchy could provide stability.

But Bhattarai rejects this, saying the idea of a Hindu monarchy conflicts with Nepal’s religious, ethnic and cultural fabric, and its secular constitution.

“Monarchy is obsolete,” he said. “It will not solve our crises. These are inherent challenges that can only be addressed through democratic processes. Nepal is an inclusive, secular state. We cannot reverse that.”

Lal, however, argued that the monarchy retains a limited but symbolic resonance among some people.

“It would be presumptuous to say it is not a force,” he said. “But it is not a considerable force. It appeals mainly to religiously minded elders and cultural conservatives. The younger generation has no lived experience of monarchy. To them, it appears antiquated.”

Calls to restore Hindu state

Nepal’s monarchy under the Shah dynasty ended in 2006, when Maoist-led mass protests forced Shah, who had seized power and imposed emergency rule, to reinstate parliament. In 2008, a constituent assembly formally abolished the monarchy and declared Nepal a secular federal democratic republic.

Now, the RPP advocates for reinstating Nepal as a Hindu state. Nepal was the world’s only officially Hindu kingdom until 2008.

Mishra frames the proposal as cultural preservation rather than religious majoritarianism. “Nepal is a centre of both Hinduism and Buddhism,” he said. “We do not oppose any religion.”

However, he insisted: “To protect Nepal’s identity and maintain social cohesion, we need a Hindu king as the head of state.”

More than 80 percent of Nepal’s population is Hindu.

Bhattarai dismissed the idea as “romanticism”.

“Religion is a personal faith,” he said. “A nation state does not have a religion – people do. Enforcing one religious identity on a diverse society is anti-democratic.”

Lal pointed out that calls to restore the monarchy and a Hindu state are closely intertwined. “From a monarchist perspective, a Hindu state is a first step,” he said. “For Hindu nationalist forces, it may be an end goal. There appears to be a convergence of interests.”

Since 2008, Shah has not formally entered politics, though he maintains a visible public presence. He appears at restaurants, night clubs, and other public places on his birthday and during festivals, casually posing for photographs with people. His occasional private visits abroad, including to India, have drawn political scrutiny, though he holds no official diplomatic role.

India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also holds the ideology that India ought to be a Hindu state.

At a pro-monarchy rally in 2025, a prominent poster showed Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu nationalist politician who is the chief minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which borders Nepal. Adityanath is also the chief priest at Gorakhnath Temple, which the Shah dynasty considers sacred, and has been publicly sympathetic to the idea of Nepal as a Hindu state.

But Lal downplayed speculation about Shah being backed by India, home to the world’s largest Hindu population.

“Foreign governments support winners, not losers. Their [India’s] interests lie with whoever holds power,” he said. “Despite a close relationship between the monarchy and the [Hindu nationalist] lobby in India, which is the ruling class now, they know that the monarchy has almost no relevance in Nepal.”

Monarchists mainly draw their support for the institution from an 18th-century treatise called Dibya Upadesh (Divine Counsel). Attributed to the “Prithvipath” philosophy of Nepal’s unifier, King Prithvi Narayan Shah. The idea describes Nepal as “a yam between two boulders”, referring to its precarious position between India and China, and urges its leaders to pursue cautious diplomacy, economic self-reliance and internal unity.

The RPP’s Mishra argues that these principles remain relevant.

“What Prithvi Narayan Shah formulated more than 240 years ago is still applicable today, in foreign policy, diplomacy, economic protection and national stability,” he told Al Jazeera. “We already had our organic values in Dibya Upadesh, but we went looking elsewhere for ideological models.”

But analyst Lal dismissed the idea that an 18th-century doctrine could guide a 21st-century republic.

“It is largely nostalgia. Invoking Prithvipath does not address contemporary geopolitical and economic realities. Nepal today operates in a completely different global context,” he said.

“I don’t see much chance for the monarchy to be restored.”

NEW YORK — U.S. and Israeli officials are privately casting doubt on projections from the Trump administration that the war with Iran could end within a matter of weeks — instead warning that a months-long campaign may be required to destroy the country’s ballistic missile capabilities and install a pliant government, multiple sources told The Times.

The prospect of extended combat creates new political risks and uncertainties for President Trump, whose penchant for dramatic, short-term military operations has suddenly given way to a full-scale assault on the Islamic Republic, shocking a MAGA base that for years supported his calls to end forever wars in the Middle East.

One Israeli official told The Times — despite internal guidance among Israeli officials to adhere to the U.S. president’s stated time frame — that the war “definitely could be longer” than the four-week window that Trump repeatedly offered to reporters.

A U.S. official said that in private conversations, top administration officials presume the campaign will require a longer runway now that remnants of Iran’s government have chosen to resist rather than acquiesce to Washington.

Protracted war was always a possibility. Trump was presented with U.S. intelligence assessments gaming out the potential conflict that emphasized how highly unpredictable the results of an attack would be — an analysis the intelligence community believes has borne out on the ground in the chaotic early days of the conflict.

A longer conflict could create diplomatic space between Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has advocated for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic for over 30 years.

The Israeli leader has succeeded in convincing Trump to take military actions in Iran that American presidents have rejected for decades, from bombing its nuclear facilities to assassinating its leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an opening strike over the weekend.

Goal of regime change fades

Yet, mere days into the war, White House officials have all but ceased references to a democratic spring that could sweep Iran’s government aside.

A set of four U.S. goals for the mission no longer calls for changing the regime itself. Still, Netanyahu’s government remains keen on replacing the government, and the nation’s longest-serving premier sees the current war as his best opportunity to do so, one official said.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Trump rejected reports that the Israelis had convinced him to launch the attack.

“No, I might have forced their hand,” Trump said. “Based on the way the negotiations were going, I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we’ve had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have had been knocked out.”

In a series of interviews this week, Trump said he had been given projections of a four- or five-week war, while noting he is prepared to go longer if necessary.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who is Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said that projecting a deadline to the conflict at its start would be a strategic mistake for the Trump administration, as it would in effect give Iran’s remaining leadership an end date to wait out the fighting.

“Successive presidents have shown that America has strategic attention deficit disorder,” Rubin said. “If that was the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s especially true under Trump. He imposed a ceasefire on Gaza that let Hamas survive to fight another day; they still haven’t disarmed.”

The duration of the war will depend, in part, on Iran’s ability to resist and defend its remaining capabilities — but also on the president’s willingness to accept an outcome that leaves the Islamic Republic in place.

That decision has not yet been made by Trump, who has vacillated between calls for a democratic uprising across Iran — and U.S. military options to support resistance groups inside the country — as opposed to a shorter campaign that cripples Iran’s political leadership and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians, ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding,” Trump told Axios.

One of Israel’s primary goals is to effectively eliminate the country’s ballistic missile program, and progress on that score is ahead of schedule, another source familiar with the operation said. “Things are going very well at the moment,” the source added. “Great pace.”

An Israeli military source noted to The Times that the stated goal of the mission is to significantly degrade, but not necessarily destroy, Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, a goal the source said could be accomplished within Trump’s preferred time frame.

“Israel was quite unhappy Trump ordered the [June 2025] 12-day war ended when it did,” said Patrick Clawson, director of the Iran program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He said he expected the current war would “take time” to comprehensively set back Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, after a series of Israeli missions in 2024 against the missile program failed to set them back by more than a matter of months.

“Some Israelis think before the recent strikes, Iranian production was fully restored,” Clawson said. “So a really comprehensive attack on Iranian missiles is an important Israeli objective.”

The Maduro model

But no one inside the Islamic Republic system has emerged so far to serve in a supplicant role to Trump in the way that Delcy Rodríguez has stepped in as acting president of Venezuela, after U.S. forces captured that country’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro, in an audacious overnight raid in January.

Since then, the Stars and Stripes have flown alongside the Venezuelan tricolor at government buildings in Caracas, where senior Trump administration officials have been welcomed to discuss lucrative opportunities in Venezuela’s oil industry.

Trump is now looking for an Iranian counterpart to Rodríguez, he said Tuesday, suggesting he is willing to keep the Islamic Republic in place despite encouraging its citizens to rise up against their government.

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also. Pretty soon we’re not gonna know anybody.”

“I mean, Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept the government totally intact,” he added.

Dennis Ross, a veteran diplomat on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who served in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations, expressed doubt that Trump would be willing to proceed with a months-long campaign, regardless of Israel’s aspirational objectives.

“I believe President Trump doesn’t define clear objectives so he can decide to end the war at a time of his choosing, and declare the objective at that point, announcing we have achieved what we sought to do,” said Ross, noting that finding a figurehead in Iran as he did in Venezuela was always “a long shot.”

“Unilaterally, he could declare we made the regime pay a price for killing its citizens, and we have weakened Iran to the point that it is not any longer a threat to its neighbors,” Ross added. “He could then say, if Iran continues the war, we will hit them even harder.”

After years of ticketing complaints and frustrations, the trial for the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation is officially underway.

As part of its case, the DOJ has accused Live Nation of requiring artists to use its promotional services when they play a Live Nation-owned venue. Because so many venues are owned by the company, the government claims Live Nation’s alleged practices are anti-competitive.

Jury selection began Monday in a New York federal court and opening statements are expected Tuesday for the complaint first filed in 2024. Since then, the antitrust case against the Beverly Hills-based company has been streamlined — examining whether Live Nation uses illegal anti-competitive practices and whether the company and Ticketmaster should be broken up.

The legal proceeding is expected to last around a month, with Judge Arun Subramanian, who also presided over Sean Combs’ sentencing last year, at the helm.

Live Nation’s presidents Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold, executives from competing companies like Anschutz Entertainment Group and Irving Azoff, the former Ticketmaster CEO, are expected to testify. Musicians like Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons and entertainer Kid Rock could also take the stand.

Key claims in the lawsuit

The original lawsuit led by a cadre of interested parties including the federal government, 39 states and the District of Columbia alleged that Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster have monopolies in various aspects of the live music industry, such as concert promotion, venue operations, artist management and ticketing services.

The lawsuit states that Live Nation manages over 400 artists and controls more than 265 venues in North America. Ticketmaster simultaneously controls around 80% of the primary ticket marketplace and is also increasing its involvement in the resale market.

Many of the large monopoly claims were thrown out during a pretrial hearing with Judge Subramanian last month, including an allegation that Live Nation’s industry power raises ticket prices and harms consumers.

The claim with arguably the greatest potential impact centers on whether Live Nation should own Ticketmaster. The two companies merged in 2010, a move that has frequently been considered controversial. Beyond the ownership of Ticketmaster, the DOJ claims Live Nation forces venues to sign exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster, barring the inclusion of other ticket vendors.

“For over a decade, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have promised reform, but meaningful competition has remained out of reach. The industry now stands at an inflection point: restore a competitive marketplace that supports innovation, or allow the status quo to continue narrowing options for American consumers,” Dustin Brighton of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness said in a statement.

“Yet the very competitors that could check this monopoly and restore balance are routinely boxed out by restrictive practices that limit innovation and reduce consumer options,” Brighton added.

Live Nation did not respond to a request for comment. When the complaint was first filed, the company called the claims “baseless.”

“Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment,” wrote Live Nation in a previous statement.

Next steps after the trial

If Live Nation loses the trial, the judge will decide how the company should be restructured, which could mean selling Ticketmaster to a competitor. Live Nation maintains the right to appeal such a decision, if it materializes, and take the matter to a higher court.

“If the court finds Live Nation violated the law, monetary penalties and behavioral commitments alone will not be sufficient,” Stephen Parker, executive director of the Independent Venue Association, said in a statement.

“The relief must be proportionate to the harm,” Parker added, “and that means structural separation of primary ticketing, resale ticketing, venue operation, national tours, advertising/sponsorship, and artist management must be seriously considered.”

Beyond the current DOJ trial, Live Nation is also facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and a handful of class action lawsuits from groups of concertgoers.

A shock-and-awe campaign laying down a tsunami of bombs. An enemy succumbing rapidly under overwhelming firepower. And a triumphant U.S. president trumpeting a quick and easy campaign.

In 2003, President George W. Bush strode confidently on the deck of an aircraft carrier less than five weeks after he ordered the invasion of Iraq and declared the “end of major combat operations” under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.”

It proved anything but.

The invasion became a meat grinder, leaving thousands of Americans and possibly more than a million Iraqis dead. It unleashed forces whose effects are felt in the region and beyond to this day.

More than two decades later, another U.S. president attacked another Persian Gulf nation, promising rapid success in yet another Middle East adventure that he says will remake the region.

President Trump and his staff have vehemently rejected any comparison between “Operation Epic Fury,” launched Saturday, and “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a pugnacious news conference, insisting, “This is not Iraq. This is not endless.”

Yet the assault on Iran — almost four times larger than Iraq with more than double its population — presents no lack of challenges, ones that could spread chaos far beyond Iran’s borders and become a defining feature of Trump’s presidency.

In many ways, analysts say, toppling Iran’s leadership represents a much more complex task than Iraq ever did. Iraq was a state with deep sectarian divisions that was largely dominated by a single dictator: Saddam Hussein.

The Iran that emerged after the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution had a supreme leader, but Iran also developed an elaborate system of governance. That includes a president, a parliament and varying governmental, military and religious hierarchies, noted Paul Salem, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

“Unlike Saddam’s Iraq, the Iranian state is multi-institutional and hence much more resilient — and, yes, not as vulnerable,” Salem said. “And hostility to the United States and Israel is at the heart of the Islamic Revolution — baked into the state.”

Here are some of the ways the Iran attacks could develop into the very scenarios Trump once derided in his days as the antiwar candidate:

Boots on the ground

For now, the U.S. and Israel have wielded air power to pound Tehran into submission. In the first minutes of the joint operation, a 200-plane fleet — Israel’s largest — struck more than 500 targets in Iran, according to the Israeli military. One such strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran is still fighting back, lobbing missiles at Israel, Persian Gulf nations, Jordan and other areas with U.S. bases in the region. The U.S. has the qualitative and quantitative edge of materiel to eventually prevail, but Iran’s capabilities will not make it easy, as the losses in service members and planes have demonstrated in the last two days.

And wars have never been won with air power alone. Rather than relying on boots on the ground, Trump expects ordinary Iranians to finish the job for him.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” he said in a video address on the first day of the campaign.

During the Arab Spring of 2011, protesters throughout the Middle East took to the streets to demand change. But those efforts mostly did not lead to significant reforms and, in some countries, prompted further repression.

In Iran, it’s true many people would welcome the Islamic Republic’s demise — as many Iraqis rejoiced at Hussein’s fall. But it’s unlikely that mostly unarmed protesters will triumph in a confrontation against enforcers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its volunteer wing, the Basij.

It’s also difficult to gauge how many of Iran’s 93 million people despise the government enough to rise up against it.

Meanwhile, Trump has left the door open for dispatching U.S. troops, but the math of such a deployment raises doubts.

According to the U.S. Army, counterinsurgency doctrine dictates 20 to 25 troops for every 1,000 inhabitants to achieve stability. In the case of Iran that would entail deploying 1.9 million people — almost all the U.S. military’s active duty, reserve and National Guard personnel.

New leadership unclear

At this point, it’s not clear that decapitation of much of Iran’s leadership class will produce any real change in government, much less a successor inclined to bend to U.S. wishes. The top echelons of the Islamic Republic boast a deep bench of mostly hard-liners — not surprising, perhaps, for a nation that has braced for attack for years, if not decades.

Whatever new leadership that does emerge could rally around the “martyrdom” of Khamenei. Not especially popular in life, he appears to have become, in death, a rallying cry for defiance. And martyrs are exalted in Shiite Islam, Iran’s prevalent faith.

“He was the religious leader of the Shiites, so it’s sort of like killing the pope,” Salem said. “And he’s more popular dying as a martyr, than, say, of a heart attack. … He went out in style, no doubt about it.”

When the U.S. occupied Iraq, the expectation was that whatever came next would be a fervent U.S. ally, an idea perhaps best captured in the notion in Washington that a grateful Iraqi populace would shower U.S. troops with flowers. That didn’t happen. And in the Darwin-esque culling of leaders that followed, the ones that emerged victorious had little love for the U.S.

One of them was Nouri Al-Maliki, a Shiite supremacist whose policies were blamed for fueling years of sectarian bloodletting, and whose loyalties often seemed more aligned with Tehran than Washington.

Meanwhile, Tehran, playing on its proximity and deep ties to the new Iraqi ruling class, was able to steer Iraq — a majority Shiite country — deeper into its orbit.

After the Iraqi government — with the help of a U. S.-led coalition — pushed Islamic State out of Iraq in 2017, Iran was able to embed allied militias into Iraq’s armed services. That created the paradoxical situation of Tehran-aligned fighters wielding U.S.-supplied materiel.

Iraq has yet to emerge from Iran’s shadow. After Iraq’s most recent elections, Maliki seems poised to become prime minister once more, prompting Trump to write on Truth Social, “Because of his insane policies and ideologies, if elected, the United States of America will no longer help Iraq.”

A fragmented opposition

Iran’s population is diverse; an estimated two-thirds of Iranians are Persian, while minorities include Kurds, Baloch, Arabs and Azeris.

Those minorities have long-standing grievances against the ruling majority. It’s possible that Trump’s campaign and the resulting disorder could fuel separatist tensions.

Just last month, Iranian Kurdish factions joined together in a coalition that they said would seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic “to achieve the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination, and to establish a national and democratic entity based on the political will of the Kurdish nation in Iranian Kurdistan.”

An experienced insurgency

Over the decades, the Islamic Republic created a network that at its peak stretched from Pakistan to Lebanon.

It was a fearsome constellation of paramilitary factions and amenable governments that became known as the Axis of Resistance. It included Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestinian lands, Yemen’s Houthis, and militias in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel — and, eventually, the United States — launched offensive campaigns to defang the groups.

Although weakened, the factions still survive, and could form a powerful, transnational and motivated insurgency when the time comes to fight whatever emerges if the Islamic Republic falls.

Bulos reported from Khartoum, Sudan, and McDonnell from Mexico City.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday urged the Supreme Court to limit the reach of the 2nd Amendment and deny gun rights to “habitual” users of drugs, including marijuana.

But most of the justices sounded skeptical. They questioned whether marijuana users are so dangerous they should not have firearms.

They noted too that President Trump signed a recent executive order to reclassify marijuana as lesser controlled substance.

“Why is this a test case?,” asked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

Federal laws on “controlled substances” and the 2nd Amendment created a conflict between gun rights and illegal drugs, but Gorsuch said marijuana users are not seen as a particular danger to the public.

“This is an odd case to have chosen” to resolve this legal dispute, he said.

Most of the justices said they were wary of ruling broadly to decide the legal status of other addictive drugs.

At issue was a provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which forbids gun possession by any person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

The Justice Department says about 300 people per year are charged with a crime under this provision. They include Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, who was charged and convicted of lying about his drug addiction when he applied for a handgun permit.

The case brought together civil libertarians and gun rights advocates, who said millions of Americans could face criminal charges if the government’s view is upheld.

Deputy Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris, representing the administration, said the court should uphold the law to deny guns to habitual users of unlawful drugs.

“Congress decided it is dangerous to mix firearms with controlled substances,” she said.

But Erin Murphy, a Washington attorney, said gun owners have not been notice that having a handgun at home could lead to a criminal prosecution if they sometimes use marijuana.

She said the court should hand down a “narrow” decision that spares her client.

Ali Hemani, a Texas man, was investigated by the FBI in 2020 for his family’s suspected ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terrorist group.

When the FBI obtained a warrant to search his home, agents found a Glock pistol and 60 grams of marijuana as well as 4.7 grams of cocaine in his mother’s room. Hemani said he used marijuana about every other day.

He was charged with illegal gun possession because he was an unlawful drug user.

But citing the 2nd Amendment, a federal judge and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the charges on the grounds that he was not under the influence of drugs at the time of his arrest.

Appealing, the Trump administration said the Supreme Court should uphold the 1968 law and deny guns to those who are “habitual users” of illegal drugs.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said this prosecution “falls well within Congress’s authority to temporarily disarm categories of dangerous persons — here, habitual drug users.”

From the nation’s founding, “habitual drunkards” could be prohibited from having guns and that historic principle supports denying guns to habitual drug users.

The American Civil Liberties Union defended Hemani said the government’s view threatens to broadly extend the reach of the criminal law.

“Like tens of millions of Americans, Ali Hemani owned a handgun for self-defense, keeping it safely secured at home. Like many of those same Americans, he also consumed marijuana a few days a week,” they said in their brief.

“According to the government, those two facts alone sufficed to make him an ‘unlawful user’ of a controlled substance who could face criminal penalties.”

BERKELEY — University of California President James B. Milliken, in his first extensive interview since taking the helm of the nation’s premier public higher education system, defended UC’s diplomatic approach to President Trump’s fusillade of actions against the institution — contrasting it with the more aggressive fight Harvard is waging with the government.

UC has not repeatedly sued the federal government or publicly criticized Trump, while Harvard battles the administration in and outside court amid billions in White House funding freezes.

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“We could have said, ‘We’re going to sue tomorrow.’ We saw that movie with Harvard,” Milliken said of his first seven months on the job dominated by federal attacks. “Harvard is still in negotiations to settle the federal government’s actions, but they have had a series of devastating enforcement actions taken … Given our responsibility to the university and to the state of California, the better course for us was to engage.”

Yet days after the interview, the U.S. Department of Justice leveled another strike against UC in a lawsuit alleging UCLA “routinely ignored” and “failed to report” employee complaints of antisemitism since 2023.

In a statement after the interview, Milliken said UC has already committed to combating anti-Jewish hatred without court interference.

“Antisemitism has no place at UC and we have taken important actions to protect our Jewish students, faculty and staff … We will always have work to do, and our commitment to our community is unwavering,” the statement said. “In light of this — and our oft-cited willingness to work with the government in good faith — the new lawsuit is unfortunate and, in our view, unnecessary.”

In a wide-ranging interview at UC Berkeley’s Grimes Engineering Center, Milliken, 68, offered his assessment of Trump’s actions to overhaul higher education and declined to say whether UC would pay an amount smaller than the $1.2-billion proposed fine over UCLA’s alleged campus antisemitism.

On federal talks, Milliken said UC would “never compromise” on its independence, governance, values and academic freedom.

James B. Milliken.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

He touted UC’s accomplishments despite the challenges: Four faculty members received Nobel prizes last year — the largest ever number from one institution — and UC secured more patents for inventions last year than any university in the world.

Aside from Trump, UC faces internal pressures: multiple campuses, including UCLA, are in deficit. Labor unions are demanding better job conditions. Members of the UAW 4811 academic workers union have authorized a potential strike.

Milliken spoke in favor of diversity, celebrated immigrants and said he wanted to expand student access to the university. He said UC should lead on artificial intelligence.

Milliken started in August after more than six years as chancellor of the University of Texas system. He previously held top roles at the City University of New York, the University of Nebraska and the University of North Carolina. A news and history buff and former Wall Street lawyer who prefers reading paper over pixels, he often cites his study of “The Gold and the Blue,” a two-volume chronicle of UC’s ascent in the 1950s and struggles during the political turmoil of 1960s written by former UC Berkeley Chancellor turned UC President Clark Kerr.

He said his job is “to do everything we can to demonstrate the value that’s delivered by these amazing places … I don’t want to underestimate the difficulty in the current political environment,” but, he added, universities have been a national boon “over generations.”

Trump and higher education

Adjusting to the possibility of further retrenchment of Washington’s university research funding is among Milliken’s top concerns.

UC relies on $17.5 billion annually in federal monies, including research grants, Pell grants and hospital payments for Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, the government suspended $584 million in UCLA federal medical, science and energy research grants before a UC faculty-led lawsuit restored the money. But roughly $170 million in grants is still on hold systemwide.

Another independent faculty- and union-led federal suit has temporarily halted the $1.2-billion UCLA settlement demand seeking rightward ideological change on campus. But UC remains open to talks to quash federal probes on its own terms.

James B. Milliken.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Milliken was vague on the status of negotiations and whether UC would pay a fine — such as the $200 million Columbia University signed off on last year — to settle federal investigations.

“It would be foolhardy of me to speculate on what ultimately might be proposed to the University of California or what we might find acceptable,” he said.

He declined to specify how he would uphold his promises to protect UC’s independence, governance, values and academic freedom.

“I’m not going to go into detail on those because it gets pretty close to the line of what could be a discussion with the federal government,” Milliken said.

Educational access

Milliken was more verbose on the role of higher education and his big-picture visions for UC.

College “helps make sure that we have an educated citizenry that is prepared to actively participate in a democracy that understands our civic traditions, that understands our political system, that understands how our economic system works,” Milliken said.

“Talent is universal,” he said, “but opportunity often isn’t.” Universities “match this talent with the opportunity.”

But federal moves have threatened to change access to education. The Trump administration has sued California’s public universities and community colleges for allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition. A Trump travel ban on dozens of countries has stalled student and faculty applications from Asian, African and South American nations, while a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign hires could hurt university and hospital recruitment.

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Milliken pledged to protect immigrants.

“I think we need to take a step back and recognize how fundamental the country’s embrace of people from around the world has been,” Milliken said. “It has been an enormous boon in terms of talent and culture and the kinds of things that make this country what it is today. I know people are worried, they’re anxious. In some cases, they’re afraid … One of the things that our university presidents and chancellors think about every day is keeping these communities safe.”

Lifelong learning

UC — home to several of the most selective and prestigious campuses in the nation — continues to grow in size and popularity. The system set a record enrollment of about 301,000 students in 2025. And 252,000 high school and transfer students have submitted applications for the coming fall, another record high. Yet, vast numbers of academically qualified students do not get in, especially to UCLA and UC Berkeley.

Campuses, including UCLA, have upped professional certificate programs and extension school offerings in recent years. Milliken said universities should further embrace learning programs outside of the undergraduate experience. UCLA is developing a plan called “UCLA for Life” to reimagine the Westwood campus’ role for professionals.

“A four-year baccalaureate experience is not enough to prepare you for 40 years or 50 years of a career. You’re going to need to retool, going to need to re-skill. And I look at universities. Students ought to turn to their alma maters. There’s a relationship that you ought to have for life,” Milliken said.

The university’s future and evolution

Milliken wants UC to take on a lead role in AI.

“The continued adaptation of AI is inevitable, and there are good things and not so good things about that. But UC is the most important, impactful university in the world, and it should not be following others in developing what is the ethical and responsible,” Milliken said. “… We’re in a place where I think leadership, whether we wanted it or not, is a responsibility.”

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More Californians should take stock of UC’s role outside of undergraduate education, he said.

“Two-thirds of our students are undergraduates. It’s a hugely important thing. But so is the research we do. So is the healthcare that we do across the state. So is the work we do at national laboratories which support incredible innovation and national security,” he said.

Milliken said he hoped the cuts to university research were a short-term “aberration.”

New research funding state bond bill

UC has put its weight behind a $23-billion bond proposal that will be on the November ballot to create a California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would fund university and private institutions in ways similar to the National Institutes of Health.

If voters pass it, Milliken said the measure would “go an enormous way” toward making up for federal losses but that it was “impossible to speculate” on the extent as federal research funding, priorities and procedures fluctuate.

“I hope we never get to the question of whether California can replace federal funding,” he said. “Would I like to see it supplement, ensure that disruptions — even if shorter term — don’t derail the important science that’s going on here and the preparation of the next generation of scientists? Yes, I think that’s an incredibly worthwhile endeavor for the state.”

More from The Times’ interview with Milliken:

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Kathmandu, Nepal – Facing thousands of raucous supporters, 35-year-old Balendra Shah lifted his signature black rectangular sunglasses, asked his audience to look him in the eye, and said: “I love you.”

It is a sentiment that millions of young Nepalis appear to reciprocate.

Balen – as he is popularly known – was a nobody until 2013, when he almost overnight became a rap sensation. Nearly a decade later, in May 2022, he stunned Nepal’s deeply entrenched mainstream political parties by winning the post of mayor of Kathmandu, the country’s capital, while contesting as an independent.

When the Himalayan nation of 30 million people erupted in popular protests against the government of then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in September 2025, Balen emerged as a high-profile backer of the protesters. He was the first choice of many Gen Z activists to take over as interim leader after Oli was forced to resign. But he instead supported former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki for the post. It is now that this was a tactical move.

As Nepal heads to its first election since the protests last year, and Karki’s brief term ends, Balen is positioning himself as the future prime minister the country needs. And true to style, he is doing it with a bang: He is contesting the parliamentary elections from Jhapa-5, a seat about 300km (186 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, against Oli, the man protesters deposed just five months ago.

On the surface, the odds appear stacked against him. The region is a stronghold of Oli and the Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), which the former prime minister heads. Balen is contesting as a candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a centrist party formed less than four years ago, which won 10 percent of the national vote in the last elections in 2022.

Balen’s volatile public communication – he has abused mainstream parties, India, China and the United States, and threatened to burn down symbols of power in Nepal – has sparked criticism and questions over whether he is ready for high office.

But Balen defied the pundits when he won the Kathmandu mayoralty. And observers and analysts say that for many Nepalis, he represents a breath of fresh air in a country where more than 40 percent of the population is under the age of 35, but where the leadership of all major parties is in its 70s.

“Young Nepalis see him as a decisive actor, who is not beholden to traditional political or business interests,” Pranaya Rana, a journalist who writes for the Kalam Weekly newsletter, told Al Jazeera. “Many admire his macho public persona and his willingness to take on entrenched political patronage networks.”

The craze

If young Nepal burned with anger in September, when protesters clashed with security forces and attacked senior politicians after a crackdown by authorities under Oli, Balen was still seething with rage two months later.

In a midnight post on Facebook in November, he lashed out: “F*** America, F*** India, F*** China, F*** UML, F*** Congress, F*** RSP, F*** RPP, F*** Maobaadi. You Guys all Combined can do nothing”, venting against the popular political parties and even nations that have close ties to Nepal. Being the Kathmandu mayor at the time, he deleted the post less than half an hour later.

Then in January, he quit as mayor and joined the RSP, one of the parties he cursed in the Facebook post. More recently, after Oli called on Facebook for a public debate among prime ministerial candidates of major parties, Balen rejected the suggestion and asked the ex-prime minister to take responsibility for the dozens of civilians killed during the Gen Z protests in September. He asked Oli to acknowledge that he was a “terrorist”.

Over the top? Not to many Nepalis.

The rapper-turned-politician’s confrontational style and rhetoric appear to have only endeared him to large sections of the youth. His beard and dandy, all-black clothing style – he occasionally wears the traditional Newari dress of the ethnic inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley – coupled with his trademark dark glasses, have become fashion symbols.

Kathmandu shops once ran out of the kind of black rectangular glasses he wears. Many online stores, including Daraz, the most popular seller in Nepal, still carry multiple choices of these shades, calling them “Balen Shah glasses”.

Unlike traditional politicians, Balen mainly stays away from mainstream media. Instead, he communicates with the wider public through podcasts, television shows where he is a judge, or through his favourite platform: social media. His 3.5 million followers on Facebook, 1 million on Instagram, 400,000 on X and nearly 1 million on YouTube give him an online audience unmatched in Nepal.

This is valuable capital with a generation constantly on their phones.

Yet Balen first made waves not as a politician, but as an upstart musician who shook Nepal.

Big cars, bigger songs

The youngest of four siblings, Balen was born in 1990 in Kathmandu. Balen’s father, Ram Narayan Shah – who passed away in December – was a government practitioner of ayurveda, the ancient Hindu healing system.

In an interview with Al Jazeera in September – three months before his death – Shah recalled Balen as a “bright and simple” child. The father’s work took him away from home frequently, but one clear memory from Balen’s childhood stuck out for Shah: “He wrote poems. I remember that, because I also wrote poems.”

Balen graduated with a civil engineering degree from Himalayan Whitehouse International College in Kathmandu and received a postgraduate degree in structural engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka, India.

Then, in 2013, he engineered his first major career transition. The setting was a popular rap battle in Nepal, called Raw Barz, in which two contestants face-off live against each other. One of the organisers of the competition, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera that Yama Buddha, a popular rapper who has since passed away, recommended Balen to him.

Balen won the rap battle, gaining instant popularity. “More than a rapper, he was a poet. He was very good lyrically, and talked about suppressed [people],” the contest organiser recalled.

In 2021, Shah announced his candidature for the mayoral election and revealed that he had been plotting the run for at least two years. He swept the election, winning 61,767 votes, defeating candidates from the major political parties, the Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (UML), who received 38,341 and 38,117 votes, respectively.

As mayor, according to his aide and press coordinator, Surendra Bajgain, Shah would arrive at his office at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) at about 10am. He would first meet all the department heads, go through files, “seek clarity” on questions he had, and then sign files, Bajgain told Al Jazeera.

He would wear his trademark black jacket and pants, and black shades, every day to the office. He would remove his glasses inside the office, Bajgain said. “But you’ll see him in those glasses when taking pictures or in public,” he added.

As a mayor, he lived in government-provided accommodation in the heart of Kathmandu with his wife and an infant daughter. A gym regular, he preferred lunch at home, but would sip on endless cups of tea and coffee in the office.

To get away from the public gaze, Balen “loves to go on long rides outside the valley, because here, people surround him very often in public,” Bajgain said.

His passion for cars also landed him in controversy, widely circulated online, when he was seen driving an expensive Land Rover Defender worth 40 million Nepali rupees ($275,0000) in January, while campaigning in Jhapa 5, his electoral constituency, for the March 5 election.

Given his strong anticorruption image, the sight of him in a high-end luxury vehicle drew heightened scrutiny. Critics accused him of a lack of transparency over the vehicle’s ownership and use, while some pointed out that, despite promoting modesty in public office, he rarely used public transport as the mayor. The car, it turned out, had been given to him by a wealthy businessman for use during his campaign.

Balen is now also pursuing a PhD in traditional infrastructure at Kathmandu University. But he is far from a reluctant public figure, nor is he an ivory-tower researcher.

Balen’s songs, which mock political parties, criticise corruption and talk of the sacrifices of everyday Nepalis, have been the soundtrack to the efforts by Nepal’s Gen Z to reshape the country’s politics in recent months.

One song, Nepal Haseko (Nepal Smiling), became an anthem during last year’s protests, and already has more than 10 million views on YouTube. In the song, children sing in the chorus: “I want to see Nepal smiling; I want to see Nepalis living happily.”

Another song, Balidan (Sacrifice) has 14 million views on YouTube. It talks about impunity and corruption. On the Discord server “Youth Against Corruption”, where Gen Z protesters picked the country’s interim leader after Oli’s resignation in September, the name “Balen” was mentioned 16,328 times — far more than anyone else’s.

But Balen also has his critics.

‘Set on fire’

In 2023, when Balen was mayor, his wife was in his official vehicle when a traffic policeman stopped it. Balen was not in the car. The government-plated vehicle was being used on a public holiday, which gives traffic personnel the right to ask the purpose of the vehicle use and whether the driver has a permit for it.

On social media, Balen blew up about the incident: “If any of our KMC vehicles are stopped by the government from tomorrow, I will set the Singha Durbar on fire. Remember, you thief government”. Singha Durbar houses many administrative offices along with the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Oli government initially wanted to charge him for the incendiary statement, but backed off – Balen’s comment on social media had drawn support. It was a sign of things to come. During the Gen Z uprising in September, Singha Durbar was severely damaged after being set on fire.

In another instance, in 2023, after India installed a mural of “Akhand Bharat” (a Greater India) – encompassing many of its neighbours – Shah hung a “Greater Nepal” map in his office, including territories that once belonged to Nepal but now lie within India’s borders.

The move instantly escalated into a diplomatic hurdle. Shah was accused of going beyond his mandate as a municipal leader and stoking nationalist sentiment for political gains. His supporters, however, hailed his move as an assertive counter to foreign dominance.

In 2023, Balen also banned the screening of Indian films in Kathmandu, alleging that an Indian movie had suggested that Sita, one of Hinduism’s most revered goddesses, was born in India. In fact, she was born in present-day Nepal according to Hindu scriptures.

As Kathmandu mayor, Balen bulldozed illegal structures and ordered rubbish to be dumped outside government offices. He temporarily halted waste collection from Singha Durbar. The move was a riposte to what he argued was the central government’s failure to coordinate with the city to address Kathmandu’s chronic waste management crisis.

Yet to many belonging to the generation most hungry for change in Nepal, Balen has an allure no one else appears to have.

‘Shake up the status quo’

Aayal Sah, a 20-year-old first-time voter, is a resident of Janakpur – where Sita, the Hindu Goddess, is believed to have been born. He took three of his friends to see Balen’s first public appearance after joining the RSP. “I cannot directly vote for Balen as he is not contesting from our area, but I’ll surely vote for his party,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rana, the journalist at Kalam Weekly, said that for many, Balen “embodies the outsider spirit that many young Nepalis are looking for to shake up the status quo”.

Yet, Rana acknowledged, questions over Balen’s ability to lead Nepal linger as the country heads to elections. “A primary concern for most critics is Balen’s immaturity and his refusal to engage with the public. During his time as mayor, he gave no interviews to local media and did not answer any questions,” Rana told Al Jazeera.

After Oli quit office, when Gen Z protesters voted most for Balen to take over as interim leader on Discord, the then-mayor was not available on the phone when the youth movement’s leaders tried to reach him to see if he would take charge of the nation.

That, say analysts, was yet another example of Balen’s communication style: It is always one way, at his time and place of choosing.

But for many young Nepalis like Sah, the Janakpur resident, none of these chinks in Balen’s public life matter. “It’s the trust he has gained among the young people,” Sah said.

“He is the only one who can take the country forward.”

Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.

Top security officials were also killed in Saturday’s strikes, along with Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as “a great crime”, according to a statement from his office. He also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said people were pouring into the streets of the capital following the news of Khamenei’s killing.

“There will be expected ceremonies,” he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.

Protests denouncing Khamenei’s killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.

“There will be expected ceremonies,” he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.

Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.

The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning. In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.

Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed demonstrators waving flags and shouting slogans, with witnesses saying some were attempting to mobilise towards the US Embassy. Footage also showed protesters blocking vehicles at a roundabout near one of the entrances to the area.

There was also a protest in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed people setting fire to and smashing the windows of the US consulate.

However, there have also been reports of celebrations in Iran, with the Reuters news agency quoting witnesses as saying some people had taken to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan.

Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country’s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country. The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.

Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.

While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran’s military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.

Attacks across the region

Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.

Explosions have continued to be reported in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, while security alerts are in place in several countries across the region.

US President Donald Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, warned Iran that it would be hit “with a force that has ⁠never been seen before” if it retaliated.

Iran’s retaliatory attacks since Saturday have targeted Israel and US assets across multiple Middle East countries, including Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Harlan Ullman, chairman of the strategic advisory firm Killowen Group and an adviser to the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, said the US may have made a “big mistake” by killing Khamenei.

“Decapitation only works when you get all the leaders, and I don’t think that we got all the leaders,” Ullman said, adding that the US should not expect Iran’s leadership to enter negotiations in the immediate aftermath.

Iranian state media reported on Saturday at least 201 people have been killed in the joint US-Israeli attacks across 24 provinces, citing the Red Crescent. In southern Iran, at least 148 people were killed and 95 wounded in a strike on an elementary girls’ school in Minab on Saturday, with the toll continuing to rise, according to state media.