intensify

WASHINGTON — Signs of a potential end to the government shutdown intensified Tuesday with behind-the-scenes talks, as the federal closure was on track to become the longest ever disrupting the lives of millions of Americans.

Senators from both parties, Republicans and Democrats, are quietly negotiating the contours of an emerging deal. With a nod from their leadership, the senators seek a way to reopen the government, put the normal federal funding process back on track and devise some sort of resolution to the crisis of expiring health insurance subsidies that are spiking premium costs from coast to coast.

“Enough is enough,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the South Dakota Republican, as he opened the deadlocked chamber.

On day 35 of the federal government shutdown, the record for the longest will be broken after midnight. With SNAP benefits interrupted for millions of Americans depending on federal food aid, hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed or working without pay and contracts being delayed, many on and off Capitol Hill say it’s time for it to end. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted there could be chaos in the skies next week if the shutdown drags on and air traffic controllers miss another paycheck. Labor unions put pressure on lawmakers to reopen the government.

Election Day is seen as a turning point

Tuesday’s elections provide an inflection point, with off-year governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, along with the mayor’s race in New York that will show voter attitudes, a moment of political assessment many hope will turn the tide. Another test vote Tuesday in the Senate failed, as Democrats rejected a temporary government funding bill.

“We’re not asking for anything radical,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said. “Lowering people’s healthcare costs is the definition of common sense.”

Unlike the earlier shutdown during President Trump’s first term, when he fought Congress in 2018-19 for funds to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the president has been largely absent from this shutdown debate.

Trump threatens to halt SNAP food aid

But on Tuesday, Trump issued a fresh threat, warning he would halt SNAP food aid unless Democrats agree to reopen the government.

SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” Trump said on social media. That seemed to defy court orders to release the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program contingency funds.

His top spokeswoman, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, said later that the administration continues to pay out SNAP funding in line with court orders.

With House Speaker Mike Johnson having sent lawmakers home in September, most attention is on the Senate. There, the leadership has outsourced negotiations to a loose group of centrist dealmakers from both parties have been quietly charting a way to end the standoff.

“We pray that today is that day,” said Johnson, R-La., holding his daily process on the empty side of the Capitol.

Contours of a potential deal

Central to any endgame will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate, but also the House, and the White House, which is not at all certain in Washington where Republicans have full control of the government.

First of all, senators from both parties, particularly the powerful members of the Appropriations Committee, are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process can be put back on track.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, along with several Democrats, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Chris Coons of Delaware, are among those working behind the scenes.

“The pace of talks have increased,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who has been involved in conversations.

Among the goals is guaranteeing upcoming votes on a smaller package of bills where there is already widespread bipartisan agreement to fund various aspects of governments, like agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.

“I certainly think that that three-bill package is primed to do a lot of good things for the American people,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala, who has also been in talks.

More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.

White House won’t engage on health care until government reopens

The White House says its position remains unchanged and that Democrats must vote to fund the government until talks over health care can begin. White House officials are in close contact with GOP senators who have been quietly speaking with key Senate Democrats, according to a senior White House official. The official was granted anonymity to discuss administration strategy.

With insurance premium notices being sent, millions of Americans are experiencing sticker shock on skyrocketing prices. The loss of federal subsidies, which come in the form of tax credits, are expected to leave many people unable to buy health insurance.

Republicans, with control of the House and Senate, are reluctant to fund the health care program, also known as Obamacare. But Thune has promised Democrats a vote on their preferred proposal, on a date certain, as part of any deal to reopen government.

That’s not enough for some senators, who see the health care deadlock as part of their broader concerns with Trump’s direction for the country.

“Trump is a schoolyard bully,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont, in an op-ed. “Anyone who thinks surrendering to him now will lead to better outcomes and cooperation in the future does not understand how a power-hungry demagogue operates.”

Moreover, Democrats, and some Republicans, are also pushing for guardrails to prevent the Trump administration’s practice of unilaterally slashing funds for programs that Congress had already approved, by law, the way billionaire Elon Musk did earlier this year at the Department of Government Efficiency.

With the Senate, which is split 53-47, having tried and failed more than a dozen times to advance the House-passed bill over the filibuster, that measure is out of date. It would have funded government to Nov. 21.

Trump has demanded senators nuke the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation, which preserves minority rights in the chamber. GOP senators panned that demand.

Both Thune and Johnson have acknowledged they will need a new temporary measure. They are eyeing one that skips past the Christmas holiday season, avoiding what often has been a year-end crunch, and instead develop an agreement that would keep government running into the near year, likely January.

Mascaro and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Seung Min Kim and Matt Brown contributed to this story.

The firestorms that broke out in January ravaged two distinctly different stretches of Los Angeles County: one with grand views of the Pacific Ocean, the other nestled against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

But so far, a push from congressional Republicans to investigate the Jan. 7 firestorm and response has been focused almost exclusively on the Palisades fire, which broke out in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades and went on to burn parts of Malibu and surrounding areas.

In a letter to City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, two U.S. senators this week intensified that investigation, saying they want an enormous trove of documents on Los Angeles Fire Department staffing, wildfire preparations, the city’s water supply and many other topics surrounding the devastating blaze.

U.S. Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked for records related to several issues raised during and after the Palisades fire, including an empty reservoir and the failure to fully extinguish a previous fire that was later identified as the cause.

In contrast, the letter only briefly mentions the Eaton fire, which broke out in the unincorporated community of Altadena and spread to parts of Pasadena. That emergency was plagued by delayed evacuation alerts, deployment issues and allegations that electrical equipment operated by Southern California Edison sparked the blaze.

Both fires incinerated thousands of homes. Twelve people died in the Palisades fire. In the Eaton fire, all but one of the 19 who died were found in west Altadena, where evacuation alerts came hours after flames and smoke were threatening the area.

Scott and Johnson gave Harris-Dawson a deadline of Nov. 3 to produce records on several topics specific to the city of L.A.: “diversity, equity and inclusion” hiring policies at the city’s Fire Department; the Department of Water and Power’s oversight of its reservoirs; and the removal of Fire Chief Kristin Crowley by Mayor Karen Bass earlier this year.

Officials in Los Angeles County said they have not received such a letter dealing with either the Palisades fire or the Eaton fire.

A spokesperson for Johnson referred questions about the letter to Scott’s office. An aide to Scott told The Times this week that the investigation remains focused on the Palisades fire but could still expand. Some Eaton fire records were requested, the spokesperson said, because “they’re often inextricable in public reports.”

The senators — who both sit on the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — opened the probe after meeting with reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost a home in the Palisades fire and quickly became an outspoken critic of the city’s response to the fire and subsequent rebuilding efforts. At the time, the senators called the Palisades fire “an unacceptable failure of government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.”

The investigation was initially billed as a look at the city’s emergency preparations, including the lack of water in a nearby reservoir and in neighborhood fire hydrants the night of the fire. The Times first reported that the Santa Ynez Reservoir, located in Pacific Palisades, had been closed for repairs for nearly a year.

The letter to Harris-Dawson seeks records relating to the reservoir as well as those dealing with “wildfire preparation, suppression, and response … including but not limited to the response to the Palisades and Lachman fires.”

Officials have said the Lachman fire, intentionally set Jan. 1, reignited six days later to become the Palisades fire. A suspect was recently arrested on suspicion of arson in the Lachman fire. Now, the senators are raising concerns about why that fire wasn’t properly contained.

The sweeping records request also seeks communications sent to and from each of the 15 council members and or their staff that mention the Palisades and Eaton fires. At this point, it’s unclear whether the city would have a substantial number of documents on the Eaton fire, given its location outside city limits.

Harris-Dawson did not provide comment. But Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who serves on the council’s public safety committee, made clear that he thinks the senators are confused by Southern California’s geography — and the distinctions between city and county jurisdictions.

“MAGA Republicans couldn’t even look at a map before launching into this ridiculous investigation,” he said. “DEI did not cause the fires, and these senators should take their witch hunts elsewhere,” he said in a statement.

Officials in L.A. County, who have confronted their own hard questions about botched evacuation alerts and poor resource deployment during the Eaton fire, said they had not received any letters from the senators about either fire.

Neither Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger — who currently serves as board chair — nor Supervisor Lindsey Horvath had received such a document request, according to their aides. Barger represents Altadena, while Horvath’s district includes Pacific Palisades, Malibu and unincorporated communities affected by the Palisades fire.

Monday’s letter also seeks records “referring or relating to any reports or investigations of arson, burglary, theft, or looting” in fire-affected areas, as well as the arrest of Jonathan Rinderknecht, the Palisades fire arson suspect. It also seeks documents on the council’s efforts to “dismantle systemic racism” — and whether such efforts affected the DWP or the Fire Department.

Alberto Retana, president and chief executive of Community Coalition, a nonprofit group based in Harris-Dawson’s district, said he too views the inquiry from the two senators as a witch hunt — one that’s targeting L.A. city elected officials while ignoring Southern California Edison.

“There’s been reports that Edison was responsible for the Eaton fire, but there’s [nothing] that shows any concern about that,” he said.

Residents in Altadena have previously voiced concerns about what they viewed as disparities in the Trump administration’s response to the two fires. The Palisades fire tore through the mostly wealthy neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu — home to celebrities who have since kept the recovery in the spotlight. Meanwhile, many of Altadena’s Black and working-class residents say their communities have been left behind.

In both areas, however, there has been growing concern that now-barren lots will be swiftly purchased by wealthy outside investors, including those who are based outside of the United States.

Scott, in a news release issued this week, said the congressional investigation will also examine whether Chinese companies are “taking advantage” of the fire recovery. The Times has not been able to independently verify such claims.

Sept. 29 (UPI) — Starting in October, Latin America will enter a decisive period with an intense calendar of presidential elections in a climate marked by polarization, institutional fatigue and economic pressure.

In that context, right-wing and center-right candidates who promote order, fiscal discipline and pro-investment policies appear to be gaining traction and could prevail or lead in first-round votes.

Still, the region remains volatile and cyclical — where the right governs without solving security or economic problems, voters may shift back to the center or left in the next cycle.

“The outcome of these elections will not only define the direction of each country’s economic and social policy, but also the region’s democratic stability and, most importantly, its international alignment, because the region is at a crossroads: whether it ultimately turns toward China or maintains its historic commitments with the United States,” said Guido Larson, an international analyst at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile.

Roberto Reyes, an analyst at the Universidad Gabriela Mistral in Chile, added: “The most likely scenario is that the region moves into a period of right-wing governments because of their message of fiscal discipline, security and economic pragmatism. These themes resonate strongly with voters tired of recurring crises.”

But this shift brings the challenge of balancing economic adjustments with social protection. Without a credible plan to ease economic pressure, Reyes said, even new conservative administrations will face the same fatigue they are trying to overcome.

The Real Instituto Elcano think tank, in a June analysis, highlighted three common features of this electoral cycle: fragmented opposition and governing coalitions, extreme polarization and the rise of “Trumpist” and “Bukelist” rhetoric.

The report warned that these dynamics point to minority governments and divided legislatures, making it harder to push through structural reforms and potentially fueling further institutional instability.

Bolivia will open the elections calendar. The country is headed for a presidential runoff Oct. 19, with two right-wing candidates ending 20 years of leftist governments. Center-right candidate Rodrigo Paz Pereira and right-wing candidate Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga will face off after a first round marked by high turnout.

On Nov. 16, Chile will hold a presidential election marked by sharp polarization, with Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara and far-right contender José Antonio Kast vying for the top spot in polls.

The country faces challenges with crime, migration and economic growth, making calls for order and security dominant in the campaign. In that context, a shift to the right appears highly likely.

Honduras will hold its presidential election Nov. 30. Two candidates are seen as the main contenders: Salvador Nasralla, a reformist center-right leader, and Rixi Moncada, representing the ruling left.

As the date approaches, voters face deep uncertainty. Six polling firms have released contradictory results, fueling misinformation and sowing doubts among the electorate.

Costa Rica will hold presidential elections Feb. 1. Two candidates are seen as the main contenders: Álvaro Ramos Chaves and Natalia Díaz Quintana. Ramos, an economist and former head of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, is running on a moderate centrist platform.

Díaz, a former presidential minister under President Rodrigo Chaves, represents a liberal center-right vision with a strong technical and business-oriented message and is expected to benefit from Chaves’ high popularity.

Peru faces a presidential race marked by heavy fragmentation and voter apathy, with elections set for April 12 alongside a return to a bicameral Congress. The process will bring an oversized ballot due to the proliferation of nearly 40 parties and thousands of candidates.

So far, 117 presidential tickets have been registered, pending ratification by the National Jury of Elections.

Recent polls show three right-wing candidates leading voter preferences, though none has more than 10% support: Lima Mayor Rafael López Aliaga, Keiko Fujimori and Mario Vizcarra. A significant share of voters say they plan to cast blank ballots or void their votes.

Colombia will hold its presidential election May 31. The main contenders come from three ideological blocs: right, center and left.

María Fernanda Cabal, a senator from the Democratic Center party, represents the right, aligned with former President Álvaro Uribe, with a strong message on security and free markets.

Sergio Fajardo, former governor of Antioquia, is running as a moderate centrist with an emphasis on education and fighting corruption.

Gustavo Bolívar, a former senator and figure in the Historic Pact coalition, seeks to continue President Gustavo Petro’s progressive project.

Roughly 200,000 Palestinians have fled besieged Gaza City in recent weeks, according to Israeli military estimates reported by Israeli media, with tens of thousands departing in recent days as military operations intensify.

Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have denounced Israel’s escalating offensive in northern Gaza, warning of “catastrophic and irreversible consequences” for Palestinian civilians.

Israel has issued renewed forced evacuation directives for approximately one million people to evacuate Gaza City, where it has stepped up bombardment of high-rise buildings while preparing for the next phase of military action in what it claims is Hamas’s final stronghold. On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced imminent increases in targeted strikes near Gaza City.

Palestinians are being forced to move southward, where hundreds of thousands already endure overcrowded tent settlements that Israel periodically strikes.

Many residents decline to leave, citing exhaustion and a lack of resources.

“There is no safe zone in the Gaza Strip,” said Fawzi Muftah, as people travelled with vehicles loaded with possessions. “Danger is everywhere.”

Amal Sobh, displaced with 30 family members, including 13 orphans, recounted being stranded after their vehicle broke down without fuel.

“We do not have good blankets or good bedding, and winter is coming. What do we do for our children? We do not even have a proper tent to shelter us,” said Sobh, whose husband was arrested during the conflict.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 126 Palestinians, including 26 children, have died from malnutrition-related conditions since famine was declared in Gaza City on August 22. Throughout the war, 404 people, including 141 children, have perished from malnutrition.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,656 people and wounded 163,503 since October 2023, with tens of thousands more believed to be trapped beneath rubble.

The Trump administration immigration sweeps that have roiled Southern California have shown few signs of slowing despite lawsuits, a court order and growing indications the aggressive actions are not popular with the public.

The operations, which began in early June in the Los Angeles area, largely focused on small-scale targets such as car washes, strip malls and Home Depot parking lots before authorities hit their biggest target last week — two farms for one of the largest cannabis companies in California. One worker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during the raid, while 361 others were arrested.

Responding to the death, President Trump’s chief border policy advisor, Tom Homan, called the situation “sad.”

“It’s obviously unfortunate when there’s deaths,” he told CNN. “No one wants to see people die.”

“He wasn’t in ICE custody,” Homan said. “ICE did not have hands on this person.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said authorities plan to intensify immigration crackdowns thanks to more funding from the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” spending plan from Congress.

The budget bill infuses roughly $150 billion into Trump’s immigration and border enforcement plans, including funding for ICE and Border Patrol staffing, building and operating immigrant detention facilities, and reimbursing states and local governments for immigration-related costs.

“We’re going to come harder and faster, and we’re going to take these criminals down with even more strength than we ever have before,” Noem said at a news conference over the weekend. Trump, she added, “has a mandate from the American people to clean up our streets, to help make our communities safer.”

But there are some signs that support might be slipping.

A Gallup poll published this month shows that fewer Americans than in June 2024 back strict border enforcement measures and more now favor offering undocumented immigrants living in the country pathways to citizenship. The percentage of respondents who want immigration reduced dropped from 55% in 2024 to 30% in the current poll, reversing a years-long trend of rising immigration concerns.

While the desire for less immigration has declined among all major political parties, the decrease among Republicans was significant — down 40% from last year. Among independents, the preference for less immigration is down 21%, and among Democrats it’s down 12%, according to the poll.

The poll also showed that a record-high 79% of adults consider immigration beneficial to the country and only 17% believe it is a negative, a record low for the poll.

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll published in June indicates that 38% of voters approve of the way Trump is handling the presidency, while 54% disapprove. On immigration, 54% of those polled disapprove of Trump’s handling of the issue and 56% disapprove of deportations.

At the same time, growing legal challenges have threatened to hamper the Trump administration’s efforts.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in the Southland from using racial profiling to carry out immigration arrests after she found sufficient evidence that agents were using race, a person’s job or their location, and their language to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain an individual.

But the Trump administration vowed to fight back.

“No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy — that authority rests with Congress and the president,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. “Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge. We expect this gross overstep of judicial authority to be corrected on appeal.”

On Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to overturn the judge’s order, allowing it to resume the raids across seven California counties.

Legal experts say it’s hard to say just how successful the federal government will be in getting a stay on the temporary order, given the current political climate.

“This is different from a lot of the other kinds of Trump litigation because the law is so clear in the fact finding by the district court,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “So if you follow basic legal principles, this is a very weak case for the government on appeal, but it’s so hard to predict what will happen because everything is so ideological.”

In the past, legal scholars say, it would be extremely uncommon for an appeals court to weigh in on such an order. But recent events suggest it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the federal government to deport convicted criminals to “third countries” even if they lack a prior connection to those countries.

That same month, it also ruled 6 to 3 to limit the ability of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders blocking the president’s policies, which was frequently a check on executive power.

Still, it’s not an easy case for the government, said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

“I think one thing which makes this case maybe a little bit harder for the government than some of the other shadow docket cases is it really does affect citizens in an important way,” he said. “Obviously the immigration agent doesn’t know in advance when they come up to somebody whether they’re a citizen or a noncitizen or if they’re lawfully present or not.”

The continued sweeps have resulted in a wave of other lawsuits challenging the Trump administration. Amid the legal battles, there are also signs of upheaval within the federal government.

Reuters reported on Monday that the Justice Department unit charged with defending legal challenges to the administration’s policies, including restricting birthright citizenship, has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff.

The administration has also faced scrutiny from Democrats and activists over its handling of last week’s raids at the marijuana cultivation farms, which were part of a legal and highly regulated industry in California.

“It was disproportionate, overkill,” Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) said of the operation.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) criticized Trump for targeting immigrant farmworkers as the administration continues to publicly state that its targets are people with criminal records.

“How many MS-13 gang members are waking up at 3 a.m. to pick strawberries? O’yeah, zero! Trump said he’d go after ‘bad hombres,’ but he’s targeting the immigrant farm workers who feed America. Either he lied — or he can’t tell the difference,” Gomez wrote on X.

The White House clapped back in a post on X: “That ain’t produce, holmes. THAT’S PRODUCT.”

Over the weekend, Jaime Alanís Garcia, 57, the cannabis farmworker who was gravely injured after he fell off a roof amid the mayhem of the Camarillo raid, was taken off life support, according to his family.

Alanís’ family said he was fleeing immigration agents at the Glass House Farms cannabis operation in Camarillo on Thursday when he climbed atop a greenhouse and accidentally fell 30 feet, suffering catastrophic injury. The Department of Homeland Security said Alanís was not among those being pursued.

His niece announced his death Saturday on a GoFundMe page, which described him as a husband and father and the family’s sole provider. The page had raised more than $159,000 by Monday afternoon, well over its initial $50,000 goal.

“They took one of our family members. We need justice,” the niece wrote.

Times staff writers Sonja Sharp, Dakota Smith and Jeanette Marantos contributed to this report.