June

LOS ANGELES — U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport Iranians in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between the U.S. and Iranian governments despite tensions mounting between the countries.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases,” one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It’s not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not offer comment in response to an emailed request sent Tuesday afternoon.

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation,” the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn’t supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

U.S. prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump’s June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority” in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon’s email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn’t issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit’s allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” DHS said in a statement in July.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

In early results from the special election runoff to complete the congressional term of disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, state Sen. Aisha Wahab was in the lead late Tuesday by a narrow margin.

Wahab (D-Hayward) is competing against Melissa Hernandez, president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board and the former mayor of Dublin.

According to Associated Press results, Wahab had 51.0% of the vote to Hernandez’s 49.0% as of 10:11 p.m. with 62% of votes counted.

Swalwell’s District 14 seat has been vacant since he resigned in April amid sexual assault allegations, which he has repeatedly denied.

Wahab and Hernandez were the finalists in the June 16 special primary, in which the top two finishers regardless of party affiliation advanced to Tuesday’s special election.

The two also will compete, once again, in the fall in a slightly redrawn district for a full term that begins in January 2027.

Both versions of the district are contained entirely within Alameda County in the East Bay. The current district includes Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton and Union City, as well as parts of San Leandro, Fremont and Dublin.

The two candidates are both Democrats, but Wahab leans more progressive, while Hernandez is generally considered the more moderate candidate.

Earlier this summer, Wahab initially emerged as the clear front-runner. She placed first in both the June 16 special primary for the partial-term seat and the June 2 primary for the full-term seat — leading Hernandez by more than 20 percentage points in both races.

But the race became much more competitive after the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee funneled millions into campaign materials designed to defeat Wahab, who has publicly criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza and called the humanitarian crisis there a genocide. Hernandez has said she supports Israel’s right to defend itself, but neither candidate has made the conflict a core part of their campaign.

United Democracy Project, a super political action committee backed by AIPAC, spent $1.2 million on the race in August in support of Hernandez and in opposition to Wahab, according to Federal Election Commission records. Another group, Bold America, which has received funding from United Democracy Project, has recently spent about $1.7 million supporting Hernandez.

In total, around $3.7 million in outside funding has been spent to promote Hernandez’s campaign since mid-July, compared to around $400,000 spent in support of Wahab’s campaign during the same time frame.

Over the course of the campaign, Hernandez has more than doubled Wahab’s fundraising and spending. However, both candidates ended July with roughly even amounts of cash in the bank.

Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.

The next Los Angeles City Councilmember to represent the West San Fernando Valley will either be a former small business owner backed by the Police Protective League or a career public-sector staffer who has racked up a long list of endorsements from unions and Democratic lawmakers.

Tim Gaspar, 44, founded an eponymous insurance agency in the Valley, which he sold in 2021and is now campaigning full time to win the Third District council seat, according to campaign spokesperson Haley Townes. He was the top vote-getter in the June 2 primary, garnering 46.1% of the vote.

Barri Worth Girvan, 43, was a close second with 42.5% of the vote. She is the director of community affairs for Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath and previously held staff positions with former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Democratic state senator Bob Hertzberg.

The winner of the Nov. 3 runoff will replace termed-out council member Bob Blumenfield, who recently endorsed Gaspar, as did Christopher Celona, the third-place finisher in the primary.

“We feel like those are the endorsements that resonate with voters here,” Gaspar told a group of voters at a recent campaign event.

L.A. City Council Candidate Tim Gaspar speaks with Dr. Lawrence Kaplan during a Kids on the Spectrum Bowling League event at Lucky Strike Bowling Alley this month.

(Arwen Clemans/Los Angeles Times)

In an interview, Gaspar said the City Council could benefit from his business experience to counter members whose backgrounds are mostly in public policy or community organizing.

“They’re missing the business perspective,” he said. “Sometimes you need to do things that might be unpopular if it’s going to be something that benefits the greater good. A healthy economy is the tide that raises all ships.”

L.A. City Council Barri Worth Girvan chats wth LAPD Capt. Rudy Lopez while greeting voters during a recent neighborhood National Night Out event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Worth Girvan, by contrast, says her years of experience in the public sector will ensure that she can best navigate City Hall to advocate for the district’s interests.

“Delivering core city services is my bread and butter,” she said in an interview. “If your trash isn’t picked up, if your trees aren’t trimmed, if your street lights aren’t working, if you pick up the phone to call 911 and nobody responds, then not only is your neighborhood not safe, but your city is not working for you.”

Gaspar has a huge lead in fund-raising, reporting more than $180,000 in donations to his runoff campaign through June 30, compared with about $31,000 for Worth Girvan.

In addition, companies and special interests including Airbnb, Uber, the California Apartment Association, the L.A. Police Protective League and IBEW Local 18 spent $1.39 million through independent expenditure committees in the primary race.

Airbnb spokeswoman Nicolette Velasquez said the candidates it backs, including Gaspar, are in favor of expanding short-term rental policies to allow homeowners to supplement their income by renting out their homes. Hotel companies and the unions representing hotel workers oppose such expanding the short-term rental market out of existing housing stock.

Worth Girvan asserts that her second-place finish in June was effectively “a virtual tie” given all the money companies and others spent to back Gaspar.

“We were massively outspent with that kind of money, but the voters clearly spoke, and we’re expecting an even broader electorate in the general,” she said.

Tim Gaspar outside the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley.

(Arwen Clemans/Los Angeles Times)

Gaspar’s contributors in the runoff include billionaire developer Rick Caruso and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Worth Girvan has picked up donations from state Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez (D-Boyle Heights), former Democratic state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and former Los Angeles City Council member David Ryu, according to her filing.

She also touts endorsements from a long list of Democratic lawmakers, including state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) and Rep. Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood)., and has strong backing from labor including the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Service Employees International Union and the including the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

“Barri was a clear choice for us,” said Devin Osiri, Chief of Staff at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “Our unions have actually worked with her at all three levels of government. Her reputation, her professional resume from the Valley and her personal story are just more reflective of the LA Federation of Labor.”

The two candidates differ on housing policy.

Barri Worth Girvan meets voters at the National Night Out event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Worth Girvan said she supports more housing development, particularly near transit lines, saying the West Valley “needs to do our part” to scale up construction and bring housing prices down.

Gaspar said District 3 is already doing its part to bring in new housing development in areas like Warner Center, and remains skeptical of increasing density in single-family home neighborhoods.

He opposes rent control and some of the city’s current tenant protections, and said at the campaign event that he has a “zero tolerance policy” for homeless encampments.

Both candidates say public safety is their top priority, and they support expanding the Los Angeles Police Department.

U.S. shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps surged in June, although slower growth for the first half of the year suggested the monthly increase followed uneven demand earlier in 2026.

Manufacturers shipped a combined 1.02 million central

Aug. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Commerce said Friday that retail sales dropped 0.6% in July from June, the largest decline since May 2025.

The department’s figures, which are adjusted for seasonal swings but not for inflation, revealed retail sales were down from June’s 0.2% gain and fell far short of the 0.1% gain that economists had forecasted in a FactSet poll.

However, retail sales have increased by 5% over the past year, exceeding the long-term average.

Some analysts attributed a portion of July’s dip to the annual Amazon Prime sale, which normally takes place in July, but was held in June this year. Internet sales, the second-largest category of retail sales after automotive, were down 2.3% in July.

Figures for the past year show online sales are overall up 8%.

Auto sales were down 1.8% in June.

The Commerce Department report showed sales at bars and restaurants actually went up in July, with a .5% increase over the previous month.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier revealed 23,000 jobs were cut by employers in July. The unemployment rate was measured at 4.1%, down from 4.2% in June.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service says historically low rainfall has worsened the situation in several countries.

Western Europe has experienced its hottest June and July on record this summer, according to the European Union’s climate change monitor.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Monday that the region’s average temperature over the two-month period was 21.62 degrees Celsius (70.9 degrees Fahrenheit), 2.79C (5.01F) above average and higher than the previous record set in 2022.

This reflected “the exceptional persistence of heat” so far this summer, C3S said.

The climate change monitor also said levels of soil moisture were “significantly lower” than in July 2022 when the last severe drought gripped Western Europe.

“July 2026 was the third consecutive month of exceptional heat in Western Europe, bringing the combined temperature for June and July to a new record for the region,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

“Persistent high-pressure systems trapped heat over Western Europe. The extreme temperatures also amplified widespread drought. As soils dry out, they lose their ability to provide natural cooling, allowing heat to build more readily. This is a clear example of how climate change is intensifying heat extremes with heat and drought increasingly reinforcing one another.”

Several rivers experienced exceptionally low water levels, including the Seine, Rhine and Danube. The low flows affected water supplies and irrigation and led Hungary and Slovenia to operate their only nuclear power plants at reduced capacity.

France and Spain also registered record levels of drought, which fuelled devastating wildfires.

A megafire burned nearly 42,000 hectares (103,785 acres) and forced the evacuation of more than 220,000 people in southwestern France’s Gironde department in late July.

At the same time, Spain’s largest wildfire in recent history scorched almost 44,000 hectares (108,725 acres) in Avila province near Madrid.

The report also warned that large fires can send smoke high into the atmosphere, allowing it to travel thousands of kilometres and affect air quality in other countries.

The C3S also said the highest sea surface temperatures on record outside the polar regions were recorded in July. The average sea surface temperature was 20.96C (69.7F), slightly higher than the previous record of 20.89C (69.6F) in 2023.

Artificial intelligence music company Suno is going retro — eventually.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based AI company has announced Suno Vinyl, a service that will press users’ generated AI tracks onto vinyl records. It has not gone live. The company has started a waiting list, with the first pressing reserved for users who sign up. A Suno spokesperson said the company is exploring ways for people to turn their music into physical artifacts.

“Press a banger, because it’s too good to live on a screen,” Suno wrote on its website.

Users will be able to build a tracklist of up to 46 minutes from their Suno library, then either upload their own album artwork or generate it on the platform for the sleeve, labels and cover. Each record will be a 12-inch pressing made from PETG, a type of plastic. Pricing is estimated about $45 plus shipping. Suno has not said who will press the records.

Vinyl records have seen a major resurgence ever since millennials brought the format back into mainstream culture in the 2010s. Over the years, it’s become customary for major musicians to release several vinyl variants to help promote their latest album. Olivia Rodrigo most recently released roughly 10 variants of her new album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” in June.

Last year, vinyl record purchases accounted for more than $1 billion in U.S. sales, up more than 9%, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America’s annual report. It was the first time vinyl revenue topped $1 billion since 1983.

The format sold 46.8 million units, against 29.5 million CDs in 2025.

Suno, founded in 2022, has established itself as a leader in AI music tech and maintains an office in Venice. In February, the company said it had surpassed 2 million paid subscribers and was on pace for $300 million in annual revenue. In June, raised more than $400 million in a Series D round led by Bond Capital, more than doubling its valuation to $5.4 billion from $2.45 billion less than a year earlier.

The growth has unfolded as the company fights on several legal fronts. Suno and its competitor Udio were sued for copyright infringement in 2024 by the RIAA on behalf of the industry’s biggest labels, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.

WMG was the first of the three to settle with Suno, reaching a deal last November that included a licensing agreement, Suno’s first partnership with a major label, and the sale of Warner’s Songkick concert platform to Suno.

The UMG and Sony litigation is ongoing, with a fair use hearing set for Massachusetts federal court and the labels seeking to expand their complaint. Suno also lost a case brought by German collecting society GEMA last week and is defending against legal actions from Denmark’s Koda.

Separately, class action suits against Suno and Udio have drawn support from more than 1,800 independent artists who say their recordings were used without permission to train the company’s models.

Suno has not said whether users will be able to press tracks that resemble copyrighted work, what rights users hold in the records they order, or whether the company takes a cut.

As AI creeps further into the music industry, copyright remains the sticking point — now on a format that fans seek precisely because a person made it.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is trying again to limit the number of people born in the country who can become American citizens, in a sign that even after his first attempt at limiting birthright citizenship was rejected by the Supreme Court, he’s ready to renew his efforts.

The president said he was signing two executive actions on immigration, including one limiting the number of people eligible for citizenship after being born in the United States. The written executive order released Thursday was narrower in scope than the previous one shot down by the Supreme Court and appeared to focus on restricting automatic citizenship to specific categories of people, including children born to adults with connections to foreign embassies or organizations as well as anyone considered an “alien enemy” of the United States.

It also aimed to restrict birthright citizenship to anyone whose parents “engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.”

A second order seeks to curb what Trump called “birth tourism” by increasing restrictions on visitors to the U.S. who want to obtain visas to give birth while in the country.

Trump said he thought his latest actions would be constitutional.

“I thought we were going to win it at the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, we had a bad decision, very unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it and we’re ending it a different way,” Trump said.

In June, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s previous efforts to declare that children born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily aren’t American citizens, and upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship.

On the first day of Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship, which allows anyone born in the United States to automatically become an American citizen.

Trump’s administration immediately was sued by opponents who said the executive order went against the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, which makes anyone born in the country a citizen, with very limited exceptions.

The executive order was blocked by several lower courts and never took effect.

In June, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s order by a 6-3 vote. But the vote was too close for many immigration advocates and legal observers who felt the legal question of birthright citizenship was a long-settled issue.

Weissert and Santana write for the Associated Press.

Aug. 4 (UPI) — The U.S. labor market saw an increase in the number of hires in June despite a drop in the number of job openings, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday.

Some of the highest decreases were seen in the number of jobs in education and health services, which lost some 133,000 jobs, or 8% since May.

But overall, hiring increased in June by 96,000, according to the most recently available data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

“Put together, the labor market is finding steadier footing,” Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNN.

Experts had expected the number of available jobs to drop in June, CNN reported.

“Hires ticking up even as postings slow is the kind of detail that keeps this from reading as a market losing steam,” Bachaud added to the outlet. “Whether that holds through the summer will depend a lot on whether prices and consumer spending stabilize or keeps sliding.”

But Dan North, a senior economist with Allianz Trade, said the numbers are not strong enough to suggest a dramatic shift in the jobs market.

“The wheels are not coming off the bus — there’s certainly not negative job growth at the moment,” North told CNN.

“It’s stable, somewhat solid, but there are signs of decay and shakiness underneath,” he added.

A producer sued Netflix on Wednesday, alleging the streamer lost an unreleased copy of a new Nicolas Cage movie and seeking damages of at least $105 million.

Producer Simon Afram invested more than $45 million of his own money making “Fortitude,” a film that takes place during World War II and features actors including Cage, Sir Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman, according to the lawsuit. The movie, described as “Ocean’s Eleven” meets “Inglourious Basterds,” is based on Operation Fortitude, an effort during World War II in which double agents set a trap for Adolf Hitler and his armies. The movie has not yet been released and is seeking buyers.

“Fortitude” had its own mystery last month when the drive that once held the movie went missing.

On June 15, Daniel Haido, an associate producer of “Fortitude,” dropped off an unencrypted copy of the movie for Netflix to view and instructed the staff to delete the files after the screening. Haido also told Netflix to notify him when the drive was ready for pick up, but Netflix was unresponsive to several efforts to pick up the drive, the lawsuit said. On June 25, Netflix notified Haido that the drive had been stolen.

“Unfortunately, someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week,” Sean Berney, a director for original film at Netflix, wrote in a June 25 email, according to the lawsuit. “We’ve been working through this with our security teams to no luck.”

Berney in his email offered to reimburse Afram’s company for the missing drive or create a new digital cinema package, according to the lawsuit.

But Afram in his lawsuit said the damage was much greater than that. He is seeking economic damages of at least $105 million, along with other costs.

“By losing control of the Film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the Film’s marketability,” his lawsuit said. “It is not fathomable that a sophisticated buyer would invest tens of millions of dollars to acquire the Film — and tens of millions more to market it — while facing the constant risk that it could appear online to be viewed widely for free at any time.”

Netflix in a statement said it is conducting an investigation and is offering to monitor piracy sites for any unauthorized distribution or sale of the film. The streamer accused Afram’s law firm of “hostile attempts to extort money from Netflix over this situation — including immediately demanding $165 million for the film rather than work with us in good faith.”

“Netflix disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards,” the company said in a statement. “While we do not own the rights to ‘Fortitude,’ we take content security seriously and have taken extra measures to support the filmmaker and his team.”

Akerman LLP, one of the firms representing Afram in his lawsuit, declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Johnson & Johnson LLP did not immediately return a request for comment.

Regarding Netflix’s statement, a spokesman for Afram said, “Our lawsuit speaks for itself.”

Caracas, July 23, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores returned to court on Wednesday for a brief hearing in which Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein approved a schedule for proceedings that will see their trial begin on June 1, 2027.

The calendar was jointly proposed by US Justice Department prosecutors and the respective defense teams.

Under the agreed timetable, prosecutors are expected to complete the bulk of their disclosure of unclassified evidence by September 22, while classified evidence is scheduled to be turned over by November 15. A preliminary hearing to determine the admissibility of the evidence has been set for November 17.

Following this phase, and no later than March 11, 2027, Maduro’s legal team will formally file pretrial motions. Barry Pollack, one of Maduro’s attorneys, has disclosed plans to invoke immunity and seek a dismissal of charges against the Venezuelan leader. The approved procedural calendar also includes a second round of pretrial motions, which would address additional evidence.

The hearing marked the third court appearance since Maduro and Flores were kidnapped by US military forces in Caracas on January 3 and transferred to a federal detention center in Brooklyn.

During their arraignment on January 5, both pleaded not guilty to all charges, including narcoterrorism, drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons possession. At the time, Maduro stated in Spanish that he was Venezuela’s “constitutional president” and considered himself “a prisoner of war.”

The case was initially mired in controversy as Washington blocked Maduro and Flores from having their legal expenses covered by the Venezuelan government headed by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. In April, the US Treasury Department granted a waiver to allow Caracas to pay the legal fees of the attorneys representing Maduro and Flores.

The latest hearing had originally been scheduled for June 30, but prosecutors requested a postponement, citing security concerns related to transporting the defendants and coordinating police operations in New York, as law enforcement resources had been heavily committed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Wednesday’s hearing saw dozens of international solidarity activists gather outside the federal courthouse in New York to express solidarity with the Venezuelan president and first lady and demand their immediate release.

In Caracas, hundreds of supporters of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), along with members of grassroots and communal organizations, gathered at Plaza Caracas for a rally led by Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez and Maduro’s son, National Assembly Deputy Nicolás Maduro Guerra.

“In the face of this unjust trial, the people have raised their voices (…) Today has been an emotional day—200 days without hugging my father, without seeing Cilia in person (…). This kidnapping has been extremely difficult for my family,” Maduro Guerra said.

He added that “despite Venezuela having been subjected to a military aggression, the country’s political leadership made the courageous, wise, and intelligent decision to resolve any conflict and any differences through politics and diplomacy.”

The Venezuelan government, including Acting President Rodríguez, have offered no comment in recent weeks concerning the US prosecution of Maduro and Flores.

In a June interview with Spanish journalist Javier Negre, Rodríguez said that Maduro remains Venezuela’s legitimate president but stopped short of demanding his liberation, instead claiming that he has the right to “demonstrate the truth” before the US justice system.

Washington and Caracas restored diplomatic and consular relations on March 5, ending a seven-year hiatus. Shortly afterward, the White House formally recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole leader.” 

The Trump administration recently stepped in and requested that a Florida court grant Rodríguez immunity from a civil action brought by three US citizens who spent time in prison in Venezuela. Judge Darrin Gayles entered a default ruling against Maduro and several other high-ranking current and former Venezuelan officials who did not respond to a lawsuit. He also awarded US $314 million in damages to the plaintiffs over alleged “torture” claims.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

England men v Pakistan

15 May: First ODI, Southampton, 11:00

19 May: Second ODI, Old Trafford, 13:00

21 May: Third ODI, Headingley, 11:00

23 May: Fourth ODI, Durham, 11:00

26 May: Fifth ODI, Cardiff, 13:00

England men v Bangladesh

28 May-1 June: One-off Test, Lord’s, 11:00

England men v New Zealand

7 Sept: First T20, Durham, 18:30

9 Sept: Second T20, Old Trafford, 18:30

11 Sept: Third T20, Cardiff, 14:30

14 Sept: First ODI, Edgbaston, 12:30

16 Sept: Second ODI, Lord’s, 12:30

19 Sept: Third ODI, Bristol, 10:30

22 Sept: Fourth ODI, Trent Bridge, 12:30

25 Sept: Fifth ODI, Headingley, 10:30

England women v Bangladesh

8 Sept: First T20, Northampton, 18:30

10 Sept: Second T20, Taunton, 18:30

12 Sept: Third T20, Worcester, 14:30

17 Sept: First ODI, Hove, 12:30

21 Sept: Second ODI, Canterbury, 12:30

24 Sept: Third ODI, Chelmsford, 12:30

When Sebastian Dollinger and his colleagues first drove into Yosemite National Park, they felt like they were entering the world at its finest — a prehistoric beauty of hulking rocks with every waterfall flowing in the valley.

It reminded Dollinger, who lives in Sweden, of the Swiss Alps in summer.

The moment didn’t last long.

As the group, in the park in early May for a fashion shoot for California luxury brand Robert Talbott, neared Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley, Dollinger’s party felt like it had been overtaken by a massive swarm of bees as droves of other tourists buzzed around them, he said.

A tourist stands in front of an overlook near Yosemite Valley during a sunrise in mid-June in Yosemite National Park.

Tourists wait at the Yosemite Falls bus stop.

“I could have taken up climbing and gone up El Capitan just to escape the people,” Dollinger said, referencing Yosemite’s famous rock wall, “but I’m just a creative director.”

This summer, Yosemite is seeing a significant uptick in visitation, driven by the park’s internationally known splendor, its popularity on social media and a lack of its politicized reservation system. As droves of tourists flock to Yosemite, it raises the question: Is it still possible to have a fun time there despite the crowds?

Hopefully, yes, but that answer comes with a few heavy asterisks. Park-goers and local business owners say it’s crucial for those venturing into Yosemite this summer to plan their excursions outside peak times to avoid the worst of the crowds, and even then, pack their patience. The best-laid plans can still result in visitors facing significant lines at the park’s gate and restaurants, crowded hiking trails and a relentless search for parking.

By the end of June, Yosemite had seen at least 183,000 more visitors than last year, according to preliminary park visitor data. Just over 2 million people visited the park by the end of June, a 10% increase compared with last year’s visitation data.

Crowds pose for photos on the Mist Trail.

The increase in visitors is, in part, because the National Park Service is not using a timed-entry reservation system this year.

The National Park Service announced in February — after the agency under the Biden administration studied extensively how to best implement a reservation system — that officials would instead use “targeted management.” This has included sending congestion alerts to visitors’ mobile phones and encouraging visitors to venture outside the valley, as it represents only a fraction of its almost 1,200 square miles of parkland.

When asked how the agency planned to address overcrowding in Yosemite this summer, a National Park Service spokesperson who declined to give their name to The Times said in an emailed statement that temporary traffic delays can occur during peak times but aren’t evidence of “operational failure.”

“They reflect the reality of managing one of the nation’s most visited national parks while keeping visitors safe and protecting park resources,” the spokesperson said. “Claims of widespread ‘overcrowding’ are not an accurate characterization of current park operations. Visitors have benefitted [sic] from expanded access for months now, and we are seeing operational efficiency from managing traffic only when and where necessary, rather than blanketing the park with restrictions for entire seasons.”

Dozens of tourists hike their way up the Mist Trail in mid-June, one of the more popular trails in Yosemite National Park.

Visitors like Dollinger say this new approach is not working.

“After we hiked for about three hours, we met a couple from Japan, and when I talked to them they were almost in tears,” said Dollinger, who has visited other state and national parks in California. “They saved for five years to do this trip, flew to San Francisco from Tokyo, stayed in San Francisco and hired a car, and went to the park for five days, which I can only describe as hell.”

Not every Yosemite visitor that The Times spoke to for this story had as bad of a time as Dollinger, but no one disputed crowds being an issue.

Chidumebi Ajaero, who lives in L.A., said he was “very concerned” when he and his friends left for their trip in mid-April over how crowded the park would be.

It was Ajaero’s first time to visit Yosemite after moving to California about 2½ years ago from Houston. He has been to other national parks and said he knows they can get “quite chaotic” when busy.

Tents set up in Upper Pines Campground on a June weekend in Yosemite National Park.

Ajaero and his friends arrived in Yosemite on a Friday afternoon and were surprised to find there was no line to enter the Big Oak Flat entrance.

They set their campsite up at Upper Pines, a campground in the valley, and headed out early on the Mist Trail, which takes hikers to Vernal and Nevada falls via its large stone steps. There were a considerable amount of people on the trail with them, he said.

“It’s not until you get to the waterfall itself and you have the steps, and everybody is taking pictures,” Ajaero said. “There’s actually a line to move up. You’re just waiting for your turn to step up” to capture the waterfall.

Ajaero said he’s glad he went before Memorial Day, when visitation started to increase more significantly.

But because of how curated Yosemite Valley is, with a grocery store, souvenir shops and restaurants, Ajaero said it felt more like an amusement park than his trips to Joshua Tree National Park, where visitors are far more on their own.

Hikers walk on a boardwalk designed to prevent erosion in sensitive meadows.

“I didn’t love it as much as the other because of the commercialized feeling of it, and just the fact it never felt you were alone in Yosemite,” he said. “I think there’s too much going on.”

How developed Yosemite should be for its visitors has been a debate since the park’s existence.

Michael W. Childers, author of “The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park” (Nebraska), said people often use the metaphor of not wanting to turn the park into Disneyland, but a more apt comparison is how closely Yosemite resembles a resort.

Concessionaires have been in Yosemite since its beginnings, as the federal government didn’t have the money to construct its own amenities in the 1850s, he said. Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of hospitality giant Aramark, manages much of Yosemite’s lodging, dining and activities (including the park’s Starbucks inside the valley).

Childers, an associate professor of history at Colorado State University, said his concern is that, since the late 1970s, conservative intellectuals have pushed to privatize the park even further.

He said the chaos being created by the Trump administration through cutting park staff and ending the reservation system is “very intentional” in the quest to argue the only way to manage the park is to privatize Yosemite.

“If you privatize the entirety of a national park, that means that your only one measuring stick is profit, and arguably, national parks are not solely designed for profit,” said Childers, an environmental historian of the American West. “They’re for experience. They’re for democracy. They’re for preservation of natural resources.”

Vehicles stop to pay the fee at the El Portal entrance gate.

Vehicles line the road near El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

One of park officials’ most significant management challenges started when tourists began entering Yosemite by automobile. Since 1913, people could enter in a personal vehicle, but visitation numbers remained reasonable until 1926 when the “All Year Highway,” a segment of the 140 Highway, opened.

This new thoroughfare created an easy and direct route to reach the park by car that avoided steep mountain roads, according to park history. The road’s opening resulted in a near doubling of total cars visiting the park in just one year, park staff said in an Instagram post.

“The summer of 1927 has clearly demonstrated that parking is one of the most urgent, menacing problems of the entire Yosemite Valley,” said Don Tresidder, president of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., that year, according to the park.

And has thus remained for 100 years.

The first attempt in recent years to get a handle on car traffic was the reservation system, implemented initially to spread guests out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but rolled out in 2021, 2022 and 2024 as the park service tested how to best employ it to cut down on traffic and help more visitors enjoy the park.

“Over the past decade, many parks have seen significant increases in visitation and crowding in popular areas, especially during peak seasons,” the agency wrote in 2024 as it sought public comments on park management. “In some parks, the level of demand is exceeding the capacity for which infrastructure was designed or is outpacing the National Park Service’s ability to sustainably support visitation.”

The park service planned to use visitor feedback and research to guide how reservations would be rolled out in 2025. Environmental and park advocates argued for the reservation system, saying that it not only protected the wildlife and land, but also that it was popular among guests.

But when Trump started his second term in office, not only did park management strategy change, so did the way the federal government viewed the park service. Hundreds of park workers were laid off, although some got their jobs back. Others took buyouts, and overall there was a 24% decline in permanent workers, according to the National Parks Conservation Assn.

One of the reservation system’s biggest critics is Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who said the system was decimating the economies of local gateway communities, the term used for the small mountain towns around Yosemite.

Parking lots are filled to capacity during peak hours, creating traffic congestion in Yosemite National Park.

“This is not to say that crowding in the valley hasn’t been a big problem, but the solution is better management and more capacity, not restricting access,” McClintock said on the House floor in June, noting the park had more parking, rooms and campsites before the 1997 flood destroyed infrastructure that he said wasn’t replaced.

Under the timed-entry system, visitors could still enter the park without a reservation if they arrived early — before 6 a.m. in 2021 and 2022 and 5 a.m. in 2024 — or after 4 p.m., and would be required to pay an entry fee for a three-day pass allowing them to reenter outside of peak hours.

But entering the park early or late in the day still wasn’t doable for everyone, including Ronny Shields, a father of two children from Ventura.

Shields, a lifelong Southern California resident, struggled to book a reservation when Yosemite implemented the system until he finally snagged one in 2024. His family had a great time and was eager to return.

In early June, Shields, his wife and kids, ages 4 and 7, made the trek back to Yosemite, staying outside the park at Tenaya at Yosemite in Fish Camp. Shields had researched and found information online suggesting the nearby southern entrance was less crowded.

His family arrived on a Saturday afternoon and entered the park without a wait. They found the valley was quieter than they’d ever seen it as people left.

Tourists stand in a meadow with a perfect view of Yosemite Falls.

For the rest of their trip, they entered the park before 8 a.m. or after 3 p.m., except for one day when they entered later in the morning and waited 40 minutes to enter. The other times, they found no wait.

Once inside the park before 8 a.m., their first stop was the Bridalveil Fall Trail, a short trek that takes visitors right to the base of the thundering cascade. When Shields and his family left the trail about 9:30 a.m., they noticed other guests couldn’t find parking.

They faced the same problem after they went to get food and then tried to park near the Lower Yosemite Falls trailhead. After 20 minutes, they found a spot — and joined the masses.

The trail “doesn’t feel like a hike — it feels like you’re in a crowded mall, but I think that’s the nature of the beast because it’s very short and very scenic,” Shields said.

Comparing his two visits to Yosemite, Shields said he preferred not having to deal with the reservation system, but that came with some caveats. He noticed far more visitors, although he’d expected even more. He saw more trash, several guests going off trail and trampling plant life, and far fewer park rangers to tell them to stop.

He said he didn’t see any park staff in the outdoor areas, and instead, he and his wife made sure to take their kids into the park’s buildings so they could speak to the rangers.

Tourists swim and play in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park.

“It’s nice for the kids to be able to ask questions and learn from people that love it,” Shields said. “Even I learned something.”

Jennifer Liu, a Moreno Valley resident, was at the park the same time frame as the Shields family and was able to mostly avoid the crowds on her backpacking trip through the park’s backcountry.

Liu meandered through the park using a few different trails, including the Sunrise Lakes route, to reach her ultimate destination: Half Dome on her birthday. She left her backcountry campsite about 4:30 a.m. to reach Half Dome by 6 a.m., catching the sunrise at 8,800-feet elevation from the granite monolith.

“I got lucky — the clouds cleared out and there was a nice sunrise,” she said.

Not in a hurry, Liu stayed at the top for four hours. Her fellow hikers sang her happy birthday, and she witnessed a couple get engaged.

Sunset over the Half Dome lookout in Yosemite National Park.

“By 10, when I headed back down, that’s when the crowd was starting to pick up,” Liu said, adding that she was grateful there was still space to navigate the dome’s cable system without being rushed by others.

As a means of crowd control, the National Park Service has attempted to funnel people out of the valley, where the majority of tourists spend their time and into its less frequented locations.

Park officials have tried to rebrand Hetch Hetchy, a massive reservoir surrounded by glacier-carved rock walls, by claiming that “many have compared Hetch Hetchy’s grandeur to the more well-known Yosemite Valley,” according to a recent update on the park’s website. (Previous versions of the Hetch Hetchy page made no such claim, according to archived versions of the website viewed through the Internet Archive.)

The park service doesn’t cite a source for such claims. California naturalist John Muir compared the two valleys’ beauties, but that was before Hetch Hetchy Valley was transformed by the O’Shaughnessy Dam into a massive reservoir.

“John Muir lost the fight over Hetch Hetchy, and the dam was built. And people who live in San Francisco today drink the water of Hetch Hetchy,” historian William Cronon said in the Ken Burns national parks documentary. “Muir died feeling that he’d been defeated by that, and that was a great tragedy at the end of his life.”

Still, Hetch Hetchy has long been whispered among Yosemite regulars as a place to find a little quiet.

That’s changed too.

An empty road under El Capitan in Yosemite Valley National Park.

“We used to have these secret spots we could tell people about,” said Elisabeth Barton, owner of Yosemite Basecamp in Groveland, which offers lodging, trips by local outfitters, gear and more. “‘Go to Hetch Hetchy,’ you’d say quietly and look over your shoulder. ‘Go to this waterfall’ or ‘Do this hike.’ … One of the things we’re noticing is, very quickly on a weekend, [the park] is sending out that alert that Hetch Hetchy is full or that Hetch Hetchy has ‘extreme visitation.’ It’s weird.”

Barton, whose company runs a visitor center in downtown Groveland, said there’s not much she and her team can recommend for people coming Thursday through Sunday into the park. It will be crowded regardless.

On a recent Saturday, Barton met a hiker who was devastated he couldn’t easily enter the valley without dealing with crowds. Barton let him in on a less popular trip that involved a great swimming hole, fish tacos at Whoa Nellie Deli, an adventure around Mono Lake and a drive through a stunning mountain pass. She recommended that he take a long way to reenter the park, enabling him to see the valley at a time he’d miss the crowds.

He called her a week later and told her to never recommend that to anyone ever again. He’d had a great day until he tried to reenter the park and instead waited four hours at the Tioga Pass in a line that stretched for miles. “You’re right, it was beautiful,” he told her, “but to what end?”

“I just wasn’t prepared for that,” Barton said. “It just broke me.”

Even sacred sites — with signage directing visitors away from the area — have been trampled by crowds.

The American Indian Council of Mariposa County, also known as the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, fought for decades to establish Wahhoga Village, which is an ancient village site and the last place that Indigenous people lived in Yosemite Valley before being driven out by the National Park Service.

Today, Wahhoga Village includes a traditional roundhouse, traditional cedar bark houses known as umachas and the only cabin that the park service didn’t burn when it evicted the remaining families from the site in 1969.

Wahhoga is not listed on Yosemite maps and is not intended to be used by those who aren’t either authorized or invited by the council to be there, said Deborah Tucker, a council member whose father advocated for years for Wahhoga.

But, Tucker said, in recent weeks, tourists have been found picnicking in the site. Hikers were tromping right through the middle of the village, led by a user-generated route on a popular outdoors adventure app, she said.

And while there, someone peed all over the village’s grinding stones, which are used for processing acorns into flour, along with other foods, said Tucker, whose father is Paiute and Shoshone and her mother was Choinumni, a branch of Yokut, tribes indigenous to the region.

Tourist beat the heat and float on tubes in a river in Yosemite National Park.

Under the current administration, “it’s a free-for-all,” Tucker said. “You can come up there and do what you want, park where you want and you’re disrupting not just sacred sites but other park sites that the park service has [established],” leading to littering and other pollution, noise that harms the birds and speeding cars that threaten the safety of bears and other wildlife.

Tucker said because the current administration seems fixated on money over conservation, she hopes that when people visit the park this summer, they will at least hold themselves accountable, showing respect for the land and its inhabitants.

“Clean up after yourself, maybe clean up after one another, and don’t take anything home with you that you didn’t bring,” Tucker said when asked what she’d say to the park’s visitors. “Enjoy that experience, and [you’re] welcome to come back again.”

Vaughn Grissom drove in the tying run with a one-out double in the ninth inning and Jo Adell was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give the Angels a 3-2 comeback win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night.

Nolan Schanuel, batting .367 since June 21, sparked the late rally with a one-out single off All-Star closer Riley O’Brien, who is tied for the National League lead with 25 saves.

Jorge Soler was hit by a pitch and Grissom sent a line drive off the right-field wall that eluded a leaping Jordan Walker. Pinch-runner Oswald Peraza scored from second base and pinch-runner Jose Siri reached third.

Josh Lowe was walked intentionally to load the bases. Adell, who homered in the third inning, took three straight balls from O’Brien (3-4) before getting plunked by the next pitch to force in the winning run.

Angels reliever José Fermín (3-1) struck out two in a scoreless ninth.

O’Brien’s fifth blown save laid to waste a strong start by St. Louis right-hander Kyle Leahy, who gave up one run and three hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked none.

Angels starter José Soriano threw his best game since early May, giving up two runs and four hits in seven innings while striking out seven and walking one.

The right-hander, who went 3-6 with a 5.15 ERA in his previous 14 starts, retired the side in order five times and became the first Angels starter to get an out in the seventh since June 16.

Walker sparked the Cardinals’ second-inning rally with a leadoff double over Lowe’s head in left field. He went to third on Lars Nootbaar’s single and scored on Nathan Church’s one-out single for a 1-0 lead.

Blaze Jordan followed with a potential inning-ending, double-play grounder to third base, but Denzer Guzman bobbled the ball and his only play was to first as Nootbaar scored for a 2-0 lead.

The Angels cut the deficit to 2-1 in the third when Adell, mired in an 0-for-24 slump that dropped his batting average to .237 entering the game, led off with his 14th homer of the season.

Up next: Cardinals LHP Matthew Liberatore (5-6, 5.00 ERA) faces Angels RHP Walbert Ureña (5-7, 2.88) on Tuesday night.

July 16 (UPI) — U.S. retail spending was weaker than expected while tourists from around the world came to the country for the World Cup.

Retail sales rose 0.2% in June from a revised 1% in May, and up 6.7% from June 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. Expectations from the data firm FactSet were at 0.3%.

The World Cup and Amazon‘s Prime Day helped boost spending, but lower gas prices slowed the rise. Excluding gas sales, June spending rose 0.7% after 0.9% in May.

A measure of retail spending that removes sales of building materials and gasoline rose 0.5% in June, which is down from 0.8% in May, but slightly higher than the expected 0.4% increase, CNN reported. It shows consumer demand continued steadily in June.

Strong economic growth along with rising inflation means that the Federal Reserve is less likely to lower interest rates. For the Fed to cut rates, inflation would need to slow to toward the 2% annual target or signs of a slowing economy, CNN said.

“Despite challenges, consumers are still spending and the labor market shows no signs of cracking,” Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, wrote Thursday.

“This type of data won’t move the Fed’s needle either way, but it underscores the ongoing resilience of the U.S. economy.”

Another economist said the second half of the year’s economy could slow even more.

“A renewed slowdown in spending, however, beckons over the second half of this year,” Oliver Allen, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in an analyst note Thursday.

“The lift to cashflow from tax refunds now has faded, leaving consumers far more exposed to the real income shock from the jump in gas prices.”

PHOENIX — Election officials in Arizona’s most populous county reached an agreement this week on how to jointly oversee the vote, ending a prolonged legal battle.

Republican Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap sued the predominantly GOP board of supervisors in June 2025, alleging it illegally took control of certain aspects of election administration. The board called the lawsuit frivolous and said Heap was wasting taxpayer money.

They reached a settlement this week to resolve the lawsuit after mediated negotiations, and the board approved it.

“This deal gets us out of the courtroom,” board Chair Kate Brophy McGee, said after Tuesday’s vote. “I’m sick of drama. We are done with being on the front page going forward.”

Heap said his objective was simple: to ensure his office’s statutory responsibilities are carried out lawfully.

“I am pleased we have reached an agreement that, when implemented, will restore those responsibilities and establish a clear framework for administering elections moving forward,” Heap said in a statement jointly released with the board.

Under the agreement, an interim plan proposed by Heap and approved by the Arizona Supreme Court will govern the July 21 primary. Early voting began in late June.

Heap will oversee much of early voting, selection of ballot drop box locations and other duties. The board will handle other areas, including Election Day voting, ballot tabulation and voting location equipment maintenance. The board also will fund a new $15 million information technology system and related positions for the recorder.

Heap was backed in the lawsuit by America First Legal, a conservative public interest group founded by Stephen Miller, a deputy chief of staff in the White House. Heap had claimed the board transferred funding, IT staff and some key functions — including management of drop boxes and establishment of early voting sites — away from his office through an agreement negotiated with his predecessor.

Heap defeated incumbent recorder Stephen Richer, in a GOP primary, and won the 2024 general election.

The two were at odds over election administration in Maricopa County. In the past, Heap has stopped short of repeating false claims that the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen. But he has said voters don’t trust the state’s voting system and that it is poorly run. Richer, also a Republican, relentlessly defended the legitimacy of the vote.

Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, did not vote to approve the settlement and criticized Heap during Tuesday’s board meeting.

“Honestly, I don’t think he wants to have an election that is conducted transparent or even an election that’s not compromised,” Gallardo said. “Now, with this, he owns it.”

Kelety writes for the Associated Press.

Former “The Ring” and “Lilo & Stitch” child star Daveigh Chase, who died while homeless in June after years of battling drug addiction, leaves an estate worth nearly half a million dollars.

Probate documents filed July 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court say Chase — legal name Daveigh Elizabeth Schwallier — left behind about $400,000 in personal property. The late actor’s mother, Cathy Chase, submitted the documents and filed a petition to become the administrator of her daughter’s estate.

The court filings also note that Daveigh Chase died without a will, is only survived by her parents, and confirm that she was homeless at the time of her death. The last known address for Chase appears to be a home in Chatsworth.

Chase died June 16 in a hospital at age 35. In initial reports, her father, John David Schwallier, and her boyfriend said the actor died of complications from bacterial meningitis and a blood infection. But the medical examiner’s report disclosed that Chase died of AIDS, which is caused by HIV, as the primary cause of death. The report also listed chronic polysubstance use — using more than one drug or substance at the same time or within a short period — as a “significant condition.”

Chase started her acting career in the late 1990s with minor roles in popular TV series, including “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” “Charmed” and “ER,” and starred in multiple beloved movies at the turn of the century. In 2001 cult classic “Donnie Darko,” she was Samantha, the younger sister of Jake Gyllenhaal’s troubled Donnie Darko. She would reprise the role eight years later for the sequel, “S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale.”

In the same year as “Donnie Darko,” Chase lent her voice to the American dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s tender “Spirited Away,” voicing its protagonist Chihiro. The film won the animated feature prize at the 2003 Academy Awards.

Chase was known for her versatility, demonstrated by her roles in “Lilo & Stitch” and “The Ring” in the same year. In the latter, she played ghost girl Samara Morgan.

In the aughts, Chase also appeared in more than 20 episodes of the Fox sitcom “Oliver Beene” and more than 30 episodes of HBO’s Emmy-nominated Mormon family drama “Big Love” as cunning teenager Rhonda Volmer. After the hit series, Chase’s career slowed and she appeared in lower-profile projects. Her final credit was a voice-acting role in the 2016 video game “Let It Die.”

A hearing for Chase’s probate case is set for Aug. 12.

Times editorial library director Cary Schneider and staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

July 14 (UPI) — The consumer price index for the year ending in June rose 3.5%, less than economists expected, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

For the month, consumer prices fell by 0.4% due in part to the energy index dropping by 5.7%. It was the largest decline in the energy index in more than six years, following a spike in energy prices due to the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The consumer price index decline for the month followed a 0.5% increase in May, also making the decrease a six-year best for a single month.

The energy index remains high for the 12 months ending in June, up by 15.7%. This is bolstered by a 26.7% increase in the index for gasoline.

Energy services decreased by 0.7% on a per-month basis, putting the annual rate of inflation at 3.9%. Electricity fell by 1% to an annual 4% increase while utility gas service rose by 0.5% to an annual 3% rate of inflation.

June’s index beat estimates by the Dow Jones consensus, which projected a 0.2% decrease in the consumer price index with annual inflation at about 3.8%.

The index for all items not counting volatile food and energy, known as core inflation, remained steady between May and June. Core inflation measured at 2.6% for the year ending in June after reading at 2.9% in May.

The index for food rose by 0.2%, as did the indexes for food at home and food away from home. The annual index for food rose by 3%.

Tuesday’s report comes as new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh appears before Congress. In his prepared remarks, Warsh will tell Congress that the “number one objective is to get monetary policy right.”

“That is our clear and constant aim, the star we steer by,” Warsh’s prepared statement reads. And if we get policy right — and we will — the inflation surge of the last five years will be a thing of the past.”

Theo Burrell, an “Antiques Roadshow” star and cancer research advocate, has died. She was 39.

A family member announced Burrell’s death on Instagram on Saturday, writing, “It is with great sadness that I share the news that Theo passed away peacefully surrounded by her family on Wednesday afternoon. Neither she nor her medical team foresaw this happening quite so quickly.

“She was an incredible person who fought hard for her family, friends and raising awareness of this cruel disease,” the post continued. “She saw life events like her son’s first day at school and her wedding that a little over 4 years ago we thought she’d never see.”

Burrell, born Theodora Helen Burrell on Sept. 1, 1986, was a ceramics and decorative arts specialist on the BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow,” a reality series that features antiques experts appraising family heirlooms, garage sale gems and more. Off screen, she worked as a specialist and auctioneer at Lyon & Turnbull, the oldest auction house in Scotland.

“One of the things I love about antiques is that they have survived so many years, witnessing life changing events such as coronations & world wars,” Burrell wrote in the caption of an 1840s-era white marble bust.

In June 2022, Burrell was diagnosed with an incurable, aggressive Grade 4 brain tumor, and was told she had a year to a year and a half to live. She subsequently underwent brain surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy in an effort to keep the cancer at bay. In June 2023, she organized a star-studded auction to raise money for the British cancer research nonprofit the Brain Tumour Charity and raised the equivalent of about $93,500. She also became a patron of the charity Brain Tumour Research.

“We are heartbroken that we have lost the phenomenal, determined and truly inspiring Theo to this devastating disease,” Dan Knowles, chief executive of Brain Tumour Research, said on Instagram. “She constantly inspired us with how big her heart was and we will continue on our mission, driven by everything she taught us. Our thoughts are with her family, her friends and with all those who had the privilege of knowing her.”

During a January 2024 BBC “Morning Live” appearance, Burrell said that six months before she was diagnosed, she started to get unusual symptoms including headaches, nausea, feelings of pressure in her head and issues with her vision. After multiple trips to various physicians and a CT scan, doctors found an about 2-inch-diameter brain tumor in the right side of her brain.

She spoke candidly about her battle in the media and across social platforms, telling BBC, “I really felt that with a small public profile which I had from the ‘Roadshow’ that if I could do something good with that, then I should. And I have watched other people, such as Tom Parker, who sadly lost his life to a glioblastoma, really work so incredibly hard when he was so ill to try and make a difference for people like me.”

Burrell’s family said in the statement announcing the antiques enthusiast’s death that the cancer community provided “so much comfort and strength to her in her darkest moments.”

“But most of all it provided hope and I think what she would want most of all is for other people to find hope in her story. Hope that the statistics aren’t gospel and that one day they’ll be very different.”

Published on
13/07/2026 – 12:23 GMT+2

TSMC said on Monday that June revenue rose 67.9% year on year to NT$398.27 billion (€10.8bn), bringing the first-half of the year revenue to NT$2.4 trillion (€65.4bn), a 35.6% increase from the same period in 2025.

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Based on the company’s monthly revenue disclosures, second-quarter revenue amounted to roughly NT$1.27 trillion, ahead of the NT$1.264 trillion (€34.4bn) consensus forecast from 20 analysts surveyed by LSEG.

Monday’s release covers June revenue and cumulative first-half sales only.

TSMC will publish its full second-quarter earnings on Thursday, including net profit, gross margin, operating margin and updated financial guidance.

The road ahead

At its April earnings presentation, TSMC said it expects full-year 2026 revenue to grow by more than 30% in US dollar terms and projected capital expenditure of between $52 billion (€45.5bn) and $56 billion (€49bn) as it expands manufacturing capacity to meet AI-driven demand.

New fabrication plants are under construction or in preparation in Arizona, Japan and Germany, reflecting both the scale of customer demand and government efforts to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

Shares in TSMC rose about 1% following Monday’s revenue update.

Investors will now turn their attention to Thursday’s full earnings report for updates on profitability, margins, full-year guidance and the rollout of the company’s two-nanometre manufacturing technology, which is already attracting strong customer interest.

The AI engine

The company sits at the centre of one of the largest investment cycles in the semiconductor industry’s history.

Many of the world’s leading AI processors, including Nvidia’s GPUs and much of the custom AI silicon designed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft, are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan.

At the company’s April earnings presentation, CEO Che-Chia Wei described AI demand as “extremely robust”, driven by the shift from chatbots that answer questions to agentic AI systems capable of taking actions.

That transition requires significantly greater computing power, increasing demand for the advanced chips TSMC manufactures.

Advanced technologies, defined as chips produced using process technologies of seven nanometres or smaller, accounted for 74% of wafer revenue in the first quarter.

TSMC’s three-nanometre technology alone contributed 25% of wafer revenue.

Reports have indicated that Nvidia has reserved roughly 60% of TSMC’s advanced chip-packaging capacity for 2026, highlighting continued supply constraints across the AI semiconductor market.

Based on the words of President Trump, America is well on the way to becoming a “global superpower in manufacturing” — indeed, as he declared in a Father’s Day social media post, we are already experiencing the “BEST ECONOMY EVER.” (Capitalization’s his.)

Here’s what the government’s own statistics tell us: Manufacturing investment has crashed during his watch, with construction spending in the manufacturing sector down 26.4% from Trump’s inauguration through May, to $174.8 billion. That’s the lowest figure since February 2023, when the economy was in the midst of a post-pandemic recovery.

White House spokesman Kush Desai told me by email that “the last two jobs reports” showed manufacturing job growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a seasonally-adjusted decline of 2,000 manufacturing workers in May and a gain of 3,000 in June. But the June 2026 figure was 38,000 jobs, or about 0.3% below the level in June 2025, and 75,000 or about 0.6% below the level in January 2025, when Trump took office.

Desai said that “thanks to President Trump’s proven agenda of tariffs, deregulation, and tax cuts, American manufacturing will continue to rebound.”

There’s little mystery about what has come between Trump’s ambition and the real world. To a large extent it’s Trump’s economic program, particularly his tariff policies and, more recently, his war with Iran. Those have injected a level of uncertainty for corporate managements pondering whether to spend money on expansion that they haven’t had to confront in years.

The tariffs and the war have driven up manufacturers’ costs for raw materials and overseas shipping. The general economic atmosphere doesn’t help. U.S. gross domestic product growth came in at a 2.1% annualized rate in the first quarter of this year, but the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta expects it to have fallen to 1.3% in the second quarter ended June 30.

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan consumer confidence index reached 44.8 in May, its lowest level ever (though it improved to 49.5 in June). Wages have been rising modestly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but those gains have been eaten up by higher prices, especially for gasoline and food.

To put things another way, the actual figures show the U.S. economy to be sputtering, and the “vibe economy” as measured by consumer confidence is doing even worse.

Now that Trump’s second term is about to reach its 18-month mark, let’s unpack the factors causing the discrepancy between his ambitions and claims, and the reality.

Trump declared economic victory just as his term was starting. On March 20, 2025, he proclaimed a “manufacturing renaissance” in the U.S. That was based on what he said were “trillions of dollars in new investments” he had “already secured in tech-based manufacturing.”

A White House statement said “the list of manufacturing wins is endless.” The provided list was a roster of announcements, not groundbreakings, much less completed ventures.

Business executives quite properly have taken these pledges with mounds of salt. “Announcements are what people say they’re going to do, but dollars spent is what’s actually happening,” Didi Caldwell, chief executive of a firm that helps companies find factory sites, told the Financial Times. “From where we’re standing, we are not seeing signs of a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S.”

Indeed, at least some of these announcements have had the flavor of performative efforts to satisfy Trump’s amour propre and extract government concessions.

For example, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook appeared with Trump at the White House in August to announce a $600-billion U.S. spending plan to take place over four years. That was a $100-billion increase over its previously-announced program.

More to the point, however, it incorporated spending with suppliers that Apple had been working with for years. Mentioned in the news announcement was a commitment to buy cover glass for iPhones from Corning. But Corning has been supplying that glass since the first iPhone appeared in 2007. In any case, the announcement appeared to secure a commitment from Trump to exempt Apple from tariffs imposed on imported chips.

Apple’s announcement Wednesday that it will spend $30 billion to buy chips from Broadcom was similarly ambiguous. The announcement didn’t provide details about the terms of the commitment or the timing of its expenditures. I asked Apple for details and whether the deal was related to a desire to remain in Trump’s favor, but didn’t hear back.

A similar phenomenon occurred during Trump’s first term; Trump had built much of his 2016 presidential campaign on a promise to increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. He blamed shrinkage in the manufacturing sector on trade agreements such as NAFTA and the policies of the Chinese, and took credit when an American manufacturer agreed to create or save jobs in the United States.

As I reported in 2019, many of those arrangements turned out to be exaggerated or bogus, or predated Trump’s claim. Some disappeared as soon as public attention turned elsewhere, or were outweighed by job cuts made elsewhere by the same companies.

Trump’s tariffs appear to have had a direct effect on manufacturing employment in the U.S. Since Trump’s inauguration, the manufacturing sector has shed about 75,000 jobs, or 0.6%. After April 2, 2025, when he announced global “liberation day” tariffs supposedly as a response to years of unfair treatment of American exports, the decline picked up pace, with a shrinkage of 68,000 manufacturing jobs.

The Supreme Court invalidated those tariffs in February, but others are still in place, including tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and on goods from China. Nor has he ceased threatening partners with trade wars. As recently as Tuesday, he said he would cut off all trade with Spain because of that country’s disagreement with him over its defense spending and its criticism of his Iran war.

As it happens, Spain is one of the few countries with which the U.S. has a trade surplus. That means that any cutoff, which trade experts think will be unlikely, would come at a cost to the U.S.

One might have hoped that Trump had learned a lesson from his first-term trade war with China. That conflict provoked a sharp contraction in the manufacturing economy, with the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers index falling to 49.1 by mid-2019. (A reading below 50 signifies contraction.)

The ISM index began to recover toward the end of Trump’s term but fell again during the pandemic. Lately it has been falling again, to 53.3 in June from 54 in May.

The Iran war is another deadweight on domestic manufacturing. That’s partially the consequence of blockages of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial thoroughfare not only for middle eastern oil, but also for such industrial inputs as fertilizer and aluminum. Cement, concrete, olive oil and spices are also among commodities produced in the region that use the strait as an outlet to reach the outside world.

Uncertainties in the region, tensions between the U.S. and China, and heightened concerns over the safety of shipping overall have driven up shipping costs between the far east and the U.S. The price of shipping a benchmark 40-foot container from China to the West Coast has nearly quadrupled to $6,687 now from about $1,700 just before the Iran war began, according to an index maintained by the cargo firm Freightos — even though shipping prices typically decline during this time of year.

There can be little doubt that the U.S. would benefit from an industrial policy — if it’s coherent. China supplanted America as the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods in 2010, and the gap has only widened since then. China’s dominance may be hard to reverse, as it’s built on lower labor costs and transport infrastructure that enjoys focused government investment.

Tariffs could be a component of a new industrial policy, but Trump’s tariffs aren’t rationally geared to protecting domestic industries that need protection. They’re expressions of his whims, and as such they’re totally ineffective. If there are government investment policies targeting industries that need assistance, they’re not apparent to economists or industrialists.

Trump can talk as much as he likes about a golden age for U.S. manufacturing, but from his first term through this one, it’s nothing but talk. And talk, of course, is cheap.

The UK has experienced two record heatwaves this year, with temperatures in England reaching 35.1C in May and 37.7C in June.

More than 2,700 deaths across England and Wales have been linked to unprecedented heatwaves in the United Kingdom in May and June, according to new research.

There were 550 heat-related deaths between May 21 and 29, and nearly 2,200 people died between June 18 and 28, scientists estimated in the study published on Monday.

Researchers from Imperial College London, the Met Office and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used weather data, climate models and studies on excess deaths during the extreme weather to arrive at their estimate.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it would publish its official estimate of heat-related deaths in the coming weeks, based on death records from recent heatwaves.

Climate change driving heatwaves

The UK and much of Europe have already experienced two record-breaking heatwaves this year, with temperatures in England reaching 35.1C (95.2F) in May and 37.7C (99.9F) in June.

“They were extreme heatwaves for the UK, and for all parts of Western Europe, and they’re particularly exceptional for the timing and how early in the year they occurred,” said Mark McCarthy, the science manager at the Met’s climate attribution team.

Scientists emphasised the role of climate change in making heatwaves more intense and frequent.

They estimated that maximum daytime temperatures were up to 4C (7.2F) higher than they would have been without global warming.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), the body responsible for advising the British government on climate change, warned last year that the UK was “not ready” to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Lea Berrang Ford at UKHSA’s Centre for Climate and Health Security says the study released on Monday would “help illustrate the scale of risk associated with extreme heat and the growing threat climate change poses to our wellbeing”.

In a report published in May, it estimated that 92 percent of British homes could be too hot by 2050.

It said the government should set maximum temperature limits in the workplace, as well as invest in air conditioning for public buildings such as hospitals and schools in preparation for extreme weather.

The research on heat-related deaths in the UK comes as data showed that more than 10,000 excess deaths were recorded across Europe during the heatwaves across the west ⁠of the continent ⁠in late June.

EuroMOMO, a network backed ⁠by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization, said most of those deaths were among people aged 65 and above, with 9,000 excess deaths reported in that age range.

Scientists pooled national mortality statistics from 27 European countries in June and concluded that, without other notable factors such as COVID-19 outbreaks, the heatwave is most likely to have ⁠contributed to the spike of 10,650 excess deaths between June 22 and 28.