million

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers on Monday approved a one-time infusion of $90 million for Planned Parenthood and other women’s health clinics, a direct respond to the Trump administration’s cuts to reproductive healthcare and access to abortion providers.

“Trump is tearing down healthcare and increasing costs,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said in a statement. “Democrats are building it up — investing millions in women’s health and maternal care, because families come first in California.”

The legislation providing the funding, SB 106, carried by Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), is intended to help offset the losses from federal cuts that targeted abortion providers. The Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last year by President Trump, prohibited federal Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood.

The bill now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

California and a coalition of other Democrat-led states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last year over the provision. More than 80% of the nearly 1.3 million annual patient visits to Planned Parenthood in California previously were reimbursed by Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage to low-income Americans.

Assemblyman David Tangipa (R-Clovis) voiced opposition to the legislation Monday.

“Why does Planned Parenthood get a $90-million grant when right now over 60 hospitals in the state of California are on the verge of shutting down?” Tangipa asked, speaking on the Assembly floor. “Hospitals across our state that deliver high quality care to women are on the brink of closure.”

Planned Parenthood offers a range of services, including abortions, birth control and cancer screenings.

Floyd Mayweather Jr., one of history’s most successful professional boxers, is suing Showtime and a former executive at the company for $340 million, accusing them of depriving him of a “significant portion of his career earnings.”

The 48-year-old retired athlete alleges in the complaint that Showtime “through a complex web of hidden accounts, unauthorized transactions, and deliberate concealment of financial records,” wrongly paid some of his earnings to his former manager, Al Haymon.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is aimed at the Paramount-owned network and its former president of Showtime Sports, Stephen Espinoza. The complaint alleges that Mayweather’s inquiries about his pay were met with conflicting responses from Showtime, including that “critical financial records for Mayweather’s biggest fights were ‘lost’ or inaccessible.”

Haymon is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Paramount wrote in a statement to The Times that “these baseless claims lack legal or factual merit. We strongly reject them and will respond accordingly through the court process.”

A spokesperson for Haymon Boxing declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Over Mayweather’s 21-year career, the boxer has reportedly earned $1.2 billion. He first met his former manager, Haymon, in 2004. The boxer soon entered a verbal agreement with Haymon, allowing him to be Mayweather’s manager for a 10% fee. According to the suit, Mayweather considered Haymon to be a “father figure and relied on him to manage virtually all aspects of his finances and contracts.” Haymon worked in this role for about 20 years, and over time, the suit alleges, he became the “mastermind of the financial scheme,” engaging in “financial manipulation and self-dealing behind Mayweather’s back.”

In 2013, Mayweather exited a long-term contract with HBO to ink a new exclusive multi-fight deal with Showtime. The complaint states that Haymon’s “scheme” consisted of “diverting portions” of Mayweather’s earnings “under false pretenses that Haymon then kept or controlled,” putting fight revenues into “secret accounts that Mayweather did not know about or have access to,” paying himself large sums of money without Mayweather‘s knowledge and allegedly altering documents to cover up these actions.

Mayweather’s new team reached out to Showtime in 2024 for documentation of fight revenues and expenses. According to the lawsuit, his team was told the documents were “‘lost in a flood’ or stored off-site and not readily accessible.”

Mayweather also alleges Showtime still owes him $20 million from his 2015 fight against Andre Berto. The payout was originally meant to come from the proceeds of the Manny Pacquiao fight that year.

The lawsuit contends that by wiring Mayweather’s earnings to accounts inaccessible tothe boxer and saying that key documents are missing, both “Showtime and Espinoza enabled Haymon’s scheme and stymied Mayweather’s efforts to uncover the truth.”

Not long after Pacific Palisades and Altadena had burned, Gov. Gavin Newsom summoned reporters and television cameras to Dodger Stadium. Newsom stepped behind a podium dropped within a stadium parking lot, with a commanding view of Los Angeles as the backdrop.

He was there to unveil LA Rises, a signature initiative under which the private sector and philanthropists could unite to help Southern California rebuild and recover.

The most valuable player that day: Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ chairman and controlling owner. The big announcement: Walter and two of his associated charities — his family foundation and the Dodgers’ foundation — would contribute up to $100 million as “an initial commitment” to LA Rises.

“We should clap for that,” Dodgers co-owner Magic Johnson told the assembled media. “A hundred million dollars, that’s an outstanding thing.”

One year later, Newsom’s initiative has struggled to distinguish itself amid a panoply of wildfire relief efforts. LA Rises has delivered $20 million to date, including $7.8 million from Walter’s family foundation, according to Newsom’s office.

“If it’s a number of 20 million after one year, after such a severe occurrence, and with Los Angeles having the giving capacity to meet that goal, I would have expected to hear that there had been more commitments, at a minimum,” said Casey Rogers, founder of Santa Barbara-based Telea Insights, which advises philanthropists and leaders of nonprofit organizations.

“Maybe not all of those commitments would have been paid. Maybe they would have been commitments over a number of years. But it would have been closer to the goal.”

Walter stands by his pledge, Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. A representative of Newsom’s office said Walter’s pledge did not come with a timeline.

“I know we haven’t spent the full 100 yet,” Kasten said, “but this is a long-term commitment.”

Rather than solicit large donations up front and determine how to use the money later, LA Rises prefers to identify “impactful opportunities for investment” as they arise and then “coordinate financial support from a variety of private, public and philanthropic donors, including the Walter Family Foundation,” said Dee Dee Myers, director of Newsom’s office of business and economic development.

Of the Walter foundation contributions, $5 million went toward grants for impacted small business, workers and nonprofits, with $2.8 million to Pasadena City College for modernizing and expanding technical education programs to train workers that can help rebuild their own communities.

LA Rises also funded programs that include day camps and mental health intervention to children affected by the fires; streamlined architectural planning and permits for survivors wishing to rebuild; and support for Habitat for Humanity in building new homes and rebuilding damaged ones.

“The administration is incredibly grateful for any philanthropic dollars that have gone towards the rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles,” Myers said.

The competition for those dollars is fierce. The Milken Institute reported that private giving toward wildfire relief — from individuals, corporations and other entities — hit nearly $1 billion last year.

“I know there has been a lot of money that has been paid to various programs,” Kasten said, “and there has also been some rethinking about how LA Rises is deployed and what foundational money from the Dodgers is used for. We continue to work hard with a lot of groups on that tragedy.

“There are talks ongoing about a variety of programs and a variety of ways of funding things. We are still very involved with this, both with LA Rises and other entities.”

Kasten did not rule out Walter shifting some or all of his remaining funding commitment to an organization outside LA Rises.

“I don’t know exactly what entity we will be formally engaged with — or doing it separately — but we’re absolutely committed to helping out those programs that need that kind of help,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of it already, and we can do a lot more.”

SEOUL, Feb. 4 (UPI) — South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem said Wednesday that it has signed a $220 million contract to supply high-floor light rail vehicles to Edmonton, Canada.

Under the agreement, Hyundai Rotem is scheduled to deliver 32 trainsets, each composed of three cars, to operate through the city center at a maximum speed of 50 mph.

The company noted that the fleet would replace aging rolling stock, with safety and passenger comfort as top priorities.

Because of the city’s harsh winter climate, the trains will feature customized designs that can withstand extreme cold and heavy snowfall.

Hyundai Rotem previossly has sign train deals in Canada.

In 2021, the Hyundai Motor Group subsidiary secured a separate contract to provide trams for Edmonton. Deliveries of those vehicles started last August, according to the company.

In 2005, it also struck an agreement to supply automated people movers for Vancouver International Airport as part of preparations for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

“We will keep strengthening our relationship to contribute to Canada’s efforts to build environmentally friendly rail infrastructure,” Hyundai Rotem said in a statement. “The country is speeding up the replacement of diesel-powered rail vehicles with electric and hydrogen hybrid trains.”

In addition to rail systems, Hyundai Rotem also operates in the defense sector. It is best known for producing the K2 main battle tank for the South Korean military and overseas customers.

Over the past few years, the defense giant exported 180 K2 tanks to Poland. Last year, it finalized a second major contract to ship another 180 tanks to the European country in a deal valued at about $6.5 billion.

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers will consider bolstering funding for Planned Parenthood and other providers of reproductive health with a one-time infusion of $90 million, leaders of the state Legislature announced Friday.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and Senate President Monique Limón (D-Goleta) said the money would give grants to providers that were affected by recent federal cuts passed by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress that targeted abortion providers. The funding is included in a proposed bill being considered by state lawmakers.

“Trump and his Republican enablers have waged an all-out assault on women — attacking abortion access, family-planning and reproductive health,” Rivas said in a Friday statement. “Outrage alone won’t stop it. When Trump strips funding, California will continue to act.”

The Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed last year by Trump, prohibited federal Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. California and a coalition of other Democrat-led states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last year over the provision.

More than 80% of the nearly 1.3 million annual patient visits to Planned Parenthood in California were previously reimbursed by Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage to low-income Americans.

In his recent budget proposal, Gov. Gavin Newsom allotted $60 million for reproductive healthcare. His proposal serves as a starting point for state budget negotiations.

Planned Parenthood offers a range of services, including abortions, birth control, cancer screenings and testings for sexually transmitted diseases.

The United States Justice Department has released a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

At a news conference on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

He said the release means the department has met a legal requirement passed by Congress last year.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said.

But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny over the pacing of the files’ release and redactions within the published documents.

Trump himself has been confronted with questions about his past relationship with Epstein, who cultivated a roster of influential contacts.

On Friday, Blanche dismissed rumours that the Justice Department had sought to protect powerful individuals, including Trump.

While Trump has acknowledged a years-long friendship with with the financier, he has denied any knowledge of the underage sex-trafficking ring that prosecutors say Epstein led.

“There’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information ‌of men that we know about, that we’re covering up, or that we’re not we’re choosing not to prosecute,” Blanche said. “That is not the case.”

The Justice Department had initially missed a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files.

The publication is the result of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was published in November with bipartisan support to force the release of all federal documents pertaining to Epstein.

In response to the law, the Justice Department said it had tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be blacked out to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.

Blanche said the department withheld any materials that could jeopardise ongoing investigations or expose potential victims.

All women in the Epstein files other than Ghislaine Maxwell — an ex-girlfriend who was also convicted of child sex trafficking — have been obscured from the videos and images being released on Friday, according to Blanche.

In the past, some of Epstein’s victims have slammed the department’s redactions and withholdings as excessive, with critics pointing out that previously published documents were among the files blacked out.

In December, the Justice Department released an initial batch of Epstein-related documents, though it fell short of the full publication mandated by November’s law.

That release, however, included previously unreleased flight logs showing that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s. Those trips appeared to happen before Trump has said the pair had a falling out.

The recent releases also contain images showing prominent individuals like tech billionaire Bill Gates, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, director Woody Allen and former US President Bill Clinton socialising with Epstein, sometimes on his private island.

To date, none of the individuals depicted in the releases have been charged with any crimes, outside of Maxwell.

Following her conviction in 2021, she is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she has continued to deny any wrongdoing.

Epstein died from of apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

He had previously been convicted of state sex-offender charges in Florida in 2008 as part of a plea deal that was widely slammed for its leniency. He spent a total of 13 months in custody.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, also filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of arranging sexual encounters with politicians, business titans, academics and other influential figures while she was underage.

All of the men identified by Giuffre, who died in April 2025 in Australia, have denied the allegations.

Among the people she accused was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who denied the clams but settled a lawsuit filed by Giuffre for an undisclosed sum.

In October, his brother, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles as a result of the controversy.

NEW YORK — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his accomplice, confidant and longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.

After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

Among the materials being withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of personal details about potential victims. All women other than Maxwell have been redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.

The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to roughly six million, including duplicates, the department said.

The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.

Those records included previously released flight logs showing that President Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photographs of former President Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the U.S. attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a higher-security federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

Among the people she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia last year at age 41.

Tucker, Sisak and Richer write for the Associated Press. Tucker and Richer reported from Washington.

The Los Angeles City Council has again increased what it will pay Gibson Dunn to represent it in a contentious homelessness case, bringing the law firm’s contract to nearly $7.5 million.

In mid-May, the council approved a three-year contract capped at $900,000. The law firm then billed the city $1.8 million for two weeks of legal work, with 15 of its attorneys charging nearly $1,300 per hour.

In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the council voted 9-4 to approve an increase of about $1.8 million from the current $5.7 million, with Councilmembers John Lee, Tim McOsker, Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez opposed. It was not clear why the additional money was needed.

Rodriguez said that spending resources on outside lawyers instead of complying with the settlement terms in the case is “simply a waste of public funds.”

“In the face of a mounting homelessness crisis, it’s misguided for the City to continue pouring our scarce resources into outside counsel instead of housing the most vulnerable Angelenos,” Rodriguez said in a statement.

The contract “has expanded significantly beyond its original scope,” Lee said in a statement, later adding, “I believe the Council has a duty to demand transparency and closely scrutinize costs.”

The L.A. city attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The city reached a settlement with the nonprofit LA Alliance in 2022, agreeing to create 12,915 homeless shelter beds or other housing opportunities, while also clearing thousands of encampments.

Since then, the LA Alliance has repeatedly accused the city of failing to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.

Gibson Dunn was retained by the city a week before a federal judge called a seven-day hearing to determine whether he should take authority over the city’s homelessness programs from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council. Alliance lawyers said during those proceedings that they wanted Bass and two council members to testify.

The judge later declined to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, even as he concluded that the city failed to adhere to the settlement.

Theane Evangelis, a Gibson Dunn attorney who led the firm’s LA Alliance team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has praised Gibson Dunn’s work in the LA Alliance case, saying the firm helped the city retain control over its homelessness programs while also keeping Bass and the two council members off the stand.

She commended the firm — which secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws prohibiting homeless people from camping in public spaces — for getting up to speed on the settlement, mastering a complex set of policy matters within a week.

Faced with lingering criticism from council members, Feldstein Soto agreed to help with the cost of the Gibson Dunn contract, committing $1 million from her office’s budget. The council has also tapped $4 million from the city’s “unappropriated balance,” an account for funds that have not yet been allocated.

On Thursday, Matthew D. Umhofer, an attorney who represents LA Alliance, called the Gibson Dunn contract increase “predictable.”

“It’s a taxpayer-funded debacle designed to help city officials avoid being held accountable for their failures on homelessness,” Umhofer said in a statement. “The amount will keep going up as long as the City is more interested in ending oversight than ending homelessness.”

NICOLA Peltz gets a staggering $1 million-a-month allowance from her billionaire father, according to new claims.

The actress’ husband Brooklyn Beckham may come from one of the most famous families in the world but her family have them beat when it comes to wealth. 

Peltz family patriarch Nelson, 83, has a net worth of $1.6 billion while David, 50, and 51-year-old Victoria’s combined is thought to be around half of that. 

Journalist Marina Hyde said on The Rest is Entertainment podcast: “From what I hear I think the Beckhams give Brooklyn a lot of money but not insane money and they have this dream to some degree that he will stand on his own two feet and become independent.

“Maybe Nelson Peltz would deny this but I hear that he said to them, ‘I give my daughter a million dollar a month allowance’.

“The one thing they [the Beckhams] didn’t think their children would be doing would be the ones signing the prenuptial, they thought it would be the other way round.”

wine & dine

Brooklyn & Nicola look loved up as they enjoy ‘world’s most expensive wine’

SIBLING SAGA

Nicola Peltz wanted Harper to be ‘my little sister so bad’ despite family feud

The Sun has contacted Nicola’s rep for comment.

If the claims are true, Nicola and Brooklyn appear to be enjoying spending her dad’s hard-earned cash, with them sipping on the world’s ‘most expensive wine’ during a romantic date night this week.

The Sun revealed last year how Nicola, 31, and Brooklyn, 26, had bought a £11 million Hollywood mansion – but that she is the primary owner.

And money appeared to be the beginning of the problems between the Peltz family and the Beckhams, with the former branding the latter “tight” for not matching Nelson penny for penny when it came to buying their children the home.

A source told us at the time: “Certainly, in the case of the ­Beckhams vs Peltzes, it’s proven… tricksy. David and Victoria are two working-class kids done good.

“They have grafted hard for their money and understand that with privilege comes responsibility.

“On principle, they will not needlessly spoil their kids and have taught them the value of both industry and money. They’re like Gordon and Tana Ramsay in that regard.

“So, when it came to buying this house, of course they weren’t just going to hand their son millions of pounds — what sort of message does that send?

“Nelson Peltz, on the other hand, is a billionaire investor and he and his wife Claudia regard Nicola, their little girl, as the apple of their eye.

“Understandably, they want to indulge her and ensure she never struggles — they expected the ­Beckhams, worth half a billion ­themselves, might match them penny for penny. Or, at least, chip in with financials as and when.

“That hasn’t always happened, so they are annoyed and telling people it’s a bit tight.”

The Sun revealed last week how Brooklyn had been made to sign a pre-nup before his 2022 wedding, stopping him staking a claim on any of her family’s money in the unlikely case they separate.

We also told how the Beckhams fear they won’t speak to their eldest son again while he’s married to Nicola, following his bombshell six-page social media statement.

A source said: “Despite everything that’s happened, David and Victoria still love their son.

“He will always be their boy, and there will always be a place for him in their home.

“They have tried everything in their power to mend their relationship with him and it hasn’t worked.

“Now it feels like there is no going back while he is still with Nicola.”

World-renowned composer Philip Glass abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” at the Kennedy Center, saying its message does not align with the vision for the venue under the Trump administration.

“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership,” Glass wrote Tuesday in a letter to the board that was shared with The Times.

“We have no place for politics in the arts, and those calling for boycotts based on politics are making the wrong decision,” Roma Daravi, vice president of media relations at the Kennedy Center, said in response.

President Trump has served as board chair since early last year when he fired the existing board and appointed former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as president. The newly installed board promptly installed Trump in his current position. The president’s pursuit of a deeply conservative agenda for the arts unleashed unprecedented chaos at the nation’s premiere performing arts center, resulting in massive upheaval and wave after wave of prominent artist cancellations.

The news that Glass was calling off his appearance also caught off guard the National Symphony Orchestra. The NSO commissioned the symphony in 2022 for the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary, and Glass was late to deliver. The symphony was scheduled to be performed with the NSO on June 12 and 13.

“We have great admiration for Philip Glass and were surprised to learn about his decision at the same time as the press,” Jean Davidson, the orchestra’s executive director, said in an email.

The news comes amid a growing chorus of high-profile cancellations that have occurred since the center’s board voted last month to rename the venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, and quickly added the president’s name above that of Kennedy’s on the exterior of the building.

Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of a Christmas Eve show and the jazz group the Cookers canceled two New Year’s Eve performances. Banjo player Béla Fleck also stepped away from concerts with the NSO and “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz said he no longer plans to host a May 15 gala at the center.

The arts world was rocked by the news earlier this month that the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971. Kennedy Center leadership, including Grenell, quickly shot back that it was the board that asked the WNO to depart.

“We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole — and getting worse,” Grenell wrote on social media.

Most recently, the center’s website announced that soprano Renée Fleming would no longer perform in two scheduled shows. “A scheduling conflict” was the reason cited, but speculation about the opera star’s departure swirled as the center’s artistic losses mounted amid widely reported plummeting ticket sales.

During the recent upheaval, arts watchers have begun wondering about the future of the NSO, which, along with the recently departed WNO, represents the twin pillars of artistic programming at the center.

According to Daravi, the NSO isn’t pulling out of the venue.

“The relationship is strong, and we have a wonderful season here with Maestro [Gianandrea Noseda] in his 10th year leading the NSO,” Daravi wrote in an email last week, noting the “record-breaking success at the recent Gala benefiting the NSO which launched the new season. The event raised $3.45 million, marking an all-time fundraising record for the organization.”

On Monday Trump sought to boost his financial management of the venue in a Truth Social post that read, “People don’t realize that the Trump Kennedy Center suffered massive deficits for many years and, like everything else, I merely came in to save it, and, if possible, make it far better that ever before!”

The center’s calendar is looking increasingly sclerotic as big names continue to defect, with the NSO providing much-needed padding as it moves on in the face of unending change.

ORLANDO, Fla. — President Trump’s crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nealry 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024’s almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest since 2001 and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.

Immigration increased by 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024’s increase of 2.8 million people. The census report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.

In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people, and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.

Tuesday’s data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made the surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.

The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the first half of Trump’s first year back in office.

The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration’s crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; and Minneapolis, Minn..

The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.

“They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up,” Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.

Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.

The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.

Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Brookings demographer William Frey said the bureau’s staffers appear to have been “doing this work as usual without interference.”

“So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out,” Frey said.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.