WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court granted an unusually quick hearing on President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Tuesday, putting a policy at the center of his economic agenda squarely before the nation’s highest court.
The tariffs will remain in place in the lead-up to arguments set for November, a lightning-fast timetable by the Supreme Court’s typical standards.
The court agreed to take up an appeal from the Trump administration after lower courts found most of his tariffs illegal.
The small businesses and states that challenged them also agreed to the accelerated timetable. They say Trump’s import taxes on goods from nearly every country in the world have nearly driven their businesses to bankruptcy.
Two lower courts have agreed that Trump didn’t have the power to impose tariffs on nearly every country on earth under an emergency powers law, though a 7-4 appeals court has left them in place for now.
The Trump administration asked the justices to intervene quickly, arguing the law gives him the power to regulate imports and striking down the tariffs would put the country on “the brink of economic catastrophe.”
The case will come before a court that has been reluctant to check Trump’s extraordinary flex of executive power. One big question is whether the justices’ own expansive view of presidential authority allows for Trump’s tariffs without the explicit approval of Congress, which the Constitution endows with the power to levy tariffs. Three of the justices on the conservative-majority court were nominated by Trump in his first term.
While the tariffs and their erratic rollout have raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth, Trump has also used them to pressure other countries into accepting new trade deals. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by late August, more than double what it was at the same point a year earlier.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued that the lower court rulings are already affecting those trade negotiations. If the tariffs are struck down, the U.S. Treasury might take a hit by having to refund some of the import taxes it’s collected, Trump administration officials have said. A ruling against them could even the nation’s ability to reduce the flow of fentanyl and efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sauer argued.
The administration did win over four appeals court judges who found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act lets the president regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. In recent decades, Congress has ceded some tariff authority to the president and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.
The case involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency: the tariffs first announced in April and the ones from February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.
It doesn’t include his levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, or the tariffs Trump imposed on China in his first term that were kept by Democratic President Biden.
Trump can impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act.
CBS News’ “Face the Nation” will no longer edit taped interviews after U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained about how her remarks were cut in her last appearance on the Washington-based program.
The news division said Friday that the Sunday show moderated by Margaret Brennan will only present interviews live or “live to tape” in which no edits are made. Exceptions will be made when classified national security information is inadvertently stated or language is used that violates Federal Communications Commission broadcast standards.
“In response to audience feedback over the past week, we have implemented a new policy for greater transparency in our interviews,” a CBS News representative said in a statement. “This extra measure means the television audience will see the full, unedited interview on CBS and we will continue our practice of posting full transcripts and the unedited video online.”
The representative declined to comment on the reason for the policy beyond the statement.
But the timing makes it clear that CBS News is reacting to Noem’s complaints following her Sunday appearance in which she discussed the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S., where he faces deportation efforts.
Noem wrote on X that “CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”
The comments cut from the “Face the Nation” appearance were potentially defamatory. Noem said that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 and that he solicited nude photos from minors.
“Even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off, he was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children,” Noem said in the unedited version of the interview she posted on X.
The government has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13, which he has denied. A court has described the evidence of his connection as “insufficient.”
“Face the Nation,” which has been on the air since 1954, became the focal point in a legal battle between CBS News and President Trump last year. Trump sued CBS News for $20 billion, claiming the program deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Face the Nation” ran a clip from the interview that differed from what appeared in the “60 Minutes” broadcast, which led Trump to claim that it was changed to aid Harris and damage his election chances.
Editing interviews for clarity and time restrictions of a broadcast is a common practice in TV news. While 1st Amendment experts said CBS News had done nothing wrong, parent company Paramount settled the case for $16 million to help clear the regulatory hurdles for its merger with Skydance Media. The merger was completed Aug. 7.
The policy change regarding live interviews will likely be seen as another capitulation to Trump administration, who has shown a willingness to use legal measures to punish or attempt to silence his critics in the media. It will also pose a challenge to “Face the Nation” producers who already operate in an environment where real-time fact checking can’t always keep up with the misinformation presented by guests on the program.
CBS News is expecting additional changes as Skydance is in serious talks to acquire the Free Press, the right-leaning web-based media company founded by former New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss.
The deal is said to be nearing completion, according to people familiar with the discussions, and would include a prominent role for Weiss at CBS News, even though she has no experience in running a TV news organization.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles amounted to costly political theater, saddling taxpayers with a nearly $120-million bill.
Newsom’s office said the newly revealed price tag was tallied from estimates provided by the California National Guard about costs incurred since June, when Trump sent more than 4,200 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. That included $71 million for food and other basic necessities, $37 million in payroll, $4 million in logistic supplies, $3.5 million in travel and $1.5 million in demobilization costs, Newsom’s office said.
Most of the soldiers were sent home in August, although 300 remain in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco barred soldiers from aiding immigration arrests in a scathing opinion that amounted to a major win for California and other states critical of the Trump administration’s deployments. Newsom filed a preliminary injunction after the ruling asking that the court block a new order from the U.S. Secretary of Defense that extended the deployment of 300 National Guard members in Los Angeles until after the election in November.
“Let us not forget what this political theater is costing us all — millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain and an atrophy to the readiness of guardsmembers across the nation and unnecessary hardships to the families supporting those troops,” Newsom said in a statement. “Talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. We ask other states to do the math themselves.”
In Washington, D.C., where Trump has deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital, city leaders filed a lawsuit earlier this week. That lawsuit said more than 2,200 National Guard troops are in Washington D.C., where they are seen dressed in military fatigues and carrying rifles around national monuments. Soldiers are seen picking up trash, laying down mulch and chatting aimlessly as they patrol.
Trump has warned that he intends to expand his use of military forces in other cities.
WASHINGTON — President Trump affirmed that the United States will keep a robust military presence in Poland as he had a warm meeting Wednesday with Karol Nawrocki, the new president of the American ally in Europe.
Trump had taken the unusual step of endorsing Nawrocki in the Polish elections this year, and as the leaders sat side by side in the White House, Trump said the U.S.-Polish relationship has always been strong but “now it’s better than ever.”
Asked by a reporter whether the U.S. planned to continue placing troops in Poland, Trump said that the U.S. would and that “we’ll put more there if they want.”
“We’ll be staying in Poland. We’re very much aligned with Poland,” Trump said.
The visit to Washington is Nawrocki’s first overseas trip since taking office last month. The former amateur boxer and historian, who was backed by the conservative Law and Justice party, was hoping to deepen his relationship with Trump at a fraught moment for Warsaw.
Nawrocki thanked Trump for his support and in a nod to the bonds between their countries, gave a particular hello to the millions of Polish Americans in the U.S.
“Those relations for me, for Poland, for Poles, are very important,” Nawrocki said.
He added that those bonds are based on shared values of independence and democracy.
Trump said he was proud to have endorsed Nawrocki and lauded him for winning his election.
“It was a pretty tough race, pretty nasty race, and he beat them all. And he beat them all very easily, and now he’s become even more popular as they got to know him and know him better,” Trump said.
Trump is increasingly frustrated by his inability to get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to sit down for direct talks aimed at ending their war. Both nations are Poland’s neighbors.
Trump last month met with Putin in Alaska and then with Zelensky and several European leaders at the White House. The Republican president emerged from those engagements confident that he would be able to quickly arrange direct talks between Putin and Zelensky and perhaps three-way talks in which he would participate.
But his optimism in hatching an agreement to end the war has dimmed as Putin has yet to signal an interest in sitting down with Zelensky.
“Maybe they have to fight a little longer,” Trump said in an interview with the conservative Daily Caller published over the weekend. “You know, just keep fighting — stupidly, keep fighting.”
There is also heightened anxiety in Poland, and across Europe, about Trump’s long-term commitment to a strong U.S. force posture on the continent — an essential deterrent to Russia.
Some key advisors in his administration have advocated for shifting U.S. troops and military from Europe to the Indo-Pacific to focus on China, the United States’ most significant strategic and economic competitor. About 8,200 American troops are stationed in Poland, but the force level regularly fluctuates, according to the Pentagon.
“The stakes are very high for President Nawrocki’s visit,” said Peter Doran, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Trump will have an opportunity to size up Poland’s new president, and Nawrocki also will have the chance to do the same. Failure in this meeting would mean a pullback of American force posture in Poland, and success would mean a clear endorsement of Poland as one of America’s most important allies on the front line.”
When Nawrocki arrived at the White House, Trump gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder and stood with him as they watched U.S. military jets soaring over the South Lawn.
A group of F-16s flew in a missing man formation as a tribute to a Polish air force F-16 pilot, Maj. Maciej “Slab” Krakowian, who died in a crash in Poland on Aug. 28.
“Thank you for this gesture,” Nawrocki later told Trump.
Trump made clear before Poland’s election in the spring that he wanted Nawrocki to win, dangling the prospect of closer military ties if the Poles elected Nawrocki. Trump even hosted him at the White House before the vote.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also traveled to Poland shortly before Poland’s May election to tell Poles if they elected Nawrocki and other conservatives they would have a strong ally in Trump who would “ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values.”
Ultimately, Polish voters chose Nawrocki over liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski in a tight election.
Most of the power in Poland’s legislative system rests with an elected Parliament and a government chosen by the lawmakers. The president can veto legislation and represents the country abroad. Nawrocki has tense relations with the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, an ally of Trzaskowski.
Nawrocki has echoed some of Trump’s language on Ukraine.
He promises to continue Poland’s support for Ukraine but has been critical of Zelensky, accusing him of taking advantage of allies. Nawrocki has accused Ukrainian refugees of taking advantage of Polish generosity and vowed to prioritize Poles for social services such as healthcare and schooling.
At the same time, Nawrocki will be looking to emphasize to Trump that Russian aggression in Ukraine underscores that Putin can’t be trusted and that a strong U.S. presence in Poland remains an essential deterrent, said Heather Conley, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on transatlantic security and geopolitics.
Russia and ally Belarus are set to hold joint military exercises this month in Belarus, unnerving Poland as well as fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Latvia and Lithuania.
“The message Nawrocki ultimately wants to give President Trump is how dangerous Putin’s revisionism is, and that it does not necessarily end with Ukraine,” Conley said.
Madhani and Price write for the Associated Press. AP writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is praising a U.S. strike on a boat suspected of carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean.
President Trump said Tuesday that 11 people were killed aboard the boat that had departed Venezuela, which is located near Trinidad and Tobago.
“I, along with most of the country, am happy that the U.S. naval deployment is having success in their mission,” Persad-Bissessar said in a statement late Tuesday. “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the U.S. military should kill them all violently.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the drugs aboard the vessel were likely headed to Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Persad-Bissessar said that restricting illegal guns, drugs and human trafficking would decrease violence in the Caribbean region and the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, which has imposed two state of emergencies in recent months.
“Our country has been ravaged by bloody violence and addiction because of the greed of the cartels,” Persad-Bissessar said. “The slaughter of our people is fueled by evil cartel traffickers.”
Other Caribbean leaders were more reserved in their remarks.
Barbados Today, a local news site, quoted Barbadian Foreign Minister Kerrie Symmonds as saying that foreign ministers within Caricom, a 15-member regional trade bloc, wrote to Rubio to ensure that future military operations within the Caribbean don’t occur without prior notice or explanation.
“What effectively we are trying to do is to work through the diplomatic channels of making sure that there are no surprises and practices, so that you get notification wherever it is feasible for actions that are going to have a foreseeable regional impact,” Symmonds was quoted as saying.
He said that ongoing dialogue would “avoid misunderstandings, and we can maintain and strengthen our mutual confidence with each other.”
Trump has said that the vessel targeted in the strike in international waters was operated by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. The White House didn’t immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members.
The strike came after the U.S. announced last month that it planned to boost its maritime force in waters off Venezuela to fight threats from Latin American drug cartels.
I don’t know how I managed to beat COVID-19 for so long, even as family, friends and colleagues got hit with the coronavirus. Although I took precautions from the beginning, with masking and vaccinations, I was also out in public a lot for work and travel.
But my luck has finally run out, and it must have been the air travel that did me in. I returned from a cross-country trip with a razor blade sore throat and a stubborn headache, followed by aches and pains.
The first test was positive.
I figured it had to be wrong, given my super-immunity track record.
The second test was even more positive.
So I’ve been quarantined in a corner of the house, reaching alternately for Tylenol and the thermometer. Everything is a little fuzzy, making it hard to distinguish between the real and the imagined.
For instance, how can it be true that just as I get COVID for the first time, the news is suddenly dominated by COVID-related stories?
It has to be a fever-induced hallucination. There’s no other way to explain why, as COVID surges yet again with another bugger of a strain, the best tool against the virus — vaccine — is under full assault by the leaders of the nation.
They are making it harder, rather than easier, to get medicine recommended by the overwhelming majority of the legitimate, non-crackpot wing of the medical community.
Under the new vaccine policies, prices are up. Permission from doctors is needed. Depending on your age or your home state, you could be out of luck.
Meanwhile, President Trump fired Susan Monarez, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, essentially for putting her own professional integrity and commitment to public service above crackpot directives from a cabal of vaccine skeptics.
My eyes are red and burning, but can COVID be entirely to blame?
I got a booster before my travels, even though I knew it might not stand up to the new strain of COVID. It’s possible I have a milder case than I might have had without the vaccine. But on that question and many others, as new waves keep coming our way, wouldn’t the smart move be more research rather than less?
Trump downplayed the virus when it first surfaced in 2019 and 2020. Then he blamed it on China. He resisted masking, and lemmings by the thousands got sick and died. Then he got COVID himself. At one point, he recommended that people get the vaccine.
Now he’s putting on the brakes?
My headache is coming back, my eyes are still burning, and unless my Tylenol is laced with LSD, I think I just saw a clip in which Kennedy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in 10 minutes.
I appreciate the health and fitness plug, and because Kennedy and I are the same age — 71 — it’s impressive to see him in the gym.
But there’s something that has to be said about the Kennedy-Hegseth workout tape:
They’re cheating.
Take a look for yourself, and don’t be fooled by the tight T-shirts worn by these two homecoming kings.
Those were not full chin-ups or push-ups.
Not even close.
Cutting corners is the wrong message to send to the nation’s children, or to any age group. And how is anyone going to make it to the gym if they come down with COVID because they couldn’t get vaccinated?
Honestly, the whole thing has to be a fever dream I’m having, because in the middle of the workout, Kennedy said, and I quote, “It was President Trump who inspired us to do this.”
He is many things, President Trump. Fitness role model is not one of them, no matter how many times he blasts out of sand traps on company time.
Getting back to cutting corners, Kennedy said in slashing mRNA research that “we have studied the science,” with a news release link to a 181-page document purportedly supporting his claim that the vaccines “fail to protect effectively.”
That document was roundly eviscerated by hordes of scientists who were aghast at the distortions and misinterpretations by Kennedy.
“It’s either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” said Jake Scott, an infectious-disease physician and Stanford University professor, writing for the media company STAT. “Kennedy is using evidence that refutes his own position to justify dismantling tools we’ll desperately need when the next pandemic arrives.”
I lost my sense of smell a few days ago, but even I can tell you that stinks.
CHRONIC shortages of builders, plumbers and plasterers are making it ever harder to build the homes, schools and hospitals we need.
But today we publish a Government-backed list of construction apprenticeships to help YOU learn a trade, whatever your age or background.
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Below, we share 100 apprenticeships available across the country, pictured apprentice success story 18-year-old Brooke KnightCredit: Sun Newspapers Ltd
Teen bricklayer’s message to unemployed young Brits as thousands urged to learn skills for the housing trade
North West
Business Administrator Apprentice
Watson Construction Ltd
Motivated individual to join our small, supportive team to help us deliver a great service to our clients and their homeowners.
You will support the team with enquiries, admin tasks and aftercare, whilst learning on the job.
If you’re organised, friendly and ready to grow with a leader homebuilder we want to hear from you.
£18,000 a year.
Salford (M7 2ZS). Closes Sep 19, start Sep 29.
Apprentice Construction Maintenance Operative
Edward Anthony Ltd
Enthusiastic individual who wants to learn and train.
Role requires physical labour such as lifting, carrying materials, assisting set-up/close down of work areas, ability to take direction to ensure safe working standards, and ability to work as a team.
Role is predominantly a labouring position.
£11,778 for first year, then could rise depending on your age.
Birkenhead, Wirral (CH41 9AH).
Closes Sep 12, start Sep 15.
Building Materials Apprenticeship
Joseph Parr (Alco) Ltd
Designed for supply-chain warehouse operative who wants to be upskilled to understand and get involved in the entire distribution operation, including picking, loading, unloading, booking in, safety and recycling and virtual learning. £17,667 a year.
Manchester (M27 8SN).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 2.
Bench Joiner
A J & D Chapelhow (Cliburn) Ltd
Seeking a motivated, detail-oriented apprentice to join our team specialising in manufacture of high-quality timber windows and doors.
Will have a strong interest in woodworking, basic understanding of joinery tools and technique, and commitment to developing practical skills in a workshop environment.
£15,704 a year.
Penrith, Cumbria (CA10 3AL).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 2.
Apprentice Bricklayer
MSP Projects Ltd
Enthusiastic individual to join our growing team and learn from industry experts.
Work toward your Level 2 bricklayer apprenticeship qualification, in a close team.
Wage, £11,778 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Knutsford, Cheshire (WA16 8RW).
Closes Sep 23, start Sep 29.
Apprentice Landscaper
Ashbourne Garden and Property Maintenance
Motivated, hardworking apprentice to join our team.
Role involves cutting grass, trimming hedges, and weeding.
Candidate should have a passion for outdoor work, a keen eye for detail, and a desire to learn and grow in the landscaping industry.
£14,526.20 a year.
Stockport (SK7 6DW).
Closes Oct 1, start Oct 6.
Apprentice Landscape Gardener
Distinctive Gardens Ltd
Learn how to design, build and maintain outdoor spaces, combining practical skills with creative design to create gardens, driveways and landscaped areas.
£15,600 a year.
Lancaster (LA2 0RD).
Closes Sept 28, start Oct 13.
Business Administration Apprentice
Construction Resources
Specialist recruitment company within the built environment sector seeks a motivated, organised apprentice to support our team with a variety of administrative and operational tasks.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Liverpool (L22 0PJ).
Closes Sep 30, start Oct 4.
Apprentice Fenestration Installer (Level 2)
Everglaze Ltd
Installers here often work as part of small teams, on jobs for small shop owners, landlords, tenants and home owners, or on large-scale projects for developers.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Wigan (WN5 8QJ).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 15.
Business Administrator Apprentice
Watson Construction Ltd
Motivated individual to join our small, supportive team to help us deliver a great service to our clients and their homeowners.
Support the team with handling enquiries, admin tasks and aftercare – all while learning on the job.
If you’re an organised person, friendly and ready to grow with a leader homebuilder, we want to hear from you.
£18,000 a year.
Salford (M7 2ZS).
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 29.
Apprentice Stonemason
Bullen Conservation Ltd
Excellent opportunity for an apprentice with a conservation business specialising in heritage skills.
£15,311.40 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Oldham (OL1 3NN).
Closes Sep 21. Start to be determined.
B&Q Customer Advisor Apprenticeship
Bamber Bridge
Become an expert advisor, who gets to know each customer and their home-improvement project.
Sales is important, of course, as is managing stock, setting up displays and keeping a shop looking great.
£10,575 a year.
Preston (PR5 6BZ).
Closes Sept 2, start Sep 9.
Grounds & Garden Apprentice
Sedbergh School, Cumbria
The gardening team here provide pupils, staff and visitors with gardens commensurate with Sedbergh’s long- standing reputation as a leading independent school.
Tasks will vary daily, determined by the assistant grounds manager or head gardener and will include use of hand tools and light machinery to maintain the gardens.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Sedbergh (LA10 5HG).
Closes Sep 7, start Sep 22.
‘Opening for military vets and ex-offenders’
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Roger Morton, Director of Business Change at the NHBC, said: ‘The industry needs more than 250,000 construction workers by 2028 to meet demand and build the 10,000 new homes we need’Credit: supplied
TO match the Government’s £100million for training courses, the National House Building Council is injecting the same.
They are looking to get more young people into construction, but also other groups including ex-military and people who have been in prison.
Roger Morton, Director of Business Change at the NHBC, said: “The industry needs more than 250,000 construction workers by 2028 to meet demand and build the 10,000 new homes we need. We need 2,500 brickies, 2,500 groundworkers and 1,000 carpenters and that’s why we’re investing £100million. We’re investing in 12 new NHBC multi-skilled training hubs across the country, to support 3,000 apprenticeships each year. We are targeting young people but also career changers, veterans, ex-offenders. We provide a unique, immersive facility where we can train people in 14 to 18 months, many with distinctions. That’s nearly twice as fast as traditional routes.
“We need to change perception so people see that being a trade is a great career. The average bricklayer earns £50,000, and they might progress to management, senior management, director. A colleague began as an apprentice and runs a 230-strong department.”
North East
Groundworker Apprentice
WL Straughan & Son
Seeking a keen, willing-to-learn apprentice to learn all aspects of the trade.
£15,311.40 a year.
Bedlington Lane Farm, Northumberland (NE22 6AA).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 15.
Property Maintenance Apprentice
Simpson & Hill Construction Ltd
Be part of a well-established and highly recommended building company based in Stokesley, North Yorks that covers all aspects of construction throughout Co Durham & North Yorks.
Looking for an apprentice to a busy team.
£15,311.40 a year.
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Machining/Tool Room Apprentice
Freudenberg Sealing Technologies Ltd
Earn as you learn with this major employer.
Training is underpinned by practical experience.
£14,526.20 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
North Shields, Tyne and Wear (NE27 0QH).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Joiner
Andy Dunbar Joinery
Work for a premium company, experts in bespoke design and manufacture of handmade architectural joinery.
Looking for an apprentice to join a busy team.
£14,918.80 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Middlesbrough (TS2 1DY).
Closes Sep 8, start Sep 15.
Conventional Machining Apprentice
Clifton Engineering (NE) Ltd
Fantastic opportunity for a manual machining apprentice to join this fantastic team based in Morpeth, and earn while you learn.
Your training will be underpinned with practical experience which will prepare you for an exciting career.
Wage, £14,526.20 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Northumberland (NE61 6JN).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 13.
Signage Apprentice Technician
Alan Rowe Signs and Graphics
Offering a route into a potential full-time career within a family-run business.
We specialise in creating signs and custom graphics for vehicles, with over 40 years’ experience.
Offering the opportunity to work in a hands-on role within the business and achieve a qualification in the process.
£17,550 a year.
Tyne and Wear (NE6 4QL).
Closes Sep 12, Start Sep 15.
Groundwork Apprentice
Meldrum Group
Northern Skills are recruiting for Meldrum Group.
This will allow you to gain on-the-job experience while studying toward a Level 2 property maintenance apprenticeship qualification.
£15,311.40 a year.
Stockton-on-Tees (TS18 3TX).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 9.
Apprentice Design & Development Engineer
Elfab Ltd
Learn and develop skills within a range of engineering, technical and design expertise.
Duties include concept feasibility, design, development, launch and production.
Additional activities include rapid prototyping, assembly, testing, validating and performance analysis.
£14,918.80 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
North Shields, Tyne and Wear (NE29 8SD).
Closes Sep 13, start Sep 22.
Administrative Apprentice
In Charge Construction Ltd
Northern Skills are recruiting on behalf of In Charge Construction Limited who are looking for a motivated candidate to join their team.
Learn the role of a business administrator while also gaining a qualification.
£14,918.80 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Darlington (DL1 4FA).
Closes Sep 29, start Oct 6.
Wood Product Manufacturing Apprentice
Balmoral Joinery
Passionate about working with your hands to create quality wood products?
Join our Wood Product Manufacturing Apprenticeship at Balmoral Joinery and gain experience in a dynamic environment.
Grow your skills, master your craft, and become part of a team that values tradition, precision and innovation.
£15,311.40 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Swalwell, Tyne and Wear (NE16 3AD).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 15.
Welder Fabricator Apprentice
Shell Engineering
Work with metals including steel and aluminium, learning welding, fabrication and use of precision tools.
£14,918.80 a year.
Chester-le-Street, Co Durham (DH2 1AJ).
Closes Sep 6, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Welder/Fabricator
Bulkhaul Ltd
Looking for an enthusiastic, reliable, punctual candidate, ideally in their second year of college.
This role requires a strong work ethic, attention to detail, and to be able to follow safety protocols.
There is the opportunity of a full-time role upon completion, pending a review of progress/performance while on the apprenticeship.
£17,680 a year.
Middlesbrough (TS2 1PS).
Closes Sep 3, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Welding and Workshop Technician
Aliweld Ltd
Be responsible for supporting fabrication and assembly of aluminium tipper and waggon bodies under the supervision of experienced welders.
Ideal for someone with a keen interest in engineering, a strong work ethic and desire to learn and grow in a skilled trade.
A great opportunity for an enthusiastic individual to join a busy office team.
The apprentice will help with a broad range of administrative tasks covering many aspects of the business.
£13,741 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Darlington (DL1 4FA).
Closes Sep 12, start Oct 1.
‘I love to learn and earn’
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Tegan Pryor, 23, from Shefford, Beds, said: ‘I started training as a bricklayer three years ago and honestly, I’ve never looked back’Credit: supplied
SHE is sleight of figure, so many think Tegan Pryor is joking when she tells them she’s a builder.
But having ditched a leisure-centre job to study bricklaying at college, the hard grafter is now backing our Build A Better Britain campaign to urge more young people to take up a trade.
Tegan, 23, from Shefford, Beds, said: “I started training as a bricklayer three years ago and honestly, I’ve never looked back.
“It is 100 per cent the right career for me. I was a lifeguard and receptionist at a leisure centre before but there wasn’t much career opportunity, it felt like a dead end.
“Now, I get to work outdoors and have a laugh with my colleagues – and I’m not treated any differently because I’m a woman.
“There is respect, and I learn something new every day.
“I’m on about £130 a day for an eight-and-a-half hour shift and some days it’s hard, but it’s also satisfying when you look back on what you achieved.
“The average wage for a bricklayer is about £50,000 a year and that’s what I’m heading towards.”
Yorkshire & The Humber
Apprentice Construction Quantity Surveyor
Sum ADR Limited
Join this independent consultancy adjudication/Q/S firm.
Role combines on-the-job training with structured learning to gain job-specific skills.
Earn a wage and receive holiday pay, while working alongside experienced staff and dedicating time to relevant study.
£15,704 to £25,396.80 a year.
Wetherby, West Yorks (LS23 6FJ). Closes Sep 11, start Oct 30.
Apprentice Assistant Site (Level 3) Manager
Greenchurch Developments
Apprenticeship agency EN:Able Futures has teamed up with Greenchurch Developments to offer this exciting opportunity.
If you want to work with a company that values quality, whilst gaining a nationally recognised qualification, apply today.
£15,704 a year.
Doncaster (DN6 8QA).
Closes Sep 11, start Sep 15.
Building Services Design Engineer Apprentice
Hoare Lea LLP
Collaborate with the industry’s best, working with a wide range of specialists.
Be part of progressive and exciting projects, able to experience innovative schemes across all sectors.
Advance your career, your way, thanks to our structured career paths framework.
Wage £24,250 a year. Leeds (LS2 8LY). Closes Oct 31, start Jan 3.
Apprentice Construction Site Supervisor
Greenchurch Developments
Apprenticeship agency EN:Able Futures has partnered with Greenchurch Developments to offer this opportunity to work for their company.
If you are wanting to work with a company that values quality, whilst working towards a nationally recognised qualification. £16,881.80 a year.
Doncaster (DN6 8QA).
Closes Sep 11, start Sep 15.
Construction Management Apprenticeship
Lovell Regen
Partnered with Lovell Regen, EN:Able Futures is offering an exciting opportunity to earn while you learn, whilst working toward a Level 3 construction support technician qualification.
£15,410 a year.
Doncaster (DN6 8QA).
Closes Sep 4, start Sep 8.
Business Administration Apprentice
Dutton FM
Exciting opportunity to work for Dutton Group, specifically facility managers Dutton FM, as a business administrator within a small team, friendly team.
£14,918.80 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Wakefield, West Yorks (WF1 2ED).
Closes Sep 6, start Sep 8.
Engineering Fitter Apprentice
Trivent
Long-standing manufacturer of kitchen ventilation systems is looking for the newest engineering talent to join its operation in Leeds.
This apprenticeship leads you to become a skilled engineer within the company’s mechanical fitting department.
Candidates must be 18-plus, due to the nature of work.
£14,918.80 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Leeds (LS11 0EF).
Closes Sep 2, start Sep 8.
Apprentice Assistant Site Manager (Level 3)
Huber Parking
Apprenticeship agency EN:Able Futures are partnering with Huber Parking to look for an apprentice manager to join their busy team.
Working on the Calderdale Royal Hospital site, you will learn everything to get you through your nationally recognised qualification. £16,588 a year.
Halifax, West Yorks (HX3 0PW).
Closes Sep 11, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Construction Site Supervisor
GS Kelsey Construction
Apprenticeship employer EN:Able Futures are partnering with GS Kelsey to support the delivery of new-build housing.
Fantastic opportunity for an apprentice to become part of a growing team.
£16,784 a year.
Rotherham, South Yorks (S66 8DW).
Closes Sep 26, start Sep 29.
‘You can make £300 a day’
5
Lucas, 25, from Nottingham, did a two-and-a-half year bricklaying course at Derby CollegeCredit: Paul Tonge
HE was toying with going to university but the prospect of three more years’ book study, and the debt, swung Lucas Robinson to learn a trade.
Lucas, 25, from Nottingham, did a two-and-a-half year bricklaying course at Derby College, while working on sites for his employer at £170 a week.
He said of bricklaying: “I’ve been doing this for four years and the company I work for is all over the country. Bricklaying is what you make of it. You can start at 8am, finish at 3pm and make £300 a day, depending on the deal. I’ve been doing ‘price bricklaying’ for a while, paid 65p a brick and about £150 a day, but I hear you can make £1 a brick in London.
“Eight hours is a long day carrying bricks and it can be stressful when things are not going right, but I love my job. My dad’s a bricklayer too.
“My mum wanted to push me down the uni route, but I decided on a different path and I’m so happy.
“Looking at a house and thinking, I built that and people are going to live in it, it’s a good feeling.”
East Midlands
Estimator
FP McCann
Undertake the tasks involved within the estimating process, from measuring and doing take-offs, to producing quotations for external customers.
An estimator creates quotations based on drawings, listing products and costs for customer orders.
£14,722.50 to £23,809.50, depending on your age.
Derbyshire (DE6 4PH).
Closes Sep 10, start Sep 30.
Apprentice Fabricator/Welder Metal Fabricator
James Engineering
We pride ourselves on family values – the company was founded by the grandfather of the current owner.
Our mission is simple: to provide high-quality services without compromising on quality.
We are seeking an apprentice fabricator/welder to join our team.
Learn all aspects of steel- welding including MIG, TIG and MMA.
Wage £17,238 a year.
Alfreton (DE55 7JR).
Closes Sep 12, start Sep 15.
Maintenance Apprentice Engineer
Gordon Ellis & Co
Opportunity for an enthusiastic apprentice to join our maintenance team.
The successful candidate will work alongside our skilled maintenance engineers to develop a broad range of practical engineering skills.
£17,550 a year.
Derby (DE74 2PY).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 2.
Warehouse Operative Apprentice
International Abrasives Ltd
Join our growing business where hard work is recognised and development encouraged.
Pick, pack and ship orders, unload and restock deliveries, keep the warehouse organised and support stock control.
A strong work ethic is essential.
£14,133.60 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Leicester (LE9 6TJ).
Closes Sep 16, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Estimator
James Engineering Constructions Ltd
Opportunity to join this family business.
You will be part of the estimating team, working in a busy office, supporting the supervisor and sales director.
£17,162.60 a year.
Alfreton (DE55 7JR).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Cabinet Maker
Alias Industries Ltd
Enrol on a furniture- manufacturing apprenticeship with Leicester College.
You will be trained as a cabinet maker/bench joiner, working in a modern workshop environment to produce high-end, bespoke furniture and displays for domestic and retail sectors.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase.
Peckleton, Leicester (LE9 7RN).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 8.
Hardware Engineer Apprentice
Brick Ltd
You will help construction colleagues to get the most value from their tech tools, rectifying any faults and providing advice about a wide range of hardware and related software.
We are looking for someone who has great hardware knowledge as well as impressive customer service skills.
£20,000 a year. Leicestershire (LE67 6HS).
Closes Sep 23, start Oct 1.
Health, Safety and Environment Apprentice
Mecc Alte (UK) Ltd
Exciting opportunity for a motivated apprentice to work within our Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (GHSE) department to help ensure that compliance measures are adhered to within the company.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Full-time employment, with day-release training, offering a competitive salary and 21 days’ paid holiday as well as bank holidays.
Based in Northampton, Metrol Springs is the UK’s largest manufacturer of gas springs.
Metrol is part of the PLC Lesjofors Group.
Our group includes almost 40 manufacturing and sales companies in many countries.
£19,760 a year.
Northampton (NN3 6QF).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 8.
Apprentice Construction Site Supervisor
GS Kelsey Construction
Apprenticeship employer EN:Able Futures is partnering with GS Kelsey Construction to support delivery of new-build housing.
This is a fantastic opportunity for an apprentice to become part of a dynamic and growing team.
£16,784 a year.
Scunthorpe, Lincs (DN16 2HF).
Closes Sep 26, start Sep 29.
‘I’m problem solving daily’
5
Dan Smoker has been a builder for 18 years and reckons the trade is going from strength to strengthCredit: supplied
DILIGENT Dan Smoker has been a builder for 18 years and reckons the trade is going from strength to strength so there’s good money to be made for those with the right skills.
Dan, 34, from Epsom, Surrey, said: “I did bricklaying at college and after that went into being a multi-trader.
“Now I run my own company and business is good. If someone needs a new kitchen or bathroom, they call me.
“I work on word-of-mouth so don’t have to advertise, and my niche is the maintenance side of things. It’s been a fantastic career for me because you rarely work for the same person and you’re dealing with a range of issues and problems.
“You are problem-solving every day and the bit I like is when you do the work, stand back and see the customer is happy. You feel really proud of what you’ve done. It’s a feeling of immense satisfaction.
“You’ve got to turn up, want to learn the craft then do it properly, and it will come – all the trades are on the up right now.”
West Midlands
Apprentice Joiner Carpenter (Level 2)
Middleton Traditional Joinery Ltd
Looking to recruit a motivated apprentice to support our growing business needs.
Your role will allow you to gain hands-on experience working alongside skilled professionals, learning the craft of carpentry and the processes involved in producing precision-manufactured components.
We are seeking someone who takes pride in their work.
£15,704 a year. West Coppice Road,
Walsall (WS8 7HB).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 8.
Plumbing & Heating Apprentice (Level 3)
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
A great opportunity to work alongside our existing Trades staff, getting hand-on experience and travelling across Sandwell.
You will be trained in all aspects of plumbing and domestic heating work, such as installing bathrooms and kitchens, replacing pipework and fixing leaks and repairs – all whilst undertaking a Level 3 qualification.
Wage £14,526.20 a year.
Oldbury (B69 3ES).
Closes Sep 12, start Nov 3.
Apprentice Construction Site Supervisor
GS Kelsey Construction
Partnering with award-winning apprenticeship employer EN:Able Futures, this new-build housing provider is offering a fantastic opportunity for you to become part of their growing team.
£16,784 a year.
Gainsborough, Lincs (DN21 1SJ).
Closes Sep 26, start Sep 29.
Apprentice Grounds Maintenance Operative
Brass Facilities
Seeking an apprentice to join our hardworking mobile gardening department that works on our various contracts in the Midlands Area.
The successful candidate will be cutting grass and hedges and dealing with maintenance duties.
£16,640 a year.
Wednesbury (WS10 0PD).
Closes Sep 5, start date Sep 8.
Bricklayer Apprentice (Level 2)
All Britain Construction Ltd
Join a driven construction team with an impressive client portfolio.
This is a full-time position, in an environment that will allow the right person to unlock their potential.
If you have the right attitude – either with the experience or determination to learn how to perform and grow with a winning team – then this is the role for you.
£15,704 a year.
Worcester (WR5 2PT).
Closes tomorrow, start Oct 1.
Apprentice Production Technician.
Narros Aisle Ltd
Looking for an apprentice to work as part of a skilled team, in a dynamic and growing company.
Narros Aisle Ltd are recruiting for our team at our production facility in the West Midlands.
You will play a crucial role within the production unit, ensuring that products meet our high-quality standards.
The role will involve you in learning about assembly, maintenance and repair of our forklift trucks.
£15,311.40 a year.
Tipton (DY4 7AU).
Closes Sep 4, start Sep 18.
Apprentice Carpenter
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
This is a fantastic opportunity to work alongside our existing trades staff, getting hands-on carpentry experience while travelling across the Sandwell Borough.
You will be trained in all aspects of carpentry work while undertaking a Level 2 apprenticeship qualification.
£14,526.20 a year.
Oldbury (B69 3ES).
Closes Sep 12, start Nov 3.
Apprentice Painter & Decorator (Level 2)
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
Great opportunity to work alongside our existing trades staff, getting hands-on experience and travelling across the Sandwell borough.
You will be trained in all aspects of painting and decorating, whilst undertaking a Level 2 qualification.
Wage £14,526.20 a year.
Oldbury (B69 3ES).
Closes Sep 12, start Nov 3.
Engineering and Manufacturing Support Technician Apprentice (Level 3)
Hadley Group
Looking for a metal-forming manufacturing technician apprentice to gain the knowledge and competence required to effectively operate at semi-skilled or skilled operator status.
You will carry out a range of engineering and manufacturing processes within the cold-rolling environment.
£15,743 a year.
West Midlands (B66 2PA).
Closes Sep 2, start Sep 15.
Production Operative Apprentice
Frederick Cooper
Looking for someone excited to start their successful career in the manufacturing sector, with opportunity to specialise in several different roles including wet-paint spraying, powder-coating, polishing, business administration and more.
£15,392 a year.
Birmingham (B9 4TS).
Closes Sep 8, start Sep 29.
Landscaping Apprentice
Flagstone and Flora Ltd
Experience all aspects of landscaping, including laying slabs, setting levels and installing decking.
Learn about paving, fencing, and woodwork, and brick and block work to build retaining walls, garden walls and raised beds.
£15,704 for the first year, then could increase depending on age.
Evesham, Worcs (WR11 8PR).
Closes Sep 2, start Sep 9.
East of England
Apprentice Electrical Draughtsman
Nordson Test & Inspection
The company has a strong portfolio of award-winning products for destructive and non-destructive mechanical testing, as well as the inspection of electronic components.
If you are keen on building your knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering, then join our research and development team in Colchester and experience product innovation first hand.
£14,820.65 to £23,968.23 a year.
Essex (CO4 9AS).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 8.
Apprentice Fitter (Level 3)
DXB Pump & Power Ltd
We are a leading pump-manufacturing company focusing on their customers.
Our main objective is to design and manufacture high-quality pump sets that offer outstanding reliability.
We have a reputation for exceptional customer service, backed by a large selection of quality pump products.
£19,500 a year.
Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk (IP30 9HR).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Sheet Metal Worker
Fine Line Sheet Metal Engineering Ltd
Start your career with a well-established sheet-metal engineering company.
As an apprentice, you’ll receive hands-on training, develop a wide range of practical skills, and gain a solid understanding of the industry.
With guidance from experienced professionals, you’ll build the foundations for a rewarding and long-term career in engineering.
£15,704 to £25,396.80 a year.
Essex (CM7 2YN).
Closes Sep 3, start Sep 4.
Multi-Skilled Engineering Apprentice
Trivium Packaging
Swarm Group is working with Trivium Packaging in their search for a Level 3 maintenance and operations engineering technician apprentice.
This is an excellent opportunity to work within a robust work environment and gain valuable skills to become a multi-skilled engineer.
£20,000 a year.
Norwich (NR7 9AZ).
Closes Sep 10, start Sep 15.
Apprenticeship in CNC Machining (four years)
NE Engineering
Fast-growing manufacturing facility that offers the ideal environment for candidates to learn the required skills in Computer Numerical Control (CNC) manufacturing.
The successful candidate will be trained to set, operate and programme the latest technology.
This is an ideal opportunity for someone to get into engineering.
Competitive wage.
Norwich (NR13 6LJ).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 8.
Engineering Technician Apprenticeship (Level 3)
TML Precision Engineering Ltd
You will become integral to an already established team, and be exposed to all areas of the business to grow and develop knowledge and expertise.
£15,311.40 to £24,761.88, depending on your age.
Hethel, Norfolk (NR14 8QR). Closes Sep 12, start Jan 1.
Apprentice Plumbing and Domestic Heating Technician
SA Tooley Ltd
Shadowing/assisting qualified engineers, to develop your skills and knowledge in all aspects of the plumbing and domestic heating work carried out by the company.
£15,704 to £25,396.80, depending on your age.
Scratby, Norfolk (NR29 3LW).
Closes Sep 12, start Jan 1.
Estimating Apprentice
Loughton Contracts PLC
Seeking a motivated and detail-orientated individual to support our fit-out estimating and sales team in preparing accurate, cost-effective bids for commercial flooring projects.
This is an exciting entry-level opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a fast-paced, high-performing environment, working within the construction industry.
£15,500 a year.
Loughton, Essex (IG10 3FL).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Plasterer
Training and Apprenticeships in Construction Ltd.
This is a full plastering course, not just skimming.
The apprentice will be learning the following: mixing techniques, material- estimation handling and stick-management, defect repair, floating and beading techniques, rendering, base-coat application and scratch coats, dry-lining, jointing, levelling compounds, screeds and much more.
£14,526.20 to £23,492.04, depending on your age.
King’s Lynn, Norfolk (PE34 3AH).
Closes Sep 30, start Oct 1.
Apprentice Construction Landscaper
Training and Apprenticeships in Construction Ltd.
If you love the outdoors and are interested in developing hands-on skills in landscaping, then this Essex-based business, in Chelmsford, is looking to recruit enthusiastic individuals to be part of their team.
This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about a trade while also gaining hands-on, practical experience in the construction industry.
£17,667 for your first year, and then could increase depending on your age.
Closes Sep 30, start October 5.
Apprentice Carpenter and Joiner
Training & Apprenticeships in Construction Ltd.
Successful apprentice candidates will join our first fix joinery team in putting together our proprietary timber frame.
This frame has been developed by our design team over a number of years and forms a key component of our house types.
£17,680 a year.
Epping, Essex (CM16 6LT).
Closes Sep 30, start Oct 1.
Fencing Installer Apprentice
Training & Apprenticeships in Construction Ltd
Looking for motivated individuals to gain hands-on, practical experience and build toward a career within a growing and dynamic field.
£17,667 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Essex (CM1 3AA).
Closes Sep 30, start Oct 1.
London & The South East
Apprenticeship
Brenbar Electrical Services Ltd
Seeking an enthusiastic Level 4 quantity surveyor apprentice to join our team, supporting the quantity surveying team through various stages of a project.
£11,778 to £19,047.60, depending on your age.
Romford (RM3 8UR).
Closes Sep 10, start Sep 15.
Site Supervisor Apprentice
Brenbar Electrical Services Ltd
Looking for a motivated and hardworking individual to join our team as a construction site supervisor apprentice, to assist the site manager with daily tasks.
Wage £11,778 to £19,047.60, depending on your age.
Romford (RM3 8UR).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Bricklaying Apprenticeship (Level 2)
Roberts Brothers Construction Ltd
Our bricklayers lay bricks, blocks and other types of building components in mortar to construct and repair walls, foundations, partitions, arches and other structures.
£14,722.50 to £23,809.50 a year.
Reading (RG31 6HF).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 2.
Groundworks Apprenticeship (Level 2)
Kilnbridge Construction Services Ltd
Opportunity to lay the foundations of a career within construction, as part of a recognised company working on showpiece jobs such as London’s Canary Wharf.
As an apprentice, you will be on a development plan, and a career mentor will help your progression throughout your apprenticeship.
We offer a competitive salary, 20 days’ annual leave and more.
CSCS card required. £31,000 a year. London (NW10 6DZ).
Closes Sep 5, start Nov 10.
Formworker Apprenticeship
Kilnbridge Construction Services Ltd
Opportunity to start a career within construction, with a recognised company working on prestige jobs such as London’s Canary Wharf.
As an apprentice, you will be on a development plan and a career mentor will support your progression.
We offer a competitive salary, 20 days’ annual leave and more. CSCS card required. £31,000 a year.
London (NW10 6DZ).
Closes Sep 5, start Oct 5.
Apprentice Quantity Surveyor
Byoot Construction Ltd
Great opportunity to join our team. £16,672.50 a year.
London (W3 0TE).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Associate Project Manager
Apprentice Byoot Construction Ltd
Learn the ropes of project management, including site programs, progress reports, site inspections, cost reporting, tender analysis and monthly valuations.
£22,500 a year.
London (W3 0TE).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Construction Site Supervisor Apprentice
Byoot Construction Ltd
A great opportunity in the construction industry, to play an integral role within a dynamic team at Byroot.
£21,000 a year.
London (W3 0TE).
Closes Sep 8, start Sep 15.
Quantity Surveyor Apprentice
Trinity Surfacing Ltd
Seeking a motivated and detail-orientated apprentice who will be part of our commercial team.
Role offers hands-on, practical experience working in the areas of cost management, contract administration, and project delivery, while also studying towards achieving a recognised qualification in quantity surveying or construction management.
£22,000 a year.
Rochester, Kent (ME3 9ND).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Business Administrator
Sunninghill Construction Co Ltd
Exciting opportunity for an apprentice to develop foundation knowledge as an apprentice, by providing administrative support to a leading marketing and business development team, whilst also studying for a business administrator Level 3 apprenticeship qualification.
£14,133.60 a year.
Haywards Heath, West Sussex (RH16 1BP).
Closes Sep 22, start date Oct 26.
Apprentice Construction Site Supervisor
Kori Construction
Award-winning contractor, and one of the fastest-growing construction companies in the UK, is offering an exciting opportunity for an apprentice to work on our Hampton project in Kingston upon Thames, South West London.
£28,812 a year.
Hampton, South West London (TW12 2AX).
Closes Sep 8, start Sep 22.
Construction Apprentice
Kori Construction
You will be working with a strong team of highly knowledgeable individuals to develop your skill set and progress your career.
In exchange for your hard work and commitment, we will provide you with a competitive salary and support you with a top-quality apprenticeship training programme.
£21,000 a year.
Hampton, South West London (TW12 2AX).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Landscaper
Bobby Brown Garden Construction Ltd
We are a small, high-end local business.
With increased demand, we are excited to provide a valuable opportunity for a young person to learn, develop skills and build a rewarding career with us.
Working typically within Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, specifically around Thame and Chinnor.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Aylesbury, Bucks (HP17 8QZ).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Construction Materials Technician
BAM Construct UK
Learn all about construction materials testing – no experience needed, just a great work ethic and willingness to get stuck in.
You’ll split your time between site and lab, working on the HS2 Project – the UK’s biggest-ever rail infrastructure development, stretching from London to the North West.
£20,000 a year.
Aylesbury, Bucks (HP18 0BX).
Closes Sep 5, start Sep 8.
South West
Bricklaying Apprenticeship (Level 2)
Liam Quick Construction Ltd
You will be working alongside other builders so will also pick up experience in other home-improvement activities.
£15,704 a year.
Plymouth (PL3 5SF).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 15
Carpentry Apprenticeship – Carpentry and Joinery (Level 2)
AC Construction and Carpentry Ltd
Looking for a hard-working, reliable and passionate apprentice to join an experienced team in and around Plymouth.
We are a very experienced company that has taken on many apprentices throughout the years.
We work to teach them new skills and develop the ones they already have.
£15,704 a year.
Langage Business Park, Plympton, Devon (PL7 5BG).
Closes tomorrow, start Sep 15.
Plumbing and Domestic Heating Technician Apprenticeship (Level 3)
Pathfinder Park Homes Ltd
Work under the direction and guidance of a team leader to assist in installing all aspects of plumbing and heating into new-build luxury lodges, whilst upholding safety guidelines and complying with codes and regulations.
You will be required to undertake work throughout the site.
£15,311.40 a year.
Devon (TQ12 6FJ).
Closes Sep 10, start Sep 20.
Customer Advisor
Apprenticeship B&Q – Torquay
Join our team, and you’ll become an expert advisor – an inspiration as well as a guide, the person who gets to know every customer and their home improvement projects.
Sales will be important, of course, as will things such as managing stock, setting up displays, and making sure your store looks great at all times.
£11,897 a year.
Woodland Business Park, Torquay (TQ2 8AS).
Closes Sep 18, start Sep 25.
Maintenance Apprentice (Level 2)
Rowcroft House Foundation Ltd
Our Vision is to make every day the best day possible for our patients and their families in South Devon.
Working as part of a small estates team, you will help deliver our vision by participating in the maintenance of the fabric and structure of all the hospice buildings, as well as contributing to various ongoing grounds maintenance work.
£14,918.80 a year.
Torquay (TQ2 5LS).
Closes Sep 3, start Sep 15.
Bricklaying Apprenticeship (Level 2)
JMP Bricklaying & Building Services Ltd
Looking for an apprentice to join their team in Saltash, Cornwall.
Main duties will include applying and sealing foundations with materials that are damp- resistant, spreading and removing excess mortar, inspecting vertical and horizontal brick alignment.
£15,704 a year.
Buckfastleigh, Devon (TQ11 0LL).
Closes Oct 31, start Nov 3.
Apprentice Bricklayer
Crestmoor Construction
Seeks an energetic apprentice to join its construction team.
Projects include bridges, retaining walls, commercial builds, and domestic works.
You’ll learn from experienced professionals and gain valuable skills to build a lasting career in the construction and civil- engineering industry.
£15,704 a year.
Wincanton, Somerset (BA9 8AP).
Closes Sep 3, start Sep 10.
Business Administration Apprentice
Planning Inspectorate
Whether you’re starting your first job, returning to work, or seeking a fresh challenge, our Level 3 apprenticeship offers hands-on experience, with support from City of Bristol College, and a welcoming team at the Planning Inspectorate.
£22,728 a year.
Bristol (BS1 6PN).
Closes Sep 7, start date Nov 3.
Roofing Apprenticeship
Heritage Building & Roofing Ltd
Learn to install, repair and maintain slate and tile roofs while working safely at height.
Earn as you learn, gain hands-on experience, and build skills for a career in a high-demand trade with excellent progression and opportunities for self-employment.
£15,704 a year.
Bristol (BS1 5AR) and two other locations.
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 25.
Drylining Apprenticeship
Lumini Developments Ltd
Learn to install partition walls, ceilings, and interior fittings to a high standard.
Gain hands-on experience, work with a skilled team, and start a career in a growing trade with strong demand and excellent progression opportunities.
Wage £15,704 a year. Bristol (BS3 1HT) and two other locations.
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 25.
Apprentice Groundworker
C&R Construction
Learn to prepare sites, dig foundations, lay drainage and handle materials safely.
Gain hands-on experience, work as part of a skilled team and build a career in a high-demand trade with progression opportunities.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Crediton, Devon (EX17 6AX).
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 25.
Apprentice Roofer
Deelis Roofing Ltd
You will learn about how to install, repair and maintain slate and tile roofs while working safely at height.
Earn while you learn, gain hands-on experience, and build skills for a career in a high-demand trade that offers excellent career progression opportunities.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Taunton, Somerset (TA1 5NF).
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 25.
Apprentice Quantity Surveyor
CoTrain
This apprenticeship is a springboard for anyone wishing to progress into construction quantity surveying.
Assisting senior managers with the budgeting of construction projects, as well as control of costs.
£15,311.40 to £24,761.88, depending on your age.
Gosport (PO12 2HE).
Closes Sep 4, star Sep 15.
Apprentice Groundworker
Morcom Construction Ltd
Morcom are offering an exciting opportunity to join their dynamic team as an apprentice Gain the knowledge, skills and behaviours to kick-start your career as a groundworker.
£15,704 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
Sites across Cornwall. (TR15 3RD).
Closes Sep 12, start Sep 15.
Apprentice Roofer
Greenlight Group
Established in 2009, Greenlight Group has been in operation for more than 15 years, supplying safety consultancy and safety assessment services to an ever-growing roster of clients.
Your apprenticeship would be based in Bristol, and you should apply for this role if you are interested in a long-term career as a roofing specialist.
£13,741 for your first year, then could increase depending on your age.
(BS3 2EB)
Closes Sep 19, start Sep 25.
Wales
Apprentice Electrical Engineer
Kaisaian Electrical Ltd
Work for a company offering a range of services from electrical installations and maintenance (reactive and planned), electrical inspection and condition reports (EICR), to fire and emergency lighting installation and maintenance, UPS and generator installation, thermo-graphic surveys and lightning and surge protection.
Pay will be at apprenticeship rates.
Cardiff.
Closes Sep 15, possible start Sep 22.
Apprentice Electrical Engineer
Jones & Jones Electrical
Work for a company offering a range of services from electrical installations and maintenance (reactive & planned) electrical inspection and condition reports (EICR), to fire and emergency lighting installation and maintenance, UPS and generator installation, thermographic surveys, and lightning and surge protection.
Pay is at apprenticeship rates.
Trebanos, Neath Port Talbot (SA8 4DW).
Closes Sep 15, start Sep 22.
Apprentice Electrical Engineer
Oasis Software Solutions (OSS)
Work for a company offering a range of services from electrical installations, electrical maintenance (reactive and planned), electrical inspection and condition reports (EICR), to fire and emergency lighting installation and maintenance, UPS and generator installation, thermographic surveys and lightning and surge protection.
Wage, apprenticeship rates.
Cwmbach, Rhondda CF44 0AE.
Closes Sep 8, possible start Sep 22.
Refrigeration Engineer Trainee
UK Refrigeration Services Ltd
Work involves the installation of mechanical services to sites and supermarkets.
Pay is national minimum wage.
Swansea, SA6 8QW.
Closes Dec 1, possible start Dec 2.
Scaffolding Apprentice
MAC Scaffolding (Cardiff) Ltd
Join one of the largest and most trusted independent scaffolding companies in Wales.
For 40 years, MAC Scaffolding has been a leading supplier of access scaffolding solutions across the UK.
Career-path progression from Part One trainee to Part Two scaffolder and advanced scaffolder.
You will be working on projects of varying sizes and complexities.
Wage, national minimum wage.
Cardiff (CF11 8TY).
Closes Sep 30, possible start Oct 10.
Scotland
Freight Logistics Apprentice
Microcom Training
We are expanding our team and have created a junior role suited to a recent school or college leaver.
This is an Apprentice Warehouse Operative role where you will be trained to pick computer generated orders and maintain high levels of health and safety; working across different areas of the business to enhance your knowledge and skills whilst providing excellent customer service and operating within a safe working environment, ensuring complete legal compliance.
£14,723 per year.
Newbridge, near Edinburgh (EH28 8LQ).
Closes Sep 19, start date to be determined.
Warehousing and Trade Counter Apprentice
Microcom Training
We are a well-known and established Builders Merchants.
We are growing our team and have an opportunity to recruit an apprentice to support our warehouse and counter staff.
Work involves receiving and checking in of goods, checking and loading a delivery van, putting goods into stock and generally keeping the store tidy, recording stock, recording missing/damaged items, counter service at peak times, laying out customer orders, and keeping an eye on stock levels. £14,134 per year.
Dalry, North Ayrs (KA24 5DZ).
Closes Sep 19, start to be determined.
Health, Safety and Environmental
Apprentice/Trainee
JB Management Ltd
Gain hands-on experience in creating a safe, compliant and proactive workplace.
You’ll be involved in risk assessments, safety checks and incident investigations, while learning from experienced professionals in a fast-paced industry.
Perfect for someone with a keen eye for detail, strong communication skills, and a passion for safety.
£20,800 to £25,397 per year.
Kilmarnock, East Ayrs (KA12 8AS).
Closes Sep 2, start to be determined.
Apprentice Panel Technician
FMG Repair Services
Earn while you learn with an apprenticeship that will see you work full-time in a garage workshop and gain a SCQF in vehicle body repair.
In this role, you will be trained to repair vehicle damage to an exacting standard.
£15,311 to £16,224 a year.
Dundee (DD5 3RU).
Closes Sep 19, start immediate.
Service Engineer Apprentice
JWF Process Solutions Ltd
During this apprenticeship you will attend college part-time, while also gaining experience from working closely with experienced engineers.
You will undertake calibration, servicing, testing, maintenance and repair work covering a wide range of instrumentation equipment.
£13,800 to £15,800 per year.
Glasgow (G41 1HJ).
Closes Sep 30, start to be determined.
Light Vehicle Mechanic
Armit’s Autos
Work toward achieving a Level 7 Scottish Vocational Qualification in vehicle maintenance and repair.
Learn the skills you need to be a fully qualified light vehicle diagnostic technician.
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Wednesday that his department is taking management of Union Station, the main transportation hub in Washington, away from Amtrak, in another example of how the federal government is exerting its power over the nation’s capital.
Duffy made the announcement in a statement before he joined Amtrak President Roger Harris at Union Station for the launch of the NextGen Acela, the rail service’s new high-speed train.
The secretary said Union Station, located within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol, had “fallen into disrepair” when it should be a “point of pride” for the city.
“By reclaiming station management, we will help make this city safe and beautiful at a fraction of the cost,” Duffy said.
At the event, Duffy said President Trump has been “pretty clear” about what he wants.
“He wants Union Station to be beautiful again. He wants transit to be safe again. And he wants our nation’s capital to be great again. And today is part of that,” Duffy said.
Duffy echoed the Republican president, who said last week he wants $2 billion from Congress to beautify Washington as part of his crackdown on the city. The Republican president has sent thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officials into Washington in a bid to fight violent crime he claimed had strangled the city.
Local police department statistics show violent crime in Washington has declined in recent years, but Trump has countered, without offering evidence, that the numbers were fudged.
National Guard troops have been on patrol inside and outside of Union Station after Trump launched the anti-crime effort earlier this month. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were shouted down by opponents of the federal intervention when they visited with troops there last week.
During Wednesday’s train unveiling, Duffy will also talk about what the administration is doing to turn Union Station into a world class transit hub, according to a Transportation Department news advisory.
Duffy had pressed Amtrak about crime at Union Station in a March letter to its chief operating officer and requested an updated plan on how it intended to improve public safety there.
WASHINGTON — President Trump greeted Lee Jae Myung, the new president of South Korea, by asserting that a “Purge or Revolution” was taking place there and threatening to not do business with Seoul as he prepared to host the new leader at the White House later Monday.
Trump elaborated later Monday that he was referring to raids on churches and on a U.S. military base by the new South Korean government, which they “probably shouldn’t have done,” the president argued.
“I heard bad things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday morning. “I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll be finding out.”
The warning shot previewed a potentially hostile confrontation later Monday as Lee, the liberal leader and longtime critic of Seoul’s conservative establishment, sits down with Trump to discuss Seoul and Washington’s recent trade agreement and continued defense cooperation. Lee leads a nation that has been in a state of political turmoil for the last several months after its former leader, the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, briefly imposed martial law last December which eventually led to his stunning ouster from office.
Trump did not identify specific raids. But earlier this month, South Korean police conducted a raid on a church led by a conservative activist pastor whom authorities allege is connected to a pro-Yoon protest in January that turned violent, according to Yonhap news agency. A special prosecutor’s team that is investigating corruption allegations against Yoon’s wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, also raided the facilities of the Unification Church after allegations that one of its officials gave Kim luxury goods.
Meanwhile, Osan Air Base, which is jointly operated by the United States and South Korea, was also the target of a raid last month by investigators looking into how Yoon’s activation of martial law transpired, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. South Korean officials have insisted the raid was in the areas controlled by Seoul.
“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there,” Trump posted on social media Monday morning. “I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”
Yoon, who was elected to a five-year term in 2022, was considered more ideologically aligned with Trump and had even taken up golfing again after the U.S. president was reelected last November to try to forge a bond with him.
The liberal Lee, an outspoken critic of Seoul’s conservative establishment who had narrowly lost to Yoon in that 2022 election, led the South Korean parliament’s efforts to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree while impeaching him. The nation’s Constitutional Court formally dismissed Yoon in April.
Before Trump’s Truth Social post Monday morning, the first in-person meeting between Trump and Lee had been expected to help flesh out details of a July trade deal between the two countries that has Seoul investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. The agreement set tariffs on South Korean goods at 15% after Trump threatened rates as high as 25%.
Trump declared at the time that South Korea would be “completely OPEN TO TRADE” with the U.S. and accept goods such as cars and agricultural products. Automobiles are South Korea’s top export to the U.S.
Seoul has one of the largest trade surpluses among Washington’s NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, and countries where the U.S. holds a trade deficit has drawn particular ire from Trump, who wants to eliminate such trade imbalances.
Lee’s office said in announcing the visit that the two leaders plan to discuss cooperating on key manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding. The latter has been a particular area of focus for the U.S. president.
On defense, one potential topic is the continued presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and concerns in Seoul that the U.S. will seek higher payments in return.
Ahead of his visit to Washington, Lee traveled to Tokyo for his first bilateral visit as president in a hugely symbolic trip for the two nations that hold longstanding historical wounds. The summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was interpreted by analysts as a way to show unity and potential leverage as Japan and South Korea face new challenges from the Trump administration.
Lee was the first South Korean president to choose Japan for the inaugural bilateral visit since the two nations normalized ties in 1965.
Elected in June, Lee was a former child laborer with an arm deformity who rose his way through South Korea’s political ranks to lead the liberal Democratic Party and win the presidency after multiple attempts.
Lee faced an assassination attempt in January 2024, when he was stabbed in the neck by a man saying he wanted Lee’s autograph and later told investigators that he intended to kill the politician.
Lee arrived in the U.S. on Sunday and will leave Tuesday. He headlined a dinner Sunday evening with roughly 200 local Korean-Americans in downtown Washington on Sunday night.
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday threatened to expand his military deployments to more Democratic-led cities, responding to an offer by Maryland’s governor to join him in a tour of Baltimore by saying he might instead “send in the ‘troops.’”
Last week, Trump said he was considering Chicago and New York City for troop deployments similar to what he has unleashed on the nation’s capital, where thousands of National Guard and federal law enforcement officers are patrolling the streets.
Trump made the threat to Baltimore in a spat with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who has criticized Trump’s unprecedented flex of federal power, which the Republican president says is aimed at combating crime and homelessness in Washington. Moore last week invited Trump to visit his state to discuss public safety and walk the streets.
In a social media post Sunday, Trump said Moore asked “in a rather nasty and provocative tone,” and then raised the specter of repeating the National Guard deployment he made in Los Angeles over the objections of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
“Wes Moore’s record on Crime is a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing,” Trump wrote. “But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newscum did in L.A., I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime.”
Moore said he invited Trump to Maryland “because he seems to enjoy living in this blissful ignorance” about improving crime rates in Baltimore.
“The president is spending all of his time talking about me,” Moore said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’m spending my time talking about the people I serve.”
After surging National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers into Washington this month, Trump has said Chicago and New York City are most likely his next targets, eliciting strong pushback from Democratic leaders in both states. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon has spent weeks preparing for an operation in Chicago that would include National Guard troops and, potentially, active-duty forces.
Asked about the Post report, the White House pointed to Trump’s earlier comments discussing his desire to expand his use of military forces to target local crime.
“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, adding, “And then we’ll help with New York.”
Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation’s largest cities — run by Democrats, with Black mayors and majority-minority populations — as dangerous and filthy. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is Black, as is Moore. The District of Columbia and New York City also have Black mayors.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking during a religious event Sunday at Howard University in Washington, said the Guard’s presence in the nation’s capital was not about crime: “This is about profiling us.”
“This is laced with bigotry and racism,” he later elaborated to reporters. “Not one white mayor has been designated. And I think this is a civil rights issue, a race issue, and an issue of D.C. statehood.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said there is no emergency warranting the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago.
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families,” Pritzker wrote on X. “We’ll continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect Illinoisans.”
Cooper and Askarinam write for the Associated Press and reported from Phoenix and Washington, respectively.
WASHINGTON — Joining forces from three other Republican-led states, the Mississippi National Guard will deploy 200 troops to Washington as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing federal policing and immigration overhaul in the nation’s capital.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a statement Monday that he has approved the deployment of approximately 200 Mississippi National Guard Soldiers to Washington, D.C.
“Crime is out of control there, and it’s clear something must be done to combat it,” Reeves said.
Mississippi joins three other states that have pledged to deploy hundreds of National Guard members to the nation’s capital to bolster the Republican administration’s operation to overhaul policing in the Democratic-led city through a federal crackdown on crime and homelessness.
West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 troops, South Carolina pledged 200 and Ohio said it will send 150 in the coming days, deployments that built on top of President Trump’s initial order that 800 National Guard troops deploy as part of the federal intervention.
Trump’s executive order that launched the federal operation declared a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia and initiated a takeover Washington’s police department. The administration has ordered local police to cooperate with federal agents on immigration enforcement, orders that would contradict local laws prohibiting such collaboration.
“D.C. has been under siege from thugs and killers, but now, D.C. is back under Federal Control where it belongs,” Trump wrote on his social media website a day after issuing his order. “The White House is in charge. The Military and our Great Police will liberate this City, scrape away the filth, and make it safe, clean, habitable and beautiful once more!”
National Guard members in the District of Columbia have been assisting law enforcement with tasks including crowd control and patrolling landmarks such as the National Mall and Union Station. Their role has been limited thus far, and it remains unclear why additional troops would be needed.
Over the weekend in Washington, protesters pushed back on federal law enforcement and National Guard troops fanning out in the city. Scores of protesters gathered in the city’s Dupont Circle on Saturday and marched to the White House.
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of West Virginia National Guard members will deploy across the nation’s capital as part of the Trump administration’s assumption of control over policing in the District of Columbia in what it says is part of a nationwide crackdown on crime on homelessness.
The move comes as federal agents and National Guard troops have begun to appear across the heavily Democratic city after Trump’s executive order on Monday federalizing local police forces and activating about 800 D.C. National Guard troops.
By adding outside troops to join the existing National Guard deployment and federal law enforcement officers temporarily assigned to Washington, President Trump is exercising even tighter control over the city. It’s a power play that the president has justified as an emergency response to crime and homelessness, even though district officials have noted that violent crime is lower than it was during Trump’s first term in office.
A protest against Trump’s intervention drew scores to Washington’s Dupont Circle on Saturday afternoon before a march to the White House, about a mile and a half away. Demonstrators assembled behind a banner that said, “No fascist takeover of D.C.,” and some in the crowd held signs that said, “No military occupation.” Trump was at his Virginia golf club after Friday’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, announced Saturday that he was sending a contingent of 300 to 400 National Guard members.
“West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation’s capital,” Morrisey said.
Morgan Taylor, one of the organizers of Saturday’s protest, said demonstrators who turned out on a hot summer day were hoping to spark enough backlash to Trump’s actions that the administration would be forced to pull back.
“It’s hot, but I’m glad to be here. It’s good to see all these people out here,” she said. “I can’t believe that this is happening in this country at this time.”
Protesters said they are concerned about what they view as Trump’s overreach, arguing that he had used crime as a pretext to impose his will on Washington.
John Finnigan, 55, was taking an afternoon bike ride when he ran into the protest in downtown Washington. A real estate construction manager who has lived in the capital for 27 years, he said that Trump’s moves were “ridiculous” because “crime is at a 30-year low here.”
“Hopefully some of the mayors and some of the residents will get out in front of it and try and make it harder for it to happen in other cities,” Finnigan said.
Jamie Dickstein, a 24-year-old teacher, said she was “very uncomfortable and worried” for the safety of her students given the “unmarked officers of all types” now roaming Washington and detaining people.
Dickstein said she turned out to protest with friends and relatives to “prevent a continuous domino effect going forward with other cities.”
The West Virginia National Guard activation suggests the administration sees the need for additional manpower, after Trump played down the need for Washington to hire more police officers.
Maj. Gen. James Seward, West Virginia’s adjutant general — a chief aide to the governor and commanding general of the National Guard — said in a statement that members of the Guard “stand ready to support our partners in the National Capital Region” and that the Guard’s “unique capabilities and preparedness make it an invaluable partner in this important undertaking.”
Federal agents have appeared in some of the city’s most highly trafficked neighborhoods, garnering a mix of praise, resistance and alarm from local residents and leaders across the country.
City leaders, who are obligated to cooperate with the president’s order under the federal laws that direct the district’s local governance, have sought to work with the administration, though they have bristled at the scope of the president’s takeover.
On Friday, the administration reversed course on an order that aimed to place the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as an “emergency police commissioner” after the district’s top lawyer sued to contest. After a court hearing, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued a memo that directed D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law.
District officials say they are evaluating how to best comply.
In his order Monday, Trump declared an emergency, citing the “city government’s failure to maintain public order.” He said that impeded the “federal government’s ability to operate efficiently to address the nation’s broader interests without fear of our workers being subjected to rampant violence.”
In a letter to city residents, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, wrote that “our limited self-government has never faced the type of test we are facing right now.”
She added that if Washingtonians stick together, “we will show the entire nation what it looks like to fight for American democracy — even when we don’t have full access to it.”
Brown and Pesoli write for the Associated Press. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s decision to appoint an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington is just the latest attempt to change an increasingly uncomfortable subject for the White House. Last month President Trump told the American people he was never briefed on the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2019 was charged with sex trafficking minors. We now know that Bondi told the president in May that his name appeared multiple times in those files, which traced Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.
So — either you believe a city experiencing a 30-year low in crime is suddenly in need of an emergency police commissioner or you agree with Joe Rogan’s assessment: This administration is gaslighting the public regarding those files.
Now there will be pundits who will try to say Republicans are too focused on kitchen table issues to care about the Epstein controversy.
If only that were true.
According to the Consumer Price Index, goods cost more today than they did a month ago. And prices are higher than they were a year ago. It would be wonderful if Congress were in session to address kitchen table issues like grocery prices. However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ended the House session early to avoid a vote on the release of the Epstein files — a vote that could have displeased Trump. Those are the lengths some in the MAGA movement are willing to go to prevent the public from knowing the truth about Epstein’s clients. That is the backdrop for what is currently happening in the streets of Washington. It’s not inspired by a rise in crime, but by a fear of transparency.
It’s important to look at Bondi’s “emergency police commissioner” decision with clear, discerning eyes because the administration is purposefully conflating the issues of crime and homelessness in order to win back support from Trump’s base. While it is true that the district has made huge progress against crime, and the number of unhoused residents is far lower than a decade ago even though homeless populations nationwide have soared, the rise of conspicuous encampments around Washington is one of the reasons Virginia was almost able to lure away the city’s NBA and NHL teams. However, the nation’s capital was able to keep those sports franchises because of the leadership of Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Instead of taking over the city’s police force, perhaps Bondi should ask Bowser for some advice that could be replicated in other cities nationwide. Ask the mayor’s office what resources it might need to continue its progress on homelessness and crime. But again, this really isn’t about what benefits the people, is it? It’s really about what’s in the best interest of one person.
Now there will be pundits who will try to tell you Republicans are too focused on making this country “great” to worry about who is in the Epstein files. I ask you, when has trampling over democracy ever made us great? In Iran, we contributed to the overthrowing of Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, and we continue to be at odds with the nation. In Chile in the early 1970s, we moved against Salvador Allende, and it took 20 years to normalize our relationship again.
Here at home, in 2010, the state of Michigan took over the predominantly Black city of Benton Harbor under the guise of a financial emergency. The City Council was prevented from governing as state officials tried to save the city from a crippling pension deficit and other financial shortages. There was temporary reprieve, but Benton Harbor is still on economic life support. That’s because the issue wasn’t the policies of the local government. It was the lasting effects of losing so much tax revenue to a neighboring suburb due to white flight. The explanation for Benton Harbor’s woes lies in the past, not the present.
The same is true in Washington. The relatively young suburbs of McLean and Great Falls, Va., are two of the richest in the country. When you have the same financial obligations of yesteryear but less tax revenue to operate with, there will be shortfalls. And those gaps manifest themselves in many ways — rundown homes, empty storefronts, a lack of school resources.
Those are legitimate plagues affecting every major city. What Bondi is doing in Washington isn’t a cure for what ails it. And when you consider why she’s doing what she’s doing, you are reminded why people are so sick of politics.
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The author argues that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington D.C. serves as a deliberate distraction from the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy, rather than addressing any legitimate public safety emergency.
The author contends that President Trump misled the American public by claiming he was never briefed on the Epstein files, when Bondi actually informed him in May that his name appeared multiple times in documents tracing Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.
The author emphasizes that Washington D.C. is currently experiencing a 30-year low in crime rates, making the justification for an “emergency police commissioner” appear fabricated and politically motivated rather than based on actual public safety needs.
The author criticizes House Speaker Mike Johnson for ending the legislative session early specifically to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files, suggesting this demonstrates how far the MAGA movement will go to protect Trump from transparency.
The author argues that the administration is purposefully conflating crime and homelessness issues to win back support from Trump’s base, while ignoring the actual progress Washington D.C. has made under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s leadership in reducing both crime and homelessness.
The author draws historical parallels to failed U.S. interventions in Iran and Chile, as well as Michigan’s takeover of Benton Harbor, arguing that federal takeovers of local governance consistently fail and represent an assault on democratic principles rather than effective problem-solving.
Different views on the topic
Trump administration officials justify the federal intervention as part of a broader crime-reduction initiative, with National Guard forces working alongside law enforcement teams to carry out the president’s plan to reduce violent crime in the city[1].
The administration cited legal authority under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, which grants the president the power to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control during a declared emergency, marking the first time a president has invoked this unprecedented authority[2].
Federal officials defended the directive as necessary for enforcing immigration laws, with the revised order specifically directing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to provide assistance with “locating, apprehending, and detaining aliens unlawfully present in the United States” regardless of local D.C. law and police policies[1].
The administration’s approach focused on nullifying the city’s sanctuary city policies and ensuring that all Metropolitan Police Department leadership obtain federal approval for policy decisions moving forward, framing this as essential for effective federal law enforcement[2].
Following legal challenges, the Justice Department demonstrated flexibility by scaling back the original directive after meeting with D.C. officials, ultimately leaving the local police chief in charge while maintaining federal oversight for immigration-related matters[1].
Medan, Indonesia – Indonesia is celebrating 80 years of independence from Dutch colonial rule, but not everyone is in a celebratory mood, and an unusual protest movement has rallied around a cartoon pirate flag.
The flag, which features a skull and crossbones wearing a straw hat, has been spotted adorning homes, cars, trucks, motorcycles and boats across Indonesia.
Popularised by the hit Japanese anime One Piece, the flag has even been flown beneath the Indonesian flag – known as the merah-putih (red and white) – which is widely raised throughout the month of August in the lead-up to Independence Day on Sunday.
In the anime series, which was adapted by Netflix in 2023, the hatted skull and crossbones flag is used by adventurer Monkey D Luffy – who one day hopes to become a pirate king – and is seen as a sign of hope, freedom and a pushback against authoritarianism.
In Indonesia, the flag has been raised as a sign of protest amid increasing public frustration with the government.
“Rising prices, difficulties in getting a job and the incompetencies of the government have prompted the people to use satire and sarcasm,” Radityo Dharmaputra, a lecturer in international relations at Airlangga University in Surabaya, told Al Jazeera.
Raising the pirate flag is a sign of “growing dissatisfaction in society, even with all the so-called progress that the government has claimed”, Dharmaputra said.
Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as the new president of Indonesia in October, promising fast economic growth and social change in this country of almost 286 million people.
But Southeast Asia’s largest economy and most populous democracy is faltering.
A graffiti of the pirate flag from Japanese anime One Piece, adopted by some Indonesians as a symbol of frustration with their government, is seen on a street in Sukoharjo, Central Java, on August 6, 2025 [Dika/AFP]
‘A symbol of my disappointment and resistance’
Indonesia has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Southeast Asia, with an estimated 16 percent of the 44 million Indonesians aged 15-24 unemployed, while foreign investors are pulling capital out of the country and the government is cutting the budget.
In a survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore in January, about 58 percent of young Indonesians said they were optimistic about the government’s economic plans, compared with an average of 75 percent across five other countries in the region – Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Before the flag protest, in February, the “Indonesia Gelap” or “Dark Indonesia” movement gained momentum, with citizens using the #IndonesiaGelap hashtag on social media to vent their frustrations about the future of the country following widespread budget cuts and proposed changes in legislation allowing the military to have a greater role in the government.
The online protest was followed by student demonstrations, which erupted across a number of cities.
President Prabowo accused the Dark Indonesia movement of being backed by “corruptors” bent on creating pessimism in the country.
“This is fabricated, paid for, by whom?” Prabowo said, according to Indonesian news outlet Tempo.
“By those who want Indonesia to always be chaotic, Indonesia to always be poor. Yes, those corruptors are the ones financing the demonstrations. Indonesia is dark, Indonesia is dark. Sorry, Indonesia is bright, Indonesia’s future is bright,” the president said.
A graffiti artist paints a mural depicting a Jolly Roger from the popular Japanese anime and manga series One Piece in Bekasi, West Java province, Indonesia, on August 7 , 2025 [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters]
Adi*, a truck driver in the city of Malang in East Java, told Al Jazeera that he has been flying the anime pirate flag on the side of his truck for the past three weeks.
“Many, many people have been flying it in East Java. To me, it is a symbol of my disappointment and resistance against the government,” he said.
Adi said that he had long been frustrated, but that the flag had provided him with a new way of displaying this frustration.
This tear gas led to panic and a crowd crush at locked exit gates that killed 135 people.
Three police officers and two match officials were prosecuted for their roles in the tragedy, one of the worst in international footballing history.
“I am disappointed by the lack of justice for the victims of Kanjuruhan. Until now, we have received none of the restitution we were promised. I am also disappointed by other problems in Indonesia, including rising prices,” he said.
‘An attempt to divide unity’
The One Piece pirate flag has caught the attention of the government, with Budi Gunawan, the coordinating minister for political and security affairs, warning that authorities would take “firm action” if the flag was flown on Sunday’s Independence Day.
“There will be criminal consequences for actions that violate the honour of the red and white flag,” he said.
Indonesia’s Deputy House Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad branded the hoisting of the pirate flag an attempt to deliberately sow dissent.
“We have detected and received input from security agencies that there is indeed an attempt to divide unity. My appeal to all the nation’s children is to unite and fight against such things,” he said.
Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer in international relations at Jenderal Achmad Yani University, told Al Jazeera that the government’s warnings were likely an attempt to clamp down on the show of symbolic dissent.
“I suspect they didn’t know how Prabowo would react and thus thought it better to show their loyalty and take the extreme position than be sorry later,” Sulaiman said.
The government threats had “backfired spectacularly”, he said, adding that it was left looking like a “laughing stock”.
“Saying that the flag has the potential of breaking apart the nation is too much. It is hyperbolic and nobody takes it seriously,” he said.
A worker holds a replica of the pirate flag from Japanese anime One Piece, made for sale as some Indonesians adopt the symbol from a story about resisting a corrupt world government to express frustration with their own, at a T-shirt workshop in Karanganyar, Central Java, on August 6, 2025 [Dika/AFP]
Sulaiman said the origins of the flag’s use in Indonesia could be traced back to truck drivers.
“Truckers were the ones first flying it to protest a recent regulation that forbade overweight trucks from hitting the road. If the government had just ignored it, the flag would have ended up on the back of trucks and nobody would have taken it seriously,” Sulaiman said.
“But, they had to make it about a national threat, a threat to national unity and disrespect of the national flag,” he said.
He added that the increased visibility of the pirate flag comes at a sensitive time in Indonesia – ahead of Independence Day – which is traditionally a moment for the government and the public to celebrate.
Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, said the flag furore demonstrated “sensitivity around perceptions of popularity” in the current government.
The flag as a symbol of protest appeared to be a more fragmented movement than recent and historical protests in Indonesia, Wilson said, which have traditionally been largely driven by students.
“Students are a more singular group, but this is a more dispersed phenomenon across different groups and parts of the country, which is indicative of widespread dissatisfaction. It touches a nerve due to the diffused representation,” he said.
“We are seeing this phenomenon in places like villages and by regular people in semi-rural areas, which are not conventional sites of dissent in Indonesia,” he added.
‘An expression of creativity’
According to reports by local Indonesian media, anime pirate flags have been seized in raids by authorities in East Java, while citizens found displaying them have been questioned in the Riau Islands.
So far, no one has been criminally charged, as flying the pirate flag is not technically illegal.
Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, said the raids were “a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression”.
“Raising an anime flag is not ‘treason’ or ‘propaganda to disunite the country’, as suggested by government officials,” Hamid said in a statement.
“Authorities, including lawmakers, must stop harassing people by threatening them with jail terms for ‘disrespecting the national flag’ and ‘treason’ if they raise One Piece flags,” he added.
A pirate flag is seen at a house in Solo, Central Java, on August 7, 2025 [Dika/AFP]
Truck driver Adi told Al Jazeera that he had seen no indications that the government’s threats had had any impact on those flying the flag and that they could still be seen prominently on display across East Java – both on trucks and buildings.
“Why would I be scared of any sanctions?” Adi asked.
The president’s office has denied any involvement in the police confiscating flags or questioning civilians.
For his part, Prabowo – a retired army general who oversaw crackdowns on the 1998 student protests that precipitated the fall of the country’s longtime dictator President Soeharto – said that the flag was “an expression of creativity”.
Murdoch University’s Wilson said that the government had perhaps been rattled by the Dark Indonesia protests, which came early on in Prabowo’s presidency.
“No one wants that at the start [of a presidency], as they are trying to generate optimism,” Wilson said.
“But now, further down the track, people have some serious issues with government performance,” he said.
*Adi is a pseudonym as the interviewee did not want his name revealed for personal safety reasons when criticising the government.
By midmorning in the Central Valley, the light turns hard and white, bleaching the sky and flattening every shadow. The rows of melons stretch to the horizon, vines twisted low in cracked soil. Pickers move in the rhythm the crop demands — bend, twist, lift, drop — their long sleeves damp with sweat, caps pulled low, bandanas hiding heat-burned cheeks. Spanish drifts along the rows, a joke here, a warning there, carried in the heavy air.
These are the cruelest days of harvest, when the sun turns fields into slow ovens and the heat climbs before breakfast, holding on until the stars are out. By nightfall, the damage is done: another collapse in the dirt, another family handed a death certificate instead of a paycheck.
It’s an all-too-familiar old problem in California. Nearly 20 years ago, in the shadow of four farmworker funerals — Arvin, Fresno County, Kern, Imperial Valley — California enacted the nation’s first heat rules for basic worker safety: water, shade, rest. Mercies you’d think needed no law. My fellow lawmakers and I who wrote those rules, along with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who signed them into law, believed they were enough. But two decades on, the grim reaper still walks the rows: 110 degrees, no tree, no tarp, a single water jug growing warm, its handle slick from dust and hands. Breaks denied, not from cruelty alone, but from the unrelenting clock of the harvest.
This is not a failure of the law itself, but of enforcement. Some treated the bill’s signing as the finish line instead of the starting gun. Inspectors are too few. Penalties too light. Investigations too slow. The state auditor’s latest report read like an obituary for Cal/OSHA’s credibility: outdated rules, missed chances, offices too empty to answer the phone.
Meanwhile the climate has turned meaner. Nights that once cooled now hold the day’s heat like a grudge. And the danger in the fields isn’t just the sun. Immigration raids now sweep through the Valley like dust storms — sudden, unannounced, merciless. For more than half of California’s 350,000 farmworkers, the greater threat isn’t heat stroke but a knock on the door before dawn or a traffic stop that ends with a vehicle full of workers detained and trucked to some distant site. The food that feeds the nation is pulled from the earth by people who work under triple-digit skies yet live in the shadows, where one complaint can cost them their job, their home, their freedom.
Twenty harvest seasons later, I’m calling for action — not another bill signing on the Capitol steps, but dollars, real and committed, and the regulations to match. With that will and funding, four simple fixes can turn promise into protection.
First, bring 21st century tools to the fields. In 2005, the “high-tech” solution was a plastic water jug in the shade and a flapping pop-up canopy. Today, for $50 — the price of two boxes of gloves — employers can deploy a wearable sensor clipped to a worker’s arm to track core temperature and heart rate, sending a warning before the body crosses the edge into heatstroke. That’s not Silicon Valley moonshot money. It’s pocket change for agribusiness, and for workers it could mean the difference between walking out of the rows or being carried out.
Second, enforce in real time. If a worker drops to one knee in the heat, the state shouldn’t hear about it days later in a report. Imagine a network linking growers, regulators and emergency crews to the same pulse of information — turning a slow, reactive system that documents tragedies into one that can act quickly and prevent many of them.
Third, train before the first row is picked. Ten minutes — no more — for workers to stand upright and learn, in their own language, the signs: dizziness, nausea, the creeping fog in the mind that means it’s time to stop. Not a photocopied handout in English tucked into an envelope behind a paycheck, not a rushed talk in Spanish at the field’s edge, but a verified safety course — certified by labor contractors and farmers alike. Knowledge here is as life-saving as water and shade.
Lastly, match the urgency we see in other arenas. While Cal/OSHA limps along, starved of staff and mired in red tape, Immigration and Customs Enforcement charges in the opposite direction — spurred by $170 billion in new funding, an immigration-enforcement and border-security blitz hiring thousands, dangling $50,000 signing bonuses, paying off student loans, waiving age limits, even pulling retirees back for double-dip salaries. That’s what happens when a government decides the wrong mission matters most. We pour urgency into chasing farmworkers from the fields, yet can’t muster the will to protect them in the heat. Until Cal/OSHA gets that same drive — inspectors recruited in every corner of the state, incentives to bring in a new generation, hurdles stripped away — the laws we wrote will remain a promise without a witness.
Some will say it’s too much, that the industry can’t bear the cost. But I’ve walked behind the hearses through Valley dust, stood in the gravel lots of farm town funeral homes, watched wives clutch work shirts as if they still held his warmth, seen children in Sunday clothes staring at the dirt. No budget line can measure that loss.
The Valley will keep feeding the nation. The question is whether we will keep feeding the graveyards too.
Once, by enacting heat safety rules, California declared that a life was worth more than a box of produce. If we let that promise wither in the heat, all we wrote back then was a press release. Government systems can fast-track billion-dollar projects, but until this much more affordable priority gets that kind of attention, the rules are just ink on paper, and the roll call of the dead just grows longer.
Dean Florez is a former California Senate majority leader, representing portions of the Central Valley.
WASHINGTON — The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public profile.
But like so much in President Trump’s second administration, this time is different.
Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.
His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer of reliable measures of the nation’s economic health. Although many former Labor Department officials say it is unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.
Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency.
Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.
For instance, on Aug. 4 — a week before he was nominated — Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.
The monthly employment reports are probably the closest-watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.
When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.
“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”
Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue than a careful economist who considers trade-offs and prioritizes getting the math correct.
“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favor Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics.
Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15%.
His argument that the U.S. was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.
“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the center-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.
On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.
Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data have flaws and are threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.
“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”
Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS commissioner under President Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.
The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.
“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the administration’s proposals to cut BLS funding.
Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners don’t think Antoni, if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. But he could push for changes in the monthly news release and seek to portray the numbers in a more positive light.
William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said he didn’t see the figures himself until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.
“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organize it.”
Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’
It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. Antoni will probably face stiff opposition from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded that the Republican chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a confirmation hearing for him.
Rugaber and Boak write for the Associated Press. AP writers Paul Wiseman and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
IF you want to ensure that your home is pest free this summer, here’s what you need to know.
Hornets and wasps – hate the smell of peppermint oil so spraying this liberally around your patio or balcony can help to keep them at bay.
Moths – acidic household white vinegar is effective for deterring moths. Soak some kitchen roll in vinegar and leave it in your wardrobe as a deterrent.
Flying ants – herbs and spices, such as cinnamon, mint, chilli pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cloves, or garlic act as deterrents.
Mosquitoes – plants, herbs and essential oil fragrances can help deter mozzies inside and out. Try eucalyptus, lavender and lemongrass.
Remember “I alone can fix it”? Donald Trump, who made that laughable statement in his 2016 convention acceptance speech, is now testing the theory in Washington.
Trump and his party have been threatening a D.C. takeover for years and made it part of the Republican platform last year. But it was all just empty talk and random uppercase words until a former staffer at the Department of Government Efficiency was reportedly attacked in an attempted carjacking in the wee hours of Aug. 3 in a busy area of bars and restaurants.
It doesn’t matter at all to Trump that D.C.’s violent crime rate fell to a 30-year low last year and is down another 26% so far this year compared with 2024, or that a police report suggests police saw the incident and intervened. This particular victim — a teenage Elon Musk protégé and notorious DOGE operative — gave this particular president the “emergency” he needed to declare a “public safety emergency.”
Of course, he called it “a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” He has federalized the city’s Metropolitan Police Department and deployed 800 members of its National Guard (to start). Over the weekend he sent 450 federal police officers from 18 agencies to patrol the city.
It’s the second time this year that Trump has played the National Guard card to show who’s boss. He sent 4,000 Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June, over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, ostensibly to restore order amid immigration raids. But the move sparked new tensions, protests and at least one surreal foray by armed, masked agents into a park where children were attending summer camp. It also drew a legal challenge from Newsom, which is unfolding in court this week.
There will be no similar lawsuit in D.C., where I’ve lived for decades. That’s because the U.S. president controls our National Guard. The hard truth is that though Wyoming and Vermont each have fewer people than D.C.’s 700,000-plus residents, D.C. is not a state. It’s still in a semi-colonial status, with a mayor and city council whose actions can be nullified by Congress, and with no voting representation in that Congress.
In fact, Congress accidentally slashed $1.1 billion from D.C.’s budget — our own money, not federal dollars! — in its cost-cutting frenzy last spring. A promised fix never came, forcing cuts that affect public safety and much else. And yet the city’s crime rate has continued to fall.
Compared with California, an economic juggernaut of more than 39 million people located thousands of miles from Washington, D.C. is a minuscule and all too convenient target for an executive aiming to prove his manhood, show off to autocrats in other countries or create headlines to distract from news he doesn’t like.
I could go off on Trump for his lies, overreach and disrespect for D.C. and its right to govern itself. Or the various Republicans who have imposed conservative policies on D.C. for years and now are trying to repeal its home rule law.
But what really enrages me is the lack of Democratic nerve — or even bravado — that has left D.C. so vulnerable to Trump and conservative-run Congresses. Where was the modern-day Lyndon Johnson (the “master of the Senate,” in Robert Caro’s phrase) in 2021, to whip support in the narrowly Democratic Senate after the House passed a D.C. statehood bill for the second year in a row?
Trump has no mastery beyond bullying and bribery — but those tactics are working fine with Congress, corporations, law firms, academia and sovereign nations across the globe. As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich put it last week: “You have this rock standing in the middle of history called Donald Trump. And he’s saying: ‘Do you want to do it my way, or do you want to be crushed? I prefer you do it my way, but if you have to be crushed, that’s OK.’ ”
Gingrich correctly characterized most responses to Trump as “You know, I’ve always wanted to be part of the team,” and added: “If he can sustain this, he’s moving into a league that, other than Washington and Lincoln, nobody has gotten to the level of energy, drive and effectiveness that we see with Trump.”
Unfortunately, Trump is aiming to speed-raze what Washington and Lincoln built. (He keeps claiming it’s “Liberation Day” for D.C., but the last “Liberation Day” — his April 2 tariff announcements — tanked the stock market.) The only conceivable antidote is to elect a mad-as-hell Democratic Congress in 2026 and, in 2028, an arm-twisting, strong-arming, terror-inspiring Democratic president who’s in a hurry to get things done. Someone who’s forceful, persuasive and resolved to use the power they have while they have it.
The top priorities, beyond reversing as much institutional and constitutional damage as possible, should be structural: Supreme Court term limits and ethics rules with teeth, a national gerrymandering ban, a sensible and uniform national voter ID policy, and minimum national standards for early voting and mail voting — to protect the will of the people and the republic itself.
Equally important, make D.C. the state of Douglass Commonwealth, named after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass rather than the colonizing Christopher Columbus. Rural America has wielded disproportionate power since the late 1800s, when Republicans added sparsely populated states and permanently skewed the Senate. Two new D.C. senators would help correct that imbalance.
The problem is that the next president, or even the next Congress, might arrive too late for D.C. Trump has already begun the federal takeover he has threatened so often for so many years. He took over the Kennedy Center. He took over Congress. We should have expected we’d be next.
Back in March, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) proposed that D.C. seek temporary sanctuary with Maryland, which ceded most of the land to create the capital in the first place. “You’d definitely be safer,” he said he told Mayor Muriel Bowser.
That offer, joke or not, practical or not, is looking increasingly inviting by the day.
WASHINGTON — The man who oversees the nation’s military reposted a video about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote and should “submit” to their husbands.
The extraordinary repost on X from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, made Thursday night, illustrates his deep and personal connection to a Christian nationalist pastor with extreme views on the role of religion and women.
In the post, Hegseth commented on an almost seven-minute-long report by CNN examining Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC. The report featured various pastors of the denomination advocating the repeal of women’s right to vote from the Constitution and parishioners saying that women should “submit” to their husbands.
Hegseth’s post received more than 12,000 likes and 2,000 shares on X. Some users agreed with the pastors in the video, while others expressed alarm at the Defense secretary promoting Christian nationalist ideas.
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said Friday that Hegseth is “a proud member of a church” that is affiliated with CREC and he “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”
In May, Hegseth invited his personal pastor, Brooks Potteiger, to the Pentagon to lead the first of several Christian prayer services that Hegseth has held inside the government building during working hours. Defense Department employees and service members said they received invitations to the event in their government emails.
“I’d like to see the nation be a Christian nation, and I’d like to see the world be a Christian world,” Wilson said in the CNN report.
Toropin writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press journalists Mike Pesoli in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
One of California’s most influential labor organizations endorsed redrawing the state’s congressional maps to counter President Trump’s effort to push Republican states, notably Texas, to increase his party’s numbers in Congress in next year’s midterm election.
The California Federation of Labor Unions voted unanimously Tuesday to support putting a measure on the ballot in November. The proposal, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many of the state’s Democratic leaders, would ask voters to temporarily change congressional district boundaries that were drawn by an independent redistricting commission four years ago, with some conditions.
Republicans could potentially lose up to a half dozen seats in California’s 52-member delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. After it returns for its summer recess on Aug. 18, the California Legislature is expected to vote to place the measure on the statewide ballot in a special election.
“President Trump has said that Republicans are ‘entitled’ to five more congressional votes in Texas. Well, they aren’t entitled to steal the 2026 election. California’s unions refuse to stand by as democracy is tested,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the federation, said in a statement. “California Labor is unified in our resolve to fight back against President Trump’s anti-worker agenda.”
Redistricting — the esoteric redrawing of the nation’s 435 congressional districts — typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. census tallies the population across the nation. Population shifts can result in changes in a state’s allocation of congressional seats, such as when California lost a seat after the 2020 census the first time in the state’s history.
The political redistricting process had long been crafted by elected officials to give their political parties an edge or to protect incumbents — sometimes in brazen, bizarrely shaped districts. Californians voted in 2010 to create an independent commission to draw congressional maps based on communities of interest, logical geography and ensuring representation of minority communities.
The ballot measure being pushed by Newsom and others would allow state lawmakers to help determine district boundaries for the next three election cycles if Texas approves a pending measure to reconfigure districts to increase Republican-held congressional seats in that state. Line-drawing would return to the independent commission after the 2030 census.
The California Federation of Labor is committed to spending several million dollars supporting a mid-decade redistricting ballot measure, on top of what it already planned to spend on competitive congressional races next year, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the strategy.
A spokesperson for several organizations devoted to fighting any effort to change the state’s redistricting process said that Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire, and who bankrolled the ballot measure to create the independent commission, is committed to making sure it is not weakened.
“While Charles Munger has been out of politics since 2016, he has said he will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting,” said Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition. “His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard.”
