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The now two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers made their first move of the offseason on Thursday.

It will ensure a familiar face is back for their pursuit of a three-peat next year.

The team picked up its $10-million club option for third baseman Max Muncy, according to a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly, bringing the now longest-tenured member of the roster back for what will be his ninth season in Los Angeles.

The decision was not surprising. This year, Muncy had perhaps his best all-around season at the plate since a 2021 campaign in which he received MVP votes. He hit .243, his highest mark since that 2021 season, with 19 home runs, 67 RBIs and an .846 OPS in 100 games. He atoned for a relatively quiet postseason by hitting a crucial home run in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, setting the stage for the team’s ninth-inning comeback and eventual extra-innings, title-clinching victory.

Muncy was in the final season of a two-year, $24-million extension he signed in the 2023 offseason. And injuries have been a problem for the 35-year-old in recent years (he was limited this past season by a knee contusion in July and an oblique strain in August).

However, the $10-million option was a relative bargain for a player who, prior to second-half injuries, had shaken off a slow start to the year by being one of the hottest hitters in the majors in May and June.

His return will also help keep a key part of the club’s veteran core intact, bringing back a player who — in the wake of Clayton Kershaw’s retirement — has been with the Dodgers longer than anybody else.

Muncy’s 2025 season did not start well. After an offseason in which trade rumors involving Nolan Arenado swirled, and a spring training spent working through the lingering after-effects of an oblique and rib injury that limited him in 2024, Muncy hit .176 through his first 34 games, and had only one home run.

In early May, however, he started wearing glasses to address an astigmatism in his right eye. Around that same time, he also found a breakthrough with his swing, one that helped him begin punishing fastballs up the zone. From May 7 to the end of June, he hit .315 with 12 home runs and a 1.039 OPS, one of the best stretches of his 10-year, two-time All-Star career.

That streak was derailed on July 2, when Muncy suffered his knee injury after being slid into at third base. His return a month later was cut short, too, when his oblique began bothering him during a batting practice session in August.

Those IL stints preceded a September slump that carried into the postseason, when Muncy hit just .173 entering Game 7 of the World Series.

But that night, he collected three hits, had the pivotal eighth-inning home run off Trey Yesavage that got the Dodgers back within a run, and became one of six players to contribute to all three of the Dodgers’ recent World Series titles.

“It’s starting to get a little bit comfortable up here,” he joked from atop the stage at the Dodgers’ World Series celebration on Monday. “Let’s keep it going.”

On Thursday, the team ensured his run with the Dodgers will, for at least one more season.

Alex Vesia’s option also picked up

The Dodgers on Thursday also picked up their $3.55-million club option for reliever Alex Vesia in 2026, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly. That was also not a surprise, though Vesia still would’ve been under team control and eligible for arbitration if they hadn’t.

Vesia was one of the few consistent performers in the Dodgers’ bullpen this year, posting a 3.02 ERA in a career-high 68 appearances. He was also one of their most trusted relief arms in the playoffs, bouncing back from a two-run outing in the wild-card series opener with 4 ⅓ scoreless innings the rest of the way.

Vesia was not available for the World Series as he and his wife dealt with what the team described as a “deeply personal family matter.” But he figures to be a key cog in their bullpen again next season, in what will be his last before reaching free agency.

BRITISH Airways passengers will soon be able to stay connected mid-flight without having to pay a penny.

The airline has confirmed that they will be rolling out Starlink WiFi on all of their planes next year.

Not only will it be available in all cabins, but it will be completely free for all passengers.

The high speed network means passengers will be able to stream video onboard without any lag.

This also includes over remote regions and oceans, a common area where WiFi can often cut out.

BA boss Sean Doyle, British Airways said “Launching Starlink on both our long-haul and short-haul aircraft is game-changing for us and our customers, elevating their experience on board our flights by offering them seamless connectivity from gate-to-gate.

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“Especially on short-haul, this will really differentiate us from our competitors.”

The rollout is part of British Airways’ massive £7billion expansion.

This includes new airport lounges in both Dubai and Miami, with the Sun’s Travel Reporter Cyann Fielding trying out the latter.

Another 15 airport lounges are being upgraded, with 17 new short-haul aircrafts being introduced.

British Airways is also rolling out a new First Class Suite, with its biggest bed yet as well as 32inch screens.

A new app is also being rolled out next year.

Mr Doyle said at the time the app would be similar to an Amazon when it comes to easily being able to book flights.

He explained: “The website’s been around for 22 years. We were leaders in it many years ago and we’d improved it down through the years.

“But we’ve been falling behind and we need to catch up and leapfrog the rest.”

Other inflight upgrades include larger overhead lockers – where suitcases lie on their side rather than flat – and upgraded seats made from Scottish leather.

But British Airways isn’t the first airline to roll out Starlink onboard.

Back in March, United Airlines confirmed that they would be adding the free WiFi service to more than 40 aircraft.

And Qatar Airways confirmed that all passengers will be able to use free Starlink onboard – even FaceTiming a flight attendant to show how fast it will be

The Rams are no longer kicking the can down the road when it comes to their kicking problems.

On Wednesday, the Rams signed kicker Harrison Mevis to the practice squad to compete with second-year pro Joshua Karty. The move came a day after the team signed veteran long-snapper Jake McQuaide to compete with Alex Ward.

“It’s all geared toward trying to be able to just get some solutions and some kick consistency really with our field-goal operation,” coach Sean McVay said Wednesday. “I think it’s important to have good competition at some spots that we feel we can have improved play.”

The Rams are preparing for their game on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The Rams are 6-2 — and their losses against the defending Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles and the 49ers both resulted from problems in the kicking game that resurfaced without dire consequences in last Sunday’s rout of the New Orleans Saints.

Against the Saints, Karty missed a 39-yard field goal attempt and an extra-point attempt. Karty has made 10 of 15 field-goal attempts and 23 of 26 extra-point attempts.

McVay said after the game that the Rams would evaluate “all parts of where we go with this operation.”

On Tuesday, they turned to McQuaide, 37, who played for the Rams from 2011-2020 and was part of a special teams unit that also included kicker Greg Zuerlein and punter/holder Johnny Hekker.

“If all things go well with Jake, we expect him to be our long-snapper,” McVay said.

On Wednesday, they brought in Mevis, who made 89 of 106 field-goal attempts at Missouri, including one from 61 yards. In the United Football League this past season, he made 20 of 21 field-goal attempts.

So Karty and Mevis will duel during expanded special teams drills this week.

“We’ll implement more than we normally would on a Wednesday and a Thursday and truly be able to kind of use it as a competition,” McVay said.

TORONTO — It was a game that started on Saturday and ended on Sunday, a World Series contest so packed with the rare, the historic and the dramatic that it couldn’t possibly be confined to one day.

At 11 innings, it was the longest Game 7 this century, and it equaled the longest in more than a century. It was the first Game 7 that had a ninth-inning home run to tie the score and the first to feature two video reviews that prevented the go-ahead run from scoring.

“It’s one of the greatest games I’ve ever been a part of,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 to win its second straight World Series and end the longest season in franchise history, one that began in Japan and ended in Canada.

The victory made the Dodgers the first team to win back-to-back titles in 25 years and with that championship, Roberts’ third, he passed Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda to become the second-most-decorated Dodger manager ever. He now trails only Walter Alston, another Hall of Famer, who won four World Series with the team.

Roberts, however, won his three titles over six seasons, something no Dodger skipper has ever done.

“It’s hard to reconcile that one,” said Roberts, whose jersey from Saturday’s game is on its way to Cooperstown, joining the cap the Hall of Fame requested after last year’s World Series win.

“I’m just really elated and really proud of our team, our guys, the way we fought. We’ve done something that hasn’t been done in decades. There was so many pressure points and how that game could have flipped, and we just kept fighting, and guys stepped up big.”

So did the manager.

Every move Roberts made worked, every button he pushed was the right one. Miguel Rojas, starting for the second time in nearly a month, saved the season with a game-tying home run in the top of the ninth while Andy Pages, inserted for defensive purposes during the bottom of the inning, ran down Ernie Clements’ drive at the wall with the bases loaded to end the threat.

In the 11^th he had Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitch around Addison Barger, putting the winning run on base. But that set up the game-ending double play three pitches later.

“Credit to him, man. Every single move he did this postseason was incredible,” said Tyler Glasnow, one of four starting pitchers Roberts used in relief Saturday. And he had a fifth, Clayton Kershaw, warming up when the game ended.

Added Dodgers co-owner Magic Johnson: “He did some coaching tonight. This was a great manager’s game from him. He’s proven how great a manager he is. He’s a Hall of Famer.”

Roberts asked Yamamoto, who pitched six innings Friday to win Game 6, to throw another 2 2/3 innings in Game 7. It worked; Yamamoto won that game too.

“What Yoshi did tonight is unprecedented in modern-day baseball,” said Roberts, who came into the postgame interview room wearing ski goggles and dripping of champagne. “It just goes down to just trusting your players. It’s nice when you can look down the roster and have 26 guys that you believe in and know that at some point in time their number’s going to be called.”

And Roberts needed all 26 guys. Although the Dodgers players wore t-shirts with the slogan “We Rule October” when they mounted a makeshift stage in the center of the Rogers Centre field to celebrate their victory early Sunday, October was only part of it. Their year started in Tokyo in March and ended in Toronto in November, making it the first major league season to begin and end outside the U.S.

“We really extended the season,” Max Muncy, whose eighth-inning homer started the Dodgers’ comeback, said with a grin after the team’s 179^th game in 226 days.

“Look back at the miles that we’ve logged this year,” Roberts said. “We never wavered. It’s a long season and we persevered, and we’re the last team standing.”

That, too, is a credit to Roberts, who has made the playoffs in each of his 10 seasons and went to the World Series five times, trailing only Alston among Dodger managers. His .621 regular-season winning percentage is best in franchise history among managers who worked more than three seasons. And he figures to keep padding those records.

“We’ve put together something pretty special,” said Roberts, who celebrated with his family on the field afterward. “I’m proud of the players for the fans, scouting, player development, all the stuff. To do what we’ve done in this span of time is pretty remarkable.

“I guess I’ll let the pundits and all the fans talk about if it’s a dynasty or not. But I’m pretty happy with where we’re at.”

On Sunday morning Glasnow, who missed the playoffs last season with an elbow injury, was pretty happy with where he was at as well.

“To be a part of the World Series is crazy,” he said, standing just off the infield as blue and gold confetti rained down. “You dream about it as a kid. To live it out, I feel so lucky. This group of guys, I’m so close to everyone. So many good people on this team. It’s just the perfect group of guys.”

The perfect manager, too.

Is President Trump going to restart nuclear weapons testing? When will this federal shutdown end? Will Californians pass Proposition 50, scramble the state’s congressional maps and shake up next year’s midterm elections?

Amid a swirl of high-stakes standoffs and unprecedented posturing by Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders in Washington and Sacramento, the future of U.S. politics, and California’s role therein, has felt wildly uncertain of late.

Political debate — around things such as sending military troops into American cities, cutting off food aid for the poor or questioning constitutional guarantees such as birthright citizenship — has become so untethered to longstanding norms that everything feels novel.

The pathways for taking political power — as with Trump’s teasing a potential third term, installing federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation, slashing federal budgets without congressional input and pressuring red states to redistrict in his favor before a midterm election — have been so sharply altered that many Americans, and some historians and political experts, have lost confidence in U.S. democracy.

“It’s completely unprecedented, completely anomalous — representative, I think, of a major transformation of our normal political life,” said Jack Rakove, a Stanford University emeritus professor of history and political science.

“You can’t compare it to any other episode, any other period, any other set of events in American history. It is unique and radically novel in distressing ways,” Rakove said. “As soon as Trump was reelected, we entered into a constitutional crisis. Why? Because Trump has no respect for constitutional structures.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “President Trump’s unorthodox approach is why he has been so successful and why he has received massive support from the American public.”

Jackson said Trump has “achieved more than any President has in modern history,” including in “securing the border, getting dangerous criminals off American streets, brokering historic peace deals [and] bringing new investments to the U.S.,” and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly backed his approach as legal.

“So-called experts can pontificate all they want, but President Trump’s actions have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court despite a record number of challenges from liberal activists and unlawful rulings from liberal lower court judges,” Jackson said.

There are many examples of Trump flouting or suggesting he will flout the Constitution or other laws directly, and in ways that make people unsure and concerned about what will come next for the country politically, Rakove and other political experts said. His constant flirting with the idea of a third term in office does that, as does his legal challenge to birthright citizenship and his military’s penchant for blasting alleged drug vessels out of international waters.

On Wednesday, Trump raised the prospect of further breaching international law and norms by appearing to suggest on social media that, for the first time in three decades, the U.S. would resume testing nuclear weapons.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote — leaving it unclear whether he meant detonating warheads or simply testing the missiles that deliver them.

There are also many examples, the experts said, of American political norms being tossed aside — and the nation’s political future tossed in the air — by others around Trump, both allies and enemies, who are trying to either please or push back against the unorthodox commander in chief with their own abnormal political maneuvers.

One example is House Speaker Mike Johnson (R.-La.) refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva, despite her being elected in September to represent parts of Arizona in Congress. Johnson has cited the shutdown, but others — including Arizona’s attorney general in a lawsuit — have suggested Johnson is trying to prevent a House vote on releasing records about the late Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire sex offender whom Trump was friends with before a reported falling out years ago.

Uncertainty about whether those records would implicate Trump or any other powerful people in any wrongdoing has swirled in Washington throughout Trump’s term — showing more staying power than perhaps any other issue, despite Trump’s insistence that he’s done nothing wrong and the issue is a distraction.

The mid-decade redistricting battle — in which California’s Proposition 50 looms large — is another prime example, the experts said.

Normally, redistricting occurs each decade, after federal census data comes out. But at Trump’s urging, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott agreed to redraw his state’s congressional lines this year to help ensure Republicans maintain control of the House in the midterms. In response, Newsom and California Democrats introduced Proposition 50, asking California voters to amend the state Constitution to allow Democrats to redraw lines in their favor.

As a result, Californians — millions of whom have already voted — have been getting bombarded by messages both for and against Proposition 50, many of which are hyper-focused on the uncertain implications for American democracy.

“Let’s fight back and democracy can be defended,” a Proposition 50 backer wrote on a postcard to one voter. “It is against democracy and rips away the power to draw congressional seats from the people,” opponents of the measure wrote to others.

H.W. Brands, a U.S. history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said, “Americans who are worried about democracy are right to be concerned,” because Trump “has broken or threatened many of the guardrails of democracy.”

But he also noted — partly as a reflection of the dangerous moment the country is in — that Trump has long rejected a particularly “sacred” part of American democracy by refusing to accept his loss to President Biden in 2020, and Americans reelected him in 2024 anyway.

“Americans have always been divided politically. This is the first time (with the exception of 1860) that the division goes down to the fundamentals of democracy,” Brands wrote in an email — referencing the year the U.S. Confederacy seceded from the Union.

High stakes

The uncertainty has festered in an era of rampant political disinformation and under a president who has a penchant for challenging reality outright on a near-daily basis — who on a trip through Asia this week not only said he’d “love” a third term, which is precluded by the Constitution, but claimed, falsely, that he is experiencing his best polling numbers ever.

The uncertainty has also been compounded by Democrats, who have wielded the only levers of power they have left by refusing to concede to Republicans in the raging shutdown battle in Washington and by putting Proposition 50 to California voters.

The shutdown has major, immediate implications. Not only are federal employees around the country, including in California, furloughed or without pay checks, but billions in additional federal funding is at risk.

Democrats have resisted funding the government in an effort to force Republicans to back down from massive cuts to healthcare subsidies that help millions of Californians and many more Americans afford health coverage. The shutdown means Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits could be cut off for more than 40 million people — nearly 1 in 8 Americans — this weekend.

California and other Democrat-led states have sued the Trump administration, asking a federal court to issue an emergency order requiring the USDA to use existing contingency funds to distribute SNAP funding.

Jackson, the White House spokesperson, said Democrats should be asked when the shutdown will end, because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

The redistricting battle could have even bigger impact.

If Democrats retook the House next year, it would give them a real source of oversight power to confront Trump and block his MAGA agenda. If Republicans retain control, they will help facilitate Trump’s agenda — just as they have since he took office.

But even if Proposition 50 passes, as polling suggests it will, it’s not clear that Democrats would win all the races lined up for them in the state, or that those seats would be enough to win Democrats the chamber given efforts to pick up Republican seats in Texas and elsewhere.

The uncertainty around the midterms is, by extension, producing more uncertainty around the second half of Trump’s term.

What will Trump do, particularly if Republicans stay in power? Is he stationing troops in American cities as part of some broader play for retaining power, as some Democrats have suggested? Is he setting the groundwork to challenge the integrity of U.S. elections by citing his baseless claims about fraud in 2020 and putting fellow election deniers in charge of reviewing the system?

Is he really gearing up to contest the constitutional limits on his tenure in the White House? He said he’d “love” to stay in office this week, but then he said it’s “too bad” he’s not allowed to.

Fire with fire?

According to David Greenberg, a history professor at Rutgers University, it is Trump’s unorthodox policies and tactics but also his brash demeanor that “make this a more unsettled moment than we are used to feeling.”

“Sometimes when he’s doing things that other presidents have done, he does it in such an outlandish way that it feels unprecedented,” or is “stylistically” but not substantively unprecedented, Greenberg said. “Self-aggrandizing claims, often untrue. The brazenness with which he insults people. The way he changes his mind on something. That all is highly unusual and unique to Trump.”

In other instances, Greenberg said, Trump has pushed the boundaries of the law or busted political norms that previous presidents felt bound by.

“One thing that Trump showed us is just how much of our functioning system depends not just on the letter of the law but on norms,” Greenberg said. “What can the president do? What kind of power can he exert over the Justice Department and who it prosecutes? Well, it turns out he probably can do a lot more than should be permissible.”

However, the appropriate response is not the one seemingly gaining steam among Democrats — to “be more like Trump” themselves or “fight fire with fire” — but to look for ways to strengthen the political norms and boundaries Trump is ignoring, Greenberg said.

“The more the public, citizens in general, feel that it’s OK to disregard long-standing ways of doing things that have stood the test of time until now, the more likely we are to enter into a more chaotic world — a world in which there will be less justice, less democracy,” Greenberg said. “It will be more subject to the whims or preferences of whoever is in power — and in a liberal democracy, that is what you are striving to fight against.”

NBCUniversal owner Comcast is indeed interested in some of Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets.

On a Thursday call with analysts to discuss third-quarter earnings, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh suggested the Philadelphia giant might bid for certain Warner assets, primarily the Warner Bros. film and television studios and its streaming service HBO Max.

Sources had previously said Comcast was angling to join the Warner Bros. Discovery auction after that company’s board formally opened the process last week. The Warner board has unanimously rejected three unsolicited bids from David Ellison’s Paramount, which has offered $58 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Comcast isn’t looking to acquire the entire company or Warner’s large portfolio of cable channels that include CNN, TBS and Food Network. Instead, Cavanagh suggested that Comcast’s interest would be more narrow.

He noted that NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. have compatible businesses. Comcast wants to grow its studios business and its struggling streaming service, Peacock, which lost $217 million during the quarter.

“You should expect us to look at things that are trading in our space … It’s our job to try to figure out if there are ways to add value,” Cavanagh told analysts.

But he added a note of caution, saying the company didn’t feel that a merger was “necessary.”

“The bar is very high for us to pursue any [merger] transactions,” he said.

The Warner Bros. Discovery auction comes amid deep turmoil in the industry. Traditional entertainment companies, including Warner and NBCUniversal, have long relied heavily on cable programming fees to boost profit but consumers have been scaling back on pay-TV subscriptions amid the move to streaming.

To address that challenge, Comcast is spinning off its cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Golf Channel, into a separately traded company called Versant. That process is expected to be complete this year.

As part of the transition, the liberal-leaning MSNBC is changing its name to MS Now and dropping the peacock from its network logo, reflecting its pending exit from NBC, which will remain part of Comcast.

Cavanagh suggested that Comcast would not double down in a declining cable channel business that it was already exiting.

But Warner has other compelling businesses, including HBO and its Warner Bros. film and television studio. The Warner Bros. studio has released a string of movie blockbusters this year, including “Superman” and “A Minecraft Movie.”

Warner and NBCUniversal are investing in their respective streaming services but both lag Netflix, YouTube and Walt Disney Co. in terms of subscribers and engagement. Peacock has 41 million subscribers; the service has lost billions of dollars since Comcast launched it five years ago.

To shore up Peacock and the NBC broadcast network, Comcast has doubled down on sports, including striking a $27-billion, 10-year deal for NBA basketball, a contract that kicked in this month with the new season. (Nielsen ratings for the inaugural NBA game on NBC last week were strong — nearly 5 million viewers).

Most analysts believe that Ellison’s Paramount is in the best position to win Warner Bros. Discovery. They point to the Ellison family’s determination, wealth and political connections. Tech titan Larry Ellison, who is backing his son’s bid, is the second-richest man in the world behind Elon Musk, and President Trump views the elder Ellison as a good friend.

In contrast, Trump has displayed a dim view of Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Brian Roberts, in large part, because of Comcast’s ownership of MSNBC, which Trump has accused of being an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

The tension has led observers to conclude that Comcast would face a stormy regulatory review process with Trump overseeing the Department of Justice, which would likely perform an anti-trust review of any major transaction for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Concerns about Comcast’s ability to get deals through the Trump administration may be overblown, Cavanagh said.

“I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary [suggests],” Cavanagh said.

“CBS Saturday Morning” co-hosts Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson are among the nearly 100 news division employees cut as part of a massive round of layoffs at parent company Paramount.

The program is getting a new format that will align it closer to the weekday show “CBS Mornings,” according to people familiar with the plans who were not authorized to comment publicly. Brian Applegate, the executive producer of the Saturday program, is out as well.

CBS has also canceled “CBS Mornings Plus,” an extension of its morning program that ran in several markets including Los Angeles. “CBS Evening News Plus,” a streaming program anchored by John Dickerson is also being shuttered. Dickerson announced Monday he is leaving the network.

Several correspondents have already been laid off, including Debora Patta, who covered the Gaza war for the network; Janet Shamlian; and Nikki Battiste. A CBS News representative declined comment.

The cuts are part of parent company Paramount’s reduction of 1,000 employees across all of its divisions. New owners Skydance Media are looking to reduce cots by $2 billion across the company, with a second round of cuts expected later this year.

Miller was a prolific correspondent for CBS News in addition to her Saturday co-host duties, contributing pieces to “CBS Sunday Morning” and “48 Hours.” She also was a frequent fill-in for Gayle King on the weekday morning program.

Miller, 52, is a Los Angeles native and the daughter of Dr. Ross Miller, a trauma surgeon who served on the city council in Compton. She worked at the Los Angeles Times in the early 1990s.

Miller covered a wide range of stories at CBS News, and paid special attention to issues or racism and social injustice. She is married to Marc Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans who is currently head of the National Urban League.

Jacobson, 52 has been with CBS News since 2015. She previously spent a decade at ESPN, where she appeared on “First Take” and “SportsCenter.”

Miller and Jacobson have served as co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning” since 2018 when it was called “CBS This Morning Saturday.”

Getty Images

Golden crowns and grand orders

Reuters

BBC/Leehyun Choi

It’s been a rough few years for Santa Monica.

Businesses have abandoned its once-thriving downtown. Its retail and office vacancy rates are among the highest in Los Angeles County. The crowds that previously packed the area surrounding the city’s famous pier have dwindled.

Homelessness has risen. City officials acknowledge crime incidents had become more visible and volatile.

The breadth and depth of the issues became apparent just last month when the city was forced to declare itself in fiscal distress after paying $229 million in settlements related to alleged sexual abuse by Eric Uller, a former city dispatcher.

Now, Santa Monica is trying to plot a new path forward. A significant first step could come Tuesday.

That’s when the City Council is set to consider a plan to reverse its fortunes.

A shuttered business on Broadway in Santa Monica.

(David Butow/For The Times)

The plan includes significantly increasing police patrols and enforcing misdemeanor ordinances, investing in infrastructure and new community events, and taking a more business-friendly brush to permits and fees. Officials also plan to be more aggressive in making sure property owners maintain unused properties.

The blueprint tackles many “quality of life” issues that critics say have contributed to lower foot traffic in the city’s tourist districts since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s far from clear the tactics will work. But given the city’s current trajectory, officials say bold action is necessary.

“We’re trying to usher in a rebirth — a renaissance of the city — by investing in ourselves,” Councilmember Dan Hall said.

Hall, 38, is part of a relatively youthful City Council majority that swept into office in recent years as voters opted for new leadership and a fresh approach. Five of the seven council members are millennials, and six members first joined the council in either 2022 or 2024.

Also new on the scene is City Manager Oliver Chi, who five months ago was hired away from the same position in Irvine.

“The city is in a period of distress, for sure,” said Chi, 45. “We’re not in a moment where the city is broke. The city still has resources. … But right now, if we do nothing, the city’s general fund operating budget is projected to run a structural deficit of nearly $30 million a year, and that’s because we’ve seen big drops” in revenues, such as from hotel taxes, sales tax and parking.

“But part of that is the private sector hasn’t been investing in the city. And we haven’t had people traveling to the city,” Chi said.

Santa Monica is far from the only city — in California or nationwide — to face the pain of a downtown in decline. Brick-and-mortar retailers have long bled business to online offerings, and the pandemic upended the cadence of daily life that was the lifeblood of commercial districts, with many people continuing to work from home at least part of the week.

Birds fly over and people walk on the Santa Monica Pier.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

But the hope is through concerted, planned investment that Santa Monica can shine once again and modernize to be competitive in the postpandemic era.

The City Council had already decided to set aside $60 million from its cash reserves to spend over the next four or five years to cover any operating deficits. But with Tuesday’s vote, Santa Monica would instead use those dollars as an investment in hopes of getting the city back on track.

“Those things really are issues related to public safety, disorder in town, the disrepair that we’ve seen in our infrastructure,” Chi said. “All of those things are preventing, I think, confidence in the local economy.”

In downtown, the city’s plan would include doubling the number of police officers assigned to a specialized unit to at least eight to 10 a day, deploying an additional five patrol officers daily, creating a new police substation, adding two workers daily to address homelessness issues, and hiring eight public safety employees to provide a more constant presence across the city’s main commercial district, parks and parking garages.

Staff in the city attorney’s office would also be augmented to boost the ability to prosecute misdemeanor cases.

An unhoused man naps on a bench in Palisades Park.

(David Butow / For The Times)

Also on the agenda: moving the city’s homeless shelter out of downtown; making a one-time $3.5-million investment to address fraying sidewalks and streets and freshen up trees and trash cans; funding monthly events at the Third Street Promenade to attract crowds; creating a large-scale “Santa Monica Music Festival” next year; upgrading restrooms near the pier and Muscle Beach; and increasing operating days for libraries.

Another proposal would require the owners of vacant properties to register with the city, in hopes of addressing lots that remain in disrepair.

The city is also looking to be more business friendly. It’s seeking to upgrade the current permit process, utilizing artificial intelligence to get nearly instantaneous permit reviews for single-family homes and accessory dwelling units, as well as reduce permit fees for restaurants with outdoor dining.

The plan also outlines strategies to boost revenue. Santa Monica is poised to end its contract with a private ambulance operator, McCormick Ambulance, in February and move those operations in house.

“It’s going to cost roughly $2.8 million a year to stand that operation up. But the reality is, once we start running it, it’ll generate about $7 million a year in new ongoing revenues,” Chi said.

“That’s part of what we’re thinking through: How do we invest now in order to grow our revenue base moving ahead?” he said.

Parking rates are also going up, which city officials estimate should generate $8 million to $9 million in additional annual revenue — though officials say they still charge a lower rate than those of nearby cities.

The city also plans more traffic safety enforcement and will cut the current 90 minutes of free parking in downtown parking structures to 30 minutes.

There’s also been talk of a new city parcel tax, though no decision has yet been made to pursue that. A parcel tax would need voter approval.

Another priority is building back the city’s cash reserves, which have dwindled over the years, largely on account of legal payments. Eight years ago, Santa Monica had $436 million in cash reserves; today, there’s only $158 million in nonrestricted reserves.

The planned $60 million in spending would further reduce the city’s unobligated cash down to $98 million.

Santa Monica’s annual general fund operating budget is nearly $800 million a year.

Beachgoers enjoying the scene near the Santa Monica Pier.

(David Butow/For The Times)

The city is also looking to redevelop some of its underutilized properties, including a 2.57-acre parcel bounded by Arizona Avenue and 4th and 5th streets, which includes branches of Bank of America and Chase bank, the leases of which are expected to expire in a few years. Also being eyed are a 1.09-acre kiss-and-ride lot southeast of the Santa Monica light rail station; the city’s seismically vulnerable Parking Structure 1 on 4th Street, which sits on 0.75 of an acre; and the old Fire Station No. 1, which sits on 0.34 of an acre and is being used for storage.

No firm plans are in place just yet. The parcels could be sold, leased long term or redeveloped as part of a joint venture. One likely possibility is that the developments would include new housing.

“When you look at any revitalization effort of any vibrant downtown core that’s eroded, there’s always been an element of repopulating the area with people,” Chi said. A smart redevelopment plan for those properties will not only “hopefully help bring back vibrancy to the downtown, but also help replenish the city’s cash reserves.”

The seeds of downtown Santa Monica’s decline actually started before the pandemic. But COVID hit the city hard, and commercial vacancies rose significantly, Councilmember Caroline Torosis, 39, said.

Santa Monica also sustained damage in 2020 from rioters who swarmed the downtown area in what appeared to be an organized attack amid a protest meant to decry the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Tourists never came back in the numbers they had before the pandemic.

Torosis said the new council majority was elected on a promise to boost economic activity in the city.

“We need to absolutely ensure that people feel safe, welcome, invited and included in our city,” said Torosis, who serves as mayor pro tem.

Hall called the plan a bold bet.

“What we’re trying to do here is move us away from a scarcity mind-set, where we’re nickel-and-diming businesses trying to stay open, restaurants trying to open a parklet, residents trying to build an ADU,” Hall said.

The council’s relative youth, he said, is a plus for a city trying to write a bright new chapter.

“I think that that’s something that millennials are finding themselves needing to do as we take ownership of society, and we see a world where past generations have been afraid to make mistakes or afraid to make decisions,” he said.

John Dickerson, co-anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said Monday he will exit the network at the end of the year.

Dickerson will be the first major talent departure since the arrival of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News last month.

The veteran political journalist who joined CBS News in 2009 gave no reason for leaving in an Instagram post announcing his decision.

“I am extremely grateful for all that CBS News gave me – the work, the audience’s attention and the honor of being a part of the network’s history – and I am grateful for my dear colleagues who’ve made me a better journalist and a better human being and I will miss you,” Dickerson wrote.

Dickerson became co-anchor of “CBS Evening News” in January alongside Maurice DuBois, succeeding Norah O’Donnell. The duo were part of a revamp of the program, which put an emphasis on more in-depth stories.

The format change failed to attract new viewers as it remains in third place behind “ABC World News Tonight with David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas.”

There had been talk of significant changes coming to the newscast before Weiss signed on for a senior role at the division.

Weiss has reportedly expressed interest in bringing Fox News anchor Bret Baier to CBS, but his current employer has him under contract through 2028. Baier anchors “Special Report,” a nightly newscast that like many Fox News programs is closely followed by President Trump.

Anderson Cooper, whose contract will soon be up at CNN, has also been mentioned internally as an evening news anchor candidate.

“CBS Evening News” co-anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson.

(Gail Schulman/CBS News)

The changes to “CBS Evening News” were initiated by former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, who was pushed out of the company amid the controversy over a 2024 interview with former vice president Kamala Harris.

Trump sued the network over the interview which he said was deceptively edited to help her presidential campaign. Although the case labeled as frivolous by 1st Amendment experts, Paramount settled the suit for $16 million to clear the regulatory path for its merger with Skydance Media.

A former writer for Time magazine, Dickerson came to CBS News as a contributor before taking on a variety of roles in the division. He was anchor of the Washington-based public affairs program “Face the Nation.” He moved to New York to join “CBS This Morning” after the network fired Charlie Rose over sexual harassment allegations in 2017.

Dickerson anchored a nightly prime time newscast on CBS News Streaming before being tapped for “CBS Evening News.” He could not be immediately reached for comment.

MSNBC has set a date for its new name.

Starting Nov. 15, the progressive-leaning cable news channel will be called MS NOW — an acronym for My Source, News, Opinion and World. The famous NBC peacock will no longer be part of the channel’s logo.

Viewers started seeing spots promoting the new moniker on Monday, with the tagline “Same mission, New name.” A larger marketing push will happen in the coming weeks according to a memo from MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler that was obtained by The Times.

The rebranding coincides with parent company Comcast’s spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable channels into Versant, a new company. CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, SyFy and E! are also part of the entity.

Comcast is unloading the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price. Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts will own 33% of the shares in Versant, which will trade as a public company under the symbol VSNT on the NASDAQ.

MSNBC will soon be called MS NOW.

(AP)

While the spinoff has been in the works for months, MSNBC viewers have heard little about it on the air until now. The network held a fan festival at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York earlier this month and all of the signage used the MSNBC logo. The name change was referred to several times by the personalities who appeared on stage.

The change required MSNBC to unwind its news operation from NBC News, which supplied correspondents to the channel. A number of NBC News correspondents, including Jacob Soboroff and Ken Dilanian, chose to work for Versant.

The current line-up of MSNBC opinion hosts — including Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell — will all make the transition to MS NOW.

Although MSNBC employees were initially told the network’s name would be retained, NBCUniversal decided it did not want its brand attached to a network it did not control.

NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff reporting on the wildfire that destroyed his boyhood home.

(NBC News)

Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus encouraged his staff to embrace the change in spite of the challenges of marketing a new brand in a highly fragmented media landscape.

“This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news organization following the spin,” Lazarus wrote in an August memo.

MSNBC has its own Washington bureau, which has already broken a number of stories in recent weeks, including the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and former national security advisor John Bolton.

MSNBC also has a multiyear agreement with U.K.-based Sky News to provide international coverage.

His father says it all the time.

Anthony Frias II will suffer a setback, like those scary months when the UCLA running back was stuck in transfer portal limbo, unsure if his college career was over, and he’ll hear those familiar words.

It’s part of the movie.

He’ll strain in anonymity, police repeatedly coming to the door of his home at 2:30 a.m. because neighbors kept complaining about the sound of weights slamming onto the floor of the garage after another sweaty deadlift, and here comes his father’s favorite phrase again.

UCLA running back Anthony Frias II’s family gathers for a photo in front of the Rose Bowl before cheering for him and the Bruins.

(The Frias family)

It’s part of the movie.

Then there’s moments like last weekend, when something happens that makes this whole improbable journey feel like it’s just getting started, like there’s so much left to do and so many people to inspire for the kid from a tiny town in the San Joaquin Valley who once had no college scholarship offers.

Having been made a bigger part of the offensive game plan against Maryland, Frias bolted for his first career touchdown run. Later, with the Bruins needing to reach field-goal range in the game’s final moments, he chugged ahead for 35 yards, dragging defenders with him to set up the winning score.

When Frias emerged from the tunnel inside the Rose Bowl afterward to reconnect with his family, having starred inside the stadium where he once stood as a teenager with a sign proclaiming that he would play there one day, it was only a matter of time before he heard that refrain once more.

“Every time something happens, he mentions it,” the namesake son said of his father, “and it gives me a little bit more belief each time that he’s right.”

For many years, the genre of Anthony Frias II’s story seemed uncertain.

Would it be a hero’s tale? A drama about unfulfilled dreams?

The only sure thing was the conviction of the boy and his father who believed their journey would take them well beyond the confines of Le Grand, Calif., population 1,592.

Little Anthony wanted to play football so badly growing up that after suffering a hairline fracture in his knee that was supposed to sideline him for the rest of the season, he made his own rehabilitation plan.

He was only 9.

Setting his alarm for 5:30 in the morning, he’d wake his father and they would go for a 1½-mile run to a relative’s home for workouts before running back. With his team on the verge of its championship game, Anthony needed a doctor’s clearance to return ahead of schedule.

One morning, he took a crumpled piece of paper to his mom in bed. When she awoke unexpectedly, he ran away nervously. Sabrina Frias looked at the paper, which outlined his recovery and mentioned that he had been waiting for this moment his whole life.

Anthony Frias II was in high school when he stood in front of the Rose Bowl while holding up a sign that read, “One day I will play here!” and featured the Stanford logo. He realized his dream of playing in the Rose Bowl, although it was for UCLA.

(The Frias family)

Anthony left his fate in his mother’s hands, asking her to make a choice — circle the “Yes” he had written alongside a happy face or the “No” alongside a sad face.

Her heart breaking at the thought of denying her son, she circled “Yes.” Anthony went on to score every point in his team’s 20-19 victory.

By the time he was 13, Anthony had modeled his playing style after Christian McCaffrey, the dynamic Stanford running back who was making a strong push for the Heisman Trophy. That made the Christmas present he received that year — tickets to see Stanford play Iowa in the Rose Bowl — an all-time favorite.

Before the game, Anthony’s father painted a giant red “S” on his son’s bare chest. Together, they made a sign that Anthony held above his head while standing outside the stadium. It read, “One day I will play here!”

Looking back, Anthony said the sign was mostly his father’s idea.

“He just knew,” Anthony said, “that I was gonna be so special.”

Few shared that belief when Anthony was coming out of high school.

Starring for Turlock High, which was not known for producing high-level college prospects, wasn’t enough to draw interest beyond a few Division II schools. What was the recruiters’ biggest hang up?

“When they looked at him,” Anthony’s father said of someone who now stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 225 pounds, “he wasn’t the guy they wanted.”

Enrolling at Modesto Junior College, Anthony quickly rose from fourth-stringer to featured tailback during the 2021 season, topping 100 yards rushing three times and leading all California junior college players with 17 rushing touchdowns.

It was enough to earn him a scholarship offer at Kansas State.

Kansas State running back Anthony Frias II catches the ball during a game against Tulane on Sept. 17, 2022, in Manhattan, Kan.

(Colin E Braley / Associated Press)

Buried on the depth chart, he redshirted during his first season with the Wildcats. The next season, playing mostly on special teams, Anthony rarely got more than a carry or two in any game. As confident as he was in his ability, it was impossible to keep out the doubt.

He forged ahead, bolstered by his religious faith and conversations with the father who also happened to be his therapist and best friend, telling him not to worry, that things would eventually pay off.

“You know, we talk it through, I’m there for him all the time,” the elder Frias said. “I’ve been there through the tears, I’ve been there through the needing to hold my son, through the questioning, ‘What more can I do, dad?’ But he never faltered, never quit.”

He did seek a new football home.

Kansas State running back Anthony Frias II carries the ball while running into the Central Florida defense on Sept. 23, 2023, in Manhattan, Kan.

(Travis Heying / Associated Press)

Before Kansas State played its bowl game at the end of the 2023 season, Frias entered the transfer portal. Then he waited. And waited. Months went by without a new offer to play elsewhere.

“Nobody was coming, nobody was calling, there was a moment where we were just like, ‘Man, what are we going to do?’” Anthony’s father said. “We just prayed and had faith, like it’s going to work out, don’t worry.”

Sure enough, the new coaching staff at Arizona, which had pursued Anthony when it was at San José State, offered a spot as a preferred walk-on. That meant Anthony was going to have to take out student loans and pay for his own apartment in Tucson.

About a week before he was scheduled to move in, Anthony received a call from Marcus Thomas, UCLA’s running backs coach. How would you like to become a Bruin? Anthony told him that he’d need to be more than a preferred walk-on because otherwise he was just going to go to Arizona.

Less than five minutes later, UCLA offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy called. The team agreed to cover his tuition and living expenses through name, image and likeness funds, even though he wouldn’t be on scholarship.

Done.

When Anthony giddily walked into the Rose Bowl for the first time as a player, during a practice before the 2024 season opener, he FaceTimed his parents, even going over to the seat where he and his father had watched that Rose Bowl game.

“That,” Anthony said, “was like the first full-circle moment that I had.”

Anthony’s first season as a Bruin largely mirrored his final season as a Wildcat. There was a lot of special teams work and only a few carries before an expanded role in the season finale against Fresno State.

Entering what’s likely to be his final college season, the redshirt senior earned a scholarship but no guarantee of emerging from the shadows.

As usual, his father wore his son’s No. 22 jersey last weekend when he settled into his seat in the family section inside the Rose Bowl, never imagining the name on the back would be one of the most talked about inside the stadium.

When Anthony took a handoff early in the second quarter, cutting one way and then the other before breaking a tackle on the way to a 55-yard touchdown run, his every movement was accompanied by his father’s voice in the stands.

“I’m like, ‘Oh, oh dang, oh dang!’ ” the elder Frias said. “And then I stand up, like, ‘Oh!’ and I see that [defender] chase him and I’m like, ‘Come on, Ant, turn it up!’ and then he beats the guy out to score the touchdown and I just went crazy.”

With fellow running backs Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas later sidelined by injuries, Anthony Frias got a few more carries. His last one, on the game’s final offensive play, captured the essence of someone who refused to quit.

Running away from one defender who tried to grab him by the shoulders, he spun away from another before finally getting dragged down at the five-yard line to set up the winning field goal on the next play.

“Just all the pain, all the suffering, all the longing, all the workouts, all the late nights, all the no-love, no-opportunity, that run signified the release of that,” his father said. “And when he came out of there, he let out his roar. He was like, ‘I won’t be denied any more.’ ”

In one game and only four carries, Anthony had piled up 97 rushing yards — exceeding the 91 yards he had tallied in the three previous seasons combined.

“He made the most of the situation,” UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper said. “He made critical plays — I mean, we’re not just talking he got some first down or something, he made critical, impact, explosive plays that changed that game and for that to happen for him, it couldn’t have happened to a better person.”

Later, emerging from the tunnel leading to the same spot outside the Rose Bowl where he had held that sign over his head almost a decade earlier, Anthony flashed a smile that his father had never seen before when he reached a jubilant throng of family and friends.

“It just was all the years of the grinding and the behind-the-scenes stuff that I’ve been going through,” Anthony said, “and you know, getting opportunities here and there doing different things and showing that I could do more.”

Everyone shouting his name, waiting their turn for a hug, the only thing missing was a climactic score and rolling credits.

You know what his father would say about that.

Robertson’s absence has been a big talking point for Cardiff fans, who have been perplexed as to why a player who cost the club a seven-figure fee when he joined from Manchester City in the summer of 2024 has not been used.

He was in Australia’s squad for their friendly matches in the United States and Canada earlier this month, but did not feature in either game.

“I think it’s fine for the supporters to talk about him in whatever way they want,” said Barry-Murphy.

“Alex is somebody who I know really well from long before he was at this club [when Barry-Murphy coached Manchester City Under-21s], so all I want for all the players is to be at their best.

“My duty is then to get them into that condition where they can compete against each other. But I have to be very fair and consistent in the way that I judge all the squad once they reach that level.

“That’s the same for Alex as it is for everybody else. If he was in the shoes of the other players, he’d want the exact same thing.”

Meanwhile, centre-back Dylan Lawlor could be back for Saturday’s League One trip to Bolton Wanderers having missed last Saturday’s 2-1 win over Reading with a groin injury.

Fellow centre-back Will Fish is also managing a knee issue, which limited him to 45 minutes against the Royals last weekend.

“Will Fish has an ongoing knee issue which is getting better, particularly when he hits longer passes,” said Barry-Murphy.

“He’s had some discomfort in his knee. But the amount of discomfort is getting less and less, so he’s making good progress.

“Dylan has had a good week of training so far. I think it’s important that he can do certain things that we want from later on this afternoon [Thursday] when we train, and then hopefully he can be available for Saturday.”

WASHINGTON — The White House started tearing down part of the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for the first lady, to build President Trump’s $250-million ballroom despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.

Dramatic photos of the demolition work that began Monday showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. Some reporters watched from a park near the Treasury Department, which is next to the East Wing.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the plan now called for the demolition of the entire East Wing and that the tear-down should be completed by Sunday. Citing a source, The Times said it marks an escalation over earlier plans for the ballroom.

Trump announced the start of construction in a social media post and referenced the work while hosting 2025 college baseball champs Louisiana State University and LSU-Shreveport in the East Room. He noted the work was happening “right behind us.”

“We have a lot of construction going on, which you might hear periodically,” he said, adding, “It just started today.”

The White House has moved ahead with the massive construction project despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area.

Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said at the commission’s September meeting that the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property.

“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said last month.

It was unclear whether the White House had submitted the ballroom plans for the agency’s review and approval. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the commission’s offices are closed because of the government shutdown.

The Republican president had said in July when the project was announced that the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.

“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said of the White House.

The East Wing houses several offices, including those of the first lady. It was built in 1902 and and has been renovated over the years, with a second story added in 1942, according to the White House.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said those East Wing offices will be temporarily relocated during construction and that wing of the building will be modernized and renovated.

“Nothing will be torn down,” Leavitt said when she announced the project in July.

Trump insists that presidents have desired such a ballroom for 150 years and that he’s adding the massive 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space because the East Room, which is the largest room in the White House with an approximately 200-person capacity, is too small. He also has said he does not like the idea of hosting kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.

Trump said in the social media announcement that the project would be completed “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer! The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”

The ballroom will be the biggest structural change to the Executive Mansion since the addition in 1948 of the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Lawn, even dwarfing the residence itself.

At a dinner he hosted last week for some of the wealthy business executives who are donating money toward the construction cost, Trump said the project had grown in size and now will accommodate 999 people. The capacity was 650 seated people at the July announcement.

The White House has said it will disclose information on who has contributed money to build the ballroom, but has yet to do so.

Trump also said at last week’s event that the head of Carrier Global Corp., a leading manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, had offered to donate the air-conditioning system for the ballroom.

Carrier confirmed to the Associated Press on Monday that it had done so. A cost estimate was not immediately available.

“Carrier is honored to provide the new iconic ballroom at the White House with a world-class, energy-efficient HVAC system, bringing comfort to distinguished guests and dignitaries in this historic setting for years to come,” the company said in an emailed statement.

The clearing of trees on the south grounds and other site preparation work for the construction started in September. Plans call for the ballroom to be ready before Trump’s term ends in January 2029.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has built up an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the coast of Venezuela since this summer, when the Trump administration first began to shift assets to the region as part of its so-called war against narcoterrorism.

Here is a look at the ships, planes and troops in the region:

Ships

The Navy has eight warships in the region — three destroyers, three amphibious assault ships, a cruiser and a smaller littoral combat ship that’s designed for coastal waters.

The three amphibious assault ships make up an amphibious readiness group and carry an expeditionary unit of Marines. As a result, those ships also have on board a variety of Marine helicopters, Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and Harrier jets that have the capability of either transporting large numbers of Marines or striking targets on land and sea.

While officials have not offered specific numbers, destroyers and cruisers typically deploy with a missile loadout that contains Tomahawk cruise missiles — a missile that can strike hundreds of miles from its launch point.

A U.S. Navy submarine, the USS Newport News, also is operating in the broader area of South America and is capable of carrying and launching cruise missiles.

Planes and drones

A squadron of advanced U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jets have been sent to an airstrip in Puerto Rico. The planes were first spotted landing on the island territory in mid-September.

MQ-9 Reaper Air Force drones, capable of flying long distances and carrying up to eight laser-guided missiles, also have been spotted operating out of Puerto Rico by commercial satellites and military watchers, as well as photojournalists, around the same time.

It has been widely reported that the Navy is operating P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft out of the region as well.

Earlier this month, the military released a photo of an U.S. Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider, a heavily armed plane capable of firing its large guns with precision onto ground targets, also sitting on the tarmac in Puerto Rico.

There have been a multitude of other military aircraft that have temporarily flown through the region as part of military operations there.

For example, the U.S. Air Force flew a group of B-52 Stratofortress bombers through the region last week for what the Pentagon dubbed as a “bomber attack demo” in photos online.

Troops

All told, there are more than 6,000 sailors and Marines that are now operating in the region based on the ships that have been confirmed by defense officials.

The Pentagon has not offered specific numbers on how many drones, aircraft or ground crew are in the region so their impact on that broader figure is unknown.

Toropin writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has begun demolition of the East Wing as he remakes the White House in his image, ignoring rules, breaking promises and taking a wrecking ball to the approval process in an echo of the strategies he deployed in Florida and New York as he built his real estate empire.

An excavator ripped off the facade and parts of the roof on Monday, exposing the stone shell below. Windows have been removed. A truck carried trees outside the White House gates and down Pennsylvania Avenue. A crowd gathered outside to witness the partial tear-down of the historic building — which Trump said just weeks ago would not be touched in his plans to build a new ballroom.

“Over the next few days, it’s going to be demolished,” Trump said at a White House dinner last week for donors to the 90,000-square-foot structure estimated to cost between $200 million and $250 million.

“Everything out there is coming down, and we’re replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms that you’ve ever seen.”

He described the forthcoming structure as “four sides of beautiful glass.”

But similar to the rule-breaking tactics he used when pushing through changes to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and building his Trump Tower in New York, Trump’s sudden and dramatic White House overhaul has been made possible by his disdain for the rules that have protected Washington’s cohesive design. To date, he hasn’t submitted plans for review to the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees renovation and additions to the federal buildings in the capital, including the president’s historic residence.

Not that the commission — now stacked with Trump’s allies — is complaining.

This summer, the president appointed his top aides — staff secretary Will Scharf, deputy chief of staff James Blair and Office of Management and Budget energy official Stuart Levenbach — to sit on the governing body.

Scharf, a longtime loyal Trump aide who hands him his executive orders to sign, was named chairman by the president. The appointments were so sudden that Scharf, at his first commission meeting on July 10, apologized for not connecting with any of his fellow commissioners ahead of time, noting his appointment had happened the night before.

At the commission’s next meeting, on Sept. 4, Scharf launched into a defense of Trump’s building project, arguing the commission does not have jurisdiction over demolition and site preparation work for federal property; that it just deals with construction.

“I think any assertion that this commission should have been consulted earlier than it has been, or it will be, is simply false,” he said.

The commission will just “play a role in the ballroom project when the time is appropriate for us to do so,” he said.

Not so fast, say past commissioners.

Preston Bryant, a former chairman of the commission, told the Miami Herald in an email that in his nine years on the job “the Commission always works on proposed capital projects in three stages — Conceptual, Preliminary Approval, and Final Approval. Even before conceptual, there’s early consultation.”

Trump is familiar with the process. When he and his Trump Organization were remodeling the Old Post Office Pavilion into a Trump Hotel in 2014, they had to get their plans approved by the commission, which was strict in its adherence to preserving the historical structure of the building.

His team submitted a 52-page proposal showing the design changes, drawings of the new interior and exterior, and detailed the effect the changes would have on local traffic.

But now Trump has plowed on, bulldozing any opposition.

“We’ll have the most beautiful ballroom in the country,” he said Monday at an event in the East Room of the White House, apologizing for any construction noise the guests may hear. “It just started today so that’s good luck.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the new ballroom will be “completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!”

As photos and videos of the destruction went viral on social media, his top administration aides took to their accounts to defend the project, pointing out that the ballroom was being paid for with private donations and noting other presidents have made changes to the White House.

Past presidents, however, consulted advisers and architects, along with groups like the White House Historical Association and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House in addition to working with the commission, which is currently closed as part of the government shutdown.

One former commissioner noted that Washington, D.C., is a carefully planned city and that the commission strives to keep to the original vision of Pierre L’Enfant, who designed the layout of the capitol.

“If you don’t have a review process you’re basically saying one individual can say what the capital looks like. Washington doesn’t look this way by accident,” the commissioner, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, said.

Trump’s history of flouting the rules

Brushing aside red tape has long been a Trump strategy when it comes to changes at historic properties.

In 2006, Trump added an 80-foot flagpole with a 5-feet-by-25-feet flag on the front lawn of Mar-a-Lago — without the proper permit or permission. Palm Beach restricts flagpoles to no higher than 42 feet and flags that are a maximum of 4 feet by 6 feet.

The town fined Trump $250 a day. He countered with a $250 million lawsuit, accusing Palm Beach of violating his First Amendment rights and publicly blasted local officials for fining his patriotic display.

Trump and the town government finally came to an agreement: Trump filed for a permit and was allowed an oversized pole that was 10 feet shorter than the original pole. In return he would donate $100,000 to veterans’ charities.

He also warred with Palm Beach over his original plan for Mar-a-Lago, which was to turn its 17 acres into a subdivision. With millions in upkeep and no income generated, the property was costing him a fortune.

The Palm Beach Town Council vetoed all his construction plans. Once again, Trump sued.

Another deal was made: Trump offered to drop his lawsuit if the town let him turn the estate into a lucrative private club. The council agreed but also set a series of requirements, including capping the membership price and its capacity along with a restriction that no one was to spend more than 21 nights a year at the property.

Trump, however, has hiked the membership fees and, after he left the White House in the first term, he named Mar-a-Lago his permanent residence, getting an exemption to the 21-night stay rule.

Similar actions took place when he built Trump Tower in New York.

In 1980, Trump acquired the historic Bonwit Teller building. He demolished the 1929 Art Deco building to build his namesake tower.

Before the project began, several prominent residents expressed concern about the original building’s limestone relief panels, considered prominent works of art.

Trump agreed to preserve the panels and donate them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But as construction continued, Trump changed his mind and had the panels demolished with the building, saying they had little value and were “without artistic merit.”

It’s a slight still felt in some circles in New York society.

‘Pays total respect to the existing building’

Back in Washington, heads are shaking over the demolition of one-third of the White House structure.

After all, in July, Trump said the current building wouldn’t be touched.

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said.

Now, in addition to the destruction of the wing, he may touch parts of the original White House. Trump on Monday indicated part of one of East Wing walls will come down to connect his ballroom to the residence.

“That’s a knockout panel — you knock it out,” he explained.

The East Wing was built in 1902 as a guest entrance and expanded in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It houses the offices of the first lady and her staff, the military office and the visitors office.

It’s unclear what process FDR went through. The planning commission wasn’t established until 1952. But part of the reason he had it built was to cover the underground presidential bunker which was installed for security reasons.

Trump has already made his mark on the White House. He’s added gold gilding to the Oval Office and stacked its walls with portraits. He’s moved around presidential portraits throughout the complex and added paintings of himself.

On the colonnade, which is the walkway leading from the residence to the West Wing, Trump added a photo of each American president. One exception was Joe Biden. Trump instead placed a photo of a pen, referring to his constant criticism for Biden using the auto pen for his signature during his presidency.

He paved over the Rose Garden to make it look similar to the patio at Mar-a-Lago, putting out chairs and tables with yellow umbrellas brought up from his Florida club. And he’s installed two massive flags atop large poles — one on the North Lawn and one on the South Lawn.

And there could be more changes to come.

Scharf, at his September planning commission meeting, mentioned an upcoming beautification and redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue.

He didn’t offer any details but an earlier presentation to the commission showed plans to turn the iconic avenue into a more pedestrian friendly walkway, with a national stage for events, markets and green spaces.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which sits next door to the White House and houses most of the administration staff, could be in his sights. In his first term, Trump mulled adding gold leaf to the white granite building.

But, for now, Trump is working on plans to build a ceremonial arch outside of Arlington National Cemetery, on a traffic circle that sits between it and Memorial Bridge.

It would commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary next year. The president showed off design models and drawings to the ballroom donors, telling them there were three sizes to pick from and he was leaning toward the largest.

“Whichever one would look good. I happen to think the large one,” Trump said as the group laughed. “Why are you shocked?”

The drawings show an arch similar to France’s Arc de Triomphe with columns, eagles, wreaths and a gilded, winged figure.

Trump, earlier this month, had a model of it on his desk in the Oval Office when he was speaking to reporters on another matter.

The journalists noticed the piece and asked who it was for.

“Me,” he replied.

Emily Goodin writes for The Miami Herald and Tribune News Services.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday.

The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods.

Negotiations on returning the Vatican items accelerated after Pope Francis in 2022 met with Indigenous leaders who had traveled to the Vatican to receive his apology for the church’s role in running Canada’s disastrous residential schools. During their visit, they were shown some objects in the collection, including wampum belts, war clubs and masks, and asked for them to be returned.

Francis later said he was in favor of returning the items and others in the Vatican collection on a case-by-case basis, saying: “In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Wednesday it has been working with Indigenous groups on returning the items to their “originating communities.” It said it expected the Holy See to announce the return. Vatican and Canadian officials said they expected an announcement in the coming weeks, and that the items could arrive on Canadian soil before the end of the year.

The Globe and Mail newspaper first reported on the progress in the restitution negotiations.

Doubt cast on whether the items were freely given

Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens that was a highlight of that year’s Holy Year.

The Vatican insists the items were “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But historians, Indigenous groups and experts have long questioned whether the items could really have been offered freely, given the power imbalances at play in Catholic missions at the time. In those years, Catholic religious orders were helping to enforce the Canadian government’s forced assimilation policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

Part of that policy included confiscating items used in Indigenous spiritual and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony. Those confiscated items ended up in museums in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as private collections.

The return of the items in the Vatican collection will follow the “church-to-church” model the Holy See used in 2023, when it gave its Parthenon Marbles to the Orthodox Christian Church in Greece. The three fragments were described by the Vatican as a “donation” to the Orthodox church, not a state-to-state repatriation to the Greek government.

In this case, the Vatican is expected to hand over the items to the Canadian bishops conference, with the explicit understanding that the ultimate keepers will be the Indigenous communities, a Canadian official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are not concluded.

What happens after the items are returned

The items, accompanied by whatever provenance information the Vatican has, will be taken first to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. There, experts and Indigenous groups will try to identify where the items originated, down to the specific community, and what should be done with them, the official said.

The official declined to say how many items were under negotiation or who decided what would be returned, but said the total numbered “a few dozen.” The aim is to get the items back this year, the official said, noting the 2025 Jubilee which celebrates hope but is also a time for repentance.

This year’s Jubilee comes on the centenary of the 1925 Holy Year and missionary exhibit, which is now so controversial that its 100th anniversary has been virtually ignored by the Vatican, which celebrates a lot of anniversaries.

The Assembly of First Nations said some logistical issues need to be finalized before the objects can be returned, including establishing protocols.

“For First Nations, these items are not artifacts. They are living, sacred pieces of our cultures and ceremonies and must be treated as the invaluable objects that they are,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Canadian Press.

Gloria Bell, associate professor of art history at McGill University who has conducted extensive research on the 1925 exhibit, said the items were acquired during an era of “Catholic Imperialism” by a pope who “praised missionaries and their genocidal labors in Indigenous communities as ‘heroes of the faith.’”

“This planned return marks a significant shift in the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and perhaps the beginning of healing,” said Bell, who is of Metis ancestry and wrote about the 1925 exhibit in “Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.”

Winfield writes for the Associated Press.

SAN FRANCISCO — State Sen. Scott Wiener couldn’t wait any longer. The once-in-a-generation political opening he’d eyed for years had arrived, he decided — whether the grand dame of San Francisco politics agreed or not.

On Wednesday, Wiener, 55, a prolific and ambitious lawmaker, formally announced his candidacy for the San Francisco congressional seat held for nearly four decades by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 85, who remains one of the party’s most powerful leaders and has yet to reveal her own intentions for the 2026 race.

“The world is changing, the Democratic Party is changing, and it’s time,” Wiener said in an interview with The Times. “I know San Francisco, I have worked tirelessly to represent this community — delivering housing, health care, clean energy, LGBTQ and immigrant rights — and I have a fortitude and backbone to be able to deliver for San Francisco in Congress.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced Wednesdat that he will run for the congressional seat currently held by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

(Josh Edelson/For The Times)

Wiener’s announcement — which leaked in part last week — caught some political observers off guard, given Wiener had for years seemed resigned to run for Pelosi’s seat only once she stepped aside. But it stunned few, given how squarely it fit within the broader political moment facing the Democratic Party.

In recent years, a long-simmering reckoning over generational power has exploded into the political forefront as members of the party’s old guard have increasingly been accused of holding on too long, and to their party’s detriment.

Long-serving liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruffled many Democratic feathers by declining to step down during Barack Obama’s presidency despite being in her 80s. She subsequently died while still on the court at the age of 87 in 2020, handing President Trump his third appointment to the high court.

Californians watched as the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another D.C. power player from San Francisco, teetered into frailty, muddled through her final chapter in Washington and then died in office at 90 in 2023. The entire nation watched as President Biden, another octogenarian, gave a disastrous debate performance that sparked unrelenting questions about his age and cognitive abilities and cleared the way for Trump’s return to power last year.

Visitors walk past a bust of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein at San Francisco City Hall. The former mayor of San Francisco served in the Senate until she died in 2023 at age 90.

(Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

As a result, age has become an unavoidable tension point for Democrats heading into next year’s midterm elections.

It has also been an issue for Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), 83, the former Senate majority leader who has faced health issues in recent years and is retiring in 2026 after more than 40 years in the Senate. Other older Republicans are facing primary challenges for being perceived as too traditional or insufficiently loyal to Trump or the MAGA movement — including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), 73 and in office since 2002, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), 68 and in the Senate since 2015.

For decades, many conservatives have called for congressional term limits in opposition to “career politicians” who cling to power for too long. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and David Trone, a Maryland Democrat, renewed those calls on Wednesday, announcing in an op-ed published in the New York Times that they would co-chair a national campaign to push for term limits.

However, perhaps because they are in power, the calls for a generational shake-up in 2026 have not been nearly as loud on the Republican side.

Democratic Party activists have sounded the alarm about a quickening slide into gerontocracy on the political left, blamed it for their party’s inability to mount an energetic and effective response to Trump and his MAGA movement, and called for younger candidates to take the reins — while congressional leaders in their 70s and 80s have increasingly begun weighing their options in the face of primary challenges.

“It’s fair to say the political appetite for octogenarians is not high,” said Eric Jaye, a veteran Democratic strategist in San Francisco.

“The choice in front of people is not just age,” said Saikat Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old tech millionaire and Democratic political operative who is also running for Pelosi’s seat. “We need a whole different approach and different candidates.”

“There’s like this unspoken rule that you don’t do what we’re doing in this moment. You sit out and wait your turn,” said Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, 40, who has launched a primary challenge to Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), who is 81 and has been in Congress since 2005. “But I’m not going to wait on the sidelines, because there is an urgency of now.”

A national trend

The generational shift promises to reshape Congress by replacing Democrats across the country, including some who are leaving without a fight.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, 78 and a senator representing New Hampshire since 2009, said in March that it was “time” to step aside.

In Illinois, Sen. Richard Durbin, 80 and a senator since 1997, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, 81 and in the House since 1999, both announced in May that they would not run again. Durbin said it was time “to pass the torch,” while Schakowsky praised younger “voices” in the party as “so sharp.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, 78 and in the House since 1992, announced his retirement last month, saying that “watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party.”

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks at a news conference.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Other older Democrats, meanwhile, have shown no intention of stepping aside, or are seeking out new roles in power.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, 77, recently announced she is running to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is 72 and has been in the Senate since 1997. Mills has tried to soften concerns about her age by promising to serve just one term if elected.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, 79 and in the Senate since 2013, has stiffly rebuffed a primary challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton, 46, accusing Moulton of springing a challenge on him amid a shutdown and while he is busy resisting Trump’s agenda.

In Connecticut, Rep. John Larson, 77, who has been in office since 1999 and suffered a complex partial seizure on the House floor in February, has mocked his primary challengers’ message of generational change, telling Axios, “Generational change is fine, but you’ve got to earn it.”

David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., speaks at the 2022 March for Our Lives.

(Leigh Vogel / Getty Images for March For Our Lives)

David Hogg, a 25-year-old liberal activist who was thrust into politics by the 2018 mass shooting at his Parkland, Fla., high school, is among the party’s younger leaders pushing for new blood. He recently declined to seek reelection as the co-vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to bring primary challenges to older Democratic incumbents with his group Leaders We Deserve.

When he announced that decision in June, Hogg called the idea that Democratic leaders can stay in power until they die even if they don’t do a good job an “existential threat to the future of this party and nation.” His group fundraises and disperses money to young candidates it backs.

When asked by The Times about Pelosi and her primary challengers, however, Hogg was circumspect, calling Pelosi “one of the most effective and consequential leaders in the history of the Democratic Party.”

A shift in California

Pelosi is not the only older California incumbent facing a primary challenge. In addition to Matsui, the list also includes Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Porter Ranch), who is 70 and has been in office since 1997, and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), who is 74 and has been in office since 1999.

But Pelosi’s challenges have attracted more attention, perhaps in part because her departure from Congress would be the clearest sign yet that the generational shift sought by younger party activists is fully underway.

Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as House speaker in 2007, surrounded by her grandchildren and children of other members of Congress.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

A trailblazer as the first female speaker of the House, Pelosi presided over two Trump impeachments. While no longer in leadership, she remains incredibly influential as an arm-twister and strategist.

She played a central role in sidelining Biden after his debate meltdown, and for the last couple months has been raising big money — a special skill of hers — in support of California’s Proposition 50. The measure seeks voter approval to redraw California’s congressional districts to better favor Democrats in response to Trump’s pressure campaign on Texas and other red states to redraw their lines in favor of Republicans.

Pelosi has used Prop. 50 in recent days to deflect questions about her primary challengers and her plans for 2026, with her spokesman Ian Krager saying she “is fully focused” on the Prop 50 fight and will be through Nov. 4.

Chakrabarti, who helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) unseat a longtime Democratic incumbent in 2019, said he sees even more “appetite for change” among the party’s base today — as evidenced by “mainstream Democrats who have voted for Nancy Pelosi their whole life” showing up to his events.

And it makes sense, he said.

For decades, Americans have watched the cost of essentials skyrocket while their wages have remained relatively flat, Chakrabarti said, and that has made them desperate to support messages of “bold, sweeping economic change” — whether from Obama or Trump — even as long-serving, mainstream Democrats backed by corporate money have worked to maintain the status quo.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leaves a news conference at the Capitol in 2019. At left is Saikat Chakrabarti, who was her chief of staff and is now a candidate for the congressional seat held by Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag)

He said it is time for Democrats to once again push bold, big ideas, which he plans to do — including Medicare for all, universal child care, free college tuition, millions of new units of affordable housing, a new economy built around climate action, and higher taxes on billionaires and mega-millionaires like him.

Wiener, who also backs Prop. 50 and would be the first out gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress, said he cannot speak to Pelosi’s thinking — or to Politico reporting Wednesday that Pelosi is considering dropping out and backing San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan in the race — but is confident in his readiness for the role.

Wiener agreed with Chakrabarti that big ideas are needed from Democrats to win back voters and make progress. He also said that his track record in the state Legislature shows that he has “been willing to take on very, very big fights to make significant progressive change.”

“No one has ever accused me of thinking small,” he said — citing his success in passing bills to create more affordable housing, reform health insurance and drug pricing, tackle net neutrality, challenge telecommunications and cable companies and protect LGBTQ+ and other minority communities and immigrants.

“In addition to having the desire to make big progressive change, in addition to talking about big progressive change, you have to be able to put together the coalitions to deliver on that change, because words are not enough,” Wiener said. “I’ve shown over and over again that I know how to do it, and that I can deliver.”

Political analysts said a message of big ideas will clearly resonate with some voters. But they also said that Pelosi, if she stays in the race, will be hard to beat. She will also face more serious questions than ever about her age and “her ability to function at the extraordinarily high level” she has worked at in years past, Jaye said, and will “have to answer those questions.”

If Pelosi decides not to run, Chakrabarti has the benefit of self-funding and of the current party enthusiasm for fresh faces, they said, and anyone — Chan or otherwise — would benefit from a Pelosi endorsement. But Wiener already has a strong base in the district, a track record for getting legislation passed and, as several observers pointed out, a seemingly endless battery.

“Scott Wiener is an animal. The notion of work-life balance is not a concept he has ever had. He is just like a robotic working machine,” said Aaron Peskin, who served 18 years on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, some alongside Wiener.

Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland) speaks to reporters at the Capitol in September.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, which supports young progressive candidates, said there is pent-up demand for a new generation of leaders, and “older Democrats, especially those in Congress, need to ask themselves, ‘Am I the best person to lead this party forward right now?’”

Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland), 48, won her seat in 2024 after longtime Rep. Barbara Lee, 79, who had been in the seat since 1998, decided to run for Oakland mayor. Simon said that to her, “it’s not necessarily about birthdays” but who can do the job — “who can govern, who can mentor and who can hold this administration accountable.”

As a longtime community activist who worked with youth, Simon said she is “extremely excited” by all the energy of young Democratic office seekers. But as a freshman in Congress who has leaned on Lee, Pelosi and other mentors to help her learn the ropes, she said it’s also clear Democrats need to “have some generals who are really, really tried and tested.”

“What is not helpful to me in this moment,” Simon said, “is for the Democrats to be a circular firing squad.”

Academics, journalists and pundits talk at great length about the conundrum of overtourism; the ready-made solution is simply to swerve the crowds. These three towns are regional centres where you will never need to queue, but will come away culturally stimulated and historically enlightened.

Leicester

Like many people, I’ve spent a lot of my travels going to edges, extremities, ends of the road. I overlooked Leicester because it was so very central – quintessentially in-between. The Fosse Way, from Lincoln to Exeter, bisects it; Watling Street, from Dover to Wroxeter, passes nearby. The stylish, high-spec Jewry Wall museum – which reopened in July after a major redesign – shows how roads and traffic made Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) a wealthy, important hub: sublime mosaics; a gold ring; a bathhouse complex; a wall still standing.

A cluster of medieval and Tudor structures beside the River Soar, including stone gateways, a church and castle motte, indicates a major religious centre. I was the only visitor on a Sunday morning. Near this convenient national crossroads, Richard III was able to gather forces from across the kingdom for the Battle of Bosworth; little good it did him. Leicester’s King Richard III Visitor Centre delineates the whys and wherefores of the blood-drenched savagery of the Wars of the Roses. The mental shift demanded of you as you segue from the vast, interlocking, bastard-rich Plantagenet family trees and riots of heraldry to the quiet science of archaeology and, finally, to the cold, austere tomb of the dead hunchback in the cathedral next door, is not insignificant. This is a city so loaded with history that every new retail and hotel development unearths new treasure or traces of past peoples, like a stratified tell in the Holy Land.

A pint in the Globe allowed some thinking time and – as the former preferred boozer of stockingers – a natural link to Victorian and Edwardian Leicester, which rippled with entrepreneurial energies. Thomas Cook, Walkers crisps, Wolsey clothing and Currys started here. Garments, hosiery and corsetry made the city more like a Lancashire town. Chimneys, mills and, most reassuringly, makers are still in evidence.

The 21st-century city is multipurpose – the centre has diversified from retail into gaming, co-working, education, dining, cocktails, cafes – and famously diverse. The Golden Mile (Belgrave Road) is a thriving, gimmick-free Asian gauntlet for clothes, jewellery, spices, fresh veg and restaurants. The likes of Bobby’s, with its Bollywood-inflected interiors, and Sharmilee won the city the Curry Capital gong in 2024. Belgrave Road was part of the Fosse Way, which is thought-provoking – ancient Rome was multicultural too.
Things to see and do: Guildhall; Abbey Park; King Power Stadium; Curve theatre; De Montfort Hall

Paisley

Someone on Reddit asks: “Why is Paisley even still a place?” Sixty comments follow. At the end of it, I know Paisley is most definitely a place. I have to admit, as an English northerner, I thought of it as somewhere imprecise – suburb, district, city borough. But even on the non-stop train (nine minutes from Glasgow Central), you know you’re crossing a proper green belt and, when you arrive, you see towers and domes above the trees. Paisley stands apart; it stands tall.

Bold buildings hint at booming textile times. The station – the fourth busiest in Scotland – is Scots baronial. The town hall is a capacious neoclassical palace, recently turned into a concert venue. The mighty Abbey, built on the site of a 12th-century Cluniac monastery, is a solemn hulk (minimally subverted by a witty “Alien” gargoyle). St Matthew’s church, designed by local architect William Daniel McLennan, is a blend of perpendicular and art nouveau – somewhat influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Queen’s Cross church in Glasgow, but more strident and startling.

On White Cart Water stand two monumental mills. The massive Anchor Mills is residential and sits beside a weir that resembles a wild waterfall. Mile End Mill is a business centre and has a superb chimney, coffee shop and small textile museum. The dramatic gothic hulk of the Coats building, constructed as a memorial church – and nicknamed the Baptist Cathedral of Europe – is now an event space, used for weddings, proms and as a set for TV series Outlander. Paisley has gone big on repurposing.

The famous Paisley print pattern has its origins in Persia. The teardrop-shaped motif, known as boteh in Farsi, is probably a stylised almond or cypress cone (the cypress was sacred to Zoroastrians). Paisley Museum, undergoing a major refurbishment that will create a display space as good as any in Scotland, owns 1,200 Paisley shawls, as well as looms, pattern books and printing blocks. I was allowed to see the interior on a hard-hat tour and saw a Paisley-emblazoned guitar case and a Ken doll in a Paisley top.

The Paisley pattern features in street art and in the Buddie Walk of Fame, a series of 10 plaques spread around the town centre that honour local legends, living and dead. They include TV show Porridge’s Fulton Mackay; playwright, designer and painter John Byrne – whose Slab Boys Trilogy, originally titled Paisley Patterns, is set in a carpet-making factory; Tom Conti; Paolo Nutini; Phyllis Logan; and Gerry Rafferty (whose Baker Street can be read as an angst-ridden lament from London to his home town of Paisley). Byrne’s and Rafferty’s plaques should really have been placed at Ferguslie Park, the socially marginalised district from which they hailed. As did Gordon Williams, author of the novel From Scenes Like These, a blistering, honest, funny portrayal of social deprivation, violence, sex and booze, as good as anything by Alan Sillitoe, and nominated for the first ever Booker prize in 1969. The novel was long ignored but recently rediscovered. Like Paisley.
Things to see and do: Sma’ Shot Cottages; Paisley Heritage Tours; Mural Trail

Nelson

No town is born totally ex nihilo, but Nelson in Lancashire comes close. An early description is “a peat covered and rain sodden wilderness”. An 1844 map shows a cotton factory, two chapels, the New Inn and a post office. The canal, opened in 1816, enabled the fledgling settlement to ship its wares. When the railway came in 1849, it was known as Marsden – but there was already a Marsden in Yorkshire. The train guard would shout “Nelson!” as the train came to a halt by the Lord Nelson inn. The name stuck. Locals boast, half-heartedly, that it’s the only town named after a pub.

Two thousand terrace houses sprang up around the station – built from stone, many are still there, laid out on a gridiron plan. Mid-19th-century Nelson had nine small general stores, two drapers, two druggists, one tailor and one stationer. There was a saddler’s shop and two smithies. By 1876, to these were added butchers, cabinet-makers, chemists, cloggers, drapers, glass and china dealers, grocers, greengrocers, ironmongers and tobacconists – plus corner shops, fish-and-chip shops and 21 grocery and provisions branches run by the Co-operative Society. There were more than a dozen each of pubs and churches or chapels. What towns – and townspeople – miss isn’t only what we remember from our own lifetimes.

More than 20 mills clacked and whirred with thousands of looms. By 1921, almost 18,000 Nelson residents – divided equally between men and women – worked in weaving. Nine tenths of Nelson’s buildings and population were dedicated to textiles. I’d seen the sad husk of Whitefield Mill from the canalside. All that remains of Riverside Mill is a chimney. Lomeshaye Bridge Mill and Spring Bank Mill survive as mixed-use spaces. Brierfield Mill has been converted into posh flats. A 40ft-high shuttle on the high street is meant to remind people of the weaving heyday; it’s an ineffectual monument, unable to convey anything of the power, graft, suffering or pride of the old times.

There were also minor industries in brewing, quarrying, coalmining, corn-milling, soap manufacture, brick- and pipe-making and engineering. The Victory V lozenge, originally made with ether and chlorodyne (containing chloroform, the opiate laudanum and cannabis), was a local invention. A more mass-market mouth-pleaser was developed by an Austrian confectioner employed at Fryers in the 1860s. He was asked to make a mould for jelly bears, but the resulting sweets looked like newborn infants. They were rebranded as “Unclaimed Babies”. That name didn’t stick, and so Jelly Babies were born.

Nelson is a radical left haven. Weaving unions were strong and often militant. A local newspaper called the town Little Moscow. The first world war saw the emergence of a sizeable pacifist movement, leading to schisms between conscientious objectors and those who believed in the national war aims. Britain’s first working-class female novelist, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, addressed a crowd of 20,000 at Victoria Park (formerly Victoria Recreation Ground), calling for an end to war as part of the Women’s Peace Crusade. Her 1925 novel, This Slavery, has just been reimagined in graphic form.

The building that best embodies local radical history is Unity Wellbeing Centre on Vernon Street – known as the Independent Labour Party Socialist Institute when it opened in 1908. One foundation stone, in memory of William Morris and Edward Fay, was laid by Katharine Bruce Glasier, a prominent ILP figure, known as “the grandmother of the Labour party”. The other, in memory of Caroline Martyn and Enid Stacy, was laid by Selina Cooper, who had moved to Nelson from Cornwall with her family in 1875 following her father’s death. She started working in the mills aged 10 as a half-timer then full time from the age of 13. Cooper played a leading role in politicising and organising local female textile workers. She lived at 59 St Mary Street, which has a plaque – though not an official English Heritage one.

The streets of stone terraces are attractive and many open on to bracing views of Pendle Hill’s south-eastern face and the steep slope that plummets down from the summit – beloved of fell runners – called the Big End. Nelson also opens vistas in the mind, and pilgrims travel in both directions – to the fells and moors, and to the cobbled streets and regenerated mills.
Things to see and do: Seedhill Cricket Ground and West Indian cricketer Learie Constantine’s house; 66 bus ride to Clitheroe via Pendle Hill; Clarion House; Two Toms Trail

Chris Moss’s trips were supported by Paisley First, VisitScotland and Visit Leicester.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that the federal government owes him “a lot of money” for prior Justice Department investigations into his actions and insisted he would have the ultimate say on any payout because any decision will “have to go across my desk.”

Trump’s comments to reporters at the White House came in response to questions about a New York Times story that said he had filed administrative claims before being reelected seeking roughly $230 million in damages related to the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago property for classified documents and for a separate investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump said Tuesday he did not know the dollar figures involved and suggested he had not spoken to officials about it. But, he added, “All I know is that, they would owe me a lot of money.”

Though the Justice Department has a protocol for reviewing such claims, Trump asserted, “It’s interesting, ‘cause I’m the one that makes the decision, right?”

“That decision would have to go across my desk,” he added.

He said he could donate any taxpayer money or use it to help pay for a ballroom he’s building at the White House.

The status of the claims and any negotiations over them within the Justice Department was not immediately clear. One of Trump’s lead defense lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, Todd Blanche, is now the deputy attorney general at the Justice Department. The current associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward, represented Trump’s valet and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the same case.

“In any circumstance, all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. A White House spokesperson referred comment to the Justice Department.

Trump signaled his interest in compensation during a White House appearance last week with Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, who was part of Trump’s legal team during one of the impeachment cases against him.

“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said: ‘I’m suing myself. I don’t know. How do you settle the lawsuit?’” he said. ”I’ll say, ‘Give me X dollars,’ and I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit. It’s a great lawsuit and now I won, it looks bad. I’m suing myself, so I don’t know.”

The Times said the two claims were filed with the Justice Department as part of a process that seeks to resolve federal complaints through settlements and avert litigation.

One of the administrative claims, filed in August 2024 and reviewed by the Associated Press, seeks compensatory and punitive damages over the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and the resulting case alleging he hoarded classified documents and thwarted government efforts to retrieve them.

His lawyer who filed the claim alleged the case was a “malicious prosecution” carried out by the Biden administration to hurt Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House, forcing Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars in his defense.

That investigation produced criminal charges that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned last November because of department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.

The Times said the other complaint seeks damages related to the long-concluded Trump-Russia investigation, which continues to infuriate the president.