personnel

Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of State on Thursday ordered non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali, where the government is in armed conflict with al-Qaida-linked terrorists.

“The Department of State ordered non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali due to safety risks,” the State Department said in an update to its travel advisory for the West African nation.

“The U.S. government cannot offer routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens outside of Bamako due to safety risks. Do not travel to Mali for any reason.”

The announcement comes two days after the U.S. Embassy in Mali issued a security alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to “depart immediately” via commercial flights.

“U.S. citizens who choose not to depart Mali should prepare contingency plans for any emergency situations that may arise, including a need to shelter in place for an extended period,” the embassy said.

The embassy has repeatedly issued warning about disruptions in the country of gasoline and diesel supplies, closure of public institutions, including schools, nationwide, and the armed conflict around the Mali capital of Bamako.

Mali has experienced a political and security crisis since January of 2012, with a rebellion and subsequent coup. The situation has intensified since Sept. 3, when the al-Qaida Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin declared a blockade on major fuel and food supply routes across in the country.

Sailors of the U.S. navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) salute in Kanagawa-Prefecture, Japan, in May 2024. An anonymous donor has provided $130 million for military pay, the Pentagon said Friday, but the amount is too little to fully pay that nation’s 1.3 million military members and might not be legal. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 24 (UPI) — An anonymous ally of President Donald Trump has donated $130 million that will help to pay the U.S. military during the ongoing federal government shutdown.

The Defense Department confirmed the donation on Friday and said it is intended to fund the military.

“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell told CNN.

Parnell said the funds were donated via the Pentagon’s general gift acceptance authority.

While the donation will help the military to pay service members, it is not enough to fully pay its 1.3 million personnel.

It also might be a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending more than Congress has appropriated for them, according to The New York Times.

The federal government can accept donations that go to its general fund, but Congress has to appropriate those funds to pay for the salaries of federal employees, including the military, Romina Boccia, the Cato Institute’s director of budget and entitlement policy, told Fox News.

“The department is welcome to acknowledge this donor’s intent, but that does not change the legal restrictions on Congress needing to appropriate funds to pay military salaries,” Boccia said.

Private donations to the military only can be used to support military schools, museums, libraries and similar institutions, she said.

They also can be used to support service members or civilian workers who are killed or wounded while carrying out their duties, Boccia added.

Trump earlier in October ordered the Pentagon to redirect money intended for research and development to pay the military, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that option won’t last.

The Senate recently voted on a measure that would have funded the military, but Senate Democrats mostly voted against it, which caused it to fail.

Dan Scavino speaks inside the Capital One Arena after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States in Washington, DC, in January. Scavino was named to head the White House personnel office. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 12 (UPI) — Longtime Washington insider and political aide Dan Scavino has been selected to head the presidential personnel office.

Scavino will replace Sergio Gor, whom President Donald Trump nominated in August to serve as U.S. ambassador to India.

Scavino, a former deputy chief of staff, has been among Trump’s most trusted advisers.

“I am pleased to announce that the great Dan Scavino, in addition to remaining Deputy Chief of Staff to the Trump Administration, will head to the White House Presidential Personnel Office, replacing Sergio Gor, who did a wonderful job in that position, and will now become Ambassador to India,” Trump said in a social media post.

The personnel office has largely overseen administrative duties, but also has had significant influence, especially during the Trump administration, which has selected several candidates based on their loyalty to the president. The office is responsible for hiring and firing thousands of employees.

Scavino’s appointment comes amid a government shutdown, which led to the layoffs of more than 4,000 employees Friday. Trump has not been clear as to whether they will receive back pay, or whether they will have jobs when the government reopens.

Fernandes is not the only United player I look at and think he is a square peg in a round hole.

Luke Shaw has played in a back three before but he has spent the majority of his career as a dynamic left-back and it feels like he is being shoe-horned into a centre-back position under Amorim.

Again you can argue he should have the quality to adapt, and for Jeremy Doku to beat him so easily for the first goal was poor defending whether you are a left-back or a centre-half, but if any players are not completely comfortable in their roles, then it is going to affect the team.

For City’s second goal, again it was not down to the United system failing, more a mixture of things – and a multitude of individual mistakes.

Ugarte starts off on Foden but then follows the ball, like he did in the City move that led to their opener, and goes to press Nico O’Reilly, leaving Foden free.

From there it’s a knock-on effect.

Noussair Mazraoui comes out to Foden but can’t stop him playing a pass around the corner, Leny Yoro gets rolled by Jeremy Doku – the one player you know you don’t get tight to – then Shaw is not strong or fast enough to stop Erling Haaland.

Ultimately, most goals are down to a mistake somewhere but when players are comfortable in the system, and in the right position within it, they do the right things – and the errors don’t stack up like that.

MAGA has a problem, in the form of Donald Trump. Put simply: MAGA wants to define what MAGA (or “America first”) means, and Donald Trump wants it to mean whatever he says at any given moment.

I should offer a little definitional clarity and political nuance. Make America Great Again means different things to different people. The Trump coalition is not monolithic, it contains factions that do not necessarily consider themselves to be MAGA. But as shorthand, MAGA is an identifiably distinct bloc on the right, and it’s the dominant faction in the broader GOP coalition. Its internal diversity notwithstanding, it still has a worldview or ideology. And the MAGA faithful are increasingly frustrated by the fact that Trump doesn’t always share, or prioritize, that ideology.

They believed that if you could just “let Trump be Trump” he would follow their conception of MAGA. In Ronald Reagan’s first term, many movement conservatives were frustrated by what they perceived as the Gipper’s drift toward centrism. They blamed moderates in the administration. “Let Reagan be Reagan” became a rallying cry on the right.

“It’s a piece of conventional wisdom on the new American right that Donald Trump struggled in his first term because he hired the wrong people — old-think Bush Republicans, figures like Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin, who didn’t have a populist bone in their bodies,” the news website Semafor’s Ben Smith offers in an astute analysis.

As a result, Smith continues, “Trump’s most passionate supporters weren’t going to make that mistake again. They created initiatives like American Moment, Project 2025, and others aimed at grooming and credentialing a cadre of MAGA appointees. When Trump took office, the America Firsters moved en masse into the Department of Defense. Big Tech avengers seized the antitrust apparatus. Conspiracy-minded podcasters took over the FBI.

“And yet — just as Trump often ignored his conventional advisers in the first term, he’s stunned loyalists by sweeping aside this carefully assembled apparat in 2025.”

Trump said as much to the Atlantic magazine last month: “I think I’m the one that decides” what “America first” means.

“It turns out that personnel isn’t policy,” the executive director of the American Conservative, Curt Mills, “glumly” told Smith. The idea that “personnel is policy” is another Reagan-era mantra; put Reaganites in important positions and you’ll get Reaganite policies. Putting Trumpists in powerful positions doesn’t yield the same results.

Immigration hawks have been panicking over the president’s suggestion that farm and hotel workers should be excluded from his deportation schemes. As Trump told Fox News, “I’m on both sides of the thing.” Foreign policy “restrainers” were beclowned by his support of Israel’s strikes on Iran and his apparent about-face on helping Ukraine.

On China, Trump’s been a hawk as promised, except when he hasn’t, allowing NVIDIA to sell chips to China, and ignoring the law by refusing to sell or shutter TikTok.

Then there’s the Jeffrey Epstein fiasco, which has bedeviled Trump for weeks. It’s intensity and durability can best be explained by the fact that it divides those who define Trumpism as loyalty to Trump and those who believe that loyalty would be, must be rewarded by a cleansing of corrupt globalist elite — or something.

In short, there is no “Trumpism” that is an analogue to Reaganism. Reaganism is a philosophical approach. What defines Trump’s reign is better understood as a psychological phenomenon both as an explanation of his behavior and of his fans’ cultish and performative loyalty. To the extent Trump has a philosophy it is to follow his instincts, which are most powerfully informed first by his own ego but also the dramaturgy of professional wrestling, reality TV and Norman Vincent Peale’s prosperity gospel.

He’s said many times that he considers unpredictability a virtue in itself, which by definition means he is going to disappoint anyone who expects philosophical coherence. When Trump was a bull in a China shop, the people most excited by the sound of breaking vases and dishware assumed there was a broader method to the madness. But now the same people are learning that Trump won’t be saddled by his fans any more than he is by norms.

This was always going to be the case (as I noted in 2017), but what adds to MAGA’s frustration is that anyone can see and copy the bull-handling techniques that are most likely to work. Compliment him, call him “daddy,” celebrate his genius and expertise, and you too can manipulate him with at least moderate success.

Perhaps most significant, it’s becoming clear that a movement defined by loyalty to a mercurial personality is bound to split apart once that personality leaves the stage — if not sooner.

X: @JonahDispatch

Insights

L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.

Firefighters on Sunday were gaining control over the massive Madre fire in San Luis Obispo County, which at more than 80,000 acres remains the largest in California so far this year.

Containment on the fire had reached 30% — up from 10% Saturday — buoyed by favorable weather and a flood of personnel, said Los Padres National Forest spokesperson Andrew Madsen. The fire grew slightly on Sunday to just over 80,000 acres in the rural area.

“We’ve got the resources we need,” Madsen said, “and the firefighters on the ground are making some good progress.”

The fire started around 1 p.m. Wednesday east of Santa Maria near the town of New Cayuma. More than 200 people were subject to mandatory evacuation orders, and roughly 50 structures were under threat as of Sunday afternoon. One building has burned. The cause of the fire, which has been fueled by heat and wind, is under investigation. Nearly 1,400 firefighting personnel were on scene.

The bulk of the fire is threatening the Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife and plant species. Los Padres National Forest, Cal Fire San Luis Obispo and the Bureau of Land Management share jurisdiction over the fire.

All BLM lands in the national monument are closed to public access until further notice for safety reasons.

Weather conditions were expected to hold steady through Monday before a midweek heat wave across Southern California could make the situation more challenging. Madsen said firefighters were hoping for continued progress over the next couple days.

Times staff writers Colleen Shalby and Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this report.

June 11 (UPI) — The U.S. State and Defense departments on Wednesday are arranging the departure of non-essential personnel from the Middle East amid reports Israel is ready to strike Iran.

CBS News reported U.S. anticipates Iran could retaliate on certain American sites in neighboring Iraq, including Baghdad, if Israel goes through with airstrikes. Officials in the United States and Europe told The New York Times that Israel appears to be preparing to launch an airstrike soon on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A defense official told CNN that U.S. Central Command is monitoring “developing tension in the Middle East.”

The Trump administration is continuing to pursue a new nuclear deal on uranium encirclement with Iran, and the war between Israel and Hamas is continuing on the Gaza Strip. Iran is providing support to the militants.

Israel, which has opposed a nuclear deal involving Iran, has conducted “countless overt and covert operations” to counter the growth of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, according to Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office in April.

Last month, U.S. President Trump said he urged Netanyahu not to strike Iran during negotiations with the nation.

“I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution,” Trump said.

Trump was asked Wednesday about a heightened situation while arriving at the Kennedy Center event.

“They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters. “But they have been or we’ve given notice to move out, and we’ll see what happens.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents throughout the Middle East. About 2,500 U.S. troops are based in Iraq.

“The safety and security of our service members and their families remains our highest priority, the CENTCON official told CNN.

The State Department also is preparing to evacuate non-essential personnel from the U.S. embassies in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait. Sources told CNN it’s because of increased security risks in the region.

“President Trump is committed to keeping Americans safe, both at home and abroad,” a State Department official said. “In keeping with that commitment, we are constantly assessing the appropriate personnel posture at all our embassies. Based on our latest analysis, we decided to reduce the footprint of our Mission in Iraq.”

The British Maritime Trade Organization on Wednesday advised ships to exercise caution in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman, which are waterways for the global oil trade, because of “increased tensions within the region which could lead to an escalation of military activity.”

Hegseth told members of a Senate committee on Wednesday that there are “plenty of indications” that Iran was “moving their way towards something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon.”

Iran has enriched 408.6 kilograms of uranium, or 900 pounds, up to 60% purity – which is very close to the 90% enrichment level required to build a nuclear weapon, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated two weeks ago.

That’s a nearly 50% increase since February, the U.N. agency estimated.

Iranian leaders have said they won’t accept Trump’s demand of no uranium enrichment.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, still plans to meet with Iran for a sixth round of talks.

Last month, CNN reported the U.S. had obtained new intelligence that Israel was making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israeli Defense Forces struck military targets in Iran twice in 2024.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Iran’s Defense Minister, Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh said “some officials from the other side have made threatening remarks, warning of potential conflict in case no agreement is reached.”

He noted the U.S. won’t have any choice because its bases are within the reach of the Iranian military and Iran will not hesitate to target all of them in their host countries.

In 2015, former President Barack Obama and other nations struck a deal with Iran limiting the scope of the country’s uranium enrichment program. But Trump ended the agreement during his first term and increased sanctions against Iran.

Iran operates one nuclear power reactor, which is in Bushehr, about 620 miles south of Baghdad, with construction on a second one there.

The United States is preparing a partial evacuation of its embassy in Iraq and has authorised “the voluntary departure” of dependants of US personnel from locations across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, as regional security concerns rise.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had authorised the departure of military dependants in the region and that CENTCOM was “monitoring the developing tension”.

Orders for all nonessential personnel to depart the US Embassy in Baghdad – which was already on limited staffing – was based on a commitment “to keeping Americans safe, both at home and abroad”, the Department of State said.

Speaking on Wednesday evening, US President Donald Trump said the order to move staff out had been given because the region “could be a dangerous place”.

“We’ll see what happens. We’ve given notice to move out, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.

Trump then added in reference to Iran: “They can’t have a nuclear weapon, very simple. We’re not going to allow that.”

Uncertainty has been growing in recent days as talks between the US and Iran over its nuclear programme appear to have hit an impasse.

US news broadcaster CBS reported late on Wednesday that US officials have been informed that Israel is “fully ready” to launch an attack on Iran and that Washington “anticipates” that Tehran could retaliate by targeting “certain American sites in neighbouring Iraq”.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, DC, said there have been clear signs in recent days of high-level discussions between senior military officials and the Trump administration amid concern around the ongoing talks with Iran over its nuclear programme.

“Donald Trump has in the last couple of days … expressed his concern that a deal might not be able to be done,” Fisher said.

“Therefore, we are seeing, effectively, the partial evacuation of the embassy in Baghdad with non-military personnel and non-essential staff being moved out. And the voluntary evacuation of other embassies in the region,” he said.

“They’ve done this sort of thing before,” Fisher said, noting the Baghdad embassy was partially evacuated previously over “concerns that the embassy could become a target for Iranian-aligned militias in Iraq”.

“Clearly, there is some concern that the discussions with the Iranians aren’t going well. Or, it could be that this is all designed to put pressure on Iranians. Because, you will remember, that Donald Trump said that if they couldn’t get some sort of deal, then … there could be some sort of military action against the Iranians.”

As reports of US embassy staff and dependants departing the Middle East region emerged, Iran’s mission to the United Nations posted on social media that “Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and US militarism only fuels instability”.

“Threats of ‘overwhelming force’ won’t change the facts,” the Iranian mission said.

“Diplomacy – not militarism – is the only path forward,” it added.

Threats of “overwhelming force” won’t change facts:
Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and U.S. militarism only fuels instability.

CENTCOM’s legacy of fueling regional instability, through arming aggressors and enabling Israeli crimes, strips it of any credibility to speak on…

— I.R.IRAN Mission to UN, NY (@Iran_UN) June 11, 2025

Separately, Iranian Defence Minister General Aziz Nasirzadeh told reporters earlier that he hoped talks with the US would be successful, though Tehran stood ready to respond to any aggression.

“If conflict is imposed on us, the opponent’s casualties will certainly be more than ours, and in that case, America must leave the region, because all its bases are within our reach,” he said.

“We have access to them, and we will target all of them in the host countries without hesitation.”

The next round of talks – the sixth – between the US and Iran on limits to Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions on the country have been tentatively scheduled for this weekend in Oman, according to reports, and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is still scheduled to attend.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing anti-diversity and anti-transgender executive orders in grant funding requirements that LGBTQ+ organizations say are unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said Monday that the federal government cannot force recipients to halt programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or acknowledge the existence of transgender people in order to receive grant funding. The order will remain in effect while the legal case continues, although government lawyers will likely appeal.

The funding provisions “reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and recognizing the existence of transgender individuals,” Tigar wrote.

He went on to say that the executive branch must still be bound by the Constitution in shaping its agenda and that even in the context of federal subsidies, “it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous.”

The plaintiffs include health centers, LGBTQ+ services groups and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Historical Society. All receive federal funding and say they cannot complete their missions by following the president’s executive orders.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, one of the plaintiffs, said in 2023 it received a five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand and enhance sexual health services, including the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. The $1.3 million project specifically targets communities disproportionately affected by sexual health disparities.

But in April, the CDC informed the nonprofit that it must “immediately terminate all programs, personnel, activities, or contracts” that promote DEI or gender ideology.

President Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders since taking office in January, including ones to roll back transgender protections and stop DEI programs. Lawyers for the government say that the president is permitted to “align government funding and enforcement strategies” with his policies.

Plaintiffs say that Congress — and not the president — has the power to condition how federal funds are used, and that the executive orders restrict free speech rights.

Har writes for the Associated Press.