plan

After years of support from the United States for the Ukraine war to continue “as long as it takes”, the Trump administration is now pushing to end Europe’s war – quickly and imperfectly.

While details are still under negotiation, they include issues such as ensuring Ukraine never joins NATO and Russia’s control over about 20 percent of Ukraine.

To understand the implications for Europe, the US and their relations, host Steve Clemons speaks with Kurt Volker, Trump’s former special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and retired Colonel Heino Klinck, former director of US Army international affairs.

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III faced open hostility to the Reagan Administration’s tax revision proposal Tuesday as the Senate Finance Committee began what is expected to be at least three months of testimony on overhauling the current tax code.

“The best simplification this committee could do for the country would be just to adjourn,” Sen. Steven D. Symms (R-Ida.) complained.

Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas, a committee member, conceded that progress on tax revision could be slow. “Once the initial glow has faded,” Dole said, “there are a lot of questions this committee has to deal with.”

Warning of ‘Fiscal Disaster’

Meanwhile, Martin S. Feldstein, former chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, warned that the Administration’s tax proposal could be a “fiscal disaster if tax reform became a deficit-enlarging tax cut.”

Feldstein, who left the White House last year after several disputes over Administration policy toward budget deficits, told the House Ways and Means Committee that the tax proposal “is at best revenue neutral and has a substantial risk of losing revenue.”

Other economists testifying before the House panel, which originates tax legislation, also expressed skepticism over the Administration’s contention that the tax plan would raise as much revenue as the current tax system. They contended that the package could exacerbate deficits that are now expected to remain larger than $170 billion annually well into the next decade, even if the package of spending cuts now working its way through Congress becomes law.

“I suspect that the President’s proposal is a revenue loser, particularly after 1990,” said John H. Makin, director of fiscal studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

But Baker, in defending the tax proposal to the Senate panel, insisted that Reagan’s plan would lose only $11.5 billion during the next five years, substantially less than 1% of the $4.7 trillion that the government estimates it will collect in total revenues during that period.

Contradictory Attacks

In grilling Baker, senators on the tax panel attacked the White House proposal on a wide variety of sometimes contradictory points.

Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) complained that the proposal “tends to soak the middle class,” but he worried also that the plan would be too generous to consumers at the expense of those who save.

Some senators argued that the plan would do little to help businesses facing the threat of foreign competition, but others suggested that individuals should receive a more generous tax break even if it means increasing taxes for corporations.

Most members of the Republican-controlled committee warned that they would attempt to restore certain tax breaks that would be eliminated by the White House package.

In particular, they criticized Reagan’s proposals to abolish the deductions for state and local taxes and for two-earner couples, to eliminate the investment tax credit and alternative energy tax credits and to tax growth in the cash value of insurance policies. But Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N. J.), author of a separate tax revision proposal, argued that the White House tax plan does not go far enough in eliminating special tax preferences. He told Baker that he would try to eliminate some tax breaks for the oil industry and wealthy investors.

Exemption Hike Opposed

Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) challenged Baker’s contention that the best way to help families living below the poverty line to escape income taxes is to increase the personal exemption from the current $1,040 to $2,000 next year.

Mitchell said that he would introduce a proposal to limit the increase in the personal exemption and grant a larger increase than Reagan recommended in the standard deduction, or zero-bracket amount, a proposal that would help only taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions. Mitchell said that his approach would concentrate tax relief more directly on middle-income and lower-income families than would the Administration’s plan.

Baker vigorously defended the Administration’s plan against the attacks. “We think our plan is very fair,” he said, pointing out that the majority of taxpayers at every income level would receive tax reductions and that the average tax cut would be 7%.

Advertising on streaming services is a big new growth business for marketing and media companies, but consumers are increasingly frustrated by what they see and hear on their screens.

Ads might be too loud, of poor quality or irrelevant, and repeat too often. Sometimes, there’s an ad in a foreign language or a blank screen. As more streaming services launch ad-supported plans, viewers are experiencing these issues in greater numbers, which could come at a cost to the media companies.

“It can lead to them losing subscribers,” said Ruben Schreurs, chief executive officer of Ebiquity Plc, a London-based consultancy that says 75 of the world’s top 100 advertisers are clients.

Better, more-relevant advertising has been one of the recurring mantras of the connected-TV world. As online platforms gathered more data on their users, they were supposed to provide sponsors with targeted opportunities. Consumers would see spots for products they were more likely to want. Instead, those advances have become the source of viewer frustration.

National ad spending on streaming is expected to climb 13% to $12.3 billion this year, while such spots on traditional TV networks fall 4.9% to $33.8 billion, researcher Magna Global estimated in June. Streaming now reaches 96% of U.S. households, according to another researcher, Kantar Group & Affiliates, making the services a big opportunity for advertisers.

“We’ve seen more budget and spend move over,” said Joe Nowak, senior vice president of growth and strategy at Kantar.

Walt Disney Co. and Netflix Inc. have launched advertising-supported plans for their streaming services. At Netflix, ad-supported plans account for more than half of new subscriptions in markets where those plans are offered. They are usually offered at a discount. Disney+ with commercials is $12 a month, for example, while the ad-free version is $19.

Streaming offers advertisers distinct advantages over other media, according to Nowak, including interactive capabilities. On Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video service viewers can click into ads to buy the products shown.

In theory, advertisers can also target consumers more closely on streaming services. In traditional TV, all viewers typically see the same ads during a given broadcast. With streaming, commercials can become more personalized through a process called “dynamic ad insertion.” Audiences see commercials tailored to attributes like their location or viewing history.

It’s also easier and cheaper for advertisers, including smaller ones, to purchase streaming spots than it is on broadcast or cable.

Streaming ads are typically sold in online auctions, where spots for shows, sporting events and movies go to the highest bidder. That’s led to “democratization of access,” according to Ebiquity’s Schreurs.

“Instead of actual salespeople from the network negotiating directly with media agencies for big activations, big deals for well-known brands where they can vet the creatives, the process has become real-time,” he said.

Without that vetting, streaming platforms have less control over the ads that appear on their platforms. The smaller brands winning auctions may not have the same resources to produce high-quality commercials, according to Sean Muller, chief executive officer of the ad measurement platform iSpotTV Inc. These businesses sometimes rely on artificial intelligence to produce their ads, he said.

“You absolutely get a lot of that, and they do tend to be lower-quality,” Muller said.

Another common issue centers on ad frequency. With brands able to snap up ad blocks at auction, they sometimes get overzealous, feeding viewers the same spot over and over in a single show.

That’s particularly frustrating for streaming viewers, who are “more of a captive audience” than traditional TV audiences, who can easily change channels.

“Switching apps is a little bit of a pain in the butt,” Muller said.

And unlike the old days when consumers recorded programs to watch later, in the streaming era you can’t skip the commercials.

While streaming ads can pinpoint audiences based on their ZIP code, they sometimes miss wildly. For instance, viewers in a neighborhood with a large Latino audience may get an ad in Spanish even while watching a show in English.

“If it was done the right way, it would be running in Spanish-language content,” said Jim Wilson, CEO of Madhive, an ad platform designed for local advertisers.

There are other problems with streaming ads that seldom pop up on regular TV. For example, a blank screen sometimes appears during commercial breaks.

“They’re either not sold out on their inventory or there’s some sort of technical issue,” Wilson said.

But perhaps the biggest annoyance for streaming viewers happens when ads are ear-splittingly loud — a problem that used to crop up on conventional TV. That happens when streaming services fail to “normalize” the volume on ads before they are inserted.

In October, California passed a law requiring the services to keep the sound level of ads the same as the programming they accompany. It was inspired, according to state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), by one of his staffers whose sleeping baby was awakened by a loud streaming ad.

“This is a quality-of-life issue,” he said in an interview.

The legislation, which takes effect on July 1, 2026, could inspire changes on a national level and is one of the most well-known bills he’s worked on.

“This struck a chord with anyone who watches any entertainment on a streaming service,” Umberg said.

Miller and Palmeri write for Bloomberg.

Dec. 18 (UPI) — European leaders have agreed to continue funding Ukraine in its fight against Russia with a two-year, $105 billion loan to provide the embattled nation with munitions and other material in the ongoing war, the latest battle of which has dragged on since 2022.

European leaders failed to agree on the first choice to arm Ukraine, using frozen Russian state assets as backing for the loan.

The plan to use frozen Russian assets to back the loan fell apart in the final moments, a schism that risked making the EU appear indecisive at a critical moment in negotiations.

European leaders announced Thursday that they will instead use money from the EU budget to fund Ukraine’s defense effort. As a result, the backup plan could be more costly and difficult to mobilize than the original plan to leverage the stash of Russian money currently frozen in Europe.

European leaders said since the end result is the same, getting funds to Kyiv, they celebrated it as a victory.

“This will address the urgent financial needs of Ukraine,” Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council, said at a media briefing in Brussels.

Partly because of a cut in funding from the United States, Ukraine is facing a $160 billion shortfall over the next two years, according to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The EU sought to fill about $105 billion of that gap.

Costa added that the EU will reserve its right to use frozen Russian assets for continued funding in the future.

Albanese said Australia has more guns now than 30 years ago, when the country’s deadliest-ever mass shooting took place.

Australia will launch a national gun buyback scheme, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced, as the country continues to come to terms with the deadly attack on a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.

Albanese called the plan the country’s biggest gun buyback since 1996 – the year of Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern history, the Port Arthur massacre in the island state of Tasmania – and said authorities will purchase surplus, newly-banned and illegal firearms.

“Right now, there are more guns in Australia than there were during Port Arthur. We can’t allow that to continue,” Albanese told a news conference on Friday, adding that there are currently more than four million firearms in the country.

“Non-citizens have no need to own a gun. And someone in suburban Sydney has no need to own six … The terrible events of Bondi show we need to get more guns off our streets,” he said.

Albanese added that authorities in Australia’s states and territories will be tasked with collecting the weapons and processing payments for surrendered firearms under the scheme. Federal police will then be responsible for destroying them.

“We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme,” Albanese added.

Aided by some of the toughest gun restrictions globally, Australia has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world.

Restrictions were tightened after a lone gunman, armed with semiautomatic weapons, killed 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site almost 30 years ago.

The massacre shocked the country, with authorities soon after launching a major gun amnesty and buyback scheme that removed more than 650,000 newly-prohibited firearms from circulation.

‘We need to do more to combat this evil scourge’

Sunday’s shooting in Sydney’s Bondi Beach area – in which two attackers, named as father and son Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, went on a shooting spree and killed 15 people – has had a similarly jolting impact on Australian society as the Port Arthur massacre and prompted self-reflection.

Albanese said 50-year-old Sajid – who was shot dead at the scene – and 24-year-old Naveed – who was charged with “terrorism” and murder offences after he awoke from a coma on Tuesday – were inspired by “Islamic State ideology”.

On Thursday, Albanese announced tougher hate speech laws as he acknowledged the country had experienced a rising tide of anti-Jewish hate since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Albanese said rising anti-Semitism in Australia “culminated on Sunday in one of the worst acts of mass murder that this country has ever seen”.

“It was an attack on our Jewish community – but it was also an attack on the Australian way of life,” he said.

“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge, much more,” he added.

The prime minister also announced on Friday that Australia will hold a national day of reflection this Sunday – one week after the mass shooting.

Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6:47pm (07:47 GMT) on Sunday, December 21 – “exactly one week since the attack unfolded”.

“It is a moment to pause, reflect, and affirm that hatred and violence will never define who we are as Australians,” he told reporters.

Earlier on Friday, hundreds of people plunged into the ocean off Bondi Beach in another gesture to honour the dead.

Swimmers and surfers paddled into a circle as they bobbed in the gentle morning swell, splashing water and roaring with emotion.

“They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr told the AFP news agency.

“We’re still burying bodies. But I just felt it was important,” the 53-year-old said.

“I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, stop me from doing what I do and what I enjoy doing,” he said.

Folks, who was supposed to be watching grandpa last night? Because he got out, got on TV and … It. Was. Not. Good.

For 18 long minutes Wednesday evening, we were subjected to a rant by President Trump that predictably careened from immigrants (bad) to jobs (good), rarely slowing down for reality. But jumbled between the vitriol and venom was a vision of American healthcare that would have horror villainess M3GAN shaking in her Mary Janes — a vision that we all should be afraid of because it would take us back to a dark era when insurance couldn’t be counted on.

Trump’s remarks offered only a sketchy outline, per usual, in which the costs of health insurance premiums may be lower — but it will be because the coverage is terrible. Yes, you’ll save money. But so what? A cheap car without wheels is not a deal.

“The money should go to the people,” Trump said of his sort-of plan.

The money he vaguely was alluding to is the government subsidies that make insurance under the Affordable Care Act affordable. After antics and a mini-rebellion by four Republicans also on Wednesday, Congress basically failed to do anything meaningful on healthcare — pretty much ensuring those subsidies will disappear with the New Year.

Starting in January, premiums for too many people are going to leap skyward without the subsidies, jumping by an average of $1,016 according to the health policy research group KFF.

That’s bad enough. But Trump would like to make it worse.

The Affordable Care Act is about much more than those subsidies. Before it took effect in 2014, insurance companies in many states could deny coverage for preexisting conditions. This didn’t have to be big-ticket stuff like cancer. A kid with asthma? A mom with colitis? Those were the kind of routine but chronic problems that prevented millions from obtaining insurance — and therefore care.

Obamacare required that policies sold on its exchange did not discriminate. In addition, the ACA required plans to limit out-of-pocket costs and end lifetime dollar caps, and provide a baseline of coverage that included essentials such as maternity care. Those standards put pressure on all plans to include more, even those offered through large employers.

Trump would like to undo much of that. He instead wants to fall back on the stunt he loves the most — send a check!

What he is suggesting by sending subsidy money directly to consumers also most likely would open the market to plans without the regulation of the ACA. So yes, small businesses or even groups of individuals might be able to band together to buy insurance, but there likely would be fewer rules about what — or whom — it has to cover.

Most people aren’t savvy or careful enough to understand the limitations of their insurance before it matters. So it has a $2-million lifetime cap? That sounds like a lot until your kid needs a treatment that eats through that in a couple of months. Then what?

Trump suggested people pay for it themselves, out of health savings accounts funded by that subsidy check sent directly to taxpayers. Because that definitely will work, and people won’t spend the money on groceries or rent, and what they do save certainly will cover any medical expenses.

“You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price,” Trump claimed Wednesday. “The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich, and the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies. They will not be happy, but that’s OK with me because you, the people, are finally going to be getting great healthcare at a lower cost.”

He then bizarrely tried to blame the expiring subsidies on Democrats.

Democrats “are demanding those increases and it’s their fault,” he said. “It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.”

It seems like Trump just wants to lower costs at the expense of quality. Here’s where I take issue with the Democrats. I am not here to defend insurance companies or our healthcare system. Both clearly need reform.

But why are the Democrats failing to explain what “The money should go to the people” will mean?

I get that affordability is the message, and as someone who bought both a steak and a carton of milk this week, I understand just how powerful that issue is.

Still, everyone, Democrat or Republican, wants decent healthcare they can afford, and the peace of mind of knowing if something terrible happens, they will have access to help. There is no American who gladly would pay for insurance each month, no matter how low the premium, that is going to leave them without care when they or their loved ones need it most.

Grandpa Trump doesn’t have this worry, since he has the best healthcare our tax dollars can buy.

But when he promises to send a check instead of providing governance and regulation of one of the most critical purchases in our lives, the message is sickening: My victory in exchange for your well-being.

THE Rolling Stones have called off plans for a UK and European tour next summer.

It would have been their first string of live dates since their huge Hackney Diamonds tour in the US in 2024 – which sold almost one million tickets.

It’s understood the band – who’ve sold over 250 million records worldwide – were looking at plans to play huge stadiums across Europe and the UK after pulling the plug on dates in 2025.

An American music critic said Keith Richards, who turns 82 on Thursday, told his bandmates Mick Jagger, 82, and Ronnie Wood, 78, he couldn’t commit to the trek at this time.

They added: “The Rolling Stones had all the big promoters throwing loads of ideas and dates at them for next summer.

“But when they properly sat down to discuss the tour, Keith said he didn’t think he could commit and wasn’t keen on a big stadium tour for over four months.”

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A spokesperson said at the time: “The band were looking to tour earlier this year but couldn’t make it work either.

“It’s hard for their fans but The Stones will get back onstage when they’re good and ready.”

In September, Ronnie confirmed to The Sun that he was waiting on the nod on the 2026 tour dates.

He also confirmed they had been working on their next album, which was recorded at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, west London.

Ronnie said: “You will be getting new music from the Rolling Stones with an album next year. It is almost done. ”

Their last album, Hackney Diamonds, came out in 2023 and was their first record of original material in 18 years.

The album went straight to No1 in the album charts and spawned hits including Angry, which had Sydney Sweeney in the official music video.

This week is shaping up to be crucial for the European Union’s policy on Ukraine. EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday; EU heads of state will gather on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting United States envoy Steve Witkoff. At the top of the agenda is the peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump and continuing funding for Ukraine’s war effort.

The European strategy so far has been to alter the US-proposed peace plan in such a way that it becomes completely unacceptable to Russia. This, as European leaders hope, will reinforce the core narrative emanating from their capitals over the past two months – that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just playing games and doesn’t really want peace.

The idea behind it is to try to sway Trump to their side and have him apply additional military and economic pressure on the Kremlin rather than pressing Ukraine into signing an unsavoury peace deal right away. But this effort could easily backfire.

The main practical issue with regards to Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russian aggression during 2026 is who is going to fund its army as well as its state and social welfare system. Trump proudly states that the US is no longer financing Ukraine’s war effort because, in his parlance, it is “Biden’s war” – ie, his predecessor Joe Biden is to blame.

The burden of funding is now squarely on Europe – the EU and rich non-EU countries, such as the United Kingdom and Norway. The US keeps providing weapons to Ukraine, but these are being paid for with money from European coffers. US intelligence support, crucial in Ukraine’s war planning, is currently available to Kyiv for free.

European leaders have been vocal and aggressive throughout the year in rejecting any realistic compromise that could end the war. But even as 2025 is ending, there is no clarity as to how they are going to back up their jingoistic rhetoric with sufficient funding that would allow Ukraine not just to stay afloat but tip the balance in the conflict in its favour.

Their plan A is what they call the reparations loan. It envisages using the assets of the Russian Central Bank frozen by European banks to fund the Ukrainian defence. This means that rather than spending the money on actual reparations – as in Ukraine’s post-war restoration – it would be spent on the war itself.

The thinking behind this plan is that once Russia suffers a strategic defeat, it would retroactively agree to the confiscation rather than demand its money back, so European governments would not have to reach into their coffers to return the money to the Russians.

The obvious problem here is that exactly nobody – except war cheerleaders who have been promising Russia’s defeat for the past four years – believes this outcome is even remotely realistic. Belgium, which holds the bulk of these assets, is equally sceptical, which is why it opposes this plan. It has been joined by a growing number of EU states, including the Czech Republic and Italy.

The other big problem is that Trump’s peace plan has radically different designs for the assets in question. It envisages using them as actual reparations, as in spending them on restoring Ukraine’s economy. Most crucially, Moscow has on numerous occasions signalled that it agrees with this part of the plan. It considers the money lost and wants to make sure neighbouring Ukraine does not turn into a failed state.

This means that if the reparations loan plan goes ahead, it would undermine the most attractive provision of Trump’s plan. If this happens, the US and the EU may find themselves more at odds with each other than they already are, and that would hardly sway Trump.

His administration has indicated on a number of occasions that it could walk out of the peace process if it is derailed, which means ending any help to Ukraine, be it with weapons or intelligence.

The reparations loan plan also comes with an enormous risk for the European economy. The confiscation of Russian assets would discourage any central bank in the world from keeping its money in Europe, meaning the European banking system stands to lose.

More importantly, this move cannot guarantee that Ukraine would be able to stop Russia’s slow but steady advancement. Securing funding for another year under the current circumstances basically means that more Ukrainian lives and territory will be lost in 2026.

This money cannot in effect counter the biggest threat to Ukraine and its neighbours right now: that of Russia precipitating a humanitarian catastrophe that could spill over into the region by devastating Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this winter. The latest blackout in Odesa when the whole city was left without water and heating in the middle of winter is a dark prelude of things to come.

All this warrants the question of why European leaders are acting the way they are now. Could their irrational radicalism be explained by their extensive political investment in delusional outcomes of this war that they have been selling to voters for the past four years? Or are they engaging in incessant moral posturing so as to avoid being scapegoated for the real outcome of the war?

There is probably a bit of both. But there is perhaps also an even more sinister motive, recently expressed by Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference: the idea that “as long as this war is being fought, … Europe is safe because the Ukrainians have successfully tied down this mighty Russian army.” In other words, there are some within the European political elite who perceive ending the war as being against European interests.

But regardless of what those on top think or are motivated by, the war fatigue in Europe is real. The rise of pro-Russia far-right groups in Germany and elsewhere, capitalising on the ruling elites’ shining ineptitude in handling the conflict with Russia, is a clear sign of that.

If the reparations loan scheme does not pass this week, the EU would have to go to plan B, which envisages loaning money from the EU budget. That, of course, would be met with fierce opposition from the European public.

The failure to secure funding for Ukraine may be seen as an embarrassing failure in Europe, but it would make things easier for Zelenskyy. With his administration losing popularity amid continuing military upsets and a major corruption scandal, Ukraine’s president is well on his way to becoming the chief scapegoat in this debacle.

But no more funding from Europe would allow him to declare that the West has betrayed Ukraine and proceed with the inevitable: accepting an unsavoury peace largely on Russia’s terms.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

LA28 announced the next step in its ticketing plan for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games on Monday as ticket registration will open on Jan. 14.

Fans can start registering for tickets on Jan. 14 at la28.org, and the registration will remain open until March 18. All who sign up will be entered into a random draw to receive a time slot to purchase tickets. While registering, fans will enter their zip codes, and those who live in the Los Angeles and Oklahoma City areas near venues will be eligible to access the first time slots reserved for locals.

“The goal there is to make sure that we’re getting tickets into the hands, not just the fans, but of the local fans,” said Allison Katz-Mayfield, LA28’s senior vice president of Games delivery revenue. “Those that are going to be closest to the Games, really helping us host these Games in some ways.”

The 2028 Olympics will feature the largest Games schedule in history, with 36 sports and 11,198 athletes. The majority of the Games will be held in L.A., including major sports zones in downtown, Exposition Park and the Sepulveda Basin, but cities including Carson, Inglewood and Long Beach will also have multiple venues. Oklahoma City will host the softball and canoe slalom events at existing facilities.

LA28 is still finalizing the duration of each purchasing window, although the plan is to have multiple opportunities per day, so fans would be assigned time slots that are open for several hours. Tickets for a variety of events will be available during each drop in 2026, with single-event tickets beginning at $28. When tickets for the Paralympics go on sale in 2027, the system will be similar and fans will not have to re-register their interest.

While the Olympics will be back in L.A. for the third time in 2028, it will be the first time the city is hosting the Paralympics.

LA28 plans to release 14 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics. The total would be a Games record, eclipsing the 12 million sold in Paris, where ticket sales began almost a year after the timeline LA28 is currently using. The Paris Games that opened in July 2024 did not begin ticket registration until November 2022, 20 months before the event.

Fans will have two-and-a-half years to register and purchase tickets before L.A. opens the Olympics on July 14, 2028.

Gov. Pete Wilson challenged President Clinton on Thursday to make California a test market for a tamper-proof federal identification card designed to keep illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits or getting jobs in the United States.

Later, a Wilson aide said one option might be a national identification card that would be carried by every legal resident of the United States, including U.S. citizens.

Wilson’s news conference at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offices at Los Angeles International Airport was billed as the forum for a “major announcement regarding immigration.” In fact, Wilson’s statement expanded on his Aug. 9 program by only a small step–the proposed California test–while raising even more questions about his plan for the proposed identification card.

The governor acknowledged to a reporter that it probably is impossible to come up with a foolproof card because counterfeiters could fake birth certificates, passports or other documents that would be needed to get the card.

Wilson left unclear just who might have to possess the card: just foreign nationals living in the country legally or all U.S. citizens?

Asked who would have to carry the card, Wilson said: “Those who are applicants for employment and those who are applicants for benefits.”

Later, Wilson aide Dan Schnur said one possibility that arose during policy discussions in the governor’s office was a national identification card issued to all U.S. citizens and legal residents.

“A universal card is one option, but we’re not looking at it as an absolute condition,” Schnur said in telephone calls to reporters.

The form and scope of any card would be worked out in negotiations with the Clinton Administration, he said.

There have been periodic proposals for a national ID card, but they have always run up against strong opposition on civil liberties grounds.

Wilson was quoted by the Santa Monica Outlook while running for the U.S. Senate in 1982 that a proposed national identification card was “a lousy idea” because it would create a massive new bureaucracy. He also said he had some philosophical objections to the concept.

Schnur had no comment on that report, but he said conditions have changed greatly since the passage of immigration reform in the late 1980s and the heavy influx of illegal immigrants into California in recent years.

Thursday’s billing of a major new initiative drew a dozen television cameras and perhaps a score of reporters, a big turnout for any political event in Los Angeles. Although it turned out that Wilson’s statement was more of an expansion on a previous proposal than a major new initiative, the session did give the governor a platform for responding to critics of his Aug. 9 announcement.

Wilson said an identification card is the key to the enforcement of any of the sanctions written into federal law against employers who hire illegal immigrants for jobs in the United States. Without it, such sanctions are unenforceable, he said.

“Until we deal with the problem of document fraud, anyone proposing additional employer sanctions is simply blowing hot air,” Wilson said after examining stacks of phony passports, Social Security cards and other false documents confiscated by the INS.

Critics, including potential Democratic gubernatorial challenger Kathleen Brown, have said Wilson’s plan cracks down on illegal immigrants but not on the employers who also violate the law by hiring them.

Last week, Brown, the state treasurer, endorsed a national tamper-proof Social Security card that would have to be presented to a prospective employer before the cardholder could be hired.

In his lengthy Aug. 9 letter to Clinton, Wilson called on the federal government to compensate California for the cost of services to illegal immigrants, called for stricter enforcement of the California-Mexico border, and said children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants should not automatically become U.S. citizens or be eligible to attend public schools in California.

Wilson made no mention of stronger enforcement against employers. He proposed an identification card as something that foreign nationals in the country legally would present to qualify for state services.

Wilson said California’s modern holographic drivers licenses could be the model for a federal card, but a reporter wondered if even they could be forged, since a photographic blowup of one was among the fake IDs on display.

“You know, I don’t dispute the ingenuity of counterfeiters. . . . I think it is possible to stay technologically ahead of even expert counterfeiters,” Wilson said.

“The question really is not whether you’re going to have an entirely foolproof system, but whether you have one that works to achieve its major goal, which is to screen out the vast majority of counterfeit documents.”

Later in the day, Democratic state Chairman Bill Press chided Wilson for intervening with the INS in 1989 on behalf of a San Diego supporter, Anne Evans, whose hotels were under investigation for hiring illegal immigrants. At the time, Wilson was a U.S. senator.

Evans ultimately was accused of 362 violations of employer sanctions provisions and fined $70,000.

Schnur described Wilson’s letter, which sought a conciliation between the INS and Evans, as a routine constituent service.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s Republican-led Senate decisively rejected a redrawn congressional map Thursday that would have favored their party, defying months of pressure from President Trump and delivering a stark setback to the White House ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The vote was overwhelmingly against the proposed redistricting, with more Republicans opposing than supporting the measure, signaling the limits of Trump’s influence even in one of the country’s most conservative states.

Trump has been urging Republicans nationwide to gerrymander their congressional maps in an unprecedented campaign to help the party maintain its thin majority in the House of Representatives. Although Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina went along, Indiana did not — despite cajoling and insults from the president and the possibility of primary challenges.

“The federal government should not dictate by threat or other means what should happen in our states,” said Spencer Deery, one of the Republican senators who voted no Thursday.

When the proposal failed, 31 to 19, cheers could be heard inside the chamber as well as shouts of “thank you!” The debate had been shadowed by the possibility of violence, and some lawmakers have received threats aimed at persuading them to support the proposal.

Trump tried to brush off the defeat, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he “wasn’t working on it very hard” despite his personal involvement in the pressure campaign.

Two Democratic districts targeted

The proposed map was designed to give Republicans control of all nine of Indiana’s congressional seats, up from the seven they currently hold. It would have essentially erased Indiana’s two Democratic-held districts — splitting Indianapolis among four districts that extend into rural areas, reshaping U.S. Rep. André Carson’s safe district in the city and eliminating the northwest Indiana district held by U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan.

District boundaries are usually adjusted once a decade after a new census. But Trump has cast the issue in existential terms for his party as Democrats push to regain power in Washington.

“If Republicans will not do what is necessary to save our Country, they will eventually lose everything to the Democrats,” Trump wrote on social media the night before the vote.

The president said anyone who voted against the plan should lose their seats. Half of Indiana senators are up for reelection next year, and the conservative organization Turning Point Action had pledged to fund campaigns against them.

David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth, which had backed redistricting, said the vote allowed disloyal Republicans to “stick their finger in the eye of the president of the United States.”

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels praised the senators for “courageous principled leadership” in rejecting the new map.

A Republican who has vocally criticized Trump, Daniels said the outcome was “a major black eye for him and all the Washington groups that piled in, spent money, blustered and threatened.” He added that “this thing rubbed our state the wrong way and Republicans in our state very wrong from the jump.”

‘A full-court press’

Inside the state Senate chamber, Democratic lawmakers spoke out against redistricting ahead of the vote.

“Competition is healthy, my friends,” Sen. Fady Qaddoura said. “Any political party on Earth that cannot run and win based on the merits of its ideas is unworthy of governing.”

In the hallways outside, redistricting opponents chanted “Vote no!” and “Fair maps!” while holding signs with slogans such as “Losers cheat.”

Three times over the fall, Vice President JD Vance met with Republican senators — twice in Indianapolis and once in the White House — to urge their support. Trump joined a conference call with senators on Oct. 17 to make his own 15-minute pitch.

Behind the scenes, James Blair, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff for political affairs, was in regular touch with members, as were other groups supporting the effort such as the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA.

“The administration made a full-court press,” said Republican Sen. Andy Zay, who said he was on the phone with White House aides sometimes multiple times per week, despite his commitment as a yes vote.

Across the country, mid-cycle redistricting so far has resulted in nine more congressional seats that Republicans believe they can win and six more congressional seats that Democrats think they can win — five in California. Some of the new maps, however, are facing litigation.

In Utah, a judge imposed new districts that could allow Democrats to win a seat, saying Republican lawmakers violated voter-backed standards against gerrymandering.

Republicans were split over plan

Despite Trump’s push, support for gerrymandering in Indiana’s Senate was uncertain. A dozen of the 50 senators had not publicly committed to a stance ahead of the vote.

Republican Sen. Greg Goode signaled his displeasure with the redistricting plan before voting no. He said some of his constituents objected to seeing their county split up or paired with Indianapolis. He expressed “love” for Trump but criticized what he called “over-the-top pressure” from inside and outside the state.

Sen. Michael Young, another Republican, said the stakes in Washington justify redistricting, as Democrats are only a few seats away from flipping control of the U.S. House in 2026. “I know this election is going to be very close,” he said.

Republican Sen. Mike Gaskill, the redistricting legislation’s sponsor, showed senators maps of congressional districts around the country, including several focused on Democratic-held seats in New England and Illinois. He argued that other states gerrymander and that Indiana Republicans should therefore play by the same rules.

The bill cleared its first hurdle Monday with a 6-3 Senate committee vote, although one Republican joined Democrats in opposing it and a few others signaled they might vote against the final version. The state House passed the proposal last week, with 12 Republicans siding with Democrats in opposition.

Among them was state Rep. Ed Clere, who said state troopers responded to a hoax message claiming there was a pipe bomb outside his home Wednesday evening. Indiana state police said “numerous others” received threats but wouldn’t offer details about an ongoing investigation.

In an interview, Clere said these threats were the inevitable result of Trump’s pressure campaign and a “winner-take-all mentality.”

“Words have consequences,” Clere said.

Volmert, Lamy and Beaumont write for the Associated Press and reported from Lansing, Mich., Indianapolis and Des Moines, respectively.

The NFL is advocating a more performance-driven model for its game officials, one linking bonuses and postseason assignments to regular-season grades as opposed to seniority.

The plan was outlined in a memo distributed to the league’s 32 teams Wednesday and obtained by the Los Angeles Times. It comes with the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with game officials expiring at the end of May and negotiations slowed to a crawl.

The topic was part of a two-hour virtual owners meeting on Wednesday.

In the memo, sent by NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent and Management Council General Counsel Lawrence Ferazani Jr., the league said it is looking to implement changes that will “improve the performance of game officials, increase accountability, and ensure that the highest-performing officials are officiating our highest profile games.”

The NFL is pushing for mandatory training and development programs for low-performing and probationary officials, and contends the union is “resisting our efforts to give these officials access to more practice repetitions.”

The league is also seeking to extend the probationary period for assessing new game officials to have more flexibility to identify and remove those who are underperforming. According to the document, the union’s latest proposal seeks to eliminate the probationary period entirely.

“Our union’s negotiating committee is working diligently on behalf of members, and we will continue to respect that process,” said Scott Green, Executive Director of the NFL Referees’ Assn., in a statement. “We look forward to our continued conversations with the league as we make progress towards a new CBA.”

As it stands, the NFL has no communication with game officials following the Super Bowl through May 15. The league wants to shorten that so-called “dead period” and increase access to officials for rules discussions, video review and the like.

The league is also proposing a practice squad for game officials to deepen the bench of talent.

The next formal bargaining session between the NFL and officials union is scheduled for Dec. 30 in Atlanta.

SANTA FE, N.M. — A new conservation agreement will preserve land with breathtaking desert vistas that inspired the work of 20th century painter Georgia O’Keeffe and ensure visitors access to an adjacent educational retreat, several partners to the pact announced Tuesday.

Initial phases of the plan establish a conservation easement across about 10 square miles of land, owned by a charitable arm of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), on the outskirts of the village of Abiquiu.

That easement stretches across reservoir waterfront and native grasslands to the doorstep of a remote home owned by O’Keeffe’s estate, a few miles from her larger home and studio in Abiquiu. Both homes are outside the conservation area and owned and managed separately by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.

The view from the rangeland should be familiar to even casual O’Keeffe afficionados — including desert washes, sandstone bluffs and the distant mountain silhouette of Cerro Pedernal.

“The stark colorful geology, the verdant grasslands going right down to the Chama River and Abiquiu lake — all that just makes it such a multifaceted place with tremendous conservation value,” said Jonathan Hayden, executive director of the New Mexico Land Conservancy that helped broker the conservation plan and will oversee easements.

Hayden said the voluntary plan guards against the potential encroachment of modern development that might subdivide and transform the property, though there are not any imminent proposals.

Land within an initial easement has been the backdrop to movie sets for decades, including a recreation of wartime Los Alamos in the hit 2024 film “Oppenheimer, ” on a temporary movie set that still stands.

The conservation agreement guarantees some continued access for film productions, as well as preserving traditional winter grazing for farmers who usher small herds down from the mountains as snow arrives.

The state of New Mexico is substantially underwriting the initiative though a trust created by state lawmakers in 2023.

An approved $920,000 state award is being set aside for easement surveys, transaction costs and a financial nest-egg that the Presbyterian Church Foundation will use — while retaining property ownership — to support programming at the adjacent Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center and its use of the conservation area.

The center attracts about 10,000 visitors a year to overnight spiritual, artistic and literary retreats for people of all faiths, with twice as many day visitors, said center CEO David Evans.

Two initial phases of the conservation plan are part of a broader plan to protect more than 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) of the area through conservation easements and public land transfers, with the support of at least one wildlife foundation. That would extend protections to the banks of the Chama River and preserve additional wildlife habitat.

Many Native American communities trace their ancestry to the area in northern New Mexico where O’Keeffe settled and explored the landscape in her work.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

As Israel and Hamas prepare to move towards phase two of a United States-led blueprint to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, disagreements loom over the as-yet undefined role of an international stabilisation force in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Sunday that the US draft required “a lot of clarifications”. While the group was ready to discuss “freezing or storing” weapons during the ongoing truce, he said it would not accept that an international stabilisation force take charge of disarmament.

“We are welcoming a [United Nations] force to be near the borders, supervising the ceasefire agreement, reporting about violations, preventing any kind of escalations,” he said, adding that Hamas would not accept the force having “any kind of mandates” on Palestinian territory.

His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier in the day that he would meet with Donald Trump to discuss entering a new phase of the US president’s plan at the end of the month. The focus of the meeting, he said, would be on ending Hamas governance in Gaza and ensuring it fulfilled its “commitment” to the plan, which calls for demilitarisation of the enclave.

“We have a second phase, no less daunting, and that is to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarisation of Gaza,” Netanyahu said during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

It was not clear whether Naim’s comments on the group freezing or storing arms would satisfy Israel’s demands for full disarmament. The Hamas official said the group retained its “right to resist”, adding that laying down arms could happen as part of a process leading to a Palestinian state, with a potential long-term truce lasting five to 10 years.

The US-drafted plan for Gaza leaves the door open to Palestinian independence, but Netanyahu has long rejected this, asserting that creating a Palestinian state would reward Hamas.

Vague plan

Trump’s 20-point plan offers a general way forward on such plans as the establishment of the stabilisation force and the formation of a technocratic Palestinian government operating under an international “board of peace”, but does not offer concrete details or timelines.

US officials have said they expect “boots on the ground” early next year, but while countries like Indonesia have agreed to contribute troops, there is no roadmap for setting up the force, and its exact makeup, command structure and responsibilities have not been defined.

Netanyahu appeared to recognise the plan’s vagueness. “What will be the timeline? What are the forces that are coming in? Will we have international forces? If not, what are the alternatives? These are all topics that are being discussed,” he said on Sunday.

The Israeli prime minister said that phase two of the plan, which will be set in motion once Hamas returns the last Israeli captive, a policeman killed in the October 7 attack on southern Israel, would be “more difficult”.

Stage one of the plan has already proven challenging, with Israel continuing to bomb Gaza throughout the ceasefire, killing more than 370 Palestinians, according to health officials. Meanwhile, it has accused Hamas of dragging out captive returns.

Israeli army says yellow line ‘new border’

The plan’s initial steps saw Israeli forces withdraw to positions behind a so-called yellow line in Gaza, though the Israeli military remains in control of 53 percent of the territory. The Israeli military said on Sunday that the line of demarcation was a “new border”.

“We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip, and we will remain on those defence lines,” said Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. “The yellow line is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani warned at the Doha Forum on Saturday that the truce was at a “critical moment” and could unravel without rapid movement towards a permanent deal.

He said a true ceasefire “cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal” of Israeli forces, alongside restored stability and freedom of movement for Palestinians, which has so far not transpired under phase one of the plan. He did not allude to the yellow line in his comments.

Amid growing momentum for a move to phase two of the peace plan, Israeli and Qatari officials met with US counterparts in an effort to rebuild relations after Israel’s air strike on Doha in September, Axios reported, citing unnamed sources.