Politics

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits into the country to 7,500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the U.S. previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000. The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

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.

Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate is meeting Thursday to vote on various bills, though the House-passed bill to reopen the government is not on the agenda.

Thursday is Day 30 of the federal government shutdown with votes scheduled for 11:45 a.m. EDT. Democrats are holding out for funding for marketplace health insurance plans, and Republicans want to continue without the funding, leading to the 30-day impasse. The longest government shutdown in history was 34 days.

The Senate has voted on the funding bill 13 times.

The Senate will first look at a resolution on the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska involving lease sales of land. The second is on a bill sponsored by Democrats that confronts the use of an emergency declaration that President Donald Trump used to create tariffs.

A report released Thursday from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the federal government shutdown has cost businesses that contract with the government $12 billion in the first four weeks.

The Chamber is sending the report to members of Congress. It says that 65,000 small businesses are losing about $3 billion per week. Those businesses include providers of high-tech machinery, office supplies, and landscaping services, the report said.

“The Chamber is again calling on Congress to immediately pass the continuing resolution to reopen and fund the government,” Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, wrote in a letter to Congress. “We also urge Congress to consider ways to help make federal contractors, especially small business contractors, whole.”

The Senate this week passed resolutions to block Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and Canada, which were approved with the backing of some Republicans. The bills aren’t expected to make it through the House of Representatives.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday that bipartisan discussions on opening the government have “picked up,” saying there’s a “higher level of conversation.”

“But there are a lot of rank-and-file members that continue, I think, to want to pursue solutions and be able to address the issues they care about, including healthcare, which … we’re willing to do, but it obviously is contingent upon them opening up the government,” Thune said.

“The open-enrollment period is beginning on Saturday and tragically the Republicans have won their battle to increase health care costs on the American people. That is the result of the position that they’ve taken in this negotiation. Now we know that the American people’s health care costs are going to go up because the Republican Party in Washington is refusing to extend the Obamacare tax credits,” The Hill reported Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said. Bennet is a member of the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over health insurance tax subsidies.

The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Trump has falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants use them. People here without proper documentation are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, according to the federal healthcare.gov website.

US states have relied on vaccine mandates since the 1800s, when a smallpox vaccine offered the first successful protection against a disease that had killed millions.

More than a century later, Florida’s top public health official said vaccine requirements are unethical and unnecessary for high vaccination rates.

“You can still have high vaccination numbers, just like the other countries who don’t do any mandates like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the [United Kingdom], most of Canada,” Florida Surgeon General Dr Joseph Ladapo said on October 16. “No mandates, really comparable vaccine uptake.”

It’s true that some countries without vaccine requirements have high vaccination rates, on a par with the United States. But experts say that fact alone does not make it a given that the US would follow the same pattern if it eliminates school vaccination requirements.

Florida state law currently requires students in public and private schools from daycare through 12th grade to have specific immunisations. Families can opt out for religious or medical reasons. About 11 percent of Florida kindergarteners are not immunised, recent data shows. With Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s backing, Ladapo is pushing to end the state’s school vaccine requirements.

The countries Ladapo cited – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the UK and parts of Canada – don’t have broad vaccine requirements, research shows. Their governments recommend such protections, though, and their healthcare systems offer conveniently accessible vaccines, for example.

UNICEF, a United Nations agency which calls itself the “global go-to for data on children”, measures how well countries provide routine childhood immunisations by looking at infant access to the third dose in a DTaP vaccine series that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough).

In 2024, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 94 percent of one-year-olds in the United States had received three doses of the DTaP vaccine. That’s compared with Canada at 92 percent, Denmark at 96 percent, Norway at 97 percent, Sweden at 96 percent and the UK at 92 percent.

Universal, government-provided healthcare and high trust in government likely influence those countries’ vaccine uptake, experts have said. In the US, many people can’t afford time off work or the cost of a doctor’s visit. There’s also less trust in the government. These factors could prevent the US from having similar participation rates should the government eliminate school vaccine mandates.

Universal healthcare, stronger government trust increase vaccination

Multiple studies have linked vaccine mandates and increased vaccination rates. Although these studies found associations between the two, the research does not prove that mandates alone cause increased vaccination rates. Association is not the same as causation.

Other factors that can affect vaccination rates often accompany mandates, including local efforts to improve vaccination access, increase documentation and combat vaccine hesitancy and refusal.

The countries Ladapo highlighted are high-income countries with policies that encourage vaccination and make vaccines accessible.

In Sweden, for example, where all vaccinations are voluntary, the vaccines included in national programmes are offered for free, according to the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

Preventive care is more accessible and routine for everyone in countries such as Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK with universal healthcare systems, said Dr Megan Berman of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences.

“In the US, our healthcare system is more fragmented, and access to care can depend on insurance or cost,” she said.

More limited healthcare access, decreased institutional trust and anti-vaccine activists’ influence set the US apart from those other countries, experts said.

Some of these other countries’ cultural norms favour the collective welfare of others, which means people are more likely to get vaccinated to support the community, Berman said.

Anders Hviid, an epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, told The Atlantic that it’s misguided to compare Denmark’s health situation with the US – in part because Danish citizens strongly trust the government to enact policies in the public interest.

By contrast, as of 2024, fewer than one in three people in the US over age 15 reported having confidence in the national government, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of advanced, industrialised nations. That’s the lowest percentage of any of the countries Ladapo mentioned.

“The effectiveness of recommendations depends on faith in the government and scientific body that is making the recommendations,” said Dr Richard Rupp, of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences.

Without mandates, vaccine education would be even more important, experts say

Experts said they believe US vaccination rates would fall if states ended school vaccine mandates.

Maintaining high vaccination rates without mandates would require health officials to focus on other policies, interventions and messaging, said Samantha Vanderslott, the leader of the Oxford Vaccine Group’s Vaccines and Society Unit, which researches attitudes and behaviour towards vaccines.

That could be especially difficult given that the United States’s top health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has a long history of anti-vaccine activism and scepticism about vaccines.

That makes the US an outlier, Vanderslott said.

“Governments tend to promote/support vaccination as a public health good,” she said. It is unusual for someone with Kennedy’s background to hold a position where he has the power to spread misinformation, encourage vaccine hesitancy and reduce mainstream vaccine research funding and access, Vanderslott said.

Most people decide to follow recommendations based on their beliefs about a vaccine’s benefits and their child’s vulnerability to disease, Rupp said. That means countries that educate the public about vaccines and illnesses will have better success with recommendations, he said.

Ultimately, experts said that just because something worked elsewhere doesn’t mean it will work in the United States.

Matt Hitchings, a biostatistics professor at the University of Florida’s College of Public Health and Health Professions, said a vaccine policy’s viability could differ from country to country. Vaccination rates are influenced by a host of factors.

“If I said that people in the UK drink more tea than in the US and have lower rates of certain cancers, would that be convincing evidence that drinking tea reduces cancer risk?” Hitchings said.

Google Translate was used throughout the research of this story to translate websites and statements into English.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Trump’s comments Thursday suggesting the United States will restart its testing of nuclear weapons upends decades of American policy in regards to the bomb, but come as Washington’s rivals have been expanding and testing their nuclear-capable arsenals.

Nuclear weapons policy, once thought to be a relic of the Cold War, increasingly has come to the fore as Russia has made repeated atomic threats to both the U.S. and Europe during its war on Ukraine. Moscow also acknowledged this week testing a nuclear-powered-and-capable cruise missile called the Burevestnik, code-named Skyfall by NATO, and a nuclear-armed underwater drone.

China is building more ground-based nuclear missile silos. Meanwhile, North Korea just unveiled a new intercontinental ballistic missile it plans to test, part of a nuclear-capable arsenal likely able to reach the continental U.S.

The threat is starting to bleed into popular culture as well, most recently with director Kathryn Bigelow ‘s new film “A House of Dynamite.”

But what does Trump’s announcement mean and how would it affect what’s happening now with nuclear tensions? Here’s what to know.

Trump’s comments came in a post on his Truth Social website just before meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In it, Trump noted other countries testing weapons and wrote: “I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

The president’s post raised immediate questions. America’s nuclear arsenal is maintained by the Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency within it — not the Defense Department. The Energy Department has overseen testing of nuclear weapons since its creation in 1977. Two other agencies before it — not the Defense Department — conducted tests.

Trump also claimed the U.S. “has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country.” Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear warheads, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, while the U.S. has 5,225. Those figures include so-called “retired” warheads waiting to be dismantled.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute further breaks the warhead total down, with the U.S. having 1,770 deployed warheads with 1,930 in reserve. Russia has 1,718 deployed warheads and 2,591 in reserve.

The two countries account for nearly 90% of the world’s atomic warheads.

U.S. last carried out a nuclear test in 1992

From the time America conducted its “Trinity” nuclear bomb detonation in 1945 to 1992, the U.S. detonated 1,030 atomic bombs in tests — the most of any country. Those figures do not include the two nuclear weapons America used against Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

The first American tests were atmospheric, but they were then moved underground to limit nuclear fallout. Scientists have come to refer to such tests as “shots.” The last such “shot,” called Divider as part of Operation Julin, took place Sept. 23, 1992, at the Nevada National Security Sites, a sprawling compound some 65 miles from Las Vegas.

America halted its tests for a couple of reasons. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. The U.S. also signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. There have been tests since the treaty, however — by India, North Korea and Pakistan, the world’s newest nuclear powers. The United Kingdom and France also have nuclear weapons, while Israel long has been suspected of possessing atomic bombs.

But broadly speaking, the U.S. also had decades of data from tests, allowing it to use computer modeling and other techniques to determine whether a weapon would successfully detonate. Every president since Barack Obama has backed plans to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, whose maintenance and upgrading will cost nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The U.S. relies on the so-called “nuclear triad” — ground-based silos, aircraft-carried bombs and nuclear-tipped missiles in submarines at sea — to deter others from launching their weapons against America.

Restarting testing raises additional questions

If the U.S. restarted nuclear weapons testing, it isn’t immediately clear what the goal would be. Nonproliferation experts have warned any scientific objective likely would be eclipsed by the backlash to a test — and possibly be a starting gun for other major nuclear powers to begin their own widespread testing.

“Restarting the U.S. nuclear testing program could be one of the most consequential policy actions the Trump administration undertakes — a U.S. test could set off an uncontrolled chain of events, with other countries possibly responding with their own nuclear tests, destabilizing global security, and accelerating a new arms race,” experts warned in a February article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

“The goal of conducting a fast-tracked nuclear test can only be political, not scientific. … It would give Russia, China and other nuclear powers free rein to restart their own nuclear testing programs, essentially without political and economic fallout.”

Any future U.S. test likely would take place in Nevada at the testing sites, but a lot of work likely would need to go into the sites to prepare them given it’s been over 30 years since the last test. A series of slides made for a presentation at Los Alamos National Laboratories in 2018 laid out the challenges, noting that in the 1960s the city of Mercury, Nevada — at the testing grounds — had been the second-largest city in Nevada.

On average, 20,000 people had been on site to organize and prepare for the tests. That capacity has waned in the decades since.

“One effects shot would require from two to four years to plan and execute,” the presentation reads. “These were massive undertakings.”

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press.

BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 30 (UPI) — The Incentive Regime for Large Investments, or RIGI, is one of the main pillars of Argentine President Javier Milei’s economic plan. A recent report from the Rosario Board of Trade said projected investments under the program total $33.9 billion over a period of five to 10 years.

Of that amount, 46.5%, or $15.7 billion).already has been approved across eight projects. The most recent addition is one by Canada’s McEwen Copper, which plans to invest $2.7 billion in the Los Azules copper mine.

The remaining 53.5% is still under review, with only one project valued at $273 million rejected so far. It is the “Mariana” project by China’s Ganfeng Lithium, which began to produce lithium chloride in Salta earlier this year.

“Energy and mining are the leading sectors among RIGI applications. Together they account for 98.3% of the total so far, with 64.8% in mining and 33.5% in energy. Rounding out the total are investments in port infrastructure and steelmaking, each representing about 0.9% of all applications,” the report said.

The RIGI aims to provide stable conditions and a viable tax framework so that both foreign and Argentine investments can develop in a more favorable environment.

“Argentina is a country that has repeatedly failed to honor its commitments,” said Gonzalo Brest, tax and legal partner at KPMG Argentina. That’s why the measure seeks to address a longstanding problem in the country related to the lack of investor confidence, he said.

The RIGI’s benefits operate on two levels. One is exchange-rate, tax and customs stability for 30 years The state cannot alter the regime granted under RIGI during that period.

“That provides a degree of certainty that’s necessary for long-term investment,” Brest said.

In addition, significant tax reductions are available.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t pay taxes, but they’ll pay them at a much more reasonable level,” Brest said.

“RIGI addresses two of Argentina’s longstanding problems. One is the lack of investor confidence, and the other is a heavy tax burden. Now those conditions are reduced and maintained for 30 years,” he said.

Brest noted that the approved projects represent major investments, as each exceeds $200 million, (the minimum amount required to qualify.

“Most of the approved projects are in sectors that are strategic for the country,” he said.

“RIGI is a framework that covers many sectors of the economy, but the projects submitted so far focus mainly on three: energy, mining and oil and gas,” he added.

The BCR report said that of the $11.3 billion invested in energy projects, $6.9 billion corresponds to a natural gas liquefaction project by Southern Energy, which is owned by Pan American Energy and Golar LNG. The project involves Norwegian and Argentine capital.

Another venture, the Vaca Muerta Oleoducto Sur project, unites the country’s leading energy companies with an investment of $2.5 billion.

Together, the two projects account for 83% of RIGI energy investments.

Santiago Liaudat, a researcher at the National University of La Plata, said the purpose of the program is largely to draw outside investors and spur sales overseas.

“The goal is to create the argument that RIGI will generate favorable conditions for foreign investment, job creation and export growth. It is argued that Argentina’s legal uncertainty, instability and excessive regulation are the reasons foreign investment does not come to the country,” he said.

Liaudat said some of those arguments are valid and justify a special incentive regime, but he wasn’t so sure about creating jobs.

“But there is no guarantee that RIGI will generate local jobs. In fact, it does not specify anywhere that investment must be accompanied by job creation,” he said.

He also argued that the initiative does not include any incentives for investment to create demand for capital or intermediate goods within the country.

“It could be an investment that simply imports everything it needs for its production process. As a result, it creates unfair competition for Argentina’s industrial sector,” he said.

“These actors, who are part of RIGI, could import technology, capital goods and intermediate goods without paying taxes. This regime would have the unintended effect of harming Argentina’s productive network. Far from promoting job creation, it could affect local employment,” he said.

“Large capital, all large foreign capital — since there are few companies in Argentina capable of investing more than $1 billion — will enjoy exceptional investment conditions at the expense of Argentine capital that cannot benefit from those same advantages,” he said.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Trump described his face-to-face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday as a roaring success, saying he would cut tariffs on China, while Beijing had agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans.

The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that the U.S. would lower tariffs implemented earlier this year as punishment on China for its selling of chemicals used to make fentanyl from 20% to 10%. That brings the total combined tariff rate on China down from 57% to 47%

“I guess on the scale from 0 to 10, with ten being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said. “I think it was a 12.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China agreed to purchase 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually for the next three years, starting with 12 million metric tons from now to January. U.S. soybean exports to China, a huge market for them, had come to a standstill in the trade dispute.

“So you know, our great soybean farmers, who the Chinese used as political pawns, that’s off the table, and they should prosper in the years to come,” Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”

Trump said that he would go to China in April and Xi would come to the U.S. “some time after that.” The president said they also discussed the export of more advanced computer chips to China, saying that Nvidia would be in talks with Chinese officials.

Trump said he could sign a trade deal with China “pretty soon.”

Xi said Washington and Beijing would work to finalize their agreements to provide “peace of mind” to both countries and the rest of the world, according to a report on the meeting distributed by state media.

“Both sides should take the long-term perspective into account, focusing on the benefits of cooperation rather than falling into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation,” he said.

Sources of tension remain

Despite Trump’s optimism after a 100-minute meeting with Xi in South Korea, there continues to be the potential for major tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Both nations are seeking dominant places in manufacturing, developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and shaping world affairs like Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs since returning to the White House for a second term, combined with China’s retaliatory limits on exports of rare earth elements, gave the meeting newfound urgency. There is a mutual recognition that neither side wants to risk blowing up the world economy in ways that could jeopardize their own country’s fortunes.

When the two were seated at the start of the meeting, Xi read prepared remarks that stressed a willingness to work together despite differences.

“Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other,” he said through a translator. “It is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then.”

There was a slight difference in translation as China’s Xinhua News Agency reported Xi as telling Trump that having some differences is inevitable.

Finding ways to lower the temperature

The leaders met in Busan, South Korea, a port city about 47 miles south from Gyeongju, the main venue for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

In the days leading up to the meeting, U.S. officials signaled that Trump did not intend to make good on a recent threat to impose an additional 100% import tax on Chinese goods, and China showed signs it was willing to relax its export controls on rare earths and also buy soybeans from America.

Officials from both countries met earlier this week in Kuala Lumpur to lay the groundwork for their leaders. Afterward, China’s top trade negotiator Li Chenggang said they had reached a “preliminary consensus,” a statement affirmed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who said there was “ a very successful framework.”

Shortly before the meeting on Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social that the meeting would be the “G2,” a recognition of America and China’s status as the world’s biggest economies. The Group of Seven and Group of 20 are other forums of industrialized nations.

But while those summits often happen at luxury spaces, this meeting took place in humbler surroundings: Trump and Xi met in a small gray building with a blue roof on a military base adjacent to Busan’s international airport.

The anticipated detente has given investors and businesses caught between the two nations a sense of relief. The U.S. stock market has climbed on the hopes of a trade framework coming out of the meeting.

Pressure points remain for both U.S. and China

Trump has outward confidence that the grounds for a deal are in place, but previous negotiations with China this year in Geneva, Switzerland and London had a start-stop quality to them. The initial promise of progress has repeatedly given way to both countries seeking a better position against the other.

“The proposed deal on the table fits the pattern we’ve seen all year: short-term stabilization dressed up as strategic progress,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Both sides are managing volatility, calibrating just enough cooperation to avert crisis while the deeper rivalry endures.”

The U.S. and China have each shown they believe they have levers to pressure the other, and the past year has demonstrated that tentative steps forward can be short-lived.

For Trump, that pressure comes from tariffs.

China had faced new tariffs this year totaling 30%, of which 20% were tied to its role in fentanyl production. But the tariff rates have been volatile. In April, he announced plans to jack the rate on Chinese goods to 145%, only to abandon those plans as markets recoiled.

Then, on Oct. 10, Trump threatened a 100% import tax because of China’s rare earth restrictions. That figure, including past tariffs, would now be 47% “effective immediately,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

Xi has his own chokehold on the world economy because China is the top producer and processor of the rare earth minerals needed to make fighter jets, robots, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.

China had tightened export restrictions on Oct. 9, repeating a cycle in which each nation jockeys for an edge only to back down after more trade talks.

What might also matter is what happens directly after their talks. Trump plans to return to Washington, while Xi plans to stay on in South Korea to meet with regional leaders during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which officially begins on Friday.

“Xi sees an opportunity to position China as a reliable partner and bolster bilateral and multilateral relations with countries frustrated by the U.S. administration’s tariff policy,” said Jay Truesdale, a former State Department official who is CEO of TD International, a risk and intelligence advisory firm.

Boak, Megerian and Schiefelbein write for the Associated Press. Boak reported from Tokyo and Megerian reported from Busan, South Korea. Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Seung Min Kim and Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report.

In recent years, it’s become abundantly clear this region’s war on smog hinges on the adoption electric vehicles. And, for the first time in a generation, we may be headed in the wrong direction.

If you’ve followed my coverage, you probably know that Southern California’s persistently sunny climate and mountains work together to form and trap smog over our region. And, that the leading source of smog-forming pollution is the same today as it was decades ago: gas-guzzling cars and trucks.

State regulators have made tremendous progress in the last few decades when it comes to curbing tailpipe pollution; California, for example, was the first state to adopt engine emission standards and mandate catalytic converters, regulations that were later adopted nationwide. But Southern California has yet to achieve any federal air quality standards for smog.

And now, electric vehicles and hybrids face significant headwinds due to recent policy changes under the Trump administration.

Since President Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has successfully campaigned to invalidate several California auto emission standards, including a landmark rule that would’ve required 35% of new vehicles that automakers supply to California car dealerships to be zero-emission or plug-in hybrid starting next year.

Separately, Trump’s budget bill terminated federal incentives at the end of September that made zero-emission vehicles more cost-competitive with gas cars. As I recently wrote, California saw record-high sales numbers of EVs and other clean vehicles as consumers scrambled to dealerships to take advantage of expiring deals.

But now, without these two crucial policy levers driving EV adoption, the industry is at an inflection point.

A new EV costs about $8,000 more on average than a gas car, according to Kelley Blue Book.

The overall cost of ownership for EVs can still be cheaper than for gas cars due to lower fuel and maintenance costs. However, the question is, will Americans accept a higher upfront price tag in exchange for fewer costs — and less pollution — down the road?

The auto industry doesn’t pivot on a dime. Car lineups are designed, produced and released years in advance. But, in the last year, amid a torrent of policy decisions coming from the Trump White House, car companies have announced many moves that signal a retreat from some zero-emission vehicles:

• Acura discontinued its electric ZDX after just releasing one model year.
• Ford scrapped its forthcoming all-electric three-row SUV program.
• General Motors discontinued the Brightdrop van, an electric delivery van.
• Ram pivoted from releasing an all-electric pickup truck to a plug-in hybrid model.
• Stellantis shelved its hydrogen fuel cell program for commercial vans.
• Volkswagen canceled the release of its ID.7 sedan in North America.

The loss of new or forthcoming zero-emission models is disheartening, said Joel Levin, executive director of Plug In America, a nonprofit that hosts events to advocate for more EVs. But, he added, most of these were fledgling models that did not make up a large share of sales.

“I think it’s that people are just being more selective about what they’re bringing to market, and are focusing in on the vehicles that they really feel like have legs,” Levin said. “So it’s a loss. I’m sad about it. But I don’t think that it’s an existential threat to the market.”

In the last decade, Levin has seen the national market share of EVs and plug-in hybrids compared with overall car sales grow from a fraction of a percent in 2015 to roughly 10% in 2024. In California, that number was even higher, at 25%.

Levin said that can largely be attributed to advancement of battery technology, which has allowed for drastically longer range. But EVs also offer technological amenities that gas counterparts do not.

“Ford has advertised how you can use your pickup truck as backup power for your house if the power goes out,” Levin said. “Or if you’re a contractor or rancher and you need to use power tools somewhere remote away from your house, you can just plug them into your truck. If you’re camping, you can set up your electric kitchen, or you can watch movies, or you can charge your equipment.”

Those features may help win over some drivers. But experts say government regulations are necessary to achieve California’s air quality and climate targets.

California is suing the federal government and Trump administration, alleging they illegally overturned the state’s auto emission standards. The state Air Resources Board has also proposed several ideas to boost EV sales, such as providing free access to toll roads to EV and hybrid drivers.

That said, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently ruled out one of the most powerful tools at his disposal to promote a clean fleet of vehicles in California, as he reneged on his commitment to restore a state rebate program for EV buyers that he had previously vowed to put into effect if Trump eliminated federal incentives.

Dan Sperling, a former CARB board member and UC Davis professor, said the state might consider a “feebate” program in which the state could impose fees on the sales of the most polluting cars, which would then be used to fund rebates for EV and hybrid purchases.

Meanwhile, as consumer sentiment and government policies vacillate in the U.S., demand internationally continues to grow. And American automakers will need to keep investing in EVs if they want to stay globally competitive. Sperling, who took my call while traveling to Paris, said he noticed Chinese EVs throughout the city.

“In China, 50% of all their vehicles that they sell are electric vehicles,” Sperling said. “They sell more electric vehicles in China than total cars sold in the U.S.”

“The vehicle industry is an international industry and so they can’t afford to just give up on electric vehicles, because that means they’re giving up on the rest of the world.”

Air news this week

Ten years after the disastrous Aliso Canyon gas leak, my colleague Hayley Smith spoke with residents about their recollections of the dangerous release of some 120,000 tons of methane and other toxic chemicals near Porter Ranch. Despite persistent environmental concerns, regulators have voted to keep the gas storage facility online, citing concerns over energy demand.

A judge ordered a Watts recycling facility to permanently shut down and pay $2 million in restitution and fines after the company and its owners pleaded no contest to illegally dumping hazardous waste that was polluting a nearby high school.

Environmental groups recently sued the Trump administration for lifting restrictions on dozens of chemical manufacturing plants, according to InsideClimate News reporter Keerti Gopal.

LAist’s AirTalk host Larry Mantle hosted a great conversation on how Los Angeles became the nation’s smog capital. He and Chip Jacobs, the author of “Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles,” recounted the region’s first brush with toxic haze in the 1940s and pollution’s lasting legacy in Southern California.

Associated Press reporters Sheikh Saaliq and Sibi Arasu reported that officials in India are undertaking cloud-seeding experiments as a way to clear air pollution in New Delhi. The controversial approach involves using aircraft to spray chemicals into clouds above the city in hopes of triggering rainfall that would suppress the smog.

One more thing in climate news …

Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest hurricanes recorded to date in the Atlantic, killed more than 20 people as it barreled through Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba, according to the Washington Post. The proliferation of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels undoubtedly contributed to the historically powerful storm. Because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and foster more intense storms, Melissa may be a harbinger of what’s to come.

Making matters worse, Bloomberg reporters Leslie Kaufman and Fabiano Maisonnave report that wealthy countries are not giving poorer nations the climate adaptation funding they need, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme. As climate risks in many of these countries increase, funding to adapt to climate change is shrinking.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more air quality and climate news, follow Tony Briscoe at @_tonybriscoe on X.

Paramount Chairman David Ellison’s latest offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery contained a twist:

Should Paramount, backed by tech billionaire Larry Ellison, pull off the purchase, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav could stay on to help lead the combined enterprise.

“They’re sweetening the pot,” Paul Hardart, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said of the Ellison family. “It just shows all the little arrows in their quiver they’re using to try to push this deal.”

David Ellison’ unexpected olive branch to Zaslav was contained in a letter this month to Warner Bros. Discovery’s board that offered $58 billion in cash and stock for the entire company. The move underscores the family’s determination to win the entertainment company that includes HBO, CNN and Warner Bros. film and television studios — and an obstacle in their path.

After hustling for decades to get to the big stage, Zaslav, 65, isn’t ready to relinquish the reins. He’s eager to prove critics wrong and complete a turnaround after three painful years of setbacks and cost cuts to reduce the company’s mountain of debt.

Warner Bros. Discovery board members, including Zaslav, have unanimously voted to reject Paramount’s three bids, viewing them as too low and not in the best interest of shareholders, according to two people close to the company who were not authorized to comment.

The board supports Zaslav’s desire to forge ahead with a planned split of the company next spring. But it also has opened the auction to other potential suitors, which is expected to lead to the firm changing hands for the third time in a decade.

Representatives of Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount declined to comment.

David Ellison’s audacious offer is being guaranteed by his father, Larry Ellison, the world’s second richest man with a net worth that exceeds $340 billion. The Ellisons’ proposal includes paying 80% cash to Warner shareholders and the rest in stock, according to two people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to comment. The most recent offer was $23.50 a share.

The Ellisons began their campaign last month, just weeks after David Ellison’s Skydance Media, along with RedBird Capital Partners, picked up the keys to Paramount, which includes CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue film studio, which has been depleted by decades of underinvestment.

Since then, the 42-year-old Ellison has led Paramount on a buying bonanza, paying $7.7 billion for UFC media rights and $1.25 billion over five years to Matt Stone and Trey Parker to continue creating their cartoon “South Park.” It also wooed Matt and Ross Duffer, the duo behind “Stranger Things,” away from Netflix with an exclusive four-year deal. This week, it announced a planned East Coast expansion, signing a 10-year lease for a film and TV production center under construction in New Jersey.

The proposed addition of the more vibrant Warner Bros. would give the Ellisons an unparalleled entertainment portfolio with DC Comics including Superman, “Top Gun,” Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, “The Matrix” and “The Gilded Age.”

The family would control streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, nearly three dozen cable channels, including HGTV, Food Network and TBS, and two legacy news operations — CNN and CBS News.

It would also accelerate the trend of uber billionaires, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, of owning prominent news, entertainment and social media platforms. Larry Ellison also is part of a U.S.-based consortium lined up by President Trump to buy TikTok from its Chinese owners.

“If a trade deal with China is imminent, and TikTok would be aligned, then it would create a new media colossus, the likes of which we haven’t seen,” said veteran executive Jonathan Miller, chief executive of the investment firm Integrated Media Co.

Paramount is in talks to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times; Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

The drama is unfolding as Paramount on Wednesday slashed 1,000 workers in the first round of cuts since Ellison took over. A second wave of layoffs — affecting another 1,000 workers — is expected in the coming weeks, helping fulfill a promise made to Wall Street by Ellison and Redbird to reduce expenses by more than $2 billion.

Combining with Warner Bros. would bring more layoffs, analysts said, and a potential hollowing out of a historic studio.

“Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth,” the Writers Guild of America West, said last week in a statement in opposition to the proposed unification. “Combining Warner Bros. with Paramount or another major studio or streamer would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition.”

Critics point to a long list of media merger misfires, including the disastrous AOL Time Warner merger a quarter century ago. Some critics contend Walt Disney Co.’s $71-billion purchase of much of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment holdings didn’t live up to expectations, and AT&T whiffed its $85-billion deal for Time Warner, handing it to Zaslav’s Discovery four years later for $43 billion.

The New York native, a descendant of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine, had spent 16 years running the Discovery cable channel group, a respectable business, but one that lacked Hollywood flash.

Zaslav grew up on the fringe of New York City, in Ramapo, N.Y., where he’d been a promising tennis player who proudly wore his athletic gear to middle school. Tennis was his identity — until he started getting beat by players he used to whip.

Zaslav’s coach sat him down, bluntly saying he wasn’t putting in the work.

“I vowed that day I would never be outworked again,” Zaslav said during a 2023 commencement address to Boston University graduates. Underlings have long marveled at his indefatigable work ethic.

The speech was meant to be his triumphant return to his alma mater. Zaslav had finally made it to Hollywood, where he was now holding court in an exquisite corner office that had belonged to studio founder Jack Warner.

Zaslav had big plans to turn around Warner Bros. But, in Boston, he suffered a beatdown.

The Writers Guild of America had just gone on strike against his and other Hollywood studios. Protesters heckled Zaslav. Students booed. A plane flew overhead, waving a banner that read: “David Zaslav Pay Your Writers.”

He had assumed control a year earlier, in April 2022, just as Wall Street soured on media companies that were spending wildly to build streaming services to compete with Netflix.

Zaslav inherited a venture bleeding billions of dollars to get into streaming. The merger itself saddled the company with $55 billion of debt. Warner’s stock plummeted.

He and his team spent the first few years slashing divisions, canceling TV programs and contracts, and shelving movies. To further reduce expenses, the company laid off thousands of workers. Hollywood soon viewed Zaslav with derision.

It didn’t help that Zaslav has long been one of the most handsomely compensated executives in America.

There were high-profile stumbles, including jettisoning staff of the tiny Turner Classic Movies channel and an ill-conceived rebrand of its streamer to “Max” before changing the name back to HBO Max.

“The Warner Bros. Discovery merger was a well-intended failure,” Hardart said. “The cable subscriber base shrank at a faster rate than most people had forecast. … Thousands have lost their jobs, the HBO brand has been reimagined and reimagined, films have been mothballed and the future of the Warner Bros. studio is today uncertain.”

Warner Bros. Discovery paid down $20 billion in debt, but $35 billion remains. The debt load has nearly suffocated the company, making it a vulnerable target.

“There was a lot of fixing that David Zaslav and his team had to do,” Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich said in a recent interview. “It’s been three years of incredibly heavy lifting — but that’s pretty much done now.”

In a note to investors last week, Ehrlich wrote Warner’s strong franchises, including DC Comics, and its voluminous library make it “an extremely attractive potential acquisition target,” one that could fetch $30 a share. Her firm carries a “buy” rating on the stock.

Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav and AT&T Chief Executive John Stankey shake hands on May 17, 2021, in New York City.

(Preston Bradford / Discovery)

Last summer, Zaslav announced plans to split the company in two halves.

Zaslav would run Warner Bros., which would consist of the Burbank studios, HBO and the HBO Max streaming service. Longtime lieutenant Gunnar Wiedenfels would helm Discovery Global, made up of the firm’s international businesses and basic cable channels, which face an uncertain future in the streaming era.

Those who know Zaslav believe he’s working to stave off the Ellison takeover, in part, because he wants the chance to bring the company back to its glory, which would ultimately make it more valuable for its investors and prospective buyers.

For Warner management, that’s part of the rub. The Ellisons showed up just as the company was displaying signs of a turnaround, including a hot streak by Warner Bros. that includes “A Minecraft Movie,” Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” James Gunn’s “Superman,” Formula One adventure “F1: The Movie,” and horror flick “Weapons.”

In addition, HBO returned to its winning ways at last month’s Emmys, collecting an industry-leading 30 awards, tied with Netflix.

Larry, from left, Megan and David Ellison attend the premiere of Paramount Pictures’ “Terminator Genisys” at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015.

(Lester Cohen / WireImage)

Ellison’s bidding was designed to thwart Warner’s planned corporate breakup.

For now, analysts said, Zaslav and the Warner board’s current strategy is solid because they have effectively driven up the stock price, which has doubled to $21 a share since the Ellison’s interest became known in mid-September.

“They are doing the right thing,” Hardart said. “In any sale, you try to beat the bushes and get as many people interested. But at some point the board is going to have to make a decision.”

Added one investor: “They’ve gotten Paramount-Skydance to bid against itself, and that only goes so far.”

Analysts expect Philadelphia giant Comcast, owner of NBCUniversal, and potentially Netflix, Apple or Amazon to take a look at the company’s studio, library and streaming assets.

But many see the Ellison’s Skydance as having the edge.

Paramount, in its recent letter to the Warner board, argued that it was the best and most logical buyer.

“What Skydance offers WBD, in many ways, is what it offered Paramount: The ability to be aggressive and push all aspects of the business in a way that most people or companies that have less capital just can’t do,” Miller said. “They are deploying real capital, and they are being the most aggressive folks in the industry right now.”

At the center of the sprawling legal battle over President Trump’s domestic military deployments is a single word: rebellion.

To justify sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and other cities over the outcry of local leaders, the Trump administration has cited an obscure and little-used law empowering presidents to federalize soldiers to “suppress” a rebellion, or the threat of one.

But the statute does not define the word on which it turns. That’s where Bryan A. Garner comes in.

For decades, Garner has defined the words that make up the law. The landmark legal reference book he edits, Black’s Law Dictionary, is as much a fixture of American courts as black robes, rosewood gavels and brass scales of justice.

The dictionary is Garner’s magnum opus, as essential to attorneys as Gray’s Anatomy is to physicians.

Now, Black’s definition of rebellion is at the center of two critical pending decisions in cases from Portland, Ore., and Chicago — one currently being reheard by the 9th Circuit and the other on the emergency docket at the Supreme Court — that could unleash a flood of armed soldiers into American streets.

That a dictionary could influence a court case at all owes in part to Garner’s seminal book on textualism, a conserative legal doctrine that dictates a page-bound interpretation of the law. His co-author was Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice whose strict originalist readings of the Constitution paved the way for the court’s recent reversal of precedents on abortion, voting rights and gun laws.

On a recent weekday, the country’s leading legal lexicographer was ensconced among the 4,500 some-odd dictionaries that fill his Dallas home, revising the entry for the adjective “calculated” ahead of Black’s 13th Edition.

But, despite his best efforts not to dwell on the stakes of his work, the noun “rebellion” was never far from his mind.

Federal authorities stand guard at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., that has been the site of protests against the Trump administration.

(Sean Bascom / Anadolu via Getty Images)

“One of the very first cases citing my book sent a man to his capital punishment,” he explained of an earlier dictionary. “They cited me, the guy was put to death. I was very disturbed by that at first.”

He managed his distress by doubling down on his craft. In its first 100 years, Black’s Law Dictionary was revised and reissued six times. From 1999 to 2024, Garner produced six new editions.

“I work on it virtually every day,” he said.

Most mornings, he rises before dawn, settling behind a desk in one of his three home libraries around 4 a.m. to begin the day’s defining.

That fastidiousness has not stopped the lexical war over his work in recent months, as judges across the country read opposite meanings into “rebellion.”

The Department of Justice and the attorneys general of California, Oregon and Illinois have likewise sparred over the word.

In making their case, virtually all have invoked Black’s definition — one Garner has personally penned for the last 30 years. He began editing the 124-year-old reference book in 1995.

“The word ‘rebellion’ has been stable in its three basic meanings in Black’s since I took over,” he said.

“Ooo! So at some point I added, ‘usually through violence,’” he amended himself.

This change comes from the definition’s first sense: 1. Open, organized, and armed resistance to an established government or ruler; esp., an organized attempt to change the government or leader of a country, usu. through violence.

States have touted this meaning to argue the word rebellion cannot possibly apply to torched Waymos in Los Angeles or naked bicyclists in Portland.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has leaned on the second and third senses to say the opposite.

The California Department of Justice wrote in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Illinois case that federal authorities argue rebellion means any form of “resistance or opposition to authority or tradition,” including disobeying “a legal command or summons.”

“But it is not remotely plausible to think that Congress intended to adopt that expansive definition,” the state said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth walks onstage to deliver remarks as part of the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary celebration at Camp Pendleton on Oct. 18.

(Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images)

Although the scope and the stakes of the rebellion fight make it unique, the debate over definitions is nothing new, experts say.

The use of legal dictionaries to solve judicial problems has surged in recent years, with the rise of Scalia-style textualism and the growing sense in certain segments of the public that judges simply make the law up as they go along.

By 2018, the Supreme Court was citing dictionary definitions in half of its opinions, up dramatically from prior years, according to Mark A. Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School.

Splitting hairs over what makes a rebellion is a new level of absurdity, he said. “This is an unfortunate consequence of the Supreme Court’s obsession with dictionaries.”

“Reducing the meaning of a statute to one (of the many) dictionary definitions is unlikely to give you a useful answer,” he said. “What it gives you is a means of manipulating the definition to achieve the result you want.”

Garner has publicly acknowledged the limits of his work. Ultimately, it’s up to judges to decide cases based on precedents, evidence, and the relevant law. Dictionaries are an adjunct.

Still, he and other textualists see the turn to dictionaries as an important corrective to interpretive excesses of the past.

“The words are law,” Garner said.

Law enforcement officers watch from a ledge of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as a protester stands outside in an inflatable frog costume on Oct. 21 in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

Judges who cite dictionaries are “not ceding power to lexicographers,” he argued, but simply giving appropriate heft to the text enacted by Congress.

Others call the dictionary a fig leaf for the interpretive excesses of jurists bent on reading the law to suit a political agenda.

“Judges don’t want to take personal responsibility for saying ‘Yes, there’s a rebellion’ or ‘no, there isn’t,’ so they say ‘the dictionary made me do it.’” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “No, it didn’t.”

Though he agreed with Black’s definition of rebellion, Segall rejected the idea it could shape jurisprudence: “That’s not how our legal system works,” he said.

The great challenge in the troops cases, legal scholars agree, is that they turn on a vague, century-old text with no relevant case law to help define it.

Unlike past presidents, who invoked the Insurrection Act to combat violent crises, Trump deployed an obscure subsection of the U.S. code to wrest command of National Guard troops from state governors and surge military forces into American cities.

Before Trump deployed troops to L.A. in June, the law had been used only once in its 103-year history.

With little interpretation to oppose it, the Justice Department has wielded its novel reading of the statute to justify the use of federalized troops to support immigration arrests and put down demonstrations.

Administration attorneys say the president’s decision to send soldiers to Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago is “unreviewable” by courts, and that troops can remain in federal service in perpetuity once called up, regardless of how conditions change.

Border Patrol official Greg Bovino marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Judges have so far rejected these claims. But they have split on the thornier issues of whether community efforts to disrupt immigration enforcement leave Trump “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws” — another trigger for the statute — and if sporadic violence at protests adds up to rebellion.

As of this week, appellate courts also remain sharply divided on the evidence.

On Oct 23, Oregon claimed the Department of Justice inflated the number of federal protective personnel it said were detailed to Portland in response to protests to more than triple its actual size — a mistake the department called an “unintended ambiguity.”

The inflated number was repeatedly cited in oral arguments before the 9th Circuit and more than a dozen times in the court’s Oct. 20 decision allowing the federalization of Oregon’s troops — an order the court reversed Tuesday while it is reviewed.

The 7th Circuit noted similar falsehoods, leading that court to block the Chicago deployment.

“The [U.S. District] court found that all three of the federal government’s declarations from those with firsthand knowledge were unreliable to the extent they omitted material information or were undermined by independent, objective evidence,” the panel wrote in its Oct 11 decision.

A Supreme Court decision expected in that case will probably define Trump’s power to deploy troops throughout the Midwest — and potentially across the country.

For Garner, that decision means more work.

In addition to his dictionaries, he is also the author of numerous other works, including a memoir about his friendship with Scalia. In his spare time, he travels the country teaching legal writing.

The editor credits his prodigious output to strict discipline. As an undergrad at the University of Texas, he swore off weekly Longhorns games and eschewed his beloved Dallas Cowboys to concentrate on writing, a practice he has maintained with Calvinist devotion ever since.

“I haven’t seen a game for the last 46 years,” the lexicographer said, though he makes a biannual exception for the second halves of the Super Bowl and college football’s national championship game.

As for the political football with Black’s “rebellion,” he’s waiting to see how the Illinois Guard case plays out.

“I will be looking very closely at what the Supreme Court says,” Garner said. “If it writes anything about the meaning of the word rebellion, that might well affect the next edition of Black’s Law Dictionary.”

A residential building floor collapsed as rescue workers were searching through the rubble, following overnight Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Officials said six children were among 13 injured in the strikes.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to decide if she’ll run for president in 2028. She’s also not going to dish on her former boss, Joe Biden. And her advice for a Brown-skinned person just getting into politics? There will be many situations when you walk into a meeting room and no one looks like you. Keep your chin up, your shoulders back and remember — all of us have your back.

“All of us” referred to the cheering, sold-out crowd at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening who’d come to see the former Democratic presidential candidate speak about her new book, the election-campaign memoir “107 Days.” The chanted “Kamala!” “Kamala!” as she walked on stage. The outbursts of adoration continued for the next hour in eruptions of applause and supportive shout-outs (“We love you!”) as she spoke about everything from the need to pass Proposition 50 to how she coped with the devastating loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

Moderated by actor Kerry Washington, “A Conversation With Kamala Harris” was one of nearly 20 stops on a tour that’s already seen Harris speak in New York, London and at the Wiltern last month. Zealous attendees paid anywhere from $55 to $190 on tickets to see Harris again following “one of the wildest and most consequential campaigns in American history” (the latter is an official descriptor for her book). The memoir details her historically short run for president, the whirlwind 107 days between the time Biden withdrew from the race and Harris become the Democratic nominee to her devastating loss on Nov. 5.

Harris fans flock to the Wiltern to see Kamala speak about her book, “107 Days.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Were there any great revelations or gotcha moments on stage Tuesday evening? Not really, but that’s not what this tour is about — at least for those who chose Harris over watching Game 4 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. The former attorney general of California shared her thoughts about the current Department of Justice — a “thin-skinned president” is using it as his own personal tool of “vengeance.” She explained how her loyalties to Biden may have cost her votes, and called out the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, whose “billionaire owners pre-capitulated” to Trump when they pulled their respective editorial boards’ endorsements for Harris. She drew a big laugh when discussing the importance of parsing fact from fiction in today’s mediaverse, and made up her own example of misinformation: “Circumcisions are causing autism!” And on a more serious note, she detailed the emotional fallout she experienced after losing the election: “For months [she and her husband, Doug Emhoff] never even mentioned it.”

Criticisms of Harris’ book have centered around a frankly tired refrain that she should accept more personal accountability for the election loss as opposed to blaming the influence of outside forces. On Tuesday she appeared willing to explore those themes when she said she constantly interrogated herself on the campaign trail: Are you doing everything you can to win this election? But before she could go much deeper, Washington told her that she needed to know that we, the audience, understood she did everything she could. The crowd erupted in affirming shouts and applause.

Clearly, a book tour attended by The Converted is not going to produce headline-worthy grist, especially with an interviewer who is an admitted Harris friend and supporter. That’s what debates and media interviews are for, and this was a fan event.

And her base was thirsty. Since Harris has largely stayed out of the spotlight since last November, the audience appeared ready to relive some of the joy they felt in the brief time she was running for office, and perhaps find a glimmer of hope in dark times for those who see the current administration’s actions as anti-democratic, at best.

Before “The Conversation With Kamala Harris” kicked off at 7 p.m., attendees who spotted Harris’ husband, Emhoff, in the first few rows of the venue lined up to shake his hand and take selfies with the former second gentleman of the United States. The close access to SGOTUS was surprising, given the heightened security around political figures after violent events such as the home-invasion assassinations of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband in June, and the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a speaking event last month. Yet the atmosphere was casual and relaxed.

Despite heightened threats of politically-motivated violence, President Trump pulled Harris’ Secret Service detail, as he has done to many of those he sees as his enemies. But as a former state office holder, Harris’ security detail Tuesday was provided by the California Highway Patrol.

The conversation lasted a little over an hour, with a few prescreened questions at the end from audience members, such as the query from an attendee who identified himself as Ramon Chavoya, a proud Latino. He asked for Harris’ advice on getting into local politics. She was the first Black and first South Asian female candidate to be chosen by either party to run for the Oval Office. Her very presence was a reminder that the face of the nation is changing, despite a rise in xenophobic movements and legislation. She advised the aspiring young politician that he would likely stand out, but that he wasn’t alone. “We’re all in the room with you,” she said, a sentiment Harris’ supporters surely understood.

Oct. 30 (UPI) — The centrist liberal Democrats 66 surged in Wednesday’s Dutch elections, finishing in a virtual tie with the far-right Party for Freedom for most seats in parliament, according to reports.

The PVV and D66 were poised to win 26 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, The NL Times and Dutch News reported.

D66 had received several thousand votes more than PVV, though vote counting was ongoing. About 98% of the votes had been counted. Turnout was 78.4%.

The vote is being viewed as a refutation of the PVV and its leader, Geert Wilders, as they lost 11 seats. The party had 37 seats from the 2023 general election.

D66 picked up 17, from the nine seats it held following the last election.

With no party winning a majority, a coalition government will need to be formed, the leader of which is currently uncertain, though D66’s leader, Rob Jetten, appears a likely candidate.

If Jetten is named prime minister, he would not only he the country’s youngest prime minister in modern history at 38 years of age but the first to be openly gay.

“The positive forces have won!” Jetten said on X.

“I want to get to work for all Dutch people, because this is the land of us all!”

Wilders took to social media to declare: “The voter has spoken.”

“We had hoped for a different outcome but we kept our backs straight,” he said.

“We are more determined to fight than ever and still the second and perhaps even largest party of the Netherlands.”

The D66 ran on a platform of “freedom for everyone, but nobody left behind” that emphasized housing and education, climate and energy issues and healthcare with an emphasis on strengthening democracy.

“We are social liberals,” an English-language party report states. “This means that for us, freedom is only real when everyone has the opportunity to truly be free.”

On the other side of the political aisle, the anti-Islam PVV took a hardline stance on most issues, including immigration, such as tightening asylum rules and strengthening border policies.

“Islam, without exception, is the greatest existential threat to our freedom,” the PVV said in a report on its policies. “Worldwide, Islam is the breeding ground for extremism, oppression and terror.”

The party is ultranationalist and stands against funding asylum, developing nations, Ukraine‘s defense, the European Union and the fight against climate change.

“A shopping cart full of groceries at a normal price, being able to turn on the heater without fainting at the energy bill, a roof over your head, affordable healthcare where visiting a doctor or dentist isn’t punished financially, a decent old-age pension — that is the Netherlands of the PVV,” it said.

The right-leaning People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy was poised to pick up the third-most seats in the election with 22 seats followed by the Christian Democratic Appeal party with 18.

There is an unfortunate trend these days to further erode the distinction between law and politics. The formation and enforcement of laws is, of course, connected with the political process. On the other hand, the interpretation of the law should be divorced from the political process as much as possible. The problem is that the Constitution has, more and more, become an arena for carrying on political contests. Where proponents see little hope of legislative success, they have sought to cast their claims in constitutional molds. As a result, there are those who are more concerned with a judge’s politics than with his or her view of the law and the role of the judiciary in our form of government. What is even more alarming is the growing tendency to interpret judicial decisions in political terms that only take account of results.

The blizzard of commentary surrounding the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork for the vacancy on the Supreme Court has obscured the legitimate issues and served to focus attention on the irrelevant and unknowable. We do not and cannot know whether Bork’s heart was pure on the day he fired Archibald Cox. What we can determine is whether his conduct was within, and indeed required by, the law. We cannot know precisely how Bork, now on the U.S. Court of Appeals, will vote on a variety of issues that will eventually appear before the Supreme Court. What we can reasonably expect to understand is Bork’s opinion as to the nature of the U.S. Constitution and his approach to interpreting it.

In a 1986 article in the San Diego Law Review, Bork sets forth his views on the proper role of the judiciary and the approach that it ought to take to constitutional interpretation. He discusses the problems created by the use of a concept like the “right of privacy” as the criterion for determining the result in Griswold vs. Connecticut. “My point,” Bork says, “is simply that the level of abstraction chosen makes the application of a generalized right of privacy unpredictable.” What concerned Bork was the trend toward generalization in judicial decisions even when the Constitution is silent on an issue, and what this might lead to as a source of unstructured judicial power.

The whole tenor of Bork’s article is strongly reminiscent of the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black’s dissent in the Griswold case. “Privacy,” Black said, “is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept which can easily be shrunken in meaning but which can also, on the other hand, easily be interpreted as a constitutional ban against many things . . . .” Black’s view of the manner in which the Supreme Court ought to interpret the Constitution has much in common with Bork’s as expressed in the San Diego Law Review article.

Both jurists take the position that the function of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution by reference to the words that appear in it. Both believe that the words can and ought to be limiting factors on the discretion that judges have in making their decisions. Yet there is a growing group of law professors who think otherwise. And there appear to be a number of senators who believe that political ideology is the determining factor in judicial decision-making.

But political beliefs held before appointment to the Supreme Court have not been reliable predictors of judicial behavior. Hugo Black’s political background (which included membership in the Ku Klux Klan) would hardly have predicted a judicial record of preserving individual rights. Earl Warren’s performance surprised more than a few people.

More is known about candidates who have had judicial experience than those who have been selected from the political arena. But what is it that we know about current or former judges?

What we know is whether they view the law as a rational enterprise and whether, as judges, they are of the opinion that they must give good reasons for the decisions that they make. We can discover whether they believe that a judge is morally superior and, therefore, morally justified in substituting his or her opinion for the opinions of legislators or the general population. In short, what we can find out, and what we should want to know, is the degree to which the candidate for judicial office is committed to the rule of law.

It is appropriate to ask a political candidate what his or her opinions are in respect to abortion, prayer in schools, gay rights or any other matter within the political domain. What we should ask the candidate for judicial office is his or her opinion with regard to the law on these matters, and whether the candidate is prepared to faithfully apply the law. It is important to determine whether the judicial candidate differentiates between his preferences on matters of social policy and his view of the law on these same issues.

Bork has articulated his views on these matters in numerous law-review articles and judicial opinions. What he has said is neither unique nor radical. As previously noted, his position on constitutional interpretation bears striking resemblance to Hugo Black’s. The view that a judge must justify his decisions by reference to the established meaning of the words does not justify calling him a right-wing ideologue. The nomination, and confirmation, of Judge Bork will not mean substantial change in life as we know it, no matter who “we” are.

Oct. 29 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate has passed legislation terminating the national emergency declared by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Canada, a day after it terminated the United States’ tariffs on Brazil.

Republicans Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, joined their Democratic colleagues in a 50-46 vote to pass S.J. Res. 77 on Wednesday evening.

“Tonight, the Senate came together and sent President Trump a clear, bipartisan message: he cannot continue to abuse his power and unilaterally wage a trade war against one of our strongest allies,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in a statement.

“We cannot afford to keep raising costs, hurting businesses and eliminating jobs by attacking our neighbor and ally.”

The move is mostly symbolic as it is not expected to be taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

Tariffs have been a central mechanism in Trump’s trade and foreign policy, using them to right what he sees as improper trade relations as well as to penalize nations he feels are doing him and the United States wrong.

In February, Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canadian imports under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, attracting retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

Then, in August, Trump raised tariffs on Canada to 35%.

Over the weekend, Trump announced a further 10% tariff on Canada over anti-tariff aired by Ontario’s provincial government.

The legislation passed Wednesday seeks to cancel the declared emergency, under which the tariffs were imposed.

“In order to strengthen our weakening economy, we need stability and strong relationships around the world — not chaotic trade wars that raise prices, shut American businesses out of foreign markets and decrease tourism to the U.S.,” Kaine, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.

Relations between Canada and the United States, the closest of allies, have greatly soured under the second Trump administration. From tariffs to comments about annexing Canada, Ottawa and its citizens have begun to turn away from the United States in distrust and frustration to strengthen trade and defensive relations with Europe.

On Tuesday, five Republicans joined the Democrats to pass a similar bill seeking to end Trump’s tariffs on Brazil.

President Obama is running statistically even with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 12 key swing states and is slightly ahead of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain, according to the USA Today/Gallup poll released Friday.

The poll, which looks at both national trends and at the races in what everyone considers to be the 12 battleground states that will likely determine the 2012 election, paints a picture of Obama facing a tougher road to reelection than an incumbent should.

But the president, a Democrat whose approval rating has been in the low 40-percent range in recent months, can take heart from the poll’s findings that he is running better against specific Republican candidates than he does against a generic Republican, indicating that when faced with a real choice, voters seem to prefer Obama to Romney, Perry or Cain.

According to the poll, Obama is tied among national voters with Romney at 47% and leads Perry 49% to 45%. In its first measurement of Cain, the poll found Obama ahead 48% to 46%. The poll was taken before reports surfaced that two women received financial settlements after complaining that Cain had sexually harassed them.

But overall, the results show all three GOP candidates running strongly against Obama. The national results are based on interviews with 1,056 adults taken Oct. 26-27; the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

But the American electoral system is based on indirect representation rather than direct democracy. The Founding Fathers feared the unmediated passions of the mob and wanted to ensure that wiser heads would have a greater role. Hence the creation of the presidential electors who actually vote for president based on the popular vote in their home states.

Because of the electoral college, where a candidate’s support exists is often more important than just how many people back him or her. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win, and in 2012, Obama can pretty much count on winning enough states to give him about 196 electoral votes, while the GOP candidate starts with about 191. In the center are 12 states, worth 151 electoral votes for which both parties will spend most of their money and resources fighting. Those states, all won by Obama in 2008, are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

According to the poll, Romney is at 47% to Obama’s 46% in those 12 states. Obama does better against Perry, 49% to 44% and Cain, 48% to 45%. Those results are based on interviews with 1,334 adults, from Oct. 20 to 27. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The polls generally show that the presidential race is extremely competitive at this point, a year before Election Day and two months before the GOP begins voting for its presidential candidate. But Republicans also have an advantage in the enthusiasm arena, according to the poll.

Overall, 47% of swing-state registered voters and 48% of all U.S. registered voters said they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. But Republicans were more eager both nationally and in the swing states. Nationally, Republicans were ahead 56% to 48% over Democrats. In the swing states, the GOP was ahead in the enthusiasm race 59% to 48%.

WESTPORT, Conn. — A man contesting the handling of the will of the late U.S. Rep. Stewart B. McKinney disputes official reports that McKinney contracted AIDS from blood transfusions, saying that for five years he was the Connecticut congressman’s lover.

McKinney, 56, a liberal Republican who died in 1987 during his ninth term in Congress, left a car and a 40% share of his Washington house to the man, Arnold R. Denson, according to documents on file in Probate Court. Denson’s share of the estate is worth at least $59,200.

Denson displayed photographs, bills and other documents to support his claim.

Vic Basil, former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, also said that Denson and McKinney were lovers. The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Fund is the nation’s largest gay-lesbian political action group and lobbying organization.

McKinney’s wife, Lucie, denied that her husband was homosexual.

Denson, 34, a real estate agent, said the two lived together in McKinney’s Washington home. Lucie McKinney remained in Connecticut, where the congressman spent most weekends.

McKinney’s family learned of the affair when he was on his death bed, Denson says. He said he agreed not to reveal the relationship at the family’s request and was told that in exchange for his silence he would receive the property willed to him.

But Denson has not received his inheritance and is battling Lucie McKinney in Probate Court in Westport. He decided to speak publicly after a hearing Monday.

Cesar Caceres, McKinney’s physician, issued a statement the day of McKinney’s death on May 7, 1987, saying that McKinney had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion he received after coronary bypass surgery in 1979.

When informed of Denson’s statement, Lucie McKinney on Monday again denied that her husband was homosexual.

Her attorney, Lawrence J. Halloran, also disputed Denson’s claim. He said that McKinney and Denson were friends and business associates, that McKinney lived alone in Washington and that Denson rented an apartment attached to McKinney’s home.

Denson, a divorced father of two, said he believes McKinney was already infected with AIDS when they met in 1982, and said two previous lovers of McKinney have died of AIDS.

Denson said he has recently tested negative for the virus that causes AIDS and has abstained from sex since McKinney’s death.

The estate could be wiped out by a claim filed by Lucie McKinney, who is an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune as well as to an oil and railroad fortune. She testified Monday that her husband borrowed $432,552 from her trust fund and promised to pay her back.

New York City, United States – Sitting in a room of hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers, Zohran Mamdani received cheers and applause at the Erev Rosh Hashanah service of progressive Brooklyn synagogue Kolot Chayeinu on a Monday evening last month.

This was one of the Democratic mayoral nominee’s recent appearances at synagogues and events over the Jewish High Holy Days, and a visible step towards navigating a politically charged line: increasingly engaging the largest concentration of Jewish people in any metropolitan area in the United States, and holding firmly anti-Zionist views before the general election on November 4.

Historically, Mamdani has held a strong stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, even founding a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine during his undergraduate days at Bowdoin College. A little more than a decade later, as Mamdani’s name began to gain recognition, his longstanding unapologetically pro-Palestinian stance became a rallying force behind his platform as well as a point of criticism from opponents.

Mamdani received endorsements and canvassing support from progressive Jewish organisations like Bend the Arc, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), organisations that have each confronted Israel’s role in the war in Gaza through statements on their websites.

Simultaneously, he has sustained attacks from far-right activists, Jewish Democrats on Capitol Hill and Zionist activist groups for his firm support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and refusal to call Israel a Jewish state.

But despite mixed responses, the polls are clear: Mamdani is leading among Jewish voters overall in a multiway race.

‘No group is a monolith’

In July, a publicly released research poll by Zenith Research found that Mamdani led with a 17-point lead among Jews and by Jewish subgroups. In the scenario of Mayor Eric Adams dropping from the race, Mamdani still dominated, 43-33.

“Me being Jewish, I understand that there are many cleavages within the Jewish community,” said Adam Carlson, founding partner of Zenith Research. “As a pollster, one of my big things is that no group is a monolith, and if you have a large enough sample size, you can break it out and glean some nuances … what we found was a better-than-expected result for Mamdani among Jewish voters in New York City.”

Beth Miller, political director of the political advocacy organisation Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and a member of Kolot Chayeinu, shared what it was like to witness a fraction of this support at the Erev Rosh Hashanah that Mamdani attended last month.

“He was basically swarmed at the end because people were so excited that he was there,” said Miller. “And that’s not because he’s a celebrity, it’s because people are excited about what we can all build together if he becomes mayor.”

JVP Action, a day-one endorser of Mamdani, represents one organisation among a growing group of Jewish supporters for Mamdani, like JFREJ, a group that has played a part in spearheading canvassing efforts among the diverse Jewish communities of NYC.

JFREJ’s electoral arm, The Jewish Vote, has supported Mamdani since he was first running for state assembly in 2020. Since then, JFREJ members and Mamdani have worked, canvassed and protested together.

Alicia Singham Goodwin, political director of JFREJ, has personally been arrested at protests alongside Mamdani.

“That’s the kind of thing that gives me faith in his commitments,” Goodwin told Al Jazeera regarding the arrests. “He’s willing to take on big risks for the things that matter.”

JFREJ has played a large role in spreading Mamdani’s message by knocking on doors and phone banking Jewish voters.

“We care about what our neighbours are worried about, excited and hopeful for — what they need for their families, and we’re ready to meet them there with our analysis of how the city needs to move to get to affordable housing, universal childcare, or to combat the real rise in anti-Semitism and hate violence,” said Goodwin. “We believe that Zohran is the strongest candidate for that, as well as for all the other issues we talk about.”

Courting the Jewish vote

While there is no doubt that the canvassing army of 50,000 volunteers has served Mamdani well, the mayoral hopeful has also been strategic in his pursuit of the Jewish vote.

“He has definitely modulated his rhetoric and has made a concerted effort to reach out to liberal congregations,” said Val Vinokur, professor of literary studies and director of the minor in Jewish culture at The New School. “This has made him more palatable to some progressive Zionists, much to the outrage of his anti-Zionist supporters.”

One example of Mamdani’s subdued rhetoric includes his response to continued backlash over the phrase “globalise the intifada”.

The phrase, used by pro-Palestinian activists, sparked tension between Mamdani and parts of the Jewish community. To some, it represents a call for solidarity with Palestinian resistance, while others view it as anti-Semitic and violent.

Mamdani resisted rejecting the phrase before the June election, but The New York Times reported that since then, he said he would “discourage” its use.

On the second anniversary of the Gaza war, Mamdani posted a four-paragraph statement on X where he acknowledged the atrocities of Hamas’s attack, and then called Israel’s response genocide and ended on a note of commitment to human rights.

“It got s*** on from all sides,” said Carlson. “He made nobody happy, which in my mind, is kinda the correct way to go about it … Sometimes, pleasing nobody is the job of the mayor, and I think he’s learning that now. It’s like a microcosm of what he’s about to face as mayor, assuming he wins. Sometimes, you have to piss off everybody a little bit for compromises.”

Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism

As Carlson’s Zenith Research poll reflected, the NYC Jewish community has a wide diversity of opinion about politics and positions on Israel and Palestine. The community most clearly differentiates along lines of age, and secular versus conservative practice, but as Jewish support for Mamdani increases, it is evident that these divides are not always so distinct.

“While it’s true that there are major trends that younger American Jews are more progressive and sympathetic to Palestinians, it’s also true that for as long as Zionism has existed, there have been anti-Zionist Jews,” said Miller. “I learned a lot from elders who were in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have been anti-Zionist since Israel was created because they never felt that what they wanted or needed was an ethnostate to represent them.”

Alternatively, Zionist groups like Betar worldwide are troubled by these trends within the Jewish community of New York.

“It’s heartbreaking to see members of the Jewish community support Zohran Mamdani, who openly opposes Zionism — the national liberation movement of the Jewish people,” said Oren Magnezy, spokesperson of Betar worldwide.

Jonathan Boyarin, American anthropologist and Mann professor of modern Jewish studies at Cornell University, wondered whether anti-Zionism has done much to help Palestinians, but distinguished the line that Mamdani is walking.

“It’s been said that there are two kinds of people who confuse anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: Zionists and anti-Semites. I don’t think Zohran Mamdani belongs in either of those categories,” said Boyarin.

‘New political moment’

Ultimately, experts like Vinokur predict Mamdani will win, barring a scenario in which Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa drops out. Regardless, Vinokur expects Mamdani to secure the Jewish vote.

“He will win the Jewish vote despite and not because of his anti-Zionist background,” said Vinokur. “Younger Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal, have been galvanised by the dynamism of his campaign, and ultimately want to make the city a more livable, affordable, and equitable place.”

Mamdani’s message and campaign were celebrated at the JFREJ annual gala fundraiser, the Mazals. NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Mamdani were honoured together during a night filled with music, ritual and tradition with more than 1,000 attendees.

“I would say it was probably the largest single gathering of Jews for Zohran,” said Goodwin. “They cement this new political moment that we’re in, where people like JFREJ members, movements like ours, are not fringe or aspirational, but we are popular among a majority of New Yorkers.”

CHICAGO — An appeals court intervened Wednesday and suddenly blocked an order that required a senior Border Patrol official to give unprecedented daily briefings to a judge about immigration sweeps in Chicago.

The one-page suspension by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals came before Greg Bovino’s first scheduled, late afternoon meeting with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the courthouse in downtown Chicago.

Ellis had ordered the meetings Tuesday after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by government agents working Operation Midway Blitz. It has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.

Bovino told Fox News that he was eager to talk to Ellis. But government lawyers, at the same time, were appealing her decision. Lawyers for news outlets and activists who say agents have used too much force, including tear gas, have until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond in the appeals court.

Ellis’ order followed enforcement actions in which tear gas was used, including in a neighborhood where children had gathered for a Halloween parade last weekend on the city’s Northwest Side. Neighbors had joined in the street as someone was arrested.

“Halloween is on Friday,” she said. “I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween, where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed.”

Bovino defended agents’ actions.

“If she wants to meet with me every day, then she’s going to see, she’s going to have a very good firsthand look at just how bad things really are on the streets of Chicago,” Bovino told Fox News. “I look forward to meeting with that judge to show her exactly what’s happening and the extreme amount of violence perpetrated against law enforcement here.”

Meanwhile, prosecutors filed charges against Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic congressional candidate, and five other people over protests at an immigration enforcement building in Broadview, outside Chicago. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges they illegally blocked an agent’s car on Sept. 26.

Abughazaleh said the prosecution was an “attempt to silence dissent.”

The Chicago court actions came as groups and officials across the country have filed lawsuits aimed at restricting federal deployments of National Guard troops.

President Trump’s administration will remain blocked from deploying troops in the Chicago area until at least the latter half of November, following a U.S. Supreme Court order Wednesday calling on the parties to file additional legal briefs.

The justices indicated they would not act before Nov. 17 on the administration’s emergency appeal to overturn a lower-court ruling that has blocked the troop deployments.

In Portland, Ore., a federal trial seeking to block a troop deployment got underway Wednesday morning with a police commander describing on the witness stand how federal agents at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building repeatedly fired tear gas at nonviolent protesters.

In Chicago, Bovino, who is chief of the Border Patrol sector in El Centro, Calif., was to sit for a daily 5:45 p.m. briefing to report how his agents are enforcing the law and whether they are staying within constitutional bounds, Ellis said. The check-ins were to take place until a Nov. 5 hearing.

Ellis also demanded that Bovino produce all use-of-force reports since Sept. 2 from agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz.

The judge expressed confidence Tuesday that the check-ins would prevent excessive use of force in Chicago neighborhoods.

Ellis previously ordered agents to wear badges, and she has banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists. She subsequently required body cameras after the use of tear gas raised concerns that agents were not following her initial order.

Ellis set a Friday deadline for Bovino to get a camera and to complete training.

Lawyers for the government have repeatedly defended the actions of agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and told the judge that videos and other portrayals of enforcement actions have been one-sided.

Besides his court appearance, Bovino still must sit for a videotaped Thursday deposition, an interview in private, with lawyers from both sides.

Fernando writes for the Associated Press.

Tensions between China and the US have escalated amid Donald Trump’s tariff threats and new restrictions on exports.