politics

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is allowing the White House to continue construction on President Trump’s $400 million ballroom project for now.

Roberts signed a temporary order on Friday allowing work to continue while the court considers an emergency appeal from the Trump administration.

Lower courts had ordered a halt to the project, finding that it must have congressional approval. That ruling was set to take effect on Friday. Roberts signed the order because he oversees appeals of Washington-based cases.

The case comes before the nation’s highest court as Trump, a Republican, exercises unparalleled assertions of presidential power and increasingly seeks to mold the capital in his own image.

The Trump administration has scored a series of victories on the high court’s emergency docket, though the justices have ruled against some of the president’s signature policies after fuller review.

The administration has argued that the president has total authority to renovate the White House and other federal buildings as he sees fit and that the ballroom project must be completed due to national security concerns.

When Trump first announced the plans for a new ballroom, he did not emphasize national security. He said the project would be funded by private donations, including from himself.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation argues that Trump has no unilateral authority to undertake the work, which has included demolishing the East Wing. Lawyers for the preservation group accused the White House of trying to “outrun the courts” by accelerating construction.

The Trump administration says 65% of work has already been completed on the planned 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom, where the East Wing stood before the president ordered its demolition. Crews are working 20 hours a day, seven days a week on the project, where about $200 million in private donations has been spent or committed, Justice Department attorneys said in court documents.

A district court judge ordered a stop to aboveground construction of the planned ballroom in April in a ruling that was suspended before being upheld by an appeals court panel. The order from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington allows belowground work on bunkers and military installations to continue. Leon was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican.

Two appeals-court judges appointed by Democratic presidents found the project was for Congress to decide and “not a matter for Executive self-help.” A third judge, appointed by Trump, found that the preservationist group that challenged the project had no legal right to sue.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer picked up on that argument, calling the decision halting the work “extraordinary and unlawful.” He said the completion of the project was “vitally required by national security.”

Whitehurst and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — Nearing the six-month mark of the Iran war and facing diminishing stockpiles of key weapons, the Trump administration is touting a crushing financial campaign against Tehran, promising an “economic D-Day” against a country that has withstood nearly five decades of punishing American sanctions.

With sparse details, President Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

It reflects the dire reality Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war he can’t seem to end just months before pivotal midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is refocusing America’s might on bringing Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the most economically penalized countries in the world.

In response to the threat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Friday on X the history of U.S. sanctions against Iran, saying, “We have seen this movie before. Same bull. Different bullies.”

The immediate reaction from Iran hawks has been praise and a call for patience as it plays out, while other analysts warn that Trump is refusing to learn the lessons of his predecessors.

In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a small glimpse of what may be ahead, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran.

He did not reveal who would be targeted as part of this next phase of the administration’s Operation Economic Fury, which earlier had focused on entities and people who buy oil from or bank with Iran. China and India, however, are major buyers of Iranian oil.

“If you insist on doing business with them, then the U.S. Treasury and U.S. government will put its full might and force against you,” Bessent said. “It’s time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision.”

Some experts see ‘uncharted waters’ that could force Iran’s hand

Despite decades of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration is arguing that it’s only a matter of time and that striking the right economic target would get Tehran to its breaking point.

Richard Goldberg, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in Trump’s first term, said the consequences of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last year, the war this year and the American naval blockade on Iranian ports have created the perfect storm for capitulation — one that didn’t previously exist.

“I think we’re watching a strategy, whether it takes a short time or a long time, that is very much about fundamentally changing the future of the world by seeing the end of this regime,” said Goldberg, who is now at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD.

“I caution everyone — including myself, who has worked on sanctions, who’s worked on financial warfare — to have the humility to admit that we are in uncharted waters,” he said.

He said the decision this week by the United Arab Emirates — once one of Tehran’s most important trading partners — to suspend trade with Iran over an alleged missile attack will only further isolate the government.

Beyond trade in domestically produced goods, the Emiratis had helped the country absorb some of the shocks caused by sanctions through its re-export hub.

Targeting allies and partners comes at a price

With nearly all of Iran’s energy, financial and transportation sectors already covered by U.S. sanctions, Trump’s aim appears to be to apply secondary sanctions on countries, including allies and partners, that have not cut all ties with Iran to starve the country of any remaining income it may still be receiving.

In many ways, it is a redux of Trump’s first-term maximum-pressure campaign, which he has ramped up during his second term to include military action.

But as Trump and his allies discovered during his first administration, it can be difficult to enforce secondary sanctions without harming U.S. interests and provoking reciprocal measures. There were numerous instances of the administration granting sanctions waivers to countries, particularly those that rely on Iranian oil for their energy needs.

“Trump’s strategy now rests on targeting Tehran directly by impeding its touch points and access to the formal financial system and international economy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the FDD’s Iran program. “This will require making the Iran issue more important in U.S. bilateral relations with countries in Europe and Asia.”

Iran doesn’t see an ‘open door’ at the end of the sanctions campaign

Iranian officials and analysts have accused the Republican president of flip-flopping with his latest pivot to economic pressure against Tehran. Trump has long derided past leaders who used sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to pay for its military and nuclear development.

In a post last week on X, Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, wrote that Washington’s pattern of retreating to sanctions when it doesn’t want to pursue diplomacy has proven to be futile.

“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains,” he said. “The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.”

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration’s decision to take its own maximum-pressure policy to new heights with military action seems to ignore years of U.S. foreign-policy lessons that show Iran does not respond well to pressure.

If anything, he says, the latest economic campaign has only “hardened Iran’s position.”

“I think (Trump’s) blind spot is the fact that the only thing that the Iranian regime views as more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to U.S. terms,” Vaez said.

Plus, the past year of start-stop diplomacy has only worsened the already fragile dynamic between the longtime adversaries, Vaez says, adding that Iranian officials’ lack of trust in Trump and his mediators has created an untenable foundation.

“They believe that even if they capitulate to U.S. terms under economic duress, Trump would move the goalposts and ask for more,” he said. “And this is really the fundamental problem: Pressure without an open door is an exercise in futility.”

Amiri writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

DAKAR, Senegal — Twenty migrants deported from the United States arrived in Liberia on Thursday, the first group of an eventual 1,200 deportees that the West African country says it will receive from the U.S. under a new deal.

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to two dozen countries that aren’t their own, as it pushes ahead with its immigration crackdown, advocates say.

An estimated 11 of those agreements, nearly half the total, are with African countries and the Liberia-U.S. agreement involves one of the largest numbers of such third-country deportations

Immigration lawyers say the practice is being used as a legal loophole to indirectly return some asylum-seekers to countries they fled. Authorities in Liberia have said the deportees being welcomed in their country can seek asylum there or leave if they choose.

Here’s what to know about the deportations:

Why some African countries accept deportees

Other African countries that have received third-country deportees from the U.S. include South Sudan, Eswatini, Rwanda, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic.

Some, like Ghana and Sierra Leone, are accepting deportees from their regions — in this case West Africa.

Many of the African countries approving the deals are among the worst hit by the Trump administration’s policies, including on trade, aid and migration. A good number of them also have authoritarian governments, raising questions about the lack of accountability and due process to ensure the protection of the deportees’ rights.

Details of most of the deals are never made public and some of the African nations, like Ghana’s government, have defended their actions as having been taken on humanitarian grounds.

The Trump administration had spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a February report by the Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More countries have entered the deal since then.

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has described his country’s agreement as an “act of goodwill between partners,” without financial compensation. The deal came as Washington increased pressure on neighboring Rwanda over its support for M23 rebels, a dynamic analysts say may help explain Congo’s willingness to cooperate.

Many are asylum-seekers

Early flights to Africa included people that the U.S. said had convictions for serious crimes. But later transfers have included asylum-seekers with U.S. court orders protecting them from being returned to their home countries because they could face persecution or torture.

Many say they’ve been sent to countries with which they have no ties and where they were not told about until hours into the deportation journey.

For instance, a gay Moroccan woman deported to Cameroon, where homosexuality is illegal, and an Iranian woman with U.S. court protection from returning to Iran who was sent to the Central African Republic.

Immigration lawyer Alma David called that an effective legal “loophole,” saying deportees can be left with “impossible choices” — remain in an unfamiliar country with little support or return to a country a U.S. judge found unsafe.

U.S. policy says that when a receiving government gives blanket diplomatic assurances that deportees won’t face persecution there, they can be removed without additional procedures, David told The Associated Press.

Conditions vary in different countries

Some of the deportees have recounted being shackled while some were held in full-body restraint straitjackets called the WRAP during flights that can sometimes last more than 16 hours.

Their conditions in the different countries vary. In Sierra Leone, the government hired private contractor Kenvah Solutions to provide housing, food and healthcare.

In Congo, the International Organization for Migration said it has provided “humanitarian assistance” and offered assisted voluntary return to the migrants’ home countries. But deportees told the AP their movements were tightly controlled. They were housed behind locked gates, could not leave alone and were allowed out roughly once a week accompanied by IOM staff.

In Equatorial Guinea, the AP found deportees confined in a hotel owned by the family of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Migrants said they were barred from leaving, had uneven access to medical care and faced repeated pressure to return home. Twenty-five of at least 32 people held there had been sent to their home countries by May.

Deportations have led to lawsuits and human rights concerns

Rights advocates say the third-country deportation program risks violating non-refoulement, the principle barring governments from sending people to places where they face persecution or torture.

An international coalition sued Ghana in June on behalf of 27 deportees, alleging most were quickly sent to their home countries, despite U.S. protection orders, and that some were held under armed guard in military camps, hotels and airport cells.

Rights lawyers have also brought a case against Equatorial Guinea before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, alleging deportees were returned to countries where they faced persecution despite U.S. court protections.

Banchereau writes for the Associated Press.

Washington, DC – Over the next two days, a portion of the United States capital will transform into a seven-turn professional-grade track for the city’s first-ever IndyCar race.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix, championed by President Donald Trump, is one of several special events held to commemorate the country’s 250th birthday.

But the race, which has been billed as a means of “celebrating American greatness”, is not coming without a heavy dose of criticism.

Questions have been raised about potential disruptions to life in the capital, as well as Trump’s ties to the event’s sponsor, the transportation company Penske.

Here’s what you need to know about the weekend’s automobile tournament:

Why is this taking place?

In January, Trump signed an executive order establishing the race as a means of celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary and its history of motorsport.

“This will be like no other race ever,” Trump said in July. “It’ll be one of the most unforgettable racing events the world has ever seen.”

Trump, who has described himself as a racing fan, has participated in several high-profile motorsport events since returning to office in 2025.

Last year, Trump attended NASCAR’s Daytona 500 race, after serving as the grand marshal during his first term. A few months later, in April 2025, he hosted NASCAR and IndyCar drivers at the White House.

Have similar events been held?

The Grand Prix is one of several sporting events being held in honour of the country’s 250th anniversary.

Earlier this month, as part of the festivities, high-school athletes were invited to participate in the inaugural Patriot Games, broadcast on the sport channel ESPN. And in June, Trump hosted an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn, dubbed the UFC Freedom 250.

But members of the Trump administration have compared the race to early moments in US history as a means of highlighting its historic nature.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Washington, DC, has not seen a competition like this since Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, helped mark the country’s 25th birthday in 1801 with horse races.

Is the IndyCar race part of Freedom 250?

Not officially. While the Grand Prix bears similar branding to Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative, they are separate entities.

Trump’s Freedom 250 task force was a public-private partnership that put together events like the Patriot Games and the Great American State Fair, which took place in June on the National Mall.

But critics argued that the task force undermined America250, a separate bipartisan organisation created by the US Congress to arrange festivities for the anniversary. There was also a backlash to the perception that Freedom 250 would be a vehicle for Trump’s political agenda.

The Grand Prix, meanwhile, is being “administered by INDYCAR in coordination with the America 250 Task Force”, according to the District of Columbia government website. IndyCar is a subsidiary of Penske.

What response has the race received?

The race is arguably the most ambitious of all the events Trump has hosted for America’s 250th celebration. It has also drawn concern from preservation experts.

A temporary track for the race will run 2.7 kilometres, or 1.7 miles, including through the National Mall. Part of the race will therefore take place near several buildings that contain priceless historical works and documents.

Immediately adjacent to the motor speedway will be the National Gallery of Art, featuring paintings spanning the history of Western civilisation, and the National Archives, which includes the original Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

With race cars set to pass by at speeds nearing 321km/h (200mph), the National Gallery has boarded up some windows on its building and put barriers around several of its outdoor works.

A preservationist group has also warned that historic New Deal-era murals in the nearby Cohen Federal Building could be damaged “due to vibratory impacts”.

A Freedom 250 Grand Prix spokesperson told The Associated Press (AP) news agency that IndyCar has “tremendous respect for the history and the structures” surrounding the track.

But the race’s impacts are being felt by Washington’s residents and travellers as well.

In the days leading up to the race, commuters were plagued by hours-long congestion caused by the closure of some of the city’s popular thoroughfares as organisers prepared for the event.

The Federal Aviation Administration also announced that flights at the nearby Ronald Reagan Washington national airport will be paused for three hours on Sunday so flyovers associated with the event can take place.

Who’s paying for this?

With an expected price tag of $35m, the 147-lap race will be among the most expensive on IndyCar’s calendar.

Bud Denker, the president of Penske Corporation and chairman of the race, told AP his company will pay for the “vast majority” of the event, while the city will cover some “very limited” costs to repave streets and seal manhole covers.

A spokesperson for Washington, DC’s transportation department, German Vigil, told Al Jazeera the city “will be getting reimbursed” by the Grand Prix for those repairs.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix website explains that the event is supported “by a group of key partners”, including Harbinger, a production company with ties to at least one previous Trump-hosted event.

CNN previously reported that the firm was hired to solicit corporate sponsors for the 2025 White House Easter Egg Roll.

The race’s website identifies Harbinger as an “official event partner” that will “coordinate logistics and the fan experience” for the Grand Prix. A spokesperson for Harbinger told Al Jazeera it was only handling “production”.

Several of the race’s sponsors have government contracts, including the aerospace firm Boeing and the telecommunications firm Verizon.

One, the building manufacturer WillScot, was in discussion with the second Trump administration about leasing mobile structures to house detainees slated for deportation, according to the publication Semafor.

Another, the aircraft company Gulfstream, was the recipient of nearly $200m in a controversial deal Trump’s Department of Homeland Security undertook to buy luxury jets for executive travel.

WillScot and Gulfstream did not return Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

How much does it cost to attend?

A reported 100,000 general admission tickets have already been given away for free, while premium viewing of the race comes at a steep price.

Tickets for the Champions Club, which offers views of the racetrack, cost $5,000 per person, while luxury suites are priced upwards of $250,000.

Will Trump attend?

Media reports have indicated that Trump himself is likely to attend the event.

The New York Post reported that the president may take a lap on Sunday around the track in his motorcade, to kick off the last day of the race.

But Trump’s involvement raises concerns, including from IndyCar drivers, that the event could be politicised. McLaren Racing’s Pato O’Ward, IndyCar’s only full-time racer from Mexico, has said it would be “ironic” if he won, given the president’s aggressive political stance towards immigration and Mexico itself.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Two Hong Kong activists who organized vigils to commemorate those killed in a crackdown by the Chinese military on the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests were facing up to 10 years in prison after being convicted Friday of inciting subversion.

Chow Hang-tung, 41, and Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, who had been in custody since 2021, “incited other persons to organize, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting state power.”

The two leaders of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance organized the vigils, which had been held annually on June 4 since 1990, after they were banned in 2020 after a tough new National Security Law was imposed from Beijing, following huge street protests that rocked the territory the previous year.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho, 74, who was charged alongside Chow and Lee, pleaded guilty at the start of the trial in January.

Amnesty International expressed dismay at the verdicts saying it demonstrated how the national security law was being used to go after people for peacefully marking the anniversary of one of the most sinister events in the history of China, in the only place in the country where it was permitted.

It said the decision marked another “grim milestone in the government’s deliberate campaign to erase that legacy and silence those who seek truth, justice and accountability.”

Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks said Chow and Lee’s “crime” was not one that would be recognized anywhere else.

“The Hong Kong authorities should quash these convictions and end the ongoing persecution of people seeking to keep the memory of Tiananmen alive. Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

The Foreign Office in London issued a statement criticizing the case saying it was not in line with the “one-country-two systems” treaty Britain signed with Beijing for the return of its former colony which guarantees the rights and way of life of Hong Kong people for 50 years after the handover in 1997.

“This verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security. The extensive use of Beijing’s national security law to punish and restrict peaceful expression undermines the commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration,” said Indo-Pacific minister Rosie Winterton.

“We reiterate our call for the national security law to be repealed, and for rights and freedoms to be respected in the Hong Kong special administrative region,” she added.

Reporting from Washington — Five years ago, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) was visiting a thinly guarded U.S. special operations base in a remote part of Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. One of his hosts took him up to the roof, where he peered through binoculars at militants loading 122-millimeter rockets.

Those rockets soon will be raining down on this base, the officer told the congressman.

“What are you going to do about it?” Rogers asked with a note of concern, according to someone who was present.

“I can’t do anything about it,” the officer replied. “They are on the wrong side of the Durand Line” — the Pakistan side of the century-old British-decreed border between the two countries. Pakistan was off-limits.

Rogers and an aide were hustled onto a helicopter and flown out. The Afghan base indeed was rocketed. Rogers, whose resume includes a stint as an Army officer and another as an FBI investigator, returned to Washington determined to find out, as part of his role on the House Intelligence Committee, why the U.S. wasn’t doing more to strike Taliban militants in Pakistan.

The responses he received frustrated him, those close to Rogers say, and led him to mount a campaign to press the George W. Bush administration to do more. In a story known only to a small group of participants, Rogers played a role in convincing President Bush to issue a July 2008 order that dramatically expanded the scope of Predator drone strikes against militants in Pakistan, according to two former Bush administration officials close to the matter and two members of the House Intelligence Committee who were involved. The officials declined to be named speaking about secret deliberations.

Rogers’ unpublicized efforts as an advocate for that covert program, which has been expanded dramatically by President Obama, helped convince House Republican leader John Boehner last week to name Rogers incoming chairman of the intelligence committee.

“Mike went out and found out the ground truth on this stuff,” said U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R.-Mich.), who is retiring as the ranking Republican on the committee.

These days, unmanned U.S. Predator drones are raining Hellfire missiles on militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas at a rate of twice a week. But for much of his two terms, Bush used the drones sparingly. The State Department and some in the CIA opposed expanding the targeted killing program over fears it would destabilize the fragile Pakistani government, former U.S. officials said.

Military officials also argued that troops on the border already had authorization to call in airstrikes in Pakistan under “hot pursuit” doctrine.

But that wasn’t happening in practice, Rogers found, and front-line soldiers and spies were furious.

Rogers cut through a bureaucratic fog by confronting senior policymakers with anecdotes from his trips to CIA and special operations bases along the Afghan-Pakistan border, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who played a key role in the debate.

Rogers also pressed the issue with senior U.S. diplomats and CIA officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he worked back channels with junior CIA officers who shared his agenda but found themselves stymied by their cautious bosses, current and former U.S. officials said.

“I would say he played a unique role,” said the former official, who was involved in crafting the new policy. “There was no one who took this on like he did.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel would not discuss drone strikes in Pakistan, which are officially denied by the U.S. government. Rogers got the chairmanship, Steel said, in part because he “has traveled extensively to the real down-and-dirty areas, the front lines in our war on terrorism. And that’s gotten him a lot of respect from the intelligence community and a real hands-on feel for the challenges we face.”

Rogers declined to comment on the classified drone program. But he said his trips to remote corners of the U.S. war effort were grounded in basic investigative techniques he learned in the FBI: Go ask the people who actually know.

“Proper congressional oversight is a lot like the work of the FBI,” he said. “Especially in a business that is designed to be clandestine, you have to be a little more tenacious to get the whole story. You have to go to where things are happening.”

Rogers, 47, who is remarried with two teenagers, is an anti-abortion, down-the-line conservative from a solid Republican district in southern Michigan. As intelligence committee chairman, he can be expected to challenge the Obama administration aggressively over what he views as a law enforcement approach to terrorism. For example, he ripped the decision by federal authorities to read Miranda warnings to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit last Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The priority should have been intelligence gathering, Rogers said, especially given the other evidence against Abdulmutallab.

Rogers also has blasted Obama’s decision to restrict CIA questioning of detainees to the strictures of the U.S. Army Field Manual, which he argues are more restrictive than the rules governing FBI agents when questioning criminal suspects.

And he made news when he said the death penalty should apply to Bradley Manning, accused of being the source of classified U.S. documents posted by WikiLeaks.

But Rogers has a knack for disagreeing without being disagreeable, a trait that has engendered warm feelings among at least some Democrats. CIA Director Leon Panetta, for example, said in a statement that Rogers “is one of Congress’ foremost experts on intelligence and the fight against terrorism,” and that “I have come to know him and respect his insights.”

Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican who traveled with Rogers while he served on the intelligence committee, said Rogers is well-liked “because he’s very personable. He’s tough as nails, but he can do it with a way that’s not offensive.”

Rogers poked and prodded behind the scenes — and finally made a personal appeal to Bush — to force the U.S. military to better secure unguarded Iraq weapons and ammunition storage sites after the 2003 invasion, sites that were fodder for the burgeoning insurgency.

A 1985 graduate of Adrian College in Michigan, Rogers served three years in the Army and then joined the FBI, where he worked until he ran and won a state Senate seat in 1994. He served as Michigan Senate majority Leader from 1999 to 2000 and was elected to Congress that fall.

On the walls of his Capitol Hill office, Rogers displays a tomahawk made of metal from a Soviet tank given to him by Afghans, and a long knife given to him by Pakistanis.

There is also a framed Chicago newspaper front page about the biggest chapter of his FBI career. Rogers built the case that mushroomed into a massive public corruption prosecution in Cicero, Ill., just outside Chicago. The town that once hosted Al Capone’s gang was still, in the late 1980s, infiltrated by the mob. Betty Loren-Maltese, the town president, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2002 after she and six others were convicted of stealing $12 million from the town.

It started with a telephone tip about a missing woman, Rogers said, which led him to set up surveillance on a Cicero strip club that fronted for a brothel. The place was under the protection of corrupt Cicero police officers, Rogers soon realized.

“I thought it was a few bad cops,” he said. It turned out to be a well-orchestrated conspiracy.

His biggest break came when he went to the hospital to see a woman who had been stabbed in the club, he said. She had previously refused to talk. But on this day, a mobster had just turned down her request to pay her medical expenses.

“She was upset,” Rogers said. “She asked, ‘Well, would you pay for my hospital bill?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ Then I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God, I hope the Bureau will pay for this.’ ”

Rogers showed her pictures, and she identified mob figures and police who frequented the club.

“That’s what really started the Cicero case,” Rogers said.

Rogers had a similar break in his effort to convince Boehner and other House leaders to press the Bush administration to expand drone strikes, according to some who were there.

One day in 2008, Rogers, Hoekstra and Boehner attended a meeting in the Capitol with a group of CIA officials. Some of the senior CIA officials expressed opposition to expanding drone strikes, say two of them who were there, and some argued that Rogers was overstating the targeting capabilities.

A junior CIA officer spoke up and acknowledged that there were targeting “packages” against militants in Pakistan that were viable but had not been used.

“The front-row guys, they didn’t have a clue what to say,” one meeting attendee said.

Not long afterward, then-CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed Bush on a series of more aggressive covert options in Pakistan, including drone strikes that went after Taliban networks, in addition to high-value al Qaeda targets.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

Progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab will replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell in Congress and finish his current term.

Wahab (D-Hayward) defeated Melissa Hernandez, the president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board and the former mayor of Dublin who was seen as the more moderate candidate. The two faced off in a special runoff election on Tuesday, and the Associated Press declared Wahab the winner Thursday afternoon.

The two Democrats will face each other again in the Nov. 3 general election to determine who will represent a slightly redrawn district in the East Bay for a full term beginning in 2027.

Following a Thursday update from Alameda County elections officials, Wahab led with 53.1% of the vote to Hernandez’s 46.9%, according to the secretary of state’s website. The additional ballots widened the slim lead Wahab held on election night.

“This victory belongs to the voters who made clear that our district cannot be bought,” Wahab posted on Facebook Thursday after the race was called. “Through one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen, we never took the bait or went negative. We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me. From foster care to Congress, this journey shows the possibility of the American Dream. Today this district made history by electing the first Afghan American to Congress.”

In an email to supporters, Hernandez said the November election “will be in the new district lines, adding 26,000 Dublin voters who didn’t have the chance to vote for me in August. We’re looking forward to winning this on November 3rd with a more favorable district and a much larger electorate. Game on!”

Swalwell, a Dublin Democrat, resigned from the seat and dropped his bid for California governor in April after multiple women accused him of sexual assault and misconduct, which he denies.

Though Wahab was favored to win the seat and finished first in both the regular and special election primaries, the race became more competitive after the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions of dollars on ads attacking her. Though the war in Gaza was not a central campaign issue, Wahab has criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza and described it as a genocide. Hernandez has defended Israel’s right to defend itself.

Progressives celebrated Wahab’s victory despite the heavy spending against her.

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group founded by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said her campaign “should be studied by every progressive running for office in America.”

“The lesson from CA-14 is simple: Democrats do not have to surrender to the biggest checkbook in the race,” Geevarghese said. “Big money can buy television ads, mailboxes and endless attacks. It cannot buy the trust built through thousands of conversations between neighbors. That is the model: Unite the movement, organize everywhere, and make billionaire money fight us on our terrain.”

Community activist Karen Bass achieved a decisive victory in the Democratic primary for the 47th state Assembly district by assembling a coalition that extended beyond the traditional base of African American voters to include Latinos and organized labor.

That broader coalition, which allowed her to trounce two candidates who have long been part of the African American political establishment in the area, may signal a changing of the guard in South Los Angeles. The district extends from Westwood through Culver City to the Crenshaw area.

Bass captured 48% of the vote in the Democratic primary, while Nate Holden, who represented part of the area as a state legislator and city councilman for 20 years, received 21%. Attorney Rickey Ivie finished a distant third, despite support from many of the area’s most prominent black leaders, including current Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and state Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City).

Bass and political experts said that her campaign had benefited from demographic shifts, grass-roots organizing and the power of organized labor.

The candidate said people had seemed to appreciate that, before running for office, she had toiled in the community for more than a decade as the executive director of the Community Coalition, a group that led the fight against rebuilding liquor stores in South Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, and championed education reform for schools in poor neighborhoods.

“I think the idea of new leadership resonated,” Bass, 50, said Wednesday. “People wanted a new style of leadership. I think they liked the fact that I was an activist who had been deeply involved in the community for years.”

Working in the community gave Bass a huge base of grass-roots supporters to draw on in one of the most ethnically diverse districts in the state, said Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who, along with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D- Los Angeles), formed a powerful group of Latino leaders that backed Bass.

“She has demonstrated that successful candidates in multiracial districts are going to have to build coalitions, and Karen Bass has been building coalitions for 30 years,” Villaraigosa said. Bass benefited from a $250,000 independent campaign by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which also flooded the district with 450 volunteers to get out the vote on election day.

“She is part of a new paradigm, of an African American/labor alliance for South Los Angeles,” said Miguel Contreras, head of the labor organization.

The 47th Assembly District was redrawn in 2002 to make it less heavily African American, making it imperative to build alliances beyond a single ethnic group. That’s an increasingly important skill in Los Angeles, where the growing Latino population means there are few areas where someone can be elected with the support of black voters alone.

Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), a Bass backer, said Bass had done the best job of reaching out to diverse groups. Bass said she had courted Jewish voters in the western end of the district, while organized labor had helped her by targeting Latino voters on her behalf. Ideology also played a role, Ridley-Thomas said, saying that Bass is more liberal than Ivie, Wesson and Burke.

“Ivie is a middle-of-the road, moderate Democrat and Karen is definitely left of center and progressive,” said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A..

A Baldwin Vista resident who teaches health communications at the USC School of Medicine, Bass agreed that she was a better ideological match with voters in the predominantly Democratic district.

The 47th Assembly District was one of 100 state Senate and Assembly contests that drew California voters to the polls Tuesday.

Though Tuesday’s winners must still compete in the November general election, most districts have been drawn to strongly favor either Republicans or Democrats. As a result, odds are good that the people who will take seats as new lawmakers in December will include Van Tran, who would become the first Vietnamese American elected to the Legislature, and Lori Saldana, a San Diego community college teacher who shocked the Democratic establishment by spending just $50,000 to beat other Democrats who enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of support from some of the biggest interests trying to influence the Legislature.

Saldana’s clear win over former Gov. Gray Davis aide Vince Hall and Democratic pollster Heidi Von Szeliski was the biggest decided upset in the state, but three races were too close to call Wednesday as counties tallied absentee ballots.

Interest groups, including trial lawyers, business groups and unions, sank nearly $7 million into races, either directly or through independent expenditure campaigns, but no special interest group emerged as a clear winner.

The election allowed some politicians to extend their careers, including Board of Equalization member Carole Migden, who won the Democratic primary in a liberal San Francisco state Senate district, and Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine), who beat fellow Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) for the Republican nomination in a conservative Orange County Senate district. Johan Klehs, a Democrat who has served eight years in the Assembly and six years on the Board of Equalization, appears headed back to the Assembly. Unopposed, he won the nomination in a Democratic-leaning district east of San Francisco.

Another former assemblyman seeking a comeback, Democrat Tom Umberg, had a slight lead of 51.2% to 48.8% over opponent Claudia Alvarez in the heavily Latino 69th Assembly District, which includes Santa Ana. Alvarez held out hope Wednesday that the absentee ballot tally could swing the race her way.

Also awaiting absentee ballot results were the trial lawyers who sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into the 21st Assembly District south of San Francisco. A four-way race among Democrats has been narrowed to a neck-and-neck contest between Redwood City Councilman Ira Ruskin, with 37.4% of the precinct vote and attorney Joe Carcione, with 36.6%.

GUATEMALA CITY — The United States has deported nearly 2,300 Mexicans to Guatemala this year and sent at least dozens more to Honduras, according to official data, a shift from the beginning of President Trump’s second term when such transfers were minimal.

Until now, Mexicans deported from the U.S. were sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land. Only a handful arrived in other countries.

Some civil organizations believe this change reported in recent days is a way to increase pressure on Mexico, whose government has protested the deaths of 17 Mexicans in U.S. immigration custody or during enforcement operations. This also comes as Trump has expanded agreements with allied Latin American countries to conduct joint operations in the region against criminal groups and has increased U.S. security demands on Mexico.

Sent to Central America by plane and Mexico by bus

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed Wednesday night that, so far this year, 2,284 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have arrived in the country as part of a “transit stopover” before being taken to Mexico as part of an “arrangement” with the Mexican government, and without these individuals being under any refugee or asylum status.

“They are arriving on planes carrying Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is bring them in transit so that, in coordination with Mexican immigration authorities, we can return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country,” he explained at a news conference.

The costs of these operations are covered by the Mexican government or, in some cases, by U.S. funding, he added.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute confirmed to the Associated Press in a brief message that Mexicans have been deported by the Trump administration to Guatemala and Honduras, primarily since April, and are then transported by bus to southern Mexico.

“The reason is that the United States wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory,” the institute said. It did not provide figures or further details.

Asked about why the Mexicans were sent to Central America and not their home country, and for more details, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said in an emailed statement that the administration “is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.”

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to U.S. authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday. It added that Mexico is coordinating with the countries involved to ensure the safe return of Mexican citizens.

Third-country deportations raise concerns for Mexican migrants

Historically, Mexico has always been willing to receive its deported citizens.

Since Trump’s first term, it has also accepted deportees from third countries, although the details of immigration agreements with Washington have usually been opaque. In 2025, Mexico received about 12,000 deported foreigners, mostly Cubans and Venezuelans, according to figures provided by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The government has not updated these figures since December although the practice has continued.

Authorities in Honduras also did not respond to requests for comment, but according to official documents from the country accessed by the Associated Press, 82 Mexicans deported from the U.S. arrived in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on two flights on Aug. 13 and Saturday. An additional 35 were scheduled to arrive Thursday.

An additional 165 Mexicans were deported to Honduras between May and mid-July, according to the website Third Country Deportation Watch, run by the nongovernmental organizations Human Rights First and Refugees International, which track U.S. deportation flights to third countries.

The website does not clarify the source of its nationality figures, but both organizations have expressed concern because these transfers could endanger migrants who possibly sought asylum in the U.S. or have few resources in an unknown country.

The deportation tactic “seems to be to put pressure on the Mexican government,” said Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First. “They really don’t want any Mexicans crossing the border.” Some of those deported arrived in Honduras on U.S. military flights, she added.

A recent change in the deportation pattern

At the beginning of his second term, with immigration control as one of his priorities, Trump reached agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to act as “bridge” or destination countries for migrants from third countries expelled from U.S. territory. These agreements gradually expanded to more countries, including some African ones, most recently Liberia.

Until recently, only a handful of Mexicans had been expelled from the U.S. to countries other than Mexico.

Arévalo said Wednesday that Guatemala received 15 Mexicans in 2025. As of February 2026, Honduras had officially reported the arrival of six. Costa Rica has received 11 Mexicans since Trump’s return to the White House, and according to local immigration authorities, they remain in the country. Presumably, these individuals may have requested to not be returned to Mexico out of fear.

Immigration lawyers believe that the Trump administration is using deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to Mexico when the government cannot send them there because it would violate court orders from immigration judges that recognize the dangers. Organizations and politicians both inside and outside the U.S. have also questioned the use of force by U.S. immigration authorities.

Pérez, Verza and González write for the Associated Press. Verza reported from Mexico City and González from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Former leader was escorted from Adiala jail to Shifa International Hospital, following court order, local media reports.

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been transferred from jail to hospital by police and security, according to local media reports.

The founder of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was escorted by authorities in Islamabad from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail to Shifa International Hospital in the capital late on Thursday, following the Supreme Court’s order, Pakistan’s Geo News reported.

Sources told Geo that authorities had earlier in the day completed preparations to shift the ousted prime minister, who is 73, to the hospital.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the shift to be completed within two days.

The government had filed a petition against the decision.

PTI shared a live broadcast of the preparations for his transfer but has not yet released a statement about it. The Pakistani government is also yet to comment.

The transfer fulfils a demand that Khan’s party and family had been making for months, expressing concerns over his health.

Under the order, Khan is to be examined by a medical board that includes his personal physician.

Khan’s next hearing has been scheduled for September 16, and the former leader should remain hospitalised until at least then as per the order, according to one of Khan’s lawyers, Uzair Bhandari.

This would be the longest period Khan would be physically outside jail premises since he was imprisoned in August 2023 and convicted in several corruption-related cases that he and his party insist are politically motivated.

The former cricket-star-turned-politician was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022.

New York City, United States – Mayor Zohran Mamdani is challenging a new law that would give New York City’s teaching aides a one-time $10,000 bonus, arguing it goes against the city’s collective bargaining laws.

On Wednesday, the bill, which was passed by New York City’s City Council, automatically became law because the mayor had opted not to veto it. Instead, Mamdani filed a lawsuit to block it because the City Council had enough votes to override his veto.

The bill, called the Respect Check Act, was backed by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), a labour union representing teachers across New York City’s public school system and was championed by City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who has often clashed with the mayor.

Teaching assistants are among the lowest-paid workers in the city’s school system, according to a statement released by Menin’s office on Wednesday. Their pay is as low as $32,000. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, the living wage in New York City is $79,469 for Manhattan, $67,558 for Brooklyn, $73,258 for Queens, $67,974 in Staten Island, and $60,341 for the Bronx.

When the bill passed in July, Mamdani argued that the law directly violated a state law called the Taylor Law, a nearly 60-year-old law that gives public sector workers the right to organise. The UFT, which endorsed Mamdani in July 2025 ahead of the city’s election, pushed back on the mayor’s claims. The group argued the City Council did not undermine collective bargaining.

“The City Council would not have introduced – let alone passed – this bill if it were illegal, and we would not have supported a bill that threatened our collective bargaining rights,” Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“This moment is an opportunity for Mayor Mamdani to create a new, fairer system and build the kind of city he said he wanted to lead. This administration must keep its promises, and we won’t stop until it does.”

The City Council crafted the law to avoid violating New York’s Taylor Law, a UFT representative told Al Jazeera.

Under a 2023 state appeals court ruling, additional payments to public employees are mandated to be independent of a worker’s regular salary and cannot be tied to collective bargaining, they argue.

“The Court of Appeals has found that the Taylor Law does not prevent a municipality from unilaterally providing an economic benefit,” Beth Norton, general counsel for the UFT, said in testimony in front of the City Council in 2025, provided to Al Jazeera.

Pushing back

New York City Hall sees it differently.

“Council labels these ‘stabilisation’ payments; they effectively function as stipends or salary bonuses and, regardless of terminology, are an additional form of compensation and, as such, a mandatory subject of bargaining,” the 18-page filing obtained by Al Jazeera said.

“I think the mayor is right that this sets a bad precedent,” Adin Lenchner, founder of the New York-based political consultancy Carroll Street Campaigns, told Al Jazeera.

“Him and his team are either posturing, negotiating, or using this as a moment to negotiate toward some other kind of deal. I think everyone would agree that, substantively and philosophically, this is aligned with the mayor’s public policy approach and his vision for the city,” Lenchner added.

“So, if I had to guess, this is, on the one hand, about not wanting to establish a bad precedent and, on the other hand, a step toward a longer-term negotiation.”

Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), a nonpartisan think tank, urged the mayor in July to veto the bill, arguing that City Council should not make this decision. It says the now-law would add $325m in city spending.

“The City should continue to determine employee compensation at the bargaining table, not the legislative chamber,” vice president for research at CBC, Ana Champeny, said in a press release in mid-July.

Mamdani echoed that sentiment when he was asked about the law earlier this month.

“Conversations around compensation are better left at the bargaining table,” Mamdani said in a news conference on August 6.

However, the mayor voiced support on the campaign trail for legislation that would provide support payments to these paraprofessionals. That legislation supported recurring payments, not a one-time payment.

“The version he supported last fall made the payment recurring; what passed last month only guarantees it for one year. That’s the line between then and now, so not much of a flip-flop,” Lenchner added.

“We will not allow the political process to replace the collective bargaining table. The City is filing a lawsuit to protect the right of every union to negotiate on behalf of its members, to fight for the workplace they deserve and ensure that workers – not politicians – determine their own futures,” Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“We will work towards a quick resolution that respects workers, protects the City’s finances, and ensures that the Council does not interfere with collective bargaining in the future.”

Rauschenbach declined to provide further comment.

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Belgium has a new prince after the 26-year-old former car salesman was recognized by the king’s brother as his son.

Clement Vandenkerkhove reportedly joined the royal family in February in a low-key town hall ceremony, which was disclosed Wednesday. The ceremony was required for him to become a prince.

Prince Laurent, King Philippe’s younger brother, last year publicly acknowledged Vandenkerckhove, who was born during Laurent’s seven-year relationship with Flemish former model turned singer Iris Vandenkerckhove.

The younger Vandenkerckhove now has a royal title and a claim to an inheritance after Prince Laurent, 62. He is not included in the line of succession and will not receive a royal allowance.

Vandenkerckhove told Belgian daily Nieuwsblad that he was unsure if he would adopt the royal name of van Saksen-Coburg. “I am proud of the name Vandenkerck­hove,” he said. “Sacrificing that surname would be a betrayal to everything my mother did for me.”

Vandenkerckhove said he suffered anxiety as a child over his identity.

“My whole childhood I struggled with the question, ‘Who is my father?’ When I knew, the secrecy weighed heavily on me,” he told the newspaper. “Imagine: You know who your father is, but you aren’t allowed to tell anyone. After school, I became a car salesman. I liked that job and did it well. But panic attacks were destroying me.”

He said the anxiety eased after he established a relationship with Prince Laurent.

“What matters most to me right now is that I am a son who is allowed to get to know his father,” Vandenkerckhove said, adding that the men share a love of cars.

Prince Laurent later married British-born Claire Louise Coombs, and they have three children.

A federal investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared to gain steam this week after agents seized his electronic devices and raided his Washington home over the weekend, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.

Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before dropping out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was the front-runner.

The source said Swalwell was held on Saturday at SFO and released the same day he was detained for search purposes. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue a probe of his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.

His home was searched on Sunday by federal agents, the source added, based on a search warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.

Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.

Another accuser, Lonna Drewes, said at a news conference that she was drugged and raped by the one-time politician in 2018 in Beverly Hills. Drewes said she met Swalwell three times as she was growing her fashion software company and toying with the idea of a political career.

On the third occasion, Drewes said she believes that Swalwell drugged her glass of wine. She said they were supposed to go to a political event and stopped by his hotel room to retrieve some paperwork.

She said she found herself incapacitated despite having had only one drink.

“He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died,” she said. “I did not consent to any sexual activity.”

Sara Azari, an attorney for Swalwell, denied Drewes’ characterization of the incident at the time. “Two adults consenting, which is our position, is not against the law,” she said.

The former staffer for Swalwell told the San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began sending her nude pictures on Snapchat and messages after she was hired by his office in 2019. She was 21 at the time.

In September of that year, she said she had drinks with the congressman, blacked out and woke up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed, according to the Chronicle.

In 2024, when she no longer worked for Swalwell, she said she attended a charity event honoring the congressman and met him for drinks afterward. She was intoxicated but recalled Swalwell forcing himself upon her, and pushing him away and saying, “No,” according to the Chronicle.

Azari said in April that he denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and would pursue “every legal remedy” against those making the claims.

“These accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive — a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azari said.

Winton reported from Los Angeles, Smith from Sacramento and Wilner from Washington.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri judge has allowed new U.S. House districts backed by President Trump to be used in the November elections, rejecting a bid by to put the Republican-friendly districts to a statewide vote of the people.

The ruling Wednesday by Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green is a victory for Republicans seeking to hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. House. But the case is likely to end up in the state Supreme Court.

Missouri’s new districts already were used in the August primaries. On that same day, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution doesn’t allow a referendum on congressional redistricting.

The judge agreed with Hoskins and other Republicans, who joined in defense of the new map.

“The Missouri Constitution does not supply any statement — let alone a clear one — reallocating authority over congressional redistricting away from the General Assembly to a referendum process,” Green wrote in the ruling.

Opponents of the redistricting plan quickly announced an appeal.

“Everyone knows that Cole County is not the final decision here,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, who sued to try to place the new map on the ballot. “After months of delay, we are pleased to be moving forward to the Missouri Supreme Court to enforce our constitutional rights.”

Missouri’s redistricting targeted Democratic congressman

Missouri’s current U.S. House delegation is made up of six Republicans and two Democrats who were elected from districts with boundaries drawn after the 2020 census.

But Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Legislature into a special session on redistricting last year after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional boundaries to their advantage ahead of the midterms.

Missouri’s revised map is designed to help Republicans defeat Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigns portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretches the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District far eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas. About 59% of its voters are new to the 5th District, according to an Associated Press estimate.

State Sen. Rick Brattin won a Republican primary in the reshaped district in early August. Cleaver was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Republicans had argued that the new districts should be used in the November elections even if a voter referendum on the map was allowed to occur at the same time.

Lawsuit highlights dispute about referendum rights

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say that a referendum can be used to decide congressional redistricting, nor does it forbid it, which is why the issue ended up in court.

Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office, which represented the secretary of state in court, argued that congressional redistricting is a legislative duty not subject to referendum without specific constitutional permission.

The attorney general and the Republican Party also argued it was too late to switch district boundaries before the November election. Changing districts after the primary would cause “widespread voter confusion” and an “erosion in confidence in the integrity of the state’s elections,” said John Gore, an attorney for national, congressional and state Republican committees.

The judge agreed, ruling that a district swap after the primary would violate federal law.

It’s been more than 100 years since a Missouri redistricting plan faced a referendum. In 1922, voters rejected a new congressional map passed by the Republican-led Legislature. The legitimacy of that referendum petition was not challenged in court.

Redistricting battle spread to numerous states

Missouri’s mid-decade redistricting effort has been among the most litigated nationally, triggering about a dozen lawsuits over the past year.

The Republican-led state was the second, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call to redraw congressional districts. Several other states followed. All told, Republicans hope to win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states: Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

It remains to be seen whether the redistricting works as intended for Republicans. The president’s party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Hannah Recht contributed to this report from Washington.

LOS ANGELES — U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport Iranians in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between the U.S. and Iranian governments despite tensions mounting between the countries.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases,” one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It’s not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not offer comment in response to an emailed request sent Tuesday afternoon.

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation,” the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn’t supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

U.S. prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump’s June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority” in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon’s email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn’t issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit’s allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” DHS said in a statement in July.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

Democrats on Thursday narrowed the list of potential host cities for their 2028 presidential convention to Boston, Denver and Philadelphia as their party looks ahead to a wide-open primary to succeed President Trump.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids,” and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn’t specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

The three finalists are liberal strongholds surrounded by the type of suburban areas that have become increasingly important to the party in recent elections. They also provide access to fundraising and key demographic and interest groups, like labor unions.

While Colorado and Massachusetts have gone Democratic in recent presidential elections, Pennsylvania has been among the biggest battlegrounds. Trump, a Republican, won Pennsylvania in 2024.

Philadelphia last hosted the convention in 2016, Denver in 2008 and Boston in 2004.

Before the presidential primary gets into gear, Democrats are looking at this year’s midterm elections as an opportunity to flip the narrowly divided Republican-led House and maybe take back control of the Senate.

Democrats face fundraising disadvantages compared with Republicans, along with financial debt, and Martin has confronted criticism over his stewardship of the party.

During a recent DNC meeting in Texas, Martin downplayed the critics and called for the party to unite as it tries to win the midterms and look ahead to 2028 and the end of Trump’s second term.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Recently revealed evidence from government investigators and court filings renewed questions about Southern California Edison’s claim that it operated its electrical grid safely before last year’s deadly Eaton fire.

Most records surrounding the fire’s cause have been sealed at the request of Edison and plaintiff attorneys. Yet new details revealed in court show that critical fire prevention equipment needed repair before the blaze and that vegetation under the tower where it ignited hadn’t been trimmed for years.

Los Angeles County and state fire investigators cited eight violations, including three of California’s criminal code, in their report released on Aug. 4. The details were blacked out as the district attorney continues an investigation into the devastating fire.

“We don’t believe there is a basis for criminal liability and we will cooperate with any review,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman.

The investigators said in the report that the Jan. 7, 2025 inferno, which killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and other structures, was caused by electrical arcing on an out-of-service transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which caused hot metal fragments to fall into the dried vegetation below.

Here are key takeaways from the investigative report and recent court filings by lawyers representing fire victims:

Edison didn’t turn off power on its Eaton Canyon transmission lines, despite emergency conditions.

Before the fire, the National Weather Service predicted a “life-threatening” windstorm, investigators wrote in their report released Aug. 4. Santa Ana wind gusts were forecast to reach speeds of 60 to 80 miles per hour, with peak gusts of 90 miles per hour in the mountains.

Earlier that day, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency because of an out-of-control fire that was burning homes in Pacific Palisades.

Despite those conditions, Edison kept power flowing through its high-voltage transmission lines built in the mountains above Altadena. Investigators noted that wind gusts at a weather station about a half-mile from the Edison tower where the fire started recorded gusts up to 68 miles per hour just before the first flames at 6:11 p.m. By 7, gusts were up to 85 miles per hour.

Dunleavy said the conditions did not meet the company’s internal standards for shutting off the lines.

“SCE was actively monitoring the transmission lines in Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7 and none of these lines met our de-energization criteria,” Dunleavy said.

Safety equipment on the out-of-service line was damaged before the fire but not fixed.

Edison had installed safety equipment at both ends of the out-of-service, unconnected transmission line in Eaton Canyon, including at the pylon known as Tower 208 where the fire ignited. But on the night of the fire, the equipment was broken, according to a June court filing.

The equipment was designed to send any unexpected power on the out-of-service line safely into the earth. The grounding equipment was necessary because the idle Mesa-Sylmar line ran parallel to 12 energized high-voltage lines, creating the danger of induction.

Induction happens when electromagnetic fields cause power on energized lines to jump to nearby idle equipment.

At Tower 208, a component known as a compression paddle was not securely bonded to the pylon, allowing debris to form and creating a dangerous air pocket, the filing said. The paddle was meant to be secured with four bolts, but only one bolt was used.

Government fire investigators also found broken equipment at one of the Mesa-Sylmar towers during a tour of the site with Edison after the fire. According to their report, investigators observed “the center conductor dangling free from the bridge section of the tower; it appeared that the remaining two conductors were not bored down to the tower bridge.”

The investigators said they discussed the equipment “abnormalities” with an Edison lineman and lawyer on the tour. “The Lineman said that they were not new and were like this last year; he was also unsure why they were not corrected when it was inspected,” the investigators wrote.

Asked why the equipment was not fixed, Dunleavy said, “We’re looking into that.”

She said the company strives to have a strong maintenance and inspection program and still was performing post-fire examinations and testing.

Edison kept the century-old, out-of-service Mesa-Sylmar line in place for decades, despite knowing idle lines could reenergize and spark fires.

Utilities have known for decades that unused lines can become energized from nearby electrified equipment through the induction process.

To teach employees about the danger, Edison created a training video featuring a 2007 incident in which a line known as the Kramer-Coolwater circuit was de-energized to allow work by a crew. The line became reenergerized while laying on the ground and started several fires, according to a retelling of the video in a July court filing by lawyers representing victims. Later that day, the crew’s foreman was injured when he touched the line.

Eleven years later, the Kramer-Coolwater circuit was unconnected from the grid, similar to the line in Eaton Canyon. Yet the line was electrified by induction from adjacent lines again in 2018, electrocuting a lineman who touched the conductor, the court filing said.

The company has said it kept the line in place even though it hadn’t carried power since 1971 because executives believed it could be used in the future.

Dunleavy said the induction event in the training video was different from what appears to have happened on Jan. 7 with the Eaton Canyon transmission lines.

“We had never seen an idle, de-energized transmission line cause an ignition,” she said.

Edison failed to clear vegetation below the tower where the fire ignited.

The investigators’ report said the fire ignited when electrical arcing on the idle line caused hot metal particles to fall into “the receptive fuel beds consisting of dry vegetation” below the tower.

The June court filing includes details from Google Earth images showing that the vegetation under Tower 208 had not been trimmed since at least 2021. Leaving the brush to grow violated Edison’s safety standard for “structure brushing,” the filing said.

Edison explained structure brushing in an article last year, describing how it cleared all vegetation around certain equipment, creating a 10-foot barrier to reduce the fire risk.

Asked why Edison let brush grow below the idle line, Dunleavy said, “We inspect and maintain all our equipment according to existing regulations and laws.”

Edison has sued L.A. County and other public entities, saying that their failures, including not clearing brush and delayed evacuation warnings, increased the fire’s destruction.

A fight over accountability

The first jury trial looking at whether Edison acted negligently in igniting the fire is scheduled to begin Jan. 25.

Later, state regulators will evaluate whether the company acted “prudently” in its actions related to the fire’s start.

Under a 2019 law brought by Newsom to protect utilities from bankruptcy, the companies automatically are deemed to have acted prudently if regulators sign off on their wildfire prevention plan.

Newsom’s safety regulators approved Edison’s plan just before the Eaton fire. That means Edison will be fully reimbursed for the billions of dollars in Eaton fire damages by a state fund that Newsom’s legislation created unless outside parties can prove Edison acted imprudently, negligently or worse.

“We continue to believe we will make a good faith showing of prudency,” Dunleavy said.

Newsom is working behind closed doors on legislation to further protect Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit electric utilities from the cost of wildfires caused by their equipment, the Times reported this year.

The three companies’ equipment ignited at least seven of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires, according to CalFire. The Eaton fire was the state’s second-most destructive fire after the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed most of the town of Paradise. That fire, according to investigators, was ignited by an old transmission line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric.

The survivors of Eaton and other fires are fighting Newsom’s plan, saying it would leave California more vulnerable to utility-sparked fires.

“The real danger is what will happen to Californians if we further strip away these corporations’ financial incentives to prevent catastrophic fires,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, wrote in an analysis sent to state lawmakers this week.

“These are not innocent companies overtaken by climate change, nor is this an abstract problem of ‘wildfire liability,’” she wrote. “It is a continuing pattern of catastrophic corporate failure.”

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the top United States diplomat in Islamabad on Wednesday, hours after US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor described Indian-administered Kashmir as “an important part of India” during his first visit to the territory.

Islamabad rejected the remark and reasserted Kashmir’s status as disputed territory.

The visit by Gor, who also serves as President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, was the first standalone trip by a serving US ambassador to Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019, and the first since India stripped the territory of its autonomy that year.

His remarks were made publicly, alongside Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, adding to Islamabad’s irritation.

The episode also comes at a delicate moment for Washington’s ties with both South Asian rivals, as Pakistan courts Trump’s administration more closely than it has in years, and as the US tries to balance that relationship against its strategic partnership with India.

So, what exactly did the US ambassador say, why has it caused such offence, and does it change anything? Al Jazeera explains.

What did the US ambassador say?

Sergio Gor, a 38-year-old former Trump aide who was confirmed as US ambassador to India in January, spent two days in Srinagar and Ladakh this week.

After meeting Abdullah in Srinagar, he told reporters he was thrilled to be visiting “an important part of India” for the first time.

He also said Washington was reconsidering its “do not travel” advisory, citing improved security under Abdullah’s administration.

The advisory at the moment places Jammu and Kashmir at a “Do Not Travel” level, citing terrorism and civil unrest, though it exempts the eastern territories of Ladakh and Leh.

Islamabad’s response came the same Wednesday evening. The Foreign Ministry summoned Charge d’Affaires Natalie Baker, who currently heads the US mission in the country.

The ministry lodged what it called a “strong demarche”, rejecting the “characterisation of Indian-administered Kashmir as a ‘part of India’” and reasserting it as an internationally recognised disputed territory awaiting final disposition under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The statement called Gor’s remarks factually incorrect and said they negated Washington’s longstanding position on the dispute.

It also thanked Trump for his offer – made after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire ending their four-day war last year – to help resolve the Kashmir question, urging Washington to keep its public language consistent with that position.

Why does Kashmir trigger such a reaction?

Kashmir is a Himalayan region claimed by both India and Pakistan since British colonial rule ended in August 1947.

India and Pakistan each administer part of the territory but claim it in full and have fought several wars over it.

A UN Security Council resolution passed in 1949 called for the territory’s final status to be decided by a plebiscite, which has never been held.

In June, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas signed a joint statement with Pakistan’s foreign minister in Islamabad that bracketed Kashmir alongside the war in Ukraine and called for its resolution “through dialogue and diplomacy”.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the reference, saying those with no standing in the matter should refrain from commenting on it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn similar protests from Delhi at least twice after voicing support for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir.

Trump himself triggered a dispute in 2019 when, during a meeting with then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, he claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally asked him to mediate on Kashmir. Modi’s government swiftly denied the account in parliament.

For Pakistan, US language on Kashmir’s disputed status is an important external validation of its effort to internationalise the issue.

For India, meanwhile, any suggestion that Kashmir remains open to outside mediation cuts against the foundation of its position.

What has the US position been, historically?

The US has officially maintained that Kashmir is disputed and its status should be settled between India and Pakistan, taking into consideration the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

American officials have repeated some version of “our policy has not changed” across successive administrations, including in 2019, when a senior US diplomat told Congress that India’s move had not altered Washington’s view of the Line of Control as a “de facto” boundary.

Formally, Washington has avoided recognising sovereignty over the territory for either country.

A major turning point came in 1999, when President Bill Clinton told Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Pakistani forces would have to withdraw from Kargil in Indian-administered Kashmir, following the fighting there between the two countries in the region.

Analysts widely saw the episode as the beginning of Washington’s tilt towards Delhi.

But after the two countries’ most intense clash in decades last year, Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire and offered to “work with you both” on a Kashmir “solution”.

Pakistan welcomed the offer and nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. India rejected suggestions of US mediation, saying the ceasefire had been reached through direct military talks.

Jauhar Saleem, Pakistan’s former foreign secretary and president of the Islamabad-based Institute of Regional Studies, told Al Jazeera that Gor’s remark should not be mistaken for a change in US policy.

“US policy on a question as consequential as Jammu and Kashmir cannot be read from an off-the-cuff formulation during a visit by a US ambassador posted in India,” Saleem said. “Any change in policy would be reflected in Washington’s formal statements, State Department language and, in fact, should be at the level of the White House.”

He said such lapses were not new.

“Sometimes ambassadors fall prey to what we call ‘localitis’, and in an attempt to please their hosts can make comments entirely out of line with their country’s stated policy, creating unpleasant situations,” he said. “This is a classic example and has therefore evoked an expected strong demarche from Pakistan’s Foreign Office.”

Saleem said Trump’s repeated offers to mediate between Pakistan and India, “which was not appreciated in New Delhi”, showed that Washington’s position remained unsettled at the top rather than shifting towards India. “I would actually expect a clarification from Washington soon,” he added.

Will it affect Pakistan-US ties?

Saleem, who summoned a US ambassador in Islamabad during his tenure as foreign secretary in late 2022 over what he called “a very objectionable remark” by then-President Joe Biden, said a demarche was not primarily a tool to punish Washington. Biden had described Pakistan as “one of the most dangerous nations in the world”.

“A demarche is not just made to increase the cost of a policy; rather it is made to press a point and ask for an explanation,” the former ambassador told Al Jazeera. “The US response was constructive [then], and will be in this case as well, I believe.”

He said the Pakistan-US relationship was too broad-based for one ambassador’s remark to unsettle it, pointing to Pakistan’s role as a peacemaker between the US and Iran, economic cooperation, counterterrorism, regional security, Afghanistan, defence cooperation, “and of course Pakistan’s relationship with the Trump administration itself”.

Tariq Rashid Khan, a Pakistani former military general and diplomat, described the episode as “issue-specific boundary-setting”.

Islamabad’s protest, he told Al Jazeera, signals that a close strategic partnership with Washington “does not mean acceptance of any position on Kashmir contrary to Pakistan’s stated position”.

“Kashmir remains an unfinished agenda of the 1947 partition, which is why even one sentence can become strategically significant,” he said.

For Saleem, the significance lies less in Gor’s specific words than in what any drift in language could set in motion.

“Jammu and Kashmir is not just a territorial dispute; it is an issue of national identity, legitimacy and security for Pakistan,” he told Al Jazeera. “Neither Pakistan nor India can afford to let the international community’s vocabulary on Kashmir drift even slightly, because both sides believe that language today can become precedent tomorrow.”

Aizaz Chaudhry, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, told Al Jazeera he believed Gor’s remarks “might be his personal comments”, adding that the US position on the disputed territory is well known.

“Our demarche is only a reminder that the US envoy in Delhi must comply with the US position on the subject. The Kashmir dispute is a longstanding issue that must be resolved for the larger peace and stability of South Asia,” Chaudhry said.

Californians are more concerned about the Trump administration interfering in the state’s midterm elections than they are about voter fraud, noncitizens voting illegally or foreign interference, according to a new poll.

A majority of voters — 61% — identified potential federal interference as a “major concern” heading into November, slightly more than the 59% who cited possible foreign interference as such, according to the poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.

By comparison, 41% of California voters identified voter fraud and 37% identified noncitizens voting as major concerns, the poll found.

The polling reflects the liberal leanings of the state, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, as well as the nation’s hyperpartisan divide on voting issues and vulnerabilities.

That divide has been driven for years by President Trump’s relentless criticism of U.S. elections, particularly in large blue states such as California, and recently by his administration’s attempts to wrest control over voting processes from the states based on unverified claims of widespread fraud and the fierce pushback against those claims from California Democrats and other liberal leaders around the country.

The White House has dismissed concerns about interference and accused Democrats of obstructing its efforts to protect American elections from fraud, including through the proposed SAVE America Act — which would enforce strict new ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters nationwide.

While 80% of Democratic respondents to the poll said potential federal interference in the state’s elections was a major concern, just 28% of Republican respondents identified it as such.

Voter fraud was identified as a major concern by 84% of Republican voters but just 21% of Democratic voters, the poll found. Noncitizens voting illegally also was identified as a major concern by 85% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.

Republicans also have substantial concerns about the security of mail ballots and how slowly California counts its vote, while Democrats were far less concerned about those issues, the poll found.

Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, said it clearly reflects the partisan divide around election issues and “shows that in this state, federal interference is a big deal — more so than in other places around the country.”

He called that a “big finding” in line with previous polls that found “Californians are very concerned about prioritizing efforts to defend democracy and to protect election systems,” including in the face of threats from Trump — who routinely has focused on the state in his regular attacks on election integrity.

“For 61% of Californians to say that’s a major concern to them in terms of the threats to the election system, I think that’s very newsworthy,” DiCamillo said.

He also noted the particularly stark difference between state Democrats and Republicans on the issue of noncitizens voting.

“Nearly 90% of Democrats say that’s not a concern, whereas 85% of Republicans feel it is,” he said. “Californians have a lot of noncitizens in the state, but Democrats don’t think they’re infecting the voter rolls, so they’re not concerned about it.”

That was striking, DiCamillo said, given how much Trump has pointed to California to claim that noncitizens are voting.

“Obviously, the Democrats are very strongly opposed to the president, what he’s trying to do, and the Republicans are supportive,” DiCamillo said.

Other findings in the poll also support that conclusion.

For instance, while Trump has claimed without evidence that mail ballots are a major source of fraud and their use should be reined in, the poll found that 72% of Californians approve of mail ballots as a primary method for voting in the state — with 58% saying they strongly approve.

California law requires every registered voter in the state to be sent a mail ballot, and more than 80% of voters have used such ballots in recent elections.

Trump also repeatedly has accused California officials of failing to secure state elections against fraud and of cheating as they count later-arriving mail ballots. But the poll found that Californians by greater than a 2-to-1 margin — 65% to 31% — are confident local election officials are accurately and fairly counting ballots. However, the poll did find that more than half of respondents, 53%, had concerns about delays in California’s vote-counting process.

Overall, 64% of respondents were confident in the integrity of the state’s election system, compared to 34% who were not.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, downplayed the threats of voter fraud and noncitizens voting in the state, but acknowledged they are real concerns for some voters — which is a problem in itself.

“I see election security as both a matter of actual security and perceived security. And the truth is that we have a great deal of actual security in California elections, but, unfortunately, that security is not being perceived by some voters,” she said. She attributed that in part to the “constant drumbeat that we’ve had now for a decade, coming from the occupant of the White House, that our elections are rigged.”

Alexander said California law requires registering voters to prove and attest to their identity and has multiple verification measures to ensure people casting ballots are who they say they are. She said there are “common sense” reasons why noncitizens do not try to vote — including that it requires them to turn over personal information and could be grounds for criminal charges and deportation, which is “a huge disincentive.”

Alexander also said Trump administration interference in the midterms is a real concern, but so is overhyping the threat to the point it discourages voters from casting ballots.

“Not to dismiss the threats — the threats are real — but the more we talk about them, the more we scare voters,” Alexander said. “I’ve encountered voters who’ve said this to me: ‘What’s the point in voting when they’re just gonna cheat?’ Or, you know: ‘It’s all rigged.’ And that’s part of the play here — is to scare people into thinking that voting doesn’t matter.”

To counter that, Alexander said it is “really important that people be aware that there are threats, but to not let those threats be debilitating or to allow them to dissuade people from wanting to participate.”

The poll surveyed 4,207 registered voters in California from Aug. 3 to 9, online in English and Spanish, and has an estimated margin of error of about 2.5 percentage points in either direction.