Politics

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled their long-promised report on former President Biden’s use of the autopen, delivering a blistering critique of his time in office and inner circle that largely rehashes public information while making sweeping accusations about the workings of his White House.

The GOP report does not include any concrete evidence that aides conspired to enact policies without Biden’s knowledge or that the president was unaware of laws, pardons or executive orders signed in his name. But Republicans said their findings cast doubt on all of Biden’s actions in office. They sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging a full investigation. President Trump ordered a similar inquiry earlier this year.

At its core, the report advances contested claims that Biden’s mental state declined to a degree that allowed White House officials to enact policies without his knowledge. It focuses heavily on the pardons he granted in office, including to his son, Hunter Biden, based on depositions with close Biden aides.

“The cost of the scheme to hide the fallout of President Biden’s diminished physical and mental acuity was great but will likely never be fully calculated,” the report reads. “The cover-up put American national security at risk and the nation’s trust in its leaders in jeopardy.”

Biden has strenuously denied he was unaware of his administration’s actions, calling such claims “ridiculous and false.” Democrats on the House Oversight committee denounced the probe as a distraction and waste of time.

Republicans are shifting attention back to Biden at a tumultuous time, 10 months into Trump’s presidency, with the government shut down and Congress at a standstill over legislation to fund it. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has kept the House out of session for nearly a month, with most public-facing committee work grinding to a halt.

The report on Biden was largely compiled over several months before the shutdown began. Based on interviews with more than a dozen members of Biden’s inner circle, the report offers few new revelations, instead drawing broad conclusions from unanswered questions.

It includes repeated references to polls of Biden’s approval rating and perceptions of his public gaffes and apparent aging, much of it publicly known.

It alleges a “cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline” orchestrated by Biden’s inner circle and takes particular aim at Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against testifying. Republicans also singled out senior aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, who similarly pleaded the Fifth. All three “should face further scrutiny” from the Justice Department, Republicans said.

Republicans also sent a letter to the D.C. Board of Medicine urging that O’Connor face “discipline, sanction or revocation of his medical license” and “be barred from the practice of medicine in the District of Columbia.”

The report does not include full transcripts of the at-times multiple hours of recorded testimony that witnesses delivered before the committee. It repeatedly scolds Biden officials and Democratic allies for defending Biden’s mental state.

“The inner-most circle, or cocoon, of the White House senior staff organized one of the largest scandals in American history — hiding a cognitively failing president and refusing any means of confirmation of such demise,” the report says.

While the report claims that record-keeping policies in the Biden White House “were so lax that the chain of custody for a given decision is difficult or impossible to establish,” Republicans do not offer any concrete instances of the chain of command being violated or a policy being enacted without Biden’s knowledge.

Still, Republicans argue that Biden’s use of the autopen should be considered invalid unless there is documented proof of him approving a decision.

“Barring evidence of executive actions taken during the Biden presidency showing that President Biden indeed took a particular executive action, the committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void,” the report says.

Democrats and legal experts have warned that broad scrutiny of executive actions could pose future legal headaches for the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, who also often enact policies directed by lawmakers through devices like the presidential autopen.

Brown and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.

TOKYO — President Trump treated his time in Japan on Tuesday as a victory lap — befriending the new Japanese prime minister, taking her with him as he spoke to U.S. troops aboard an aircraft carrier and then unveiling several major energy and technology projects in America to be funded by Japan.

Sanae Takaichi, who became the country’s first female prime minister only days ago, solidified her relationship with Trump while defending her country’s economic interests. She talked baseball, stationed a Ford F-150 truck outside their meeting and greeted Trump with, by his estimation, a firm handshake.

By the end of the day, Trump — by his administration’s count — came close to nailing down the goal of $550 billion in Japanese investment as part of a trade framework. At a dinner for business leaders in Tokyo, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in commitments, including $100 billion each for nuclear projects involving Westinghouse and GE Vernova.

“You’re great business people,” Trump told the gathered executives before the dinner. “Our country will not let you down.”

It was not immediately clear how the investments would operate and how they compared with previous plans, but Trump declared a win as he capped off a day of bonding with Takaichi.

Trump and Japanese PM swap warm words

The compliments started as soon as the two leaders met on Tuesday morning. “That’s a very strong handshake,” Trump said to Takaichi.

She talked about watching the third game of the U.S. World Series before the event, and said Japan would give Washington 250 cherry trees and fireworks for July 4 celebrations to honor America’s 250th anniversary next year.

Takaichi emphasized her ties to the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, her archconservative mentor who had forged a friendship with Trump during his first term through their shared interest of golf.

“As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Abe often told me about your dynamic diplomacy,” she said, later gifting Trump a putter used by Abe.

Trump told her it was a “big deal” that she is Japan’s first woman prime minister, and said the U.S. is committed to Japan. While the president is known for not shying away from publicly scolding his foreign counterparts, he had nothing but praise for Takaichi.

“Anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there,” Trump said. “We are an ally at the strongest level.”

Takaichi laid out a charm offensive, serving American beef and rice mixed with Japanese ingredients during a working lunch, where the two leaders also discussed efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Takaichi would be nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two leaders signed black “Japan is Back” baseball caps that resembled Trump’s own red “Make America Great Again” caps.

Reporters arriving for the meeting were hustled past a gold-hued Ford F-150 outside the Akasaka Palace, which is Tokyo’s guest house for visiting foreign leaders.

Trump has often complained that Japan doesn’t buy American vehicles, which are often too wide to be practical on narrow Japanese streets. But the Japanese government is considering buying a fleet of Ford trucks for road and infrastructure inspection.

They vow a ‘golden age’ for alliance and cooperation on critical minerals

Both leaders signed the implementation of an agreement for the “golden age” of their nations’ alliance, a short affirmation of a framework under which the U.S. will tax goods imported from Japan at 15% while Japan creates a $550 billion fund of investments in the U.S.

Later, at a dinner at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo packed with CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Trump reveled in the deals. Trump and Takaichi also signed an agreement to cooperate on critical minerals and rare earths.

Trump has focused his foreign policy toward Asia around tariffs and trade, but on Tuesday he also spoke aboard the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier docked at an American naval base near Tokyo. The president brought Takaichi with him and she also spoke as Japan plans to increase its military spending.

The president talked about individual units on the aircraft carrier, his political opponents, national security and the U.S. economy, saying that Takaichi had told him that Toyota would be investing $10 billion in auto plants in America.

Trump arrived in Tokyo on Monday, meeting the emperor in a ceremonial visit after a brief trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Trump is scheduled to leave Japan on Wednesday for South Korea, which is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Trump plans to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

On Thursday, Trump is expected to cap off his Asia trip with a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. There were signs that tensions between the U.S. and China were cooling off before the planned meeting in South Korea. Top negotiators from each country said a trade deal was coming together, which could prevent a potentially damaging confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.

Boak and Megerian write for the Associated Press. Megerian reported from Seoul, South Korea. Mayuko Ono and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military carried out three strikes Monday in the waters of the Eastern Pacific against boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing 14 and leaving one survivor.

The announcement made on social media Tuesday, marks a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September spaced weeks apart. This was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day.

Hegseth said Mexican search and rescue authorities “assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue” of the sole survivor but didn’t say if that person would stay in their custody or be handed over to the U.S.

In a strike earlier in October which had two survivors, the U.S. military rescued the pair and later repatriated them to Colombia and Ecuador.

Hegseth posted footage of the strikes to social media in which two boats can be seen moving at speed through the water. One is visibly laden with a large amount of parcels or bundles. Both then suddenly explode and are seen aflame.

The third strike appears to have been conducted on a pair of boats that were stationary in the water alongside each other. They appear to be largely empty with at least two people seen moving before an explosion engulfs both boats.

Hegseth said “the four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.”

The death toll from the 13 disclosed strikes since early September is now at least 57 people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A shuttered business on Broadway in Santa Monica.

(David Butow/For The Times)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

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

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

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

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

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

An unhoused man naps on a bench in Palisades Park.

(David Butow / For The Times)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beachgoers enjoying the scene near the Santa Monica Pier.

(David Butow/For The Times)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hall called the plan a bold bet.

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

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

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

Oct. 28 (UPI) — The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday asked the Justice Department to investigate former President Joe Biden‘s use of the autopen to sign executive orders and pardons.

The request came after the committee released a report on its investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen and whether it indicated an administration coverup of an alleged cognitive decline.

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the committee, accused Biden’s aides of coordinating “a cover-up of the president’s diminishing faculties.”

Over the summer, the oversight committee interviewed more than a dozen former aides and advisers to Biden. Among those who appeared before the committee were former chiefs of staff Ron Klein and Jeff Zients, and Biden’s former physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who invoked the Fifth Amendment.

In addition to the letter to Bondi, Comer sent a letter to Andrea Anderson, chairwoman of the board of medicine at the District of Columbia Health calling on the board to investigate whether O’Connor was “derelict in his duty as a physician by, including but not limited to, issuing misleading medical reports, misrepresenting treatments, failing to conform to standards of practice, or other acts in violation of District of Columbia law regulating licensed physicians.”

The committee recommended that O’Connor’s medical license be revoked.

President Donald Trump has taken particular issue with Biden’s use of the autopen during his presidency, though he, himself, has used it. In a Presidential Walk of Fame exhibit installed at the White House in September, photos of each president were displayed outside the West Wing, except Biden’s. Instead, a photo of an autopen was put in Biden’s place.

There’s been a long history of presidents using an autopen to sign the many documents that come across their desks each day, beginning with the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. According to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, which collects historical documents, Presidents Gerald Ford, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama used the device, some to sign the many requests for autographs and letters, others to sign important documents and orders.

In 2005, then-President George W. Bush asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel whether it was constitutional for him to sign official documents using the autopen. The office concluded that “the president need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”

Trump said he has used the autopen but not for important documents. In June, he ordered an investigation into Biden’s cognitive state.

Biden has denied Trump’s claims about his mental faculties and autopen use.

“I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement.

“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations.

“Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” he added.

Today we’re taking a tour through the mythical Land of Election Fraud, where President Trump has built a palace of lies, imprisoning both truth and democracy.

I put it in fairy tale terms because the idea that American elections are corrupt should hold about as much credence as a magical beanstalk growing into the sky. Countless lawsuits and investigations have found no proof of these false claims.

But here we are — not only do many Americans erroneously believe that Trump won the 2020 election, but the chief water-carriers of that lie are now in powerful government positions.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will send monitors to Los Angeles and other locations in California and New Jersey for next week’s balloting. Those who study voting and democracies warn that this could be a test run for how far Trump could go in attempting to impose his will on the 2026 midterms and perhaps the 2028 presidential election.

If you think that it is harmless coincidence that he’s stacked election deniers in key posts, or that once again California is the center of his attack on democratic norms, I have beans you may be interested in buying.

“The sending of the observers to the special election could very well be, and probably likely is, a precursor or practice run for 2026,” Mindy Romero told me. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Like others I spoke with, Romero sees a larger context to the poll monitors that has the potential to end with voter suppression.

“The Trump administration is laying a foundation, and they’re being very open about it, very clear about it,” Romero said. “They are saying that they are anticipating there to be fraud and for the election to be rigged.”

Trump put it even more clearly in a social media post on Sunday.

“I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history!,” he wrote. “If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. … Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is!”

To understand where all this may be headed involves digging back into Golden State history. The conspiracy underpinning election fraud claims has deep roots in California’s Proposition 187 — the anti-immigrant measure that was passed by voters in 1994 but squashed by the courts.

The far right never got over the defeat. Anti-immigrant sentiment morphed into conspiracy theory, specifically that undocumented folks were voting in huge numbers, at the behest of Democrats.

This absolutely loony bit of racist paranoia spawned an “election integrity” movement that cloaked itself as patriotism and fairness, but at heart remained doused in fear-of-brown.

Calfornia Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Monday he sees that Proposition 187 “playbook” at work today with “a targeting, unfortunately, of immigrants … because it creates fear in the eyes of some, in the minds of some, and it helps the Republican Party, MAGA and the Trump administration achieve their goals.”

Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are just the flip side of the coin to his election fraud claims — both at heart a part of the white Christian nationalism that his administration is now openly embracing.

Let me just say here that all Americans want fair elections and many average folks involved in election integrity efforts simply want to ensure our one-person, one-vote system stays honest — regardless of race or anything else. No hate on them at all. It’s the funders and organizers of many voter witch-hunt efforts that draw my ire, because they exploit that reasonable wish for fairness for their own dark agenda.

And that agenda increasingly appears to be the end of free and fair elections, while maintaining the appearance of them — the classic authoritarian way of ruling with the seeming consent of the people. Remember, Russia still holds elections.

“To have real control, you want to rule with a velvet glove,” Romero said. “That velvet glove can come off, and the people know it can come off,” but mostly, you want them to comply because it feels like “just what has to be.”

So how exactly would we get from poll monitors, a reasonable and established norm, to something as dire as an election that is rigged, or that is so chaotic the average person doesn’t know the truth?

It starts with introducing doubt into the system, which Trump has done. To be fair, with Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Democrats now fear rigged elections, too.

But Gowri Ramachandran, the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, told me her “biggest fear” is that those election deniers whom Trump elevated to official roles “now have the platform of the federal government.”

For that reason, “information about elections [that] comes out of the federal government right now, I think everyone’s going to have to take it with a really big grain of salt,” she said.

So we come out of the California 2025 special election unable to trust the federal government’s take on it, with one year until the midterm elections that will determine whether or not Trump’s power remains unfettered.

Maybe everything turns out fine, but there’s a string of other maybes where it doesn’t.

Let’s say Trump tries to declare an end to mail-in ballots and early voting, both of which increase turnout for lower-income folks who don’t have time to line up. Trump tried that earlier this year, though courts blocked it.

What does the 2026 election look like if you have to line up in person to vote if you want to be sure it counts, with ICE potentially around the block rounding up citizens and noncitizens alike? And the government requiring that you have multiple forms of identification, all with matching names (take that, married women), and even military “guarding” the polls?

Kind of intimidating, huh?

But let’s say the election happens anyway. And let’s say Republicans lose enough congressional seats to put Democrats in control of the House. But let’s say the federal government claims there is so much fraud, it has to be investigated before any results can be considered official.

Private groups sue on both sides. Half the country believes Trump, half the country believes the secretaries of state, like California’s Shirley Weber, charged with managing the results.

In that chaos, the newly elected Democratic representatives head to Washington, D.C., to get to work, only to have House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refuse to swear them in — no differently than he is currently doing with elected Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who has promised to vote to release the Epstein files if Johnson ever does his job.

Romero calls that scenario “not even … that big of a stretch.”

Congress comes to a halt, not enough members sworn in to function, which is just fine by Trump.

And voila! The vote is suppressed by confusion, chaos and the velvet glove, because of course it’s reasonable to want to know the truth before we move forward.

So monitor away. Watch the polls and watch the watchers, and protect the vote.

But don’t buy the beans.

SACRAMENTO — Top California health officials warned that federal cuts will deliver a devastating blow to public health, even as the state grapples with ways to mitigate the damage.

“These changes will impact our emergency departments, rural hospitals, private and public hospitals, community health centers, ambulance providers and the broader health care system that serves every community,” said Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services.

Baass was among several experts who spoke Monday at a briefing about the effects of HR 1, a massive tax and spending bill passed by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump that shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs for the vulnerable and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. She said the legislation makes sweeping changes to Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California.

It “will cause widespread harm by making massive reductions in federal funding and potentially cripple the health care safety net,” Baass said. “These changes put tens of billions of dollars of federal funding at risk for California and could result in a loss of coverage for millions of Californians.”

Roughly 15 million Californians — a third of the state — are on Medi-Cal, with some of the highest percentages being in rural counties. More than half of the children in California receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal, healthcare coverage provided to eligible, low-income residents, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.

California officials expect the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medi-Cal and other essential healthcare programs. Given that California is facing an ongoing budget deficit, it is highly unlikely that the state will be able to raise enough money to make up for the loss in funding to continue the current level of services to residents, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Baass explained the federal legislation creates new eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Starting in 2027, many individuals ages 19 to 64 will need to work for at least 80 hours a month, or perform 80 hours of community service or be enrolled in an educational program, to qualify. The law allows various exemptions, including pregnancy, disabilities, or caring for children under the age of 19.

She estimated 3 million Medi-Cal recipients could lose coverage as a result.

“This would significantly drive up the uninsured rate that raises cost for hospitals treating uninsured patients,” Baass said.

Baass said HR 1, which Republicans labeled the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” also bans abortion providers from receiving federal Medicaid funding — even for healthcare services they offer that are not related to the procedure — and reduces federal dollars for emergency medical care for undocumented immigrants. It additionally limits state funding mechanisms, such as taxes paid by managed care providers, and establishes federal penalties for improper payments.

CalFresh, the state name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expecting cuts of at least $1.7 billion annually, said Jennifer Troia, director of the California Department of Social Services. About 395,000 people could lose their benefits for government food assistance.

SNAP benefits are also being hit by the current government shutdown, with payments halting in November.

At the heart of the shutdown is a political standoff in Washington over the expiring tax credits for people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats said they will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to renew the expanded subsidies. Republican leaders refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.

Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimated over the summer that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out because of increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled.

Impacts from the new federal cuts and policies are already being felt across the state and nation.

A Planned Parenthood program in Orange and San Bernardino counties announced its imminent closure earlier this month due to being federally defunded. Los Angeles County’s health system has implemented a hiring freeze and is bracing to lose $750 million per year for the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. Meanwhile, food banks nationwide are seeking donations and preparing for longer lines.

Kim Johnson, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, discussed how California is fighting back.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced he is deploying the National Guard and fast-tracking $80 million to support food banks, she said. This came alongside the governor’s decision to allocate $140 million in state funding to Planned Parenthood.

Johnson said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed more than two dozen lawsuits related to HR 1.

“Here in California,” she said, “we will continue to mitigate the harm of these federal changes wherever we can.”

It was one of the most dramatic protests in Los Angeles by activists who opposed Israel’s war in Gaza: a shutdown of the southbound lanes of the 110 Freeway as it passes through downtown.

In a chaotic scene captured by news helicopters, protesters sat down on the freeway in December 2013, halting traffic just south of the four-level interchange. On live television, enraged motorists responded by getting into physical altercations with demonstrators.

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office later charged many of the protesters with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, failure to comply with a lawful order and obstruction of a street, sidewalk or other public corridor — all misdemeanors.

On Monday, after a lengthy legal battle, a judge agreed to put 29 protesters into a 12-month diversion program, which requires that each performs 20 hours of community service.

If they complete that service and obey the law, the charges will be dismissed in October 2026, said Colleen Flynn, the protesters’ attorney.

In court Monday, Flynn praised her clients for taking a stand, motivated by a moral duty to “bring attention to the loss of life and humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza.”

“These are people who were, out of conscience, making a decision to engage in an act of civil disobedience,” she told the judge.

Two others charged in connection with the protest were granted judicial diversion earlier this year and have already completed their community service. The charges against them have been dismissed, Flynn said.

Flynn initially asked for the 29 protesters to each receive eight hours of community service. City prosecutors successfully pushed for 20 hours, saying the political reason for the protest had no bearing on the case. Deputy City Atty. Brad Rothenberg told the judge that the freeway closure lasted about four hours.

“That affected thousands of people who come to the second largest city in the United States to work,” he said.

The hearing brought a quiet end to a furious legal battle.

Flynn spent several months pushing for the case to be dismissed, arguing that Feldstein Soto’s decision to charge the protesters was rooted in “impermissible bias” — religious or ethnic prejudice against Palestinians and their supporters.

At multiple hearings, Flynn said her clients experienced disparate treatment compared to other protesters who also disrupted traffic but were highlighting different political issues, such as higher wages for hotel workers. Flynn also pointed to social media posts by Feldstein Soto on Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others.

“Every nation and every moral person must support Israel in defending her people,” Feldstein Soto wrote on her @ElectHydee page.

Last month, a judge denied Flynn’s request to dismiss the case. At that hearing, prosecutors said the protesters were charged because they shut down a freeway, creating a particular threat to public safety.

Prosecutors argued that a motorcycle traveling between traffic lanes at a high rate of speed easily could have plowed into freeway protesters who were sitting cross-legged on the pavement.

Prosecutors also defended Feldstein Soto’s social media posts, saying they were written on the day of the invasion, before Israel had launched its counterattack. At that point, Feldstein Soto was expressing outrage over a horrific day of violence, the prosecutors said.

Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, a majority of whom were women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

As trial opens, Tetsuya Yamagami admits murdering Japan’s longest serving leader three years ago.

The man accused of killing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022 has pleaded guilty to murder.

Forty-five-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami admitted all charges read out by prosecutors as his trial opened on Tuesday, according to the Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Yamagami was charged with murder and violations of arms control laws for allegedly using a handmade weapon to shoot Japan’s longest serving leader.

“Everything is true,” the suspect told the court, according to the AFP news agency.

Abe was shot as he gave a speech during an election campaign in the western city of Nara on July 8, 2022. Yamagami was arrested at the scene.

The assassination was reportedly triggered by the suspect’s anger over links between Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the Unification Church.

Yamagami held a grudge against the South Korean religious group due to his mother’s donation of 100 million yen ($663,218). The gift ruined his family’s financial health, Japanese media reported.

Long the subject of controversy and criticism, the Unification Church, whose followers are referred to disparagingly as “Moonies”, has since faced increased pressure from authorities over accusations of bribery.

The church’s Japanese followers are viewed as a key source of income.

The shooting was followed by revelations that more than 100 LDP lawmakers had ties to the Unification Church, driving down public support for the ruling party.

After Tuesday’s initial court session, 17 more hearings are scheduled this year before a verdict is scheduled for January 21.

The trial opened the same day as two of Abe’s former allies, LDP leader and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and visiting United States President Donald Trump, held a summit in Tokyo.

Abe, who served as Japan’s prime minister for almost nine years, is regularly mentioned by both during public events.

On Tuesday, Takaichi gave Trump a golf putter owned by Abe and other golf memorabilia during their meeting at the Akasaka Palace.

Oct. 28 (UPI) — A statue of a Confederate general toppled amid the civil rights protests that swept across the country during the summer of 2020 has been reinstalled in Washington, D.C.’s Judiciary Square.

The 27-foot bronze and marble statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike was reportedly returned to the square on Saturday.

It had been removed after protesters toppled the statue, the only one honoring a Confederate general in the nation’s capital, in June 2020 amid Black Lives Matter protests demanding an end to police brutality and racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer.

In August, the National Park Service announced that it would be restored in alignment “with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and reinstate pre-existing statues.”

While the NPS says the statue honors Pike’s “leadership in Freemasonry,” critics deride its return as the man fought against the United States in the Civil War.

“The morally objectionable move is an affront to the mostly Black and Brown residents of the District of Columbia and offensive to members of the military who serve honorably,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said in a statement.

“Pike represents the worst of the Confederacy and has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital.”

A son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has publicly revealed that he is homosexual, while at the same time defending his mother’s political views and the Republican Party’s “family values” campaign theme.

“The family values movement is not anti-gay,” said John F. Schlafly, a 41-year-old attorney who lives with his parents in Alton, Ill., and counts among his clients the Eagle Forum, the conservative group founded by his mother.

“These people are not anti-gay. They’re not gay bashers,” John Schlafly said in a telephone interview Friday. “I hold my mother in very high esteem. She’s doing good work.”

He added that he “didn’t agree with everything” he heard at the GOP convention but insisted that “efforts to convey the (Republican) Convention and the platform and speakers as bigots and gay bashers is completely inaccurate. The concept of family values should not be threatening to gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians have good relations with their family, as I do.”

Schlafly was “outed,” or revealed to be gay, by QW, a magazine published in New York, two weeks ago. He confirmed his homosexuality in an interview published Friday by the San Francisco Examiner.

“I thought it best to set the record straight,” Schlafly explained. “The media was trying to push the angle that there was some sort of hypocrisy going on, which I felt was inaccurate.”

Phyllis Schlafly characterized the media’s interest in her son’s revelation as “obviously a political hit against me.” She declined to say when she learned her son is gay and added that homosexuality “is not a big subject around (the Schlafly family).”

As for her stand on gay rights, Phyllis Schlafly said: “There’s nothing about my position on gay rights that should be offensive to a gay unless he’s seeking some kind of preferential status.”

While John Schlafly said he did not think it was right for someone to be fired based on sexual orientation, he said he did “not support the so-called gay-rights agenda” and was not sure what he thought of the military’s ban on homosexuals.

In his remarks to the Examiner, he disagreed with one common contention of the religious right, that homosexuality is a choice. “You can say in some sense I choose to write with my right or left hand,” Schlafly said. “But the point is that it is such an automatic decision. That’s how I see homosexuality.”

He also objected “to anyone saying that being gay constitutes not having good moral character.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.

The administration’s newest emergency appeal to the high court was filed a month and a half after a federal appeals court in Washington held that the official, Shira Perlmutter, could not be unilaterally fired.

Nearly four weeks ago, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to reconsider that ruling.

The case is the latest that relates to Trump’s authority to install his own people at the head of federal agencies. The Supreme Court has largely allowed Trump to fire officials, even as court challenges proceed.

But this case concerns an office that is within the Library of Congress. Perlmutter is the register of copyrights and also advises Congress on copyright issues.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his filing Monday that despite the ties to Congress, the register “wields executive power” in regulating copyrights.

Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.

A divided appellate panel ruled that Perlmutter could keep her job while the case moves forward.

“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Judge Florence Pan wrote for the appeals court. Judge Michelle Childs joined the opinion. Democratic President Biden appointed both judges to the appeals court.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote in dissent that Perlmutter “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”

Perlmutter’s attorneys have argued that she is a renowned copyright expert. She has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.

Trump appointed Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

Supporters of Proposition 50, California Democrats’ ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help the party’s effort to take power in the U.S. House of Representatives, raised more than four times the money as their rivals in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state by the three main committees campaigning about the measure.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s committee supporting the redistricting measure raised $36.8 million between Sept. 21 and Oct. 18, bringing their total to $114.3 million, according to the report filed with the Secretary of State’s office on Thursday, which was not available until Monday. They had $37.1 million in the bank and available to spend before the Nov. 4 special election.

“We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need in order to pass Proposition 50,” Newsom emailed supporters on Monday. “You can stop donating.”

The two main opposition groups raised a total of $8.4 million during the 28 days covered by the fundraising period, bringing their total haul to $43.7 million. They had $2.3 million cash on hand going into the final stretch of the campaign.

“As Gavin Newsom likes to say, we are not running the 90-yard dash here. We’ve seen a groundswell of support from Californians who understand what’s at stake if we let [President] Trump steal two more years of unchecked power,” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign. “But we are not taking anything for granted nor taking our foot off the gas. If we want to hold this dangerous and reckless president accountable, we must pass Prop. 50.”

Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, which are currently drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, in a middecade redistricting after Trump urged GOP-led states to redraw their districts in an effort for Republicans to retain control of Congress in next year’s midterm election.

The balance of power in the narrowly divided House will determine whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda during his final two years of office, or is the focus of investigations and possibly an impeachment effort.

Major donors supporting Proposition 50 include billionaire financier George Soros, the House Majority PAC – the campaign arm of congressional Democrats – and labor unions.

Among the opponents of Propostion 50, longtime GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of the longtime investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett, and the Congressional Leadership Fund – Republicans’ political arm in the House – were top contributors.

“While we are being outspent, we’re continuing to communicate with Californians the dangers of suspending California’s gold-standard redistricting process,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the committee funded by Munger. “With just ten days to go, we are encouraging all voters to make their voice heard and to vote.”

Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the committee that received $5 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the organization was committed to continue to raise money to block Newsom’s redistricting effort in the days leading up to the election.

“His costly power grab would silence millions of Californians and deny them fair representation in Congress, which is why grassroots opposition is gaining momentum,” Hockenbury said. “In the final push, our data-driven campaign is strategically targeting key voters with our message to ensure every resource helps us defeat Prop. 50.”

There are several other committees not affiliated with these main campaign groups that are receiving funding. Those include one created by billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer, who donated $12 million, and the California Republican Party, which received $8 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund.

These reports come a little more than a week before the Nov. 4 special election. More than 4 million mail ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties returned 21% of the ballots that have been received.

The turnout figures are alarming Republicans leaders.

“If Republicans do not get out and vote now, we will lose Prop 50 and Gavin Newsom will control our district lines until 2032,” Orange County GOP chairman Will O’Neill wrote to party members on Friday, urging them to cast ballots this past weekend and sharing the locations of early voting centers in the county.

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was more blunt on social media.

“Right now we’re losing the fight against Prop 50 in CA, but turnout is LOW,” he posted on the social media platform X on Friday. “If every Republican voter gets off their ass, returns their ballot and votes NO, we WIN. IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.”

More than 18.9 million ballots are outstanding, though not all will be completed. Early voting centers opened on Saturday in 29 California counties.

“Think of Election Day as the last day to vote — not the only day. Like we always do, California gives voters more days and more ways to participate.” said Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a statement. “Don’t Delay! Vote today!”

The U.S. Dept. of Justice announced Friday that it plans on monitoring polling sites in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties at the request of the state GOP.

“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”

Newsom, in a post on X on Friday, said the Trump administration is sending election monitors to polling places in California as part of a broader effort to stifle the vote, particularly among Californians of color, in advance of next year’s midterm election.

“This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression,” Newsom said, predicting that masked border agents would likely be present at California polling places through the Nov. 4 election. “I hope people understand it’s a bridge that they’re trying to build the scaffolding for all across this country in next November’s election, they do not believe in fair and free elections. Our republic, our democracy, is on the line.”

WASHINGTON — The government took the first historic step toward painful enforcement of the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law today, estimating that $11.7 billion must be cut by March 1 in almost everything from the Pentagon to the Postal Service.

The overall military budget will be reduced $5.8 billion, under the estimates from the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. The other half of the cuts will come from the rest of government, with the notable exception of Social Security and a number of programs for the poor.

The two budget agencies estimated that the deficit for fiscal 1986, which began last October, will be $220 billion if no cuts are made. That is higher than previous estimates and more than enough to trigger the cuts under the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law.

That statute, passed in the waning days of Congress’ 1985 session, requires the deficit to be reduced in steps until it is eliminated in 1991. Under a special provision, the maximum that can be cut this fiscal year is $11.7 billion.

4.9% Cut in Military

The fiscal 1986 cuts call for a 4.3% reduction in most agencies and a 4.9% cut in the military.

Salaries of federal employees will not be cut, but the operating budgets of their agencies will fall under the knife. Budget Director James C. Miller III said there will probably not be any layoffs of federal workers, though there could be a hiring freeze.

The CBO and OMB figures showed a $62-million cut in Congress’ own budget, a $4-million slash at the office of the President, $665,000 from the CBO itself and $1.5 million from the OMB.

The across-the-board nature of the cuts means that even agencies that raise money, like the Internal Revenue Service, will be cut. The IRS will lose $140 million from its $3.2-billion budget.

In Agriculture, the required $1.3-billion cut will mean smaller payments to farmers and a reduction of the number of inspectors at meat-processing plants, officials said.

Cut in Student Aid

The OMB-CBO report estimates a $168-million cut in spending authority for the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor, a $229.7-million cut in student aid and a $40.4- million cut in the federal vocational and adult education program.

Funds for the National Endowment for the Arts will be cut by $7.1 million and by $6 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Spending authority for the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be cut $645 million under the Gramm-Rudman formula.

SACRAMENTO — Atty. General Rob Bonta said Monday that he anticipates the Trump administration, which last week announced plans to use federal election monitors in California, will use false reports of voting irregularities to challenge the results of the Nov. 4 special election.

Bonta, California’s top law enforcement officer, said on a call with reporters that he is “100%” concerned about false accusations of wrongdoing at the polling places.

Bonta said it would be “naive” to assume Trump would accept the results of the Nov. 4 election given his history of lying about election outcomes, including his loss to President Biden in 2020.

The attorney general also warned that Trump’s tactics may be a preview of what the country might see in the 2026 election, when control of the U.S. House of Representatives — and the fate of Trump’s controversial political agenda — will be at stake.

“All indications, all arrows, show that this is a tee-up for something more dangerous in the 2026, midterms and maybe beyond,” Bonta said.

The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced it would send election monitors to five California counties where voters are casting ballots in the Proposition 50 election to decide whether to redraw state’s congressional boundaries.

Federal election monitors will visit sites across Southern California and in the Central Valley, in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the Justice Department said last week.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move an “intimidation tactic” aimed at suppressing support for Proposition 50 and inappropriate federal interference in a state election.

While federal monitoring is routine, particularly in federal elections, it recently has been viewed with heightened skepticism from both parties. When the Justice Department under President Biden announced monitoring in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states during last November’s presidential election, some Republican-led states balked and sought to block the effort.

Democrats have been highly suspect of the Trump administration’s plans for monitoring elections, in part because of Trump’s relentless denial of past election losses — including his own to Biden in 2020 — and his appointment of fellow election deniers to high-ranking positions in his administration, including in the Justice Department.

The California Republican Party requested the election monitors and cited several concerns about voting patterns and issues in several counties, according to a letter it sent to the Dept. of Justice.

Bonta, in his remarks Monday questioned the GOP claims, and denied the existence of any widespread fraud that would require federal election monitors. He compared the monitors to Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, despite an outcry from local politicians who said the troops were not necessary.

More broadly, Bonta told reporters that the Trump administration appears to be ready to fight the Nov. 4 results if Prop. 50 passes.

“People vote and you accept the will of the voters — that’s what democracy is. But that’s not what they’re teeing themselves up to do based on everything that we’ve seen, everything that’s been said,” said Bonta, describing Trump’s recent call on social media for Republicans to “wake up.”

Bonta also said that the state would dispatch observers — potentially from his office, the secretary of state and county registrars — to watch the federal monitors at polling places.

Early voting has already started in California, with voters deciding whether to temporarily reconfigure the state’s congressional district boundaries. The Democratic-led California Legislature placed the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot in an effort to increase their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives .

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other backers of the measure have said they generally support independent redistricting processes and will push for nonpartisan commissions nationwide, but argued that Democrats must fight back against Trump’s current efforts to have Republican states reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP retains control of Congress after the 2026 election.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, declined to comment on Bonta’s remarks. Baldassarre also declined to say how many election monitors would work in California.

Federal election monitors observe polling places to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights laws, and are trained to observe and act as “flies on the wall,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, in an interview last week.

“Generally, what you do is walk inside, stay off to the side, well away from where any voters are, and take some notes,” said Becker, an attorney who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called Monday for state lawmakers to return to Indianapolis for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, escalating a national fight over midcycle redistricting.

President Trump has ramped up pressure on Republican governors to draw new maps that give the party an easier path to maintain control of the House in the midterms. While Republicans in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina have moved quickly to enact new districts and California Democrats are seeking to counter with their own redistricting plan, Indiana lawmakers have been far more hesitant.

Braun called for the General Assembly to convene Nov. 3 for the special session. It’s unclear whether enough of the GOP majority Senate will back new maps.

The White House held multiple meetings with Indiana lawmakers who have held out for months. The legislative leaders kept their cards close as speculation swirled over whether the state known for its more measured approach to Republican politics would answer the redistricting call.

National pressure campaign

Vice President JD Vance first met with Braun and legislative leaders in Indianapolis in August and Trump met privately with state House Speaker Todd Huston and state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in the Oval Office weeks later. Vance also spoke to state lawmakers visiting Washington that day.

Vance returned to Indianapolis on Oct. 10 to meet with the governor, as well as the Republican state House and Senate members.

Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state the president won by 19 percentage points in 2024. But Indiana lawmakers have avoided the national spotlight in recent years — especially after a 2022 special session that yielded a strict abortion ban. Braun previously said he did not want to call a special session until he was sure lawmakers would back a new map.

“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” Braun said in a statement Monday.

Typically, states redraw boundaries of congressional districts every 10 years after the census has concluded. Opponents are expected to challenge any new maps in court.

State lawmakers have the sole power to draw maps in Indiana, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers. Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend, as their peers in Texas briefly did.

Republican opposition to redrawing the maps again

A spokesperson for Bray said last week that the Indiana Senate lacked the votes to pass a new congressional map and she said Monday that the votes are still lacking, casting doubt on whether a special session will achieve Braun’s goals.

With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea. Some state Republican lawmakers have warned that midcycle redistricting can be costly and could backfire politically.

Republicans who vote against redistricting could be forced out of office if their colleagues back primary opponents as punishment for not toeing the party line. Braun’s move to call a special session could force lawmakers who haven’t commented publicly to take a stance.

Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders praised existing boundaries after adopting them four years ago.

“I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,” Bray said at the time.

Indiana Senate Democratic Leader Shelli Yoder decried the special session and threatened legal action over any maps passed by the Legislature.

“This is not democracy,” she said in a statement. “This is desperation.”

Redistricting balloons

Democrats only need to gain three seats to flip control of the U.S. House, and redistricting fights have erupted in multiple states.

Some Democratic states have moved to counter Republican gains with new legislative maps. The latest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session starting this week.

Republicans outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7 to 2, limiting possibilities of squeezing out another seat. But many in the party see it as a chance for the GOP to represent all nine seats.

The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state’s northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen by Republicans as a possible pickup in recent elections.

Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable toward Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes boosting GOP standing in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.

Mrvan still won reelection in 2022 and easily retained his seat in 2024.

Republicans could also zero in on Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis. But that option would be more controversial, potentially slicing up the state’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.

Volmert writes for the Associated Press.

Cameroon’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya has won a record eighth term with 53.66% of the vote. His rival Issa Tchiroma Bakary also claimed victory and reported gunfire near his home as protests over alleged election fraud left at least four people dead.

A 24-year-old Honduran man who was fleeing federal immigration agents in Virginia died on a highway after being struck by a vehicle.

The death of Josué Castro Rivera follows recent incidents in which three other immigrants in Chicago and California were killed during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Castro Rivera was headed to a gardening job Thursday when his vehicle was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brother Henry Castro said.

Agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and the three other passengers, and he fled on foot, tried to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk and was fatally struck, according to state and federal authorities.

Castro Rivera came to the United States four years ago and was working to send money to family in Honduras, according to his brother.

“He had a very good heart,” Castro said Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped by ICE as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission.

DHS said in a statement that Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle struck him. DHS officials did not respond Sunday to requests for further comment.

Virginia State Police said officers responded to a report of a vehicle-pedestrian crash around 11 a.m. Thursday on eastbound I-264 at the Military Highway interchange. Police said Castro Rivera was hit by a 2002 Ford pickup and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.

Federal authorities and state police gave his first name as Jose, but family members said it was Josué. DHS and state police did not explain the discrepancy.

Castro called his brother’s death an injustice and said he is raising money to transport the body back to Honduras for the funeral.

“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” Castro said.

DHS blamed Castro Rivera’s death on “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”

Similar deaths amid immigration operations elsewhere have triggered protests, lawsuits and calls for investigation amid claims that the Trump administration’s initial accounts are misleading.

Last month in suburban Chicago, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop. DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “ nothing major.”

In July, a farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility died of his injuries. And in August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.

Tareen and Walling write for the Associated Press.

TOKYO — President Trump opened his visit to Japan on Monday with greetings from the emperor a day before he meets new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is banking on building a friendly personal relationship with the U.S. leader to ease trade tensions.

One key to this strategy might lie in an idea floated by Japan’s government to buy a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks, a meaningful gesture that may also be impractical given the narrow streets in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

It’s an early diplomatic test for Takaichi, the first woman to lead Japan. She took office only last week, and has a tenuous coalition backing her.

Trump instantly bought into the idea of Ford trucks as he flew to Asia aboard Air Force One.

“She has good taste,” Trump told reporters. “That’s a hot truck.”

Japanese Emperor Naruhito welcomed Trump at the Imperial Palace after the president’s arrival, and the two spoke for about 30 minutes. Trump straightened his jacket as he stood next to Naruhito for photos before the two sat across a round table, with flowers in the middle, for their talks.

“A great man!” he said twice while pointing to the emperor. Trump last saw the emperor in 2019, soon after Naruhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, becoming the first foreign dignitary invited to the palace.

Trump and Takaichi spoke over the phone while the president was mid-flight on Saturday. Takaichi stressed her status as a protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a favorite of Trump’s from his first term, and said she praised him for brokering the Gaza ceasefire that led to the return of hostages held by Hamas.

“I thought [Trump] is a very cheerful and fun person,” she said. “He well recognizes me and said he remembers me as a politician whom [former] Prime Minister Abe really cared about,” she said. “And I told the president that I extremely look forward to welcoming him in Tokyo.”

Trump spent Sunday in Malaysia, where he participated in a regional summit, and departed Monday morning for Japan. While on Air Force One on Monday, he said he planned to talk in Tokyo about the “great friendship” between the U.S. and Japan.

Resetting the trade relationship

Beneath the hospitality is the search for a strategy to navigate the increasingly complex trade relationship that Trump shook up earlier this year with tariffs.

Trump wants allies to buy more American goods and also make financial commitments to build factories and energy infrastructure in the U.S.

The meetings in Japan come before Trump’s sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in South Korea.

Both the U.S. and Japan have sought to limit China’s manufacturing ambitions, as the emergence of Chinese electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and advanced computer chips could undermine the American and Japanese economies.

“In light of the planned meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping shortly afterward, Trump may also be considering how he might strengthen his hand by demonstrating the robustness of the U.S.-Japan relationship,” said Kristi Govella, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Japan’s previous administration agreed in September to invest $550 billion in the U.S., which led Trump to trim a threatened 25% tariff on Japanese goods to 15%. But Japan wants the investments to favor Japanese vendors and contractors.

Japan’s economy and trade minister, Ryosei Akazawa, has said his ministry is compiling a list of projects in computer chips and energy to try to meet the investment target.

“As far as I know, I’m hearing that there are a number of Japanese companies that are showing interest,” he told reporters Friday, though he did not give further details.

Ford trucks in Tokyo would be a powerful symbol

Japanese officials are looking at the possibility of buying more American soybeans, liquefied natural gas and autos. The U.S.-China trade conflict has shut American soybeans out of the Chinese market, leading China to seek more Brazilian supply. China reported no U.S. soybean imports in September, a first since November 2018.

For Trump, the prospect of Ford trucks in the skyscrapered streets of Tokyo would be a win. The administration has long complained that American vehicles were being shut out of a market that is the home of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Subaru. In a September interview on CNBC, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Japan wouldn’t buy U.S.-branded vehicles because “Chevys” were popular with Japanese gangsters.

Takaichi may arrange for Ford F-150 trucks to be showcased in a place Trump gets to see them, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported. The government is considering importing the trucks for its transport ministry to use for inspecting roads and infrastructure, though there are concerns that the F-150 could cause congestion on narrow Japanese streets.

“We appreciate President Trump’s advocating for American made products,” Ford spokesperson Dave Tovar said. “We would be excited to introduce America’s best-selling truck to work and government customers in Japan.”

Japanese media have reported that Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Akio Toyoda could announce plans to import his company’s American-made cars back to Japan during a dinner with Trump and other business leaders on Wednesday.

The gestures — combined with Takaichi’s connection to Abe — should help her deal with Trump, who seems predisposed to like her.

“I think she’s going to be great,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “She’s a great friend of Mr. Abe, who was a great man.”

In 2016, Abe gave Trump a high-end golf club to celebrate his first election, and the leaders bonded over their love of golf. Trump often expresses sadness about Abe’s 2022 assassination.

But there are risks for Takaichi in emphasizing her ties to Abe, said Rintaro Nishimura, who specializes in Japan at the advisory firm The Asia Group.

“Because it’s Takaichi’s first diplomatic engagement I think she wants to start with sort of a bang,” Nishimura said. “Succeeding the Abe-line rhetoric is definitely going to be part of this engagement, although some also suggest that leaning too heavily on the Abe line might not exactly be good for her for creating her own kind of portfolio, her status as Japan’s leader.”

Following his meeting with Takaichi on Tuesday, Trump will give a speech aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier anchored in Japan, then hold a dinner with business leaders. Trump plans to leave for South Korea on Wednesday.

But aboard Air Force One on Monday, he told reporters that he was also ready to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, should that be an option.

“If he wants to meet, I’ll be in South Korea,” Trump said.

Boak and Yamaguchi write for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

WASHINGTON — The first caller on a telephone town hall with Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, leader of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, came ready with a question about the Affordable Care Act. Her cousin’s disabled son is at risk of losing the insurance he gained under that law, the caller said.

“Now she’s looking at two or three times the premium that she’s been paying for the insurance,” said the woman, identified as Lisa from Harford County, Md. “I’d love for you to elucidate what the Republicans’ plan is for health insurance?”

Harris, a seven-term Republican, didn’t have a clear answer. “We think the solution is to try to do something to make sure all the premiums go down,” he said, predicting Congress would “probably negotiate some off-ramp” later.

His uncertainty reflected a familiar Republican dilemma: Fifteen years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the party remains united in criticizing the law but divided on how to move forward. That tension has come into sharp focus during the government shutdown as Democrats seize on rising premiums to pressure Republicans into extending expiring subsidies for the law, often referred to as Obamacare.

President Trump and GOP leaders say they’ll consider extending the enhanced tax credits that otherwise expire at year’s end — but only after Democrats vote to reopen the government. In the meantime, people enrolled in the plans are already being notified of hefty premium increases for 2026.

As town halls fill with frustrated voters and no clear Republican plan emerges, the issue appears to be gaining political strength heading into next year’s midterm elections.

“Premiums are going up whether it gets extended or not,” said GOP Sen. Rick Scott. “Premiums are going up because healthcare costs are going up. Because Obamacare is a disaster.”

‘Concepts of a plan’

At the center of the shutdown — now in its fourth week with no end in sight — is a Democratic demand that Affordable Care Act subsidies passed in 2021 be extended.

Trump has long promised an alternative. “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” he wrote on Truth Social in November 2023. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives.”

Pressed on healthcare during a September 2024 presidential debate, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan.”

But nearly 10 months into his presidency, that plan has yet to come. Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told NBC on Wednesday, “I fully believe the president has a plan,” but didn’t go into details.

Republicans say they want a broader overhaul of the healthcare system, though such a plan would be difficult to advance before next year. Party leaders have not outlined how they’ll handle the expiring tax credits, insisting they won’t negotiate on the issue until Democrats agree to end the shutdown.

A September analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that permanently extending the tax credits would increase the deficit by $350 billion from 2026 to 2035. The number of people with health insurance would rise by 3.8 million in 2035 if the credits are kept, CBO projected.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference Monday that the tax credits are “subsidizing bad policy.” Republicans “have a long list of ideas” to address healthcare costs, he said, and are “grabbing the best ideas that we’ve had for years to put it on paper and make it work.”

“We believe in the private sector and the free market and individual providers,” he added.

A growing political issue

With notices of premium spikes landing in mailboxes now and the open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act health plans beginning Nov. 1, the political pressure has been evident in Republican town halls.

In Idaho, Rep. Russ Fulcher told concerned callers that “government-provided healthcare is the wrong path” and that “private healthcare is the right path.” In Texas, freshman Rep. Brandon Gill responded to a caller facing a sharp premium increase by saying Republicans are focused on cutting waste, fraud and abuse.

Harris echoed a message shared by many in his party during his Maryland town hall, saying costs are “just going back to what it was like before COVID.”

But the number of people who rely on Affordable Care Act health insurance has increased markedly since before the pandemic. More than 24 million people were enrolled in the marketplace plans in 2025, up from about 11 million in 2020, according to an analysis from the health care research nonprofit KFF.

Sara from Middleville, Mich., told Rep. John Moolenaar during his town hall that if health insurance premiums go up by as much as 75%, most people will probably go without healthcare. “So how do you address that?” she asked.

Moolenaar, who represents a district he handily won last year, responded: “We have time to negotiate, figure out a plan going forward and I think that’s something that could occur.”

Some Republicans have shown urgent concern. In a letter sent to Johnson, a group of 13 battleground House Republicans wrote that the party must “immediately turn our focus to the growing crisis of health care affordability” once the shutdown ends.

“While we did not create this crisis, we now have both the responsibility and the opportunity to address it,” the lawmakers wrote.

Some Republicans dismiss projections that ACA premiums will more than double without the subsidies, calling them exaggerated and arguing the law has fueled fraud and abuse that must be curbed.

Many Democrats credited their ability to flip the House in 2018 during Trump’s first term to the GOP’s attempt at repealing Obamacare, and they’re forecasting a similar outcome this time.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they trust the Democrats to do a better job handling healthcare, compared with about one-quarter who trust the Republicans more, a recent AP-NORC poll found. About one-quarter trust neither party, and about 1 in 10 trust both equally, according to the poll.

A looming internal GOP fight

Even as GOP leaders pledge to discuss ending the subsidies when the government opens, it’s clear that many Republican lawmakers are adamantly opposed to an extension.

“At least among Republicans, there’s a growing sense that just maintaining the status quo is very destructive,” said Brian Blase, the president of Paragon Health Institute and a former health policy advisor to Trump during his first term.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he’s working with multiple congressional offices on alternatives that would let the subsidies end. For example, he wants to expand the Affordable Care Act exemption given to U.S. territories to all 50 states and reintroduce a first-term Trump policy that gave Americans access to short-term health insurance plans outside the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Cannon declined to name the lawmakers he’s working with, but said he hopes they act on his ideas “sooner than later.”

David McIntosh, president of the influential conservative group Club For Growth, told reporters Thursday that the group has “urged the Republicans not to extend those COVID-era subsidies.”

“We have a big spending problem,” McIntosh said.

“I think most people are going to say, OK, I had a great deal during COVID,” he said. “But now it’s back to business as usual, and I should be paying for healthcare.”

Cappelletti and Swenson write for the Associated Press. Swenson reported from New York.