politics

WASHINGTON — A crowd gathered at a commuter gate at Reagan National Airport on Friday as fog-laden Washington skies caused an hourlong ground stop that backed up passengers hoping to head out from American Airlines’ Terminal D.

But soon the already densely packed area swelled even more, as word spread across nearby gates that, of the hundreds of air travelers coming and going, only one among them was accompanied by a U.S. Secret Service detail, along with uniformed local police officers: former President Biden.

Biden, who has rarely made public appearances since leaving office last year, sat, like many of his fellow passengers, awaiting a flight that would take him to Columbia, S.C., for an evening event with the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Passengers whispered and gaped in wonder: Why would a man who for a time was leader of the free world be, like they were, at the mercy of airport travel delays, even as he sat ensconced in his security detail?

Maybe for Biden it made more sense than for some other former presidents. Known for years as Amtrak Joe, Biden as a senator prided himself on becoming arguably the nation’s biggest Amtrak fan, regularly taking the train home to Delaware rather than taking up residence in Washington. Now, as a former president, he’s been spotted riding the rails since, taking selfies with and chatting up his fellow passengers.

On Friday, the vibe was about the same, as Biden — seated in the third row of the tiny first class cabin on the commuter jet — boarded the flight ahead of other passengers, along with his detail, members of which were spread throughout the plane.

“God bless you, sir,” one woman said, as she filed past Biden in his window seat, newspaper in his lap.

“Thank you for your service,” a man said, shaking Biden’s hand.

The woman who took the aisle seat next to the former president first set down her coffee on the arm rest they shared, deposited a bag in the overhead compartment, then sat down and realized her seatmate was the nation’s 46th president.

Biden set his hand on her cup to steady it, then met her gaze with a hello as she took her seat.

“I feel like I’m about to cry,” the woman said, as they shook hands and, over the course of the next hour, chatted throughout the flight.

Former presidents and their spouses receive lifelong Secret Service protection under federal law, but there are no provisions guaranteeing the elite levels of private travel that were necessary features of their time in office.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

Feb. 27 (UPI) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D.-Texas, in the Texas Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.

Harris recorded a robocall for Crockett in the race, which has the Texas representative facing off against Texas State Rep. James Talerico for the Democratic nomination in the race this fall Republican Sen. John Cornyn‘s seat, The Texas Tribune reported.

Cornyn, who has been in the Senate since 2002, is running for re-election but has to win a Republican primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt.

“Texas has the chance to send a fighter like Jasmine Crockett to the United States Senate,” Harris said in the robocall, which was first reported by the Tribune. “Jasmine has the experience and record to hold Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies accountable.”

Crockett launched her campaign for Senate on Dec. 8 and will face off against Talarico in the March 3 primary.

She launched the campaign the same day that Colin Allred, a potential primary opponent, dropped out because he felt that “a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic party from going into this critical election unified” — specifically citing Crockett’s entry into the race.

Crockett also has been endorsed by Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and California Rep. Ro Khanna, according to The New York Times.

Tuesday’s primary winner will face Cornyn, Paxton or Hunt, with the election moving to a runoff in May if none of the candidates receive more than half the votes.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, has not endorsed a Republican in the race.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has broadened its prosecution of the protesters involved in a church demonstration to 39 people, up from nine.

The demonstration was part of a backlash to Trump’s deadly immigration surge in the midwestern state of Minnesota, but officials have sought to frame the protest as an attack on religious freedom.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the expanded indictment on Friday in a message posted to social media.

“Today, [the Justice Department] unsealed an indictment charging 30 more people who took part in the attack on Cities Church in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote. “At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day.”

She added a warning to other protesters who might seek to disrupt a religious service.

“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP,” Bondi said. “If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you. This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”

Appealing to Christian voters

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to appeal to Christian conservatives by launching initiatives, for example, to root out anti-Christian bias and prevent alleged acts of Christian persecution, both domestically and in countries like Nigeria.

But critics have accused his administration of attempting to stifle opposition through its prosecution of the Minnesota protest attendees.

Some of those indicted deny even being a part of the January 18 protest. Defendants like former CNN anchor Don Lemon and reporter Georgia Fort say they attended in their capacity as journalists.

Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and have publicly questioned whether their prosecution is an attempt to curtail freedom of the press.

The superseding indictment, filed on Thursday, levies two counts against the 39 defendants, accusing them of conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and efforts to injure, intimidate or interfere with the exercise of religious freedom.

“While inside the Church, defendants collectively oppressed, threatened and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church,” the indictment reads

It also describes the protesters as “engaging in menacing and threatening behavior” by “chanting and yelling loudly” and obstructing exits.

A magistrate judge on January 22 initially rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to charge nine attendees who were at the protest.

But the department sought a grand jury indictment instead, which was filed on January 29 and made public the next day.

A reaction to Trump’s immigration surge

The protest, dubbed “Operation Pullup”, was conceived as a response to the violent immigration crackdown that had unfolded in Minnesota.

Many of the enforcement efforts centred on the metropolitan area that includes the Twin Cities: St Paul and Minneapolis.

Trump had repeatedly blamed the area’s large Somali American population for a welfare fraud scandal involving government funds for programmes like Medicaid and school lunches.

In December, the Trump administration surged federal immigration agents to the region, nicknaming the effort Operation Metro Surge. At its height, as many as 3,000 agents were in the Minneapolis-St Paul area.

But the effort was plagued by reports of excessive violence towards detainees and protesters alike. Videos circulated of officers breaking the car windows of legal observers, pepper-spraying protesters and beating people.

Officers also engaged in the practice of entering homes forcibly without a judicial warrant, which advocates described as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Cases of unlawful arrests were also reported.

But a turning point came on January 7, when an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was caught on camera shooting into the vehicle of 37-year-old mother Renee Good. She died, and her killing sparked nationwide protests.

Operation Pullup took place at Cities Church in St Paul less than two weeks later.

It was intended as a demonstration against the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who serves as a local official for ICE.

Several protesters have indicated that they are prepared to fight the government’s charges over the incident, citing their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Some also said that they intended to remain vigilant towards government immigration operations, even after Trump administration officials announced Operation Metro Surge was winding down in mid-February.

“This is not the time to be Minnesota Nice,” one protester, civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong, wrote on social media last week. “It’s time for truth, justice, and freedom to prevail.”

The morning after Netflix clinched its deal to buy Warner Bros., Paramount Skydance Chairman David Ellison assembled a war room of trusted advisors, including his billionaire father, Larry Ellison.

Furious at Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav for ending the auction, the Ellisons and their team began plotting their comeback on that crisp December day.

To rattle Warner Bros. Discovery and its investors, they launched a three-front campaign: a lawsuit, a hostile takeover bid and direct lobbying of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

“There was a master battle plan — and it was extremely disciplined,” said one auction insider who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Netflix stunned the industry late Thursday by pulling out of the bidding, clearing the way for Paramount to claim the company that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. The deal was valued at more than $111 billion.

The streaming giant’s reversal came just hours after co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos met with Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and a deputy at the White House. It was a cordial session, but the Trump officials told Sarandos that his deal was facing significant hurdles in Washington, according to a person close to the administration who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Even before that meeting, the tide had turned for Paramount in a swell of power, politics and brinkmanship.

“Netflix played their cards well; however, Paramount played their cards perfectly,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media Co. “They did exactly what they had to do and when they had to do it — which was at the very last moment.”

Key to victory was Larry Ellison, his $200-billion fortune and his connections to President Trump and congressional Republicans.

Paramount also hired Trump’s former antitrust chief, attorney Makan Delrahim, to quarterback the firm’s legal and regulatory action.

Republicans during a Senate hearing this month piled onto Sarandos with complaints about potential monopolistic practices and “woke” programming.

David Ellison skipped that hearing. This week, however, he attended Trump’s State of the Union address in the Capitol chambers, a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The two men posed, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, for a photo that was posted to Graham’s X account.

David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance Corp., walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

On Friday, Netflix said it had received a $2.8-billion payment — a termination fee Paramount agreed to pay to send Netflix on its way.

Long before David Ellison and his family acquired Paramount and CBS last summer, the 43-year-old tech scion and aircraft pilot already had his sights set on Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount’s assets, including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, have been fading. Ellison recognized he needed the more robust company — Warner Bros. Discovery — to achieve his ambitions.

“From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” David Ellison said in a Friday statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”

Warner’s chief, Zaslav, who had initially opposed the Paramount bid, added: “We look forward to working with Paramount to complete this historic transaction.”

Netflix, in a separate statement, said it was unwilling to go beyond its $82.7-billion proposal that Warner board members accepted Dec. 4.

“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs,” Sarandos and co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said in a statement.

“But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix chiefs said.

Netflix may have miscalculated the Ellison family’s determination when it agreed Feb. 16 to allow Paramount back into the bidding.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company already had prevailed in the auction, and had an agreement in hand. Its next step was a shareholder vote.

“They didn’t need to let Paramount back in, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make sure the process wouldn’t be challenged,” Miller said.

In addition, Netflix’s stock had also been pummeled — the company had lost a quarter of its value — since investors learned the company was making a Warner run.

Upon news that Netflix had withdrawn, its shares soared Friday nearly 14% to $96.24.

Netflix Chief Executive Ted Sarandos arrives at the White House on Feb. 26, 2026.

(Andrew Leyden / Getty Images)

Invited back into the auction room, Paramount unveiled a much stronger proposal than the one it submitted in December.

The elder Ellison had pledged to personally guarantee the deal, including $45.7 billion in equity required to close the transaction. And if bankers became worried that Paramount was too leveraged, the tech mogul agreed to put in more money in order to secure the bank financing.

That promise assuaged Warner Bros. Discovery board members who had fretted for weeks that they weren’t sure Ellison would sign on the dotted line, according to two people close to the auction who were not authorized to comment.

Paramount’s pressure campaign had been relentless, first winning over theater owners, who expressed alarm over Netflix’s business model that encourages consumers to watch movies in their homes.

During the last two weeks, Sarandos got dragged into two ugly controversies.

First, famed filmmaker James Cameron endorsed Paramount, saying a Netflix takeover would lead to massive job losses in the entertainment industry, which is already reeling from a production slowdown in Southern California that has disrupted the lives of thousands of film industry workers.

Then, a week ago, Trump took aim at Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official. In a social media post, Trump called Rice a “no talent … political hack,” and said that Netflix must fire her or “pay the consequences.”

The threat underscored the dicey environment for Netflix.

Additionally, Paramount had sowed doubts about Netflix among lawmakers, regulators, Warner investors and ultimately the Warner board.

Paramount assured Warner board members that it had a clear path to win regulatory approval so the deal would quickly be finalized. In a show of confidence, Delrahim filed to win the Justice Department’s blessing in December — even though Paramount didn’t have a deal.

This month, a deadline for the Justice Department to raise issues with Paramount’s proposed Warner takeover passed without comment from the Trump regulators.

“Analysts believe the deal is likely to close,” TD Cowen analysts said in a Friday report. “While Paramount-WBD does present material antitrust risks (higher pay TV prices, lower pay for TV/movie workers), analysts also see a key pro-competitive effect: improved competition in streaming, with Paramount+ and HBO Max representing a materially stronger counterweight to #1 Netflix.”

Throughout the battle, David Ellison relied on support from his father, attorney Delrahim, and three key board members: Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra A. Catz; RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale; and Justin Hamill, managing director of tech investment firm Silver Lake.

In the final days, David Ellison led an effort to flip Warner board members who had firmly supported Netflix. With Paramount’s improved offer, several began leaning toward the Paramount deal.

On Tuesday, Warner announced that Paramount’s deal was promising.

On Thursday, Warner’s board determined Paramount’s deal had topped Netflix. That’s when Netflix surrendered.

“Paramount had a fulsome, 360-degree approach,” Miller said. “They approached it financially. … They understood the regulatory environment here and abroad in the EU. And they had a game plan for every aspect.”

On Friday, Paramount shares rose 21% to $13.51.

It was a reversal of fortunes for David Ellison, who appeared on CNBC just three days after that war room meeting in December.

“We put the company in play,” David Ellison told the CNBC anchor that day. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”

Times staff writer Ana Cabellos and Business Editor Richard Verrier contributed to this report.

President Trump on Friday directed federal agencies to stop using technology from San Francisco artificial intelligence company Anthropic, escalating a high-profile clash between the AI startup and the Pentagon over safety.

In a Friday post on the social media site Truth Social, Trump described the company as “radical left” and “woke.”

“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said.

The president’s harsh words mark a major escalation in the ongoing battle between some in the Trump administration and several technology companies over the use of artificial intelligence in defense tech.

Anthropic has been sparring with the Pentagon, which had threatened to end its $200-million contract with the company on Friday if it didn’t loosen restrictions on its AI model so it could be used for more military purposes. Anthropic had been asking for more guarantees that its tech wouldn’t be used for surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons.

The tussle could hobble Anthropic’s business with the government. The Trump administration said the company was added to a sweeping national security blacklist, ordering federal agencies to immediately discontinue use of its products and barring any government contractors from maintaining ties with it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who met with Anthropic’s Chief Executive Dario Amodei this week, criticized the tech company after Trump’s Truth Social post.

“Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” he wrote Friday on social media site X.

Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anthropic announced a two-year agreement with the Department of Defense in July to “prototype frontier AI capabilities that advance U.S. national security.”

The company has an AI chatbot called Claude, but it also built a custom AI system for U.S. national security customers.

On Thursday, Amodei signaled the company wouldn’t cave to the Department of Defense’s demands to loosen safety restrictions on its AI models.

The government has emphasized in negotiations that it wants to use Anthropic’s technology only for legal purposes, and the safeguards Anthropic wants are already covered by the law.

Still, Amodei was worried about Washington’s commitment.

“We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” he said in a blog post. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”

Tech workers have backed Anthropic’s stance.

Unions and worker groups representing 700,000 employees at Amazon, Google and Microsoft said this week in a joint statement that they’re urging their employers to reject these demands as well if they have additional contracts with the Pentagon.

“Our employers are already complicit in providing their technologies to power mass atrocities and war crimes; capitulating to the Pentagon’s intimidation will only further implicate our labor in violence and repression,” the statement said.

Anthropic’s standoff with the U.S. government could benefit its competitors, such as Elon Musk’s xAI or OpenAI.

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and one of Anthropic’s biggest competitors, told CNBC in an interview that he trusts Anthropic.

“I think they really do care about safety, and I’ve been happy that they’ve been supporting our war fighters,” he said. “I’m not sure where this is going to go.”

Anthropic has distinguished itself from its rivals by touting its concern about AI safety.

The company, valued at roughly $380 billion, is legally required to balance making money with advancing the company’s public benefit of “responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity.”

Developers, businesses, government agencies and other organizations use Anthropic’s tools. Its chatbot can generate code, write text and perform other tasks. Anthropic also offers an AI assistant for consumers and makes money from paid subscriptions as well as contracts. Unlike OpenAI, which is testing ads in ChatGPT, Anthropic has pledged not to show ads in its chatbot Claude.

The company has roughly 2,000 employees and has revenue equivalent to about $14 billion a year.

Feb. 27 (UPI) — Former President Bill Clinton testified in front of the House Oversight Committee in New York Friday, and said he didn’t know about Epstein’s crimes at the time he knew him.

It was the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress.

“I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing,” Clinton said in a statement, which he posted on X. “No matter how many photos you show me, I have two things that at the end of the day matter more than your interpretation of those 20-year-old photos. I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see. I know what I did, and more importantly, what I didn’t do. I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”

He added that his childhood history of experiencing domestic violence would have pulled him away from Epstein if he’d known.

“As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing — I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes,” Clinton said of Epstein.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., walked out of the deposition after noon and said the former president “is being very cooperative.”

“I don’t have any reason to believe right now that he’s hiding the ball,” she said. “On everything, he’s been pretty transparent.”

The former president was deposed about his involvement with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was deposed on Thursday.

Bill Clinton admitted knowing and traveling with Epstein, but he said his wife had “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein” and “no memory of even meeting him.”

“Whether you subpoena 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right,” he wrote in his statement.

“Since I am under oath, I will not falsely state that I am looking forward to your questions. But I am ready to answer them to the best of my abilities, consistent with the facts as I know them: the legitimate, the logical and even the outlandish.”

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said Democrats have “real questions that deserve serious answers” from Clinton, but said the questioning of Hillary Clinton became a “sideshow” with a “series of bizarre questions” about UFOs and conspiracy theories. He said the committee should call for Trump to testify.

“Republicans are now setting a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify,” Garcia said. “We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee.”

President Clinton testified on Friday in front of the House Oversight Committee after his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did so on Thursday.

The testimony happened in Chappaqua, N.Y., in the town’s performing arts center, where he was asked about his involvement with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Bill Clinton has denied any wrongdoing and has not been accused of any crimes in relation to the Epstein files.

“No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing. They’re going to have due process,” committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., said before the deposition.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times in the early part of Clinton’s presidency, White House visitor records say. But Bill Clinton said he cut ties with Epstein around 2005.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton testified that she never really knew Epstein, that she doesn’t remember meeting him and that she has “no knowledge” that would help the panel’s investigation. She called the deposition “political theater.”

The Clintons have asked for open testimony, but the committee has said they must have a closed-door deposition first. When subpoenaed, they didn’t comply for several months until the House nearly voted to find them in contempt.

While Hillary Clinton testified, a photo of the testimony was posted on X Thursday, sent to far-right influencer Benny Johnson by committee member Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. When she was asked by reporters why she did it, she answered: “Why not?” The proceedings were stopped for a short time while the committee tried to determine how the photo was leaked from the closed-door deposition.

Feb. 27 (UPI) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick may be called to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about his ties to deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Nancy Mace on Friday said that Lutnick should testify after a picture of him with Epstein emerged in the Department of Justice database one day after Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters it is “very possible” the commerce secretary would be questioned.

Comer’s comments came at a press conference before the committee’s hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with Mace adding that calling Lutnick before the committee would “be on my list.”

“Howard Lutnick should take questions from the Oversight committee,” Mace said in a post on X, while a photograph that appears to be Lutnick standing behind Epstein, along with Lutnick’s friend Michael Lehrman and two other unidentified men.

The photo appeared to have been removed from the DOJ database, but has been restored, CNBC reported.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told reporters on Friday that he believes there are enough votes on the committee to subpoena Lutnick, who has acknowledged that he interacted with the disgraced financier after he’d been convicted of soliciting a prostitute, including visiting Epstein’s Caribbean island with his family.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday testified before the committee, saying in her opening statement that she has “no knowledge” that would assist the committee, which she posted on her social media accounts ahead being questioned.

“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said.

President Donald Trump has acknowledged his nearly two-decade friendship with Epstein and his name appears frequently in the documents released by the DOJ in December and January.

Neither Lutnick or Trump have been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein’s trafficking and sex abuse of children.

Outrage in New York after 56-year-old Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam, nearly-blind and medically vulnerable, was found dead days after US Border Patrol agents released him at a Tim Hortons restaurant miles from home. Officials say it was a “courtesy ride”.

Feb. 27 (UPI) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Israel Monday and Tuesday to discuss Iran and other issues, the State Department announced Friday.

The visit comes amid concern that the United States will attack Iran, despite continued negotiation between the two. On Thursday, the U.S. embassy in Israel told its staff that they could leave because of “safety risks,” though there is no emergency.

“Persons may wish to consider leaving Israel while commercial flights are available,” the State Department said in its new guidance. “In response to security incidents and without advance notice, the U.S. Embassy may further restrict or prohibit U.S. government employees and their family members from traveling to certain areas of Israel, the Old City of Jerusalem, and the West Bank.”

CNBC reported Friday that Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi will meet Friday with Vice President JD Vance and other officials in Washington for “previously unreported talks in an effort to stave off war with Iran.”

Al-Busaidi has mediated talks between American and Iranian officials to ease tensions over President Donald Trump‘s demands that Iran abandon its nuclear program.

Rubio’s visit to Israel is to “discuss a range of regional priorities including Iran, Lebanon and ongoing efforts to implement President Trump’s 20-Point Peace Plan for Gaza,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

Democrats are speaking out against a potential strike.

“The American people are still waiting for the strategic justification for a war with Iran that puts thousands of American personnel across the region in harm’s way,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said on X. “What is the evidence of an imminent threat?”

Trump said in his State of the Union speech Tuesday that he is still planning to work the differences out diplomatically.

“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy, but one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

WASHINGTON — President Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary.

So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post-State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race.

Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall.

Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race.

Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton.

Paxtonbeat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate.

“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday.

Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff.

Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff.

Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality.

Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump’s agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump.

“I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month.

The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win.

Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district.

Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.”

Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.

Kim and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Ia. AP writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

BUESOS AIRES, Feb. 27 (UPI) — Argentina’s government took a new step in its strategy to meet upcoming dollar-denominated debt maturities without again relying on international markets. In a challenging financial context, President Javier Milei’s administration launched a new U.S. dollar bond aimed at raising up to $2 billion.

The goal is to get ahead of payments scheduled for July, when about $4.2 billion in private loans come due. Instead of seeking funds on Wall Street or using the swap line negotiated with the United States, the Economy Ministry chose to raise those dollars domestically.

The decision comes amid a recent increase in Argentina’s sovereign risk, an indicator that reflects how investors perceive a nation’s ability to repay its debt and that, when it rises, makes external borrowing more expensive.

With that roadmap, the economic team faced the first test of the new instrument on Wednesday. In the initial issuance, it placed $150 million at an annual rate of 5.89%, below what market analysts had estimated.

The response exceeded official expectations. The Finance Secretariat reported receiving bids totaling $868 million, nearly six times the amount ultimately taken by the government. For the government, that level of interest confirms there is demand for Argentine dollar debt even in a volatile environment.

The bond, which can only be subscribed to and paid for in U.S. dollars, will be included in the regular biweekly auctions alongside peso-denominated securities. In each initial auction, up to $150 million will be offered, with the possibility of expanding by another $100 million in a second round the following day, until the planned program is completed.

Identified as BONAR 2027 or AL27 in some markets, the security will mature on Oct. 29, 2027, after Argentina’s 2027 presidential election. It offers a 6% nominal annual rate, with monthly interest payments, and will repay principal in a single installment at maturity.

The initiative comes at a key moment for Argentina, which faces heavy foreign-currency commitments midyear. In that context, securing dollar financing without turning abroad becomes central to organizing the payment schedule and maintaining investor confidence.

Financial adviser Gastón Lentini, founder of consulting firm Doctor de tus Finanzas, told UPI that the dollar bond launched by Argentina has sparked strong interest among local investors.

“Unlike almost any bond issued before, this one pays interest every month,” he said.

In practice, this means that if someone invests $10,000, they will receive $50 each month until October 2027, when the bond matures and the invested principal is returned.

Economist Elena Alonso, co-founder of consultancy Esmerald Capital, noted that anyone can invest in this bond.

“The minimum amount is one dollar. Anyone who has never invested before only needs to open an investment account,” she said.

Lentini explained that in July the government faces a debt payment of about $4.2 billion, which includes interest and principal repayments on certain bonds.

“The limited level of international reserves and restricted access to dollars forces the government to be creative in raising the necessary funds and meeting payments,” he added.

Regarding the decision to finance domestically instead of going to international markets, the specialist said the current sovereign risk level would require Argentina to offer rates above 9% if it turned to foreign investors.

“Taking advantage of the restrictions that still exist on taking foreign currency out of the country, the economy minister is managing to finance with Argentines’ own dollars at a rate close to 6%, which is an achievement for the government,” he said.

On the currency swap line with the United States, Lentini said it will not be necessary. According to him, the combination of agro-industrial exports, oil, gas, minerals and incentives from the RIGI program allows the country to gather enough dollars to meet its obligations.

“The swap line serves as an additional backstop, but the strategy of paying with its own money strengthens investor confidence in respect for contracts,” he added.

Finally, Lentini said it would be positive for sovereign risk to decline to facilitate a debt rollover — a restructuring or refinancing of maturities — though if that does not happen, he does not see a risk of default this year, noting that Argentina is one of the few countries in the world with a surplus.

Alonso agreed that resorting to the swap line will not be necessary, as the country’s dollar reserves are growing. She also noted that, for the first time in years, private debt issuances and repurchase agreements with banks helped cover maturities.

“The swap line with the United States remains available as a backstop, but the government seeks to build credibility by using its own resources first,” she said.

WASHINGTON — Former President Clinton is testifying Friday before members of Congress investigating convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, answering for his connections to the disgraced financier from more than two decades ago.

The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, N.Y., will mark the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress. It comes a day after Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat with lawmakers for her own deposition.

Bill Clinton has also not been accused of any wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are grappling with what accountability in the United States looks like at a time when men around the world have been toppled from their high-powered posts for maintaining their connections with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

Hillary Clinton told lawmakers that she had no knowledge of how Epstein had sexually abused underage girls and had no recollection of even meeting him. But Bill Clinton will have to answer questions on a well-documented relationship with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even if it was from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Hillary Clinton said Thursday that she expected her husband to testify that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time they knew each other.

Republicans were relishing the opportunity to scrutinize the former Democratic president under oath.

“The Clintons haven’t answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell,” Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday.

“No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” he added.

Republicans finally get a chance to question Bill Clinton

Republicans have wanted to question Bill Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.

Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year when several photos of the former president surfaced in the Department of Justice’s first release of case files on Epstein and Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 but maintains she’s innocent. Bill Clinton was photographed on a plane seated alongside a woman, whose face is redacted, with his arm around her. Another photo showed Clinton and Maxwell in a pool with another person whose face was redacted.

Epstein also visited the White House several times during Clinton’s presidency, and the pair later made several international trips together for their humanitarian work.

In the lead-up to the deposition, Bill Clinton has insisted he had limited knowledge about Epstein and was unaware of any sexual abuse he committed.

“I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” Hillary Clinton said at the conclusion of her deposition Thursday.

Comer has pledged extensive questioning of the former president. He claimed that Hillary Clinton had repeatedly deferred questions about Epstein to her husband.

Has a precedent been set?

Democrats, who have supported the push to get answers from Bill Clinton, are arguing that it sets a precedent that should also apply to President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein.

“We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday.

Comer has pushed back on that idea, saying that Trump has answered questions on Epstein from the press.

Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick was a longtime neighbor of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

The public release of case files showed that Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012 his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.

“He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,” Garcia said of Lutnick.

Comer on Thursday said that it was “very possible” that Lutnick would be called to testify.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

Here’s what I think about the so-called Hillary Clinton cleavage controversy: She looked fabulous. Unfortunately, thanks to the vigilance and stridency of Clinton’s legions of feminist supporters in the media, who rose to collectively denounce a Washington Post fashion writer who dared to notice that Clinton had displayed an inch of cleavage while speaking on the Senate floor, we are unlikely ever again to see her looking so forthrightly feminine, so classily sexy, so zaftigly maternal — so downright attractive.

Even the most Clinton-smitten of political liberals admit that the New York senator is often fashion-challenged. During her husband’s presidency, she was known for her garish-hued suits featuring doorknob-size buttons and less-than-flattering hemlines.

Now running for the nation’s highest office, she’s switched to garish-hued boxy jackets over sleek but essentially shapeless black pants. For example, check out the salmon-orange jacket with stiff mandarin collar that she wore for the July 23 Democratic presidential debate. “I don’t know about that jacket,” said the Democratic presidential field’s style maven, John Edwards, he of the $400 haircut.

So, it was a refreshing break to see Clinton attired in clothes that actually looked good on her when she was captured by C-SPAN2 on the Senate floor July 18. She has, ahem, put on a few pounds since she ran for the Senate in 2000, and as all gorgeous women of a certain weight know, from Cecilia Bartoli to Mo’Nique, the name of the game is to concentrate the viewer’s attention on your above-the-waist assets, which, thanks to that nourishing layer of subcutaneous you-know-what, typically include lustrous skin and luxuriant hair. Clinton has both, and she also has a bust line that larger women don’t have to pay a plastic surgeon to possess.

Everything that Clinton wore that day on the Senate floor — the soft rose-pink jacket, simple and tasteful, that highlighted her pearlescent complexion; the matching pink necklace; and the black shirt with a slight V-neck that revealed a “small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity peeking out of the conservative” (to quote Post writer Robin Givhan) — brought out her female best.

My own theory is that Clinton was indulging in a visual retort to Elizabeth Edwards (those Edwardses!), who was quoted in a July 17 article in Salon magazine saying that Clinton, obliged to prove her toughness as a potential world leader, wouldn’t be as effective as her husband on women’s issues. Bill Clinton’s response to Edwards — “I don’t think [Hillary’s] trying to be a man” — was captured on a now-famous YouTube video.

Givhan’s comparison of Hillary Clinton’s decolletage to “catching a man with his fly unzipped” wasn’t an analogy I would have used, but Givhan incurred the wrath of political feminists because her article violated this basic double standard of the women’s movement: It’s fine to aver, a la feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan,that women are the kinder, gentler, softer sex — and also to advertise one’s softer sexuality by declining to dress in the covered-up uniform of men. But if you dare call people’s attention to that fact, as Givhan did, you’re a sexist pig.

The reliably neurasthenic New York Times columnist Judith Warner got the ball of outrage rolling: “I always thought that middle age afforded some kind of protection from prying eyes and personal remarks.”

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman divulged more details than one would care to know about her own sartorial peculiarities: “And what to make of my lime-colored Crocs with their peek-a-boo holes? Do they express a certain post-feminist funkiness? Or do they expose a feminine (if chipped) pedicure?”

An irate woman left a voice-mail message with Post ombudsman Deborah Howell demanding that the newspaper “do more stories on the private parts of male candidates.”

And the over-the-top finale came from Clinton advisor Ann Lewis’ use of Givhan’s article in a fundraising letter designed to stir up the wrath and dollars of Clinton’s supporters: “Frankly, focusing on women’s bodies instead of their ideas is insulting. It’s insulting to every woman who has ever tried to be taken seriously in a business meeting. It’s insulting to our daughters — and our sons — who are constantly pressured by the media to grow up too fast.”

So, I guess it’s back to mandarin collars for Clinton. That’s too bad, because she would do better to take a leaf from the book of the powerful women in history who boldly used every weapon in their arsenals to hold their own in a world dominated by men: not only their brilliant minds but also their looks and their sexuality. They include Elizabeth I, who decked herself with every pearl that could be fished out of the Indian Ocean, and Cleopatra, who seduced two Roman rulers.

As for cleavage, Catherine the Great displayed five times as much bon point as did Clinton. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria wore dresses cut so low that it’s hard to figure out how they stayed up — even after bearing her 16 children. Her husband, Francis I, was originally the emperor, but after a while, Maria Theresa just took over and ran the Habsburg domains herself. Sounds like a good role model for Hillary Clinton.

Charlotte Allen is an editor at Beliefnet and the author of “The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.”

Feb. 27 (UPI) — Britain’s Green Party won the Gorton and Denton byelection in southeast Manchester with a more than 4,000-seat majority, beating the ruling Labour Party into third place, and 12 points clear of Reform UK.

The Greens’ new Member of Parliament, Hannah Spencer, a plumber from a neighboring suburb of Manchester, produced a convincing win in Thursday’s poll, overturning the 13,000-seat majority won in the 2024 general election by the previous Labour holder of the seat who is standing down due to ill-health.

Spencer won 14,980 seats, or 40.7% of the vote, Reform’s Matt Goodwin, 10,578 and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia trailing in third place with 9,364. The Conservative Party’s candidate came in a distant fourth with just 706 votes. Turnout was 47.6%.

The win, a first for the Green Party in a byelection, takes the party’s contingent in the House of Commons to five.

Speaking in the early hours of Friday after the results were announced, 34-year-old Spencer vowed to “fight” for the people of Gorton and Denton “who feel left behind and isolated.”

“There is an appetite here for change, and there are people across this constituency and much further beyond who are rejecting the old political parties and who are coming together to fight for something better, but who are doing it positively and in a really hopeful way.”

Spencer said her victory proved there was “no longer any such thing as a safe seat” and that there was “no part of the country where the Green Party cannot win.”

Asked if the Greens’ intention was to “eviscerate” Labour, Party leader Zack Polanski said that taking a seat Labour had held for more than 100 years showed it was “beginning already.”

“If we see a swing like this at the next general election, there will be a tidal wave of new Green MPs. This is an existential crisis for the Labour Party,” he said.

Labour’s second-straight loss of a byelection with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the helm, and with local elections just around the corner in May, could prove highly consequential for his future.

Speaking to reporters Friday, a defiant Starmer rejected any suggestion he might be considering his position, saying he would never quit.

“I came into politics late in life to fight for change for those people who need it. I will keep on fighting for those people for as long as I’ve got breath in my body,” he said.

Starmer played down the loss saying that while it was “very disappointing,” voters often took out frustrations on sitting administrations in mid way through their terms.

However, Strathclyde University Politics Professor John Curtice said the Green Party was now challenging Labour’s stranglehold on the left of British politics in a way that would cause the parliamentary wing of the party to seriously question whether Starmer was still the right person to lead the country.

Reform UK chairman David Bull, telling the BBC he was “absolutely thrilled” with his party’s performance,” echoed that analysis.

“Keir Starmer is in big trouble now — it is not a matter of if he leaves office, it’s when he leaves.”

Party leader, MP Nigel Farage, warned the Greens’ win would embolden the radical left and said opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch should apologize for leading the party to the worst result in its history.

“Roll on the elections on May 7. It will be goodbye Starmer and goodbye to the Tory [Conservative] party,” he wrote on X.

Badenoch, who is Black, called on Starmer to quit immediately.

“Our country is not broken, but this byelection showed that Labour, Reform and the Greens are trying very hard to break it. Labour trying to buy people off with more and more benefits spending, Reform telling people you can’t be British if you’re not white. The Greens running a nasty, sectarian campaign while simultaneously wanting to legalize crack-cocaine,” she wrote in a statement.

“The result shows Keir Starmer’s premiership is finished. He lost authority a long time ago, a mere hostage at the mercy of a divided Labour Party that cannot decide who to replace him with. He has lost the support of his MPs and the country. He is in office but not in power. If had any integrity he would go,” said Badenoch.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the U.S. economy as “roaring” and declared inflation “defeated” since returning to office in January 2025. In his recent State of the Union address, he called it “the golden age of America,” claiming unprecedented economic prosperity.

However, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests that most Americans across party lines do not share that view. The poll, conducted online with 4,638 adults and a two-point margin of error, finds that 68% of respondents disagree with the statement that “the U.S. economy is booming.” Even among Republicans, who form Trump’s political base, opinion is sharply divided: 56% agree the economy is booming, while 43% disagree.

Cost of Living Remains Top Concern

Americans interviewed cited rising costs as their primary worry. In Tennessee, manufacturing worker Marcus Tripp said: “Even as a two-income household, we are struggling… I am worried more about how much my rent and everything is going up than I am about whether the guy down the street has citizenship documents or not.”

Poll respondents overwhelmingly rejected Trump’s claim that inflation has been defeated. Only 16% agreed with the statement that “there is hardly any inflation in the U.S.,” while 82% of independents and 72% of Republicans disagreed. Democrats were even more skeptical, with a strong majority rejecting the notion of a booming economy.

Awareness of Trump’s Economic Policies

The poll also revealed limited public knowledge of Trump’s specific proposals:

• 44% had never heard of the plan to restrict large investors from buying single-family homes.
• 48% were unaware of the proposed cap on credit card interest rates at 10%.
• By contrast, 78% were aware of tariff increases on imported goods, with many expecting the tariffs to raise the cost of living 54% overall, including 69% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans.

Some voters expressed frustration that policies emphasizing tariffs may not address the issues they feel most acutely. Independent voter Tiffany Ritchie of Corpus Christi said, “We’re not going to tariff our way out of this.”

Political Implications Ahead of Midterms

The poll’s results are a warning for Trump and the Republican Party as they head into the November 3 midterms, defending majorities in both the House and Senate. Cost-of-living concerns are emerging as a decisive factor for voters, potentially outweighing immigration and other campaign issues that Trump has emphasized.

Primaries are already underway in states such as Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas, with both parties beginning to select candidates for the midterms. Economists predict modest growth this year, but few expect the kind of “booming” economy Trump describes.

Analysis

From my perspective, the poll highlights a growing disconnect between Trump’s rhetoric and the lived experience of many Americans. While the administration touts economic successes, households are still struggling with rising rents, groceries, and energy costs.

The division among Republicans is also notable. While Trump’s base remains partially supportive of his economic claims, nearly half of the party’s voters see little evidence of a boom. This split could weaken the Republican message in key battleground districts, especially where cost-of-living pressures are most acute.

Moreover, the limited public awareness of some Trump policies suggests that policy communication is lagging. Tariffs are well-known, but policies targeting housing and credit remain obscure, potentially limiting their political impact.

In short, while Trump frames the U.S. economy as a “golden age,” the reality for many voters is very different. Rising living costs, skepticism among independents, and division within his own party suggest that economic messaging alone may not be enough to secure midterm victories.

With information from Reuters.

California’s landmark single-use plastic law is slowly being eroded by pressures within the state. Now legal attacks from outside threaten to kneecap it entirely.

Earlier this month, a federal district court judge in Oregon put parts of its single-use plastic law, which is similar to California’s, on hold while he decides whether it violates antitrust and consumer protection laws.

At the same time, 10 Republican attorneys general sent letters directly to companies that are taking part in plastic reduction campaigns, telling them to stop.

They threatened legal action against Costco, Unilever, Coca-Cola and 75 other companies for participating in the Plastic Pact, the Consumer Goods Forum and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. These efforts all include industry as an active partner in reducing plastics, but the letters say the companies are colluding against consumers “to remove products from the market without considering consumer demand, product effectiveness, or the cost and impact on consumers of a replacement product.”

Charges of corporate collusion and conspiracy are central to both cases.

Anti-waste advocates and attorneys well versed in packaging say the lawsuit and the letters to Costco and the other companies highlight vulnerabilities in several of California’s waste laws, including the seminal Senate Bill 54 — the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act. At issue are what are known as Extended Producer Responsibility laws.

These put the cost of cleanup and waste disposal on the companies that make materials — plastic, paint or carpet — rather than on consumers, cities and municipalities.

In 2024, a report from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta estimated that collectively, the state’s cities spend more than $1 billion each year on litter management. In 2023, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic (or 171.4 billion pieces) were sold or distributed, according to one state analysis.

These producer responsibility laws emphasize the idea of “circular economy”: that the producer of a material must consider its fate — making sure it can be reused or recycled, or at least reduced.

The laws organize companies into entities, called Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs), that generally oversee the management of the laws, set fees and collect them from members.

In the Oregon lawsuit, the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors alleges a state-sanctioned product responsibility organization levied fees on trade group members that were onerous and opaque.

“Their fee structure was designed in secret by board members of the PRO,” said Eric Hoplin, president and chief executive of the group.

“Oregon is attempting to build a statewide recycling system by granting vast authority to a private entity to impose what amount to hidden taxes on businesses and consumers,” said Brian Wild, chief government relations officer for the wholesalers. “This law raises prices, shields decision-making from scrutiny, and advantages large, vertically integrated companies at the expense of smaller competitors.”

The group he references, the Circular Action Alliance, is the same one that oversees California’s single-use plastic law. Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills and Procter & Gamble are part of it.

Others, however, say California’s laws are strong.

People shop at Costco in Glendale, Calif., on April 10.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

“Extended Producer Responsibility laws are public policies passed by legislatures and implemented with government oversight,” said Heidi Sanborn, the executive director and CEO of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates for the laws and a more circular economy.

She helped craft many of California’s waste laws, including SB 54 and was also involved in Oregon’s law. “They create clear, consistent rules so all producers contribute fairly to the cost of recycling and waste management,” she said.

Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who wrote SB 54, said California’s plastic bill was designed to avoid violating antitrust laws.

CalRecycle declined to comment.

Some advocates actually hope the California laws fall. They include Jan Dell, of Last Beach Cleanup, an anti-plastic group based in Laguna Beach.

Extended Producer Responsibility “programs are based on the false premise that plastic is recyclable and are counterproductive because they green wash plastics and preempt proven solutions like strategic bans on the worst forms of plastic pollution (e.g. single use bags, six pack rings),” Dell wrote in an email.

Even those, however, can be problematic if they’re not enforced. Dell pointed to SB 54’s de facto ban on polystyrene, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

“There is still Styrofoam stuff sold in 250 Smart and Final stores across the state!” she said. “It is totally noncredible and outrageous to claim that CalRecycle will ever enforce regulations on thousands of types of packaging when they can’t enforce the regulations on JUST ONE!”

At a time when so many forces seem to be dividing us as a nation, it is tragic that President Trump seeks to co-opt or destroy whatever remaining threads unite us.

I refer, of course, to the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team winning gold: the kind of victory that normally causes Americans to forget their differences and instead focus on something wholesome, like chanting “USA” while mispronouncing the names of the European players we defeated before taking on Canada.

This should have been pure civic oxygen. Instead, we got video of Kash Patel pounding beers with the players — which is not illegal, but does make you wonder whether the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a desk somewhere with neglected paperwork that might hold the answers to the D.B. Cooper mystery.

Then came the presidential phone call to the men’s team, during which Trump joked about having to invite the women’s team to the State of the Union, too, or risk impeachment — the sort of sexist humor that lands best if you’re a 79-year-old billionaire and not a 23-year-old athlete wondering whether C-SPAN is recording. (The U.S. women’s hockey team also brought home the gold this year, also after beating Canada. The White House invited the women to the State of the Union, and they declined.)

It’s hard to blame the players on the men’s team who were subjected to Trump’s joke. They didn’t invite this. They’re not Muhammad Ali taking a principled stand against Vietnam, or Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising fists for Black power at the Olympics in 1968, or even Colin Kaepernick protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. They’re just hockey bros who survived a brutal game and were suddenly confronted with two of the most powerful figures in the federal government — and a cooler full of beer.

When the FBI director wants to hang, you don’t say, “Sorry, sir, we have a team curfew.” And when the president calls, you definitely don’t say, “Can you hold? We’re trying to remain serious, bipartisan and chivalrous.” Under those circumstances, most agreeable young men would salute, smile and try to skate past it.

But symbolism matters. If the team becomes perceived as a partisan mascot, then the victory stops belonging to the country and starts belonging to a faction. That would be bad for everyone, including the team, because politics is the fastest way to turn something fun into something divisive.

And Trump’s meddling with the medal winners didn’t end after his call. It continued during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, when Trump spent six minutes honoring the team, going so far as to announce that he would award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

To be sure, presidents have always tried to bask in reflected glory. The main difference with Trump, as always, is scale. He doesn’t just associate himself with popular institutions; he absorbs them in the popular mind.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out with evangelical Christianity, law enforcement, the nation of Israel and various cultural symbols. Once something gets labeled as “Trump-adjacent,” millions of Americans are drawn to it. However, millions of other Americans recoil from it, which is not healthy for institutions that are supposed to serve everyone. (And what happens to those institutions when Trump is replaced by someone from the opposing party?)

Meanwhile, our culture keeps splitting into niche markets. Heck, this year’s Super Bowl necessitated two separate halftime shows to accommodate our divided political and cultural worldviews. In the past, this would have been deemed both unnecessary and logistically impossible.

But today, absent a common culture, entertainment companies micro-target via demographics. Many shows code either right or left — rural or urban. The success of the western drama “Yellowstone,” which spawned imitators such as “Ransom Canyon” on Netflix, demonstrates the success of appealing to MAGA-leaning viewers. Meanwhile, most “prestige” TV shows skew leftward. The same cultural divides now exist among comedians and musicians and in almost every aspect of American life.

None of this was caused by Trump — technology (cable news, the internet, the iPhone) made narrowcasting possible — but he weaponized it for politics. And whereas most modern politicians tried to build broad majorities the way broadcast TV once chased ratings — by offending as few people as possible — Trump came not to bring peace but division.

Now, unity isn’t automatically virtuous. North Korea is unified. So is a cult. Americans are supposed to disagree — it’s practically written into the Constitution. Disagreement is baked into our national identity like free speech and complaining about taxes.

But a functioning republic needs a few shared experiences that aren’t immediately sorted into red and blue bins. And when Olympic gold medals get drafted into the culture wars, that’s when you know we’re running out of common ground.

You might think conservatives — traditionally worried about social cohesion and anomie — would lament this erosion of a mainstream national identity. Instead, they keep supporting the political equivalent of a lawn mower aimed at the delicate fabric of our nation.

So here we are. The state of the union is divided. But how long can a house divided against itself stand?

We are, as they say, skating on thin ice.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Feb. 27 (UPI) — The Justice Department has sued another five states, including three led by Republicans, for their unredacted voter registration lists, amid the Trump administration’s the information ahead of November’s midterms.

The Trump administration has now sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for voter information, heightening Democrats’ concerns that it is seeking to meddle in the elections.

The five states sued Thursday were Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Jersey. The litigation effort has so far disproportionately targeted Democratic-led states, with Utah, Oklahoma and West Virginia among the few GOP-led states sued for their voter registration lists.

Attorney General Pam Bondi argues she is charged by Congress with authority to request the sensitive election data under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, though courts have ruled against the government in the three cases that have reached decisions: California in mid-January and Michigan and Oregon earlier this month.

Courts that have so far rejected Bondi’s argument found either that she lacks the authority to compel disclosure of the unredacted voter lists, as in Oregon, or the laws she cites do not permit the government to obtain them, as in Michigan. The judge in the California case also ruled her demand “stands to have a chilling effect on American citizens like political minority groups and working-class immigrants” worried about how their information will be used.

“As several courts have already held, the Department of Justice’s request for voters’ personal information, including their driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers, is baseless,” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement Thursday rejecting the Trump administration’s lawsuit.

“We are committed to protecting the privacy of our state’s residents, and we will defend against this lawsuit in court.”

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson of Utah said the Justice Department sued her state after federal prosecutors declined Utah’s previous offer to share publicly available lists with them. The Trump administration’s lawsuit was expected, she said.

“Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens,” she said in a statement. “Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights and administer free and fair elections.”

Attorney General Gentner Drummond of GOP-led Oklahoma even responded to the lawsuit by stating that they are willing to “fully cooperate with any lawful requests related to voter fraud.”

“Oklahomans should have confidence that their state remains firmly committed to both election integrity and the protection of personal information,” he said in a statement.

The Trump administration has argued it requires the lists for election integrity purposes, raising concerns from Democrats already concerned about Trump attempting to interfere in the midterm elections as he has repeatedly expressed worries that he will be impeached if his Republican Party loses control of Congress.

Democrats and civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause and the NAACP, have each echoed warnings that the Trump administration wants to use voter registration lists to undermine the upcoming election.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division acknowledged Thursday that many states are choosing to fight them in court, but they will not be dissuaded.

“We will not be deterred, regardless of party affiliation, from carrying out critical election integrity legal duties,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The latest tranche of documents released by the United States Department of Justice on the convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein has caused an uproar and a slew of resignations by senior officials and businesspeople across the US and Europe.

In Africa, the more than three million emails, photos, and videos released on January 23 are also causing some aftershocks as they reveal the extent of Epstein’s connections with prominent African figures, though appearing in the Epstein files does not automatically indicate a crime or wrongdoing.

According to the documents, Epstein had ties with former South African President Jacob Zuma; Karim Wade, a politician and son of Senegal’s ex-president Abdoulaye Wade; and deceased Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

The new files also shed more light on Epstein’s connections to a relative of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who appeared to connect the two men. This connection reportedly opened the door for a friend of Epstein’s, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, to propose a mass surveillance system to Ouattara that would work in the West African country. It is unclear if such a system is in place now.

Epstein’s possible fixing role culminated in a formal 2014 security deal between the two countries, although the details of it are scant.

The revelations, in general, underscore the range of Epstein’s influence on powerful figures across continents.

Epstein, who was first convicted in 2008 on charges of sex trafficking, was found dead by suicide in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting a trial on sex trafficking charges. His ex-girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted and sentenced in 2021.

Here’s what we know about the Ivory Coast deal and his ties to Africa’s political elite:

Israel and Ivory Coast: The context

Discussions between Ouattara and Barak appeared to start in mid-2012, after the Ivorian president travelled to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders, presumably in hopes of striking a security agreement. Ouattara met Barak, who was then the Israeli defence minister, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Five days before the trip, on June 12, 2012, exiled military officials linked to the Ivory Coast’s former president had attempted to overthrow Ouattara’s government.

Ouattara’s predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, had refused to hand over power to Ouattara, and a civil war that killed at least 3,000 people ensued. The fighting had only ended about a year before when UN and French forces intervened and arrested Gbagbo.

Ouattara’s son, Dramane, and niece, Nina Keita, also met Epstein in New York on the same day, according to the Epstein files. It’s unclear what the parties discussed.

Keita, a former model, was friends with Epstein and travelled regularly on his private jet, according to the documents. She appeared to have connected Epstein with her uncle, as well as other highly placed Ivorian politicians, according to the documents.

The files showed that on September 12, three months after Epstein met Ouattara’s son, he again met Keita in New York.

He met Barak immediately after in a private meeting at the Regency Hotel in New York, according to a schedule published in the files. It’s not known what was discussed.

In November, Drop Site News reported that Epstein referred to a trip to the Ivory Coast, Angola and Senegal in a note to his assistant, but that there are no flight records to confirm the travels.

What did Israel propose to Ouattara?

A month after Ouattara’s travel to Jerusalem, an Israeli delegation visited Abidjan.

At the meetings, Ouattara reportedly asked about Israeli defence systems to overhaul security in his country, according to reporting by Calcalist, an Israeli publication that covered the exchanges at the time.

In late 2012, Ivorian Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko travelled to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Barak, where they discussed a cybersecurity deal, Drop Site News found.

Then, in spring 2013, Barak, who had now left office as defence minister, travelled to Abidjan himself to converse with Ouattara in what would be their second meeting.

Barak presented an expensive security defence plan to the president, Calcalist reported. The $150m proposal encompassed border security, army training, and strategic military consulting, the publication said.

Drop Site News, in an investigation in November, added that the proposal included a mobile and internet surveillance centre, as well as a video monitoring centre.

The publication cited two sets of documents: an archive of leaked emails released by the Handala hacking group and hosted by nonprofit whistleblower site, Distributed Denial of Secrets, as well as earlier Epstein-linked documents released by the US House Oversight Committee in October 2025.

Barak’s surveillance centre was to be developed by the French-Israeli private security company, MF-Group, which specialises in surveillance systems, and was to be located in Abidjan, Drop Site News reported.

Email logs showed Epstein introduced Barak to Ouattara’s chief of staff later in September 2013, and planned a meeting in New York where the two men met.

Although Ouattara was pleased with the plan, he ultimately did not sign the deal because of the price tag, Calcalist reported.

Barak, in a response to Calcalist at the time, denied that he offered to build the Ivory Coast an intelligence apparatus. “The claims about establishing an intelligence apparatus and price offers are incorrect. These are private conversations, and the public has no interest in them,” he was quoted as saying.

What was the final agreement?

Although the plan appeared to be rejected, both countries continued to forge friendly ties.

In June 2014, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman was welcomed in Abidjan on a state visit.

Liberman had travelled to the country along with 50 Israeli businesspeople who were interested in investing in the Ivory Coast.

In a news release at the time, the Ivorian government said two agreements were signed: “One concerning regular consultations between the two countries and the other on defence and internal security.”

No details were provided. It is not known if Abidjan is using Israeli surveillance security systems.

Nevertheless, the Israeli-Ivorian security relationship has continued, with the latter buying military vessels, aircraft, and armoured tanks from Israeli weapons companies.

In 2016, a United Nations report found that Israeli firm Troya Tech Defence had sold weapons and night vision goggles to Ivory Coast in 2015, violating a UN arms embargo that was in place at the time.

In 2018, an investigation into Israeli spyware Pegasus, developed by the NSO Group, revealed that the malware had targeted journalists’ phones in the Ivory Coast. Pegasus, believed to be used by governments, was found to be operating in 45 countries.

In March 2023, privately owned Israel Shipyards, which builds naval vessels, delivered two offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) to Abidjan.

Critics of President Ouattara say the Ivory Coast has slid further from democracy under his rule and point to incidents like the Pegasus scandal, among other issues.

Did Epstein and Barak strategise about other African countries?

Barak also tried to leverage the Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria for a security deal, according to Drop Site News, citing the new documents.

Epstein was aware of Barak’s business deals and advised him on doing business in Nigeria between 2013 and 2020, according to email exchanges.

Both saw the escalating violence in the West African nation not as a humanitarian crisis, but as a business opportunity, the publication found.

In June 2013, Barak attended a cybersecurity conference in Abuja, which organisers said privately was a pretext to meet Nigeria’s then-President Goodluck Jonathan.

It came after Nigeria awarded Israeli firm, Elbit Systems, a controversial contract to surveil digital communications in the country. Public outrage caused Jonathan to consider cancelling the project, but the government never announced that it was withdrawn.

Barak continued leveraging his access in Nigeria to promote Israeli products and services. In 2015, he facilitated the sale of Israeli biometric surveillance equipment to a private Christian university in Nigeria, Drop Site News found. The university, in a statement, denied the sale.

In 2020, the World Bank selected Barak’s intelligence firm, Toka, and the Israeli National Cyber Directorate to advise Nigeria on designing its national cyber-infrastructure.

Epstein, meanwhile, also facilitated high-level access for Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, ex-chairman of the Emirati firm DP World. In 2018, Epstein connected bin Sulayem with Jide Zeitlin, then-chair of Nigeria’s sovereign investment fund, for discussions on securing port ownerships in Lagos and Badagry.

Bin Sulayem, last March, visited Nigeria and proposed that DP World establish industrial parks at Nigerian ports. The proposal has not been approved.

Which other African leaders had links to Epstein?

Jacob Zuma

The new files revealed that Epstein had some relations with former South African President Jacob Zuma, who led the country from 2009 until 2018.

Epstein appeared to arrange a “small dinner” on behalf of Zuma in March 2010 at the Ritz Hotel in London.

It’s unclear what the purpose of the dinner was, but emails released as part of the Epstein files seemed to show that a Russian model was invited. The model was told her presence would “add some real glamour to the occasion”, according to emails sent by Epstein’s planner, whose name was redacted in the files.

In a different email, Epstein appeared to share that information with British politician Peter Mandelson, who is now under investigation for his links to Epstein. A host, whose name was redacted “is having dinner for zuma tomorrow night at the ritz„ i have invited a beautiful russina named (redacted) to attend,” he wrote.

It’s unclear if Mandelson responded.

After the dinner appeared to have taken place, one email sender whose name was redacted wrote to Epstein: “(Redacted name) was a delight last night and enchanted all those she met…By the way, Jacob Zuma was much more impressive and engaging than I thought he would be!”

Karim Wade

Politician and son of Senegal’s ex-President Abdoulaye Wade, Karim Wade’s name appeared 504 times in the released files.

Wade, under his father, was a minister with an open-ended portfolio, and was so powerful that he was nicknamed “minister of heaven and earth”.

His relationship with Epstein began in 2010, according to an investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which cited the newly released files.

In an email to an unnamed contact in November of that year, Epstein wrote: “the President of Senegal is sending his son to see me in paris,” the publication noted. Over the years, they planned trips in Africa along with Emirati businessman, bin Sulayem. They also discussed business ideas, the files showed.

In 2015, after Wade was convicted on corruption charges by a new administration, records show Epstein approaching Norwegian leader of the Council of Europe, Thorborn Jagland, to ask about possibly filing an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights. Wade’s lawyers regularly updated Epstein on efforts to free him, according to OCCRP.

Senegal pardoned Wade in 2016, after which he went into exile in Qatar. Keita, niece to Ivory Coast’s President Ouattara, who appeared to play some role in the efforts to free Wade, texted Epstein: “Thank you for everything you have done for him!!!!”

Robert Mugabe

The Epstein documents revealed that the sex trafficker planned to meet then-President Mugabe to propose a new currency for Zimbabwe amid that country’s hyperinflation crisis.

In email exchanges back in 2015, Japanese financier Joi Ito recommended to Epstein that they both approach Mugabe to discuss the currency after the Zimbabwean dollar lost its value. It’s unclear if the meeting ever took place.

Released along with the emails were FBI documents from 2017, which appeared to show unverified testimony from a “confidential source” who said Epstein was a wealth manager for Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Mugabe.

Four years ago, Boyle Heights and Skid Row had something to celebrate: state grants to build new sidewalks and protected bike lanes.

But now, more than $100 million from the state for the transportation projects in some of the neediest parts of Los Angeles is in jeopardy because city officials say they don’t have enough staff to complete the projects.

The issue is part of the continuing fallout from a $1-billion budget shortfall the city faced last year. Officials avoided mass layoffs but closed the gap with budget cuts to city departments, including the Bureau of Engineering, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Street Lighting and Bureau of Street Services. Those cuts included eliminating open positions, resulting in smaller staffs.

“To know that the funding is there and that we have to give it back because the city says it can’t find the bodies to do the work is a scandal,” said Estela Lopez, executive director for the L.A. Downtown Industrial District Business Improvement District. She has long advocated for more resources on Skid Row, including improved accessibility for pedestrians.

“It would be transformative in a way that wasn’t just in spirit,” she said.

On Monday, the Bureau of Street Services confirmed that it will apply with the state for a two-year extension to allow more time to begin the transportation projects in Boyle Heights, Skid Row and Wilmington.

The move came after L.A. City Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Tim McOsker introduced a motion to cancel the state funds, citing “staffing, funding, and implementation constraints.” Jurado said that plan is “now on hold.” McOsker, whose district includes the Wilmington project, also confirmed his support for an extension.

“After hearing directly from my constituents, I urged the Bureau of Street Services to explore every option to keep these projects moving forward,” Jurado said in a statement this week.

The Boyle Heights project would enhance bike lanes and pedestrian-level lighting, as well as extend street curbs and plant more than 300 shade trees. On Skid Row, existing bike and pedestrian pathways would be connected through downtown L.A. to schools, health facilities and job centers. In Wilmington, near the busiest port in the country, crumbling sidewalks would be fixed and a new traffic signal and high-visibility crosswalks would be added.

The city must contribute about $23 million in matching funds.

Jurado, whose district includes Boyle Heights and Skid Row, said the two areas “have waited too long for these investments for them to slip away.” Her predecessor, Kevin de León, and his staff pitched the projects and spent about $250,000 in discretionary funds to hire consultants to put together the applications for both projects.

Dan Halden, director of external relations for the Bureau of Street Services, said in a statement that the agency acknowledges the challenges ahead, including resources, cost and timeliness, and would work to identify a path forward.

De León said in an interview this week that now is not the time for the city to return state dollars.

“It would be at best, political malpractice, at worst, criminal, if the city made the decision to return the money in a time when we need every imaginable dollar for the well-being of Angelenos,” De León said. “This is not the moment to return dollars back to the state government, especially for historically under-served and under-invested communities.”

Michael Schneider, founder and chief executive of the bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy group Streets for All, said that losing the projects would be “heartbreaking.” He said he was involved in one of the grant applications two years ago and saw the amount of resources that went into it.

“This is that times three. It’s beyond the pale,” Schneider said. “This is a lot of money for those projects that are not that complicated, already designed.”

Schneider said he is concerned that if L.A. backs out this time, the state would prioritize other jurisdictions for future funding. An extension could be putting off the inevitable unless something changes and the projects become a priority for the city, he said.

“If it goes away, all it means is that some of the most dangerous streets that we’re aware of in the city are going to remain dangerous for decades,” he said. “The projects have merit. They were chosen for a reason.”

In a video posted online last week, City Controller Kenneth Mejia highlighted the budget cuts that are jeopardizing the state grants, including a 26% cut, or $61 million, to the Bureau of Street Services, the lead agency for the projects.

“The city is actually very successful in securing these large grants,” Mejia said in the video. “However, departments are constrained by the budget and staffing cuts, which makes the city unable to deliver all of them within the deadline required by the grants.”

Lopez of the business improvement district said the state money would fund a crosswalk in front of the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row, where pedestrians now resort to jaywalking and where she has witnessed accidents.

She said she has been in touch with Jurado’s office to offer her help in keeping the projects alive.

“The city of Los Angeles can do more than one thing at a time,” she said. “We can figure this out.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

Cape Town, South Africa – Two ominous letters are spray-painted on a wall at the entrance to Tafelsig, a township in Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town: HL – the insignia of the Hard Livings gang, which has threatened communities there for five decades.

It’s a February day soon after the president’s state of the nation address, in which Cyril Ramaphosa boldly announced he’d be deploying the army to communities across South Africa to tackle the growing crisis of crime, drugs and gangs. But in Tafelsig, which will likely be part of the new military operation, most people seem unbothered by the news.

Mitchells Plain is on the Cape Flats – a series of densely populated, impoverished townships about 30km (19 miles) southeast of the wealthy city centre where the president made his speech. While the city boasts hordes of tourists and some of the most expensive real estate on the continent, the Cape Flats accounts for the highest rate of gang-related killings in the country.

“When it was at its worst, [there was a shooting] almost every day,” said Michael Jacobs, the chairperson of a local community police forum.

“Whether it’s day or whether it’s night, they’re shooting somewhere on the Cape Flats,” he added on a drive through the settlement of run-down houses and corrugated iron shacks.

Around him, residents made their way to a home-grown tuck shop, known as a spaza, or sat on street corners while toddlers ran about.

“How is this conducive to raising children?” he asked, recounting the horrors of life in Mitchells Plain.

In the past week, four people, including a nine-month-old, had been shot and killed in a drug den in Athlone, about 17km (10 miles) away.

A beloved Muslim cleric who is rumoured to have angered a gang leader over a personal dispute was also shot dead on the first day of Ramadan as he was leaving the Salaamudien Mosque on a nearby street.

As Jacobs spoke, reports of other shootings filtered through on the many crime groups he is part of on WhatsApp. A few days later, he shared with Al Jazeera a video of two schoolgirls and a taxi driver shot outside a school in Atlantis, about 40km (25 miles) north of Cape Town. One of the girls died.

Tafelsig residents now await the probable arrival of uniformed soldiers and armed vehicles in their neighbourhood, but have little hope that it will make a difference.

Despite his weariness with the violence, Jacobs is far from enthusiastic about a decision to deploy the army.

Other critics of the government’s decision said it is window dressing more than a real solution while some question the wisdom of such a drastic step in a country where the military has a history of brutality and where recent explosive allegations about police corruption at the highest levels have surfaced.

‘Do our lives not matter?’

In his speech on February 12, Ramaphosa said he would deploy the army to the Western Cape, the province that includes the Cape Flats, and Gauteng, home to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, to tackle gang violence and illegal mining. On February 17, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia announced that the Eastern Cape would be added to the list and a deployment would take place in 10 days – although no soldiers have so far been deployed.

The president’s decision followed pressure from civil society groups and the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, which runs the Western Cape, to take drastic action to curb widespread gang-related violence in the three provinces.

A day before its province was added to the deployment schedule, the DA joined residents in Gqeberha, the largest city in the Eastern Cape, for a “Do Our Lives Not Matter?” protest to demand that Ramaphosa take urgent action.

In Gauteng, neighbourhoods surrounding the province’s once-lucrative abandoned mines have often been turned into battlegrounds, resulting in shootouts between police and illegal artisanal miners, known as zama zamas.

Gauteng and the Western Cape frequently appear at the top of the country’s organised crime lists while the Eastern Cape made headlines last year for a series of killings linked to extortion syndicates.

In the latest crime statistics, police announced the arrests of 15,846 suspects nationwide and the seizure of 173 firearms and 2,628 rounds of ammunition from February 16 to Sunday alone.

Gauteng took up the most space in the police’s crime highlights, which included a 16-year-old arrested in Roodepoort for possession and distribution of explosives and the seizure of counterfeit clothing and shoes worth 98 million rand ($6.1m).

Overall, South Africa has some of the world’s most violent crime with an average of 64 people killed every day, according to official statistics.

The three provinces selected for military deployments have a turbulent history with the armed forces, not least during the apartheid era when the regime used soldiers to unleash deadly crackdowns on antiapartheid activists.

“They were the enemy,” Jacobs said, recalling his own arrest in September 1987 during a student protest on the Cape Flats opposing the racist government, which was replaced in the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.

Today after three decades of democracy, poverty, unemployment and violent crime remain a major challenge in the area.

But Jacobs, like other critics of the military police, believes the new move will do little to cure the ills that he said gangs exploit to increase their influence. Children as young as eight years old are recruited into their ranks.

The Town Centre, a shopping mall that was once a hub of economic activity, has been reduced to a ghost town where the drug trade thrives despite the fact that it is right next to a police station, according to Jacobs.

For him, there is a direct link between the country’s economic decline and the flourishing of gang activity over the past decade on the Cape Flats, where working-class people have seen their livelihoods stripped away as the manufacturing sector shrank.

On an average weekday when children should be at school, he said, you see children and even women in their 60s in Mitchells Plain digging through rubbish bins to find glass, plastic or other things they can recycle and turn into income. “At least it will put something on the table.”

Plugging a ‘haemorrhage’

Social issues and not simply military intervention should be put at the heart of government anticrime efforts, analysts say.

“There’s no other way to describe it other than plugging a hole that is haemorrhaging at the moment with regards to these forms of organised crime,” said Ryan Cummings, director of analysis at Signal Risk, an Africa-focused risk management firm.

Irvin Kinnes, an associate professor with the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Criminology, pointed out that constitutionally the army is limited in the duties its members may perform among the civilian population. Their role will be largely to support police, who will retain control of all operations.

He fears the government has not learned lessons from previous army deployments in South Africa’s democratic era.

The army was dispatched to the Western Cape in 2019 during a previous spike in gang violence and was again sent in to help with the enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions the following year.

“It’s a very dangerous thing to bring the army because there’s an impatience with the fact that the police are not doing their job. And so they come in with that mentality and want to beat up everybody and break people’s bones,” Kinnes said.

“We saw what happened in COVID. They killed people as the army. It’s not as if the police don’t kill people, but the point is, you don’t need the army to do that.”

To the government’s detractors, summoning the army is nothing more than an attempt at political heroics before local elections due to be held this year or in early 2027.

Kinnes pointed out that, according to police statistics, crime has been decreasing without the help of the army.

“It’s very much political. It’s to show that the political leaders have kind of heard the public. But the call for the army hasn’t come from the community. It’s come from politicians,” he said.

‘The military is ready’

Ramaphosa, who has yet to reveal details of the military deployment, has defended his decision. On Monday in his weekly newsletter, the president sought to separate the South African armed forces from their troubling past, listing several operations that benefitted communities, such as disaster relief efforts and law enforcement operations at the border.

He made it clear that the army’s role would merely be a supporting one “with clear rules of engagement and for specific time-limited objectives”.

Its presence may free up officers to focus on police work and would take place alongside other measures, such as strengthening antigang units and illegal mining teams, he said.

“Given our history, where the apartheid state sent the army into townships to violently suppress opposition, it is important that we do not deploy the [military] inside the country to deal with domestic threats without good reason,” Ramaphosa wrote.

Cummings said it was clear the president’s hand was forced amid an unrelenting wave of violence. “The rhetoric of the president up until now suggests that this was a directive that he was not necessarily too keen on implementing.”

On the ground, soldiers appear equally reluctant about their pending engagement.

Ntsiki Shongo is a soldier who was deployed in 2019 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. He told Al Jazeera, using a pseudonym, that any operation involving the police was almost certainly doomed.

“We [in the army] become so negative when we are working with them [the police] because always we don’t get what we need,” he said.

“We know how easy it is to get these gangsters, to get these drug lords, but unfortunately, the police, they are not cooperating with us because some of them are in cooperation with these criminals,” he charged. “Maybe they are scared for their lives because they are staying in the same areas with them.”

Shongo referred to an ongoing commission investigating police corruption that has implicated senior government officials and led to the suspension of national Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.

“So this operation, … is it going to be a success? I don’t know. It all depends on the police,” he said, adding that he and his fellow soldiers long for the day the government lets the military solve the problem on its own.

“Even when we are just sitting having lunch as soldiers, we talk about the police. We pray that one day the state can say, ‘Let’s take the military inside the country and clean out all these weapons, all these guns, all these gangsters,’” he said.

“The military is ready, and they want to prove a point because we’ve been hungry for these things.”

A Los Angeles firefighter said in sworn testimony that he sounded the alarm about the inadequate mop-up of the Lachman fire — and was blown off by a captain — days before the embers reignited into the deadly Palisades fire.

The firefighter, Scott Pike, testified last month in a lawsuit brought by Palisades fire victims against the city and the state.

Pike, a 23-year LAFD veteran normally assigned to a station in Sunland, was working an overtime shift on Jan. 2 when he was assigned to pick up the hoses from the Lachman fire. But he said he saw about five areas that were still smoking.

At one ash pit, he said, “I didn’t even want to use my gloved hand because it was hot. So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it, and there was, like red hot, like, coals … that was still smoldering. And I even heard crackling.”

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Pike’s dramatic retelling, which city attorneys initially blocked from release along with transcripts of deposition testimony from 11 other firefighters, corroborates previous reporting by The Times that a battalion chief ordered crews to pack up their hoses and leave, despite signs that the earlier fire was not completely extinguished.

Pike testified that when he reported his observations to other firefighters at the scene, “I felt like I kind of got blown off a little bit.”

Then he tried the captain.

“That’s how I approached him, is like, ‘Hey, Cap … We have hot spots in general. We have some ash pits,’” Pike said of the captain on the scene, whose name he did not know. “That’s an alert to double-check the whole area and maybe we need to switch our tactics.”

Pike testified that it was not his job “to overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.”

The other firefighters, too, seemed eager to “just get this hose picked up,” Pike said, adding that he was working overtime the day after a holiday “because nobody else wanted to work it.”

“It kind of sits heavy with me that nobody listened to me,” he said.

LAFD commanders have insisted that the flames were completely out and barely mentioned the earlier fire in an after-action review report designed to examine mistakes and prevent them from happening again.

Pike said in his testimony that he was never interviewed for the after-action report.

After the firefighters testified over the course of three weeks, city attorneys invoked a general protective order that any party in the litigation can designate testimony as confidential for up to 30 days. A city attorney previously told The Times that this allowed them to review the testimony and determine which parts, if any, should stay confidential.

Days after the firefighters left the scene, high winds reignited the embers into the inferno that destroyed much of Pacific Palisades and killed 12 people.

Alex Robertson, an attorney representing the Palisades fire victims in the lawsuit, said the 11 other firefighters who were deposed testified that the fire was out and that they did not see hot spots or smoldering.

“Only one of the firefighters we deposed had the courage to tell the truth — that his fellow firefighters and captain ignored his warnings that the fire had not been fully extinguished,” Robertson said.

The fire victims allege that the state government, which owns Topanga State Park, failed in the week between the two fires to inspect the burn scar after firefighters left and make sure a “dangerous condition” did not exist on its property.

The LAFD was responsible for putting out the fire, but plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the state should have done more to monitor the burn scar and ensure the area was safe.

Several California State Parks representatives also testified in the case. Their testimony and text messages show that their initial concern was whether the fire was on parkland and whether firefighting efforts and equipment would harm federally endangered plants and artifacts.

The Times report about crews being ordered to leave the earlier fire, published Oct. 30, described text messages from firefighters indicating that at the scene of the Lachman fire on Jan. 2, 2025, the ground was still smoldering and rocks were hot to the touch.

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the scene wrote that the battalion chief had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of the visible signs of smoking terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire if left unprotected.

“And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And a third firefighter said last month that crew members were upset when told to pack up and leave but that they could not ignore orders, according to the texts. The third firefighter also wrote that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the Palisades fire was a rekindle of the Jan. 1 blaze.

LAFD officials were emphatic early on that the Lachman fire, which federal prosecutors believe was deliberately set, was fully extinguished.

“We won’t leave a fire that has any hot spots,” Kristin Crowley, the fire chief at the time, said at a community meeting Jan. 16, 2025.

“That fire was dead out,” Chief Deputy Joe Everett said at the same meeting, adding that he was out of town but communicating with the incident commander. “If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.”

The Lachman fire broke out shortly after midnight on New Years Day. A few hours later, at 4:46 a.m., the LAFD announced that the blaze was fully contained at eight acres.

Top fire commanders soon made plans to finish mopping up the scene and to leave with their equipment, according to another set of text messages obtained by The Times through a state Public Records Act request.

“I imagine it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,” LAFD Chief Deputy Phillip Fligiel said in a group chat early the morning of Jan. 1. “Make sure that plan is coordinated.”

At 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 2, Battalion Chief Mario Garcia — whom firefighters said had received the observations about the smoldering ground and hot rocks, according to the private text messages The Times reviewed — texted Fligiel and Everett: “All hose and equipment has been picked up.”

Five days after that, on the morning of Jan. 7, an LAFD captain called Fire Station 23 to say that the Lachman fire had started up again.

In June, LAFD Battalion Chief Nick Ferrari had told a high-ranking fire official who works for a different agency in the L.A. region that LAFD officials knew about the firefighters’ complaints at the Lachman fire scene, The Times also reported.

After the Oct. 30 Times report, Bass directed Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who started the job in November, to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the Lachman fire.

In an interview last month, Moore said he opened an internal investigation into the Lachman fire through the LAFD’s Professional Standards Division, which probes complaints against department members. He said he requested the Fire Safety Research Institute, which is reviewing last January’s wildfires at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to include the Lachman fire as part of its analysis, and the institute agreed. Moore also pointed to the L.A. City Council’s move to hire an outside firm to examine the Lachman and Palisades fires.

Even with the internal investigation underway, Moore said he spoke with the battalion chief who was on duty during the Lachman fire mop-up.

“He swears to me that nobody ever told him verbally or through a text message that there was any hot spots,” Moore said.