politics

The latest nauseant from MAGA types pretending to care about children was dished up last week, but amid the internment of kindergartners, the slashing of funds to catch child predators and a measles outbreak at a detention center, you are forgiven for missing it.

I am talking about a coordinated campaign launched by the religious right to overturn gay marriage, arguing it harms children. The effort is a direct attack on the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges decision making same-sex marriage a fundamental right of equality under the 14th Amendment, but also seeks to engage churches on the issue and change public opinion.

Good luck with that last part. Most Americans support marriage equality. But the Supreme Court? That’s much iffier these days.

But what disturbs me the most, while we wait for litigation, is that the campaign is yet another disingenuous ploy by MAGA to use children as an excuse for attacking civil rights, and attempting, Christian nationalist-style, to impose religious values on general society.

MAGA frames so much hate — especially around immigrants and diversity — as protection of children, and through decades’ worth of conspiracy theory has attempted to paint LGBTQ+ parents as deviant and predatory. (QAnon, for example, was all about saving kids from gay and Democratic predators.)

In reality, it’s the MAGA folks who are traumatizing children.

“Our children are afraid. They’re terrorized,” Chauntyll Allen told me. She’s the St. Paul, Minn., school board member who was arrested recently for her part in the church protest of a pastor who is also an ICE official.

“And we’re not just talking about immigrants,” she continued. All kids “are watching this, they’re experiencing this, and they’re carrying the terror in their body. What is this going to do for our society in 20 years?”

This campaign to undo marriage equality, far from protecting kids, is just another injury inflicted on them for political gain. It features two California cases that are meant to show how terrible any form of same-sex parenting is, but mischaracterizes the facts for maximum outrage.

The campaign also specifically targets in vitro fertilization and surrogacy as dangerous gateways to promoting LGBTQ+ families, an increasingly common position in far-right religious circles that would like to see more white women having babies through sex with white husbands.

Attacking marriage equality isn’t about protecting children any more than deporting immigrants is about stopping crime. Allowing it to be framed that way actually puts in danger the stability of the approximately 300,000 kids nationwide who are being raised by about 832,000 couples in same-sex marriages.

It endangers the physical and mental health of LGBTQ+ kids in any family who are growing up in a world that is increasingly hostile to them — with gender and identity hate crimes on the rise.

And it endangers everyone who values a free and fair democracy that separates church and state by eroding the rights of the vulnerable as precedent for eroding the rights of whomever ticks them off next. If LGBTQ+ marriages aren’t legally protected, how long before racists come for the Loving decision, which legalized interracial marriage?

If you doubt the MAGA agenda extends that far, when Second Lady Usha Vance recently announced her fourth pregnancy, one lovely fellow on social media wrote, “There is nothing exciting about this. We will never vote for your race traitor husband.”

Hate is a virus that spreads how it pleases.

Those behind the effort to undo marriage equality say that by legalizing the ability for LGBTQ+ folks to tie the knot, America put “adult desires” ahead of children’s well-being, which is dependent on being raised in a home that includes a married man and woman.

Never mind the millions of kids being raised by single parents, grandparents (looking at you, JD Vance) or other guardians who aren’t the biological John-and-Jane mommy and daddy of conservative lore. Never mind the many same-sex marriages that don’t include kids.

“Americans need to understand the threat that gay marriage poses to children and that natural marriage is directly connected to children protection,” Katy Faust, the leader of the campaign, said in an interview with a Christian news website.

Of course, the campaign also makes no mention of the hundreds of children currently held in detention camps around the country — on some days, the number of children locked up just by ICE (not Border Patrol or in the care of other agencies) has skyrocketed to 400 under Trump, according to the Marshall Project.

Outside of lockup, Black and brown children are being traumatized daily by the fear that they or their parents will be taken or even killed by federal agents. Thousands of kids across the country, including in California, have stopped going to school and other public places for fear of endangering themselves or their families. Don’t expect to see these folks campaigning to protect those kids.

The campaign also ignores the fact that U.S. Department of Justice funding to combat sex crimes against children was just slashed, leaving victims and prosecutors without crucial resources to fight that real and undoubtedly harmful exploitation of our youth by sex traffickers.

And Epstein. I cannot even start on save-the-children folks who seemingly ignore the victims of the sex crimes detailed in those files — many of them children at the time — while wringing their hands over families who don’t look like their own. It is a mind-blowing amount of hypocrisy.

But of course, none of this is about saving children — yours, mine or anyone’s.

But framing it around protecting children is a powerful manipulation — a last-ditch effort as same sex marriage does in fact become more accepted. Because who doesn’t want to save our kids? From whatever.

Don’t be surprised if this effort gains traction in coming months. As we head into elections, the MAGA machine will attempt to turn the lens away from immigration and back to old-school issues such as feminism, abortion and same-sex marriage, which time and again its base has been willing to vote on regardless of what else is happening.

Because they actually don’t care about kids. They care about power, and they’re perfectly willing to exploit kids to get it.

A suicide bomb attack during Friday prayers at a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad has killed dozens of people and injured at least 170 others.

MINNEAPOLIS — The sites of the three consequential deaths span just over two miles of south Minneapolis. George Floyd in 2020, Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month.

The death of Floyd, after a police officer dug a knee into his neck for more than nine minutes, was a catalyst for the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests that sought law enforcement reforms and accountability.

Those of Good and Pretti, shot by federal immigration agents, have similarly sparked demands that federal agents to stop using violence in pursuit of President Trump’s mass deportation effort.

The sites are close enough to walk in an hour. So, on Sunday, I did.

Mementos, drawings, signs and flowers are covered by fresh snow outside of Unity Foods where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

George Floyd

Floyd was killed just outside of Cup Foods, since renamed Unity Foods. On a wall outside the convenience store, Esther Osayande’s painting “Sankofa” depicts a bird with its head turned back, surrounded by flames.

The description says it is a metaphorical symbol used by the Akan people of Ghana to express “the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present.”

“Sankofa tells us that we as a people can rise above conflicts of ego and treat all beings we meet as brothers and sisters,” it states.

On the same wall, someone spray painted, “My cries are 4 humanity.”

The memorial, known locally as George Floyd Square, encompasses a nearby covered bus stop, where a visitor had written that “race is a made up idea to keep ppl down.” Against the shelter glass, someone had taped a typed notice of emergency. It lists “martyrs” killed by authorities — Good, Floyd, Philando Castile and others before them.

“This ICE operation is somehow simpler AND more malicious than the kill count accumulated by our PD,” the notice reads. “This is slave catching. This is gestapo.”

A memorial to Renee Good at the location where she was shot in Minneapolis.

Nearly six years after Floyd’s death, some of the memorial art has begun to fade under the sun. A metal archway gives way to a plastic A-frame board describing Floyd and the global movement that his murder inspired.

“George’s name has become a rallying cry for those who believe in a better future, one where all people are treated with dignity and respect,” it reads.

Few people gathered at the memorial Sunday morning, but real and fake flowers, blanketed by snow, covered the site. A family with children got out of an SUV and walked around. A young photographer snapped some shots. And a couple took their time weaving through the makeshift garden.

Floyd’s cousin Paris Stevens is co-chair of Rise and Remember, which preserves the memorial and leads tours of the area. She said the organization wanted to give the community a safe space to grieve, “because everybody has lost someone.”

The thread linking the deaths of her cousin, Good and Pretti, Stevens said, is that they all could have been prevented. The fact that people have begun to visit all three sites is a sign of how unjust killings bring out the humanity in people, she said.

“How do we care for one another in times of need?” she asked. The answer, in part, is found in the artwork, writings and flowers at the three memorials.

“For this to happen, it’s like we’re picking up the ball and running again,” she said. “We’ve been here before and we know what to do.”

A memorial for Renee Good marks the location the 37-year-old woman was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Portland Avenue near East 34th Street in Minneapolis.

Renee Good

Portland Avenue, where Good died less than a mile from Floyd, is lined with Craftsman-style homes. Many displayed “ICE OUT” or “Black Lives Matter” signs — or both — in their front windows.

One window posed a question: “How many weren’t filmed?”

Stapled to a telephone pole was a letter addressed to federal agents: “It might be hard to understand why almost all Our City’s residents are angry with Your Mission (which has changed radically over the past year). This handbill intends to resolve confusion. I hope it finds you well.”

Another telephone pole struck a different tone:

“ICE ARE
TERRORISTS
KIDNAPPERS
MURDERERS.”

On a wooden fence, Good’s portrait accompanied those of Floyd and other Black men killed by police in Minnesota in recent years, among them Daunte Wright, Winston Boogie Smith Jr. and Amir Locke.

A handwritten sign quoted Good’s last words: “I’m not mad at you, dude.”

Keeping snow off of Good’s memorial — not far from where George Floyd was killed — has been a losing battle.

In the center of Good’s memorial, a man gingerly brushed snow from cardboard signs, shook out bouquets of flowers and wiped off teddy bears. It was a losing battle. Snow was falling, leaving fresh white dots on everything he cleared.

A woman walked up with a handful of yellow tulips. “Hello, is there somewhere I should put these in particular?”

“Anywhere is fine,” said the man.

American, Mexican and LGBTQ+ flags hung from the site. One handwritten note, signed by “A DHS employee,” stated: “We will never forget you.”

A sign hangs between two trees near the Good memorial and reads, “The resistance is rooted in love — ICE out!”

Some mourners had shared small tokens of positivity. “Please take a pocket heart,” read one laminated sign. “Keep it with you to be a constant reminder that you are loved!”

Others, knowing Good had been a poet, wrote poems of their own:

Towards new ages imagined yet still out of hand

We’ll build a place safe for us all where you stood

Where love’s lyrics echo we’ll compose what we can

To that I offer these words, would they were as good as

Good’s.

Among the couple dozen people at the site were Kayla Gardner, 29, and three friends. Gardner said she had brought flowers to place at each of the three memorials.

“I wanted to get to Renee and Alex’s,” she said, “but we didn’t want to leave out George, too. He’s right here.”

A memorial for intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.

Alex Pretti

On a traffic pole down the street, above a “Lost Cat” sign, a note in Spanish warns residents of increased immigration police presence since Dec. 22. It advises residents not to leave their homes unless necessary, to have groceries delivered and to establish an emergency plan for their children.

“These are difficult and uncertain moments for our community,” it says.

Lake Street, a hub of Latino businesses, is about halfway between where Good and Pretti were killed. Murals on side streets depict women cooking tortillas on a comal and musicians playing guitar and accordion. Businesses there have responded to the immigration raids in a variety of ways.

A notice in Spanish posted on the door of a western wear shop says, “Closed for the security of our clients.”

A nearby Ecuadorean restaurant, meanwhile, offers delivery but not sit-down service.

A person wipes tears away while visiting the Pretti memorial on Feb. 1.

Pretti died near Glam Doll Donuts, along another vibrant stretch of diverse, immigrant-owned restaurants known as Eat Street. As the days went on after his killing, fewer news cameras turned up, but mourners kept coming.

Standing over the memorial that has grown to take up the length of a building, a man in a The North Face jacket sobbed quietly. Another lighted incense sticks and stuck them in the snow.

Votive candles depicted Jesus, the Virgin of Gudalupe and Mister Rogers.

Candles burn near the Pretti memorial. Some depicted Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe and Mister Rogers.

A letter offers a source of comfort: “If I have two rooms, one dark, the other light, and I open the door between them, the dark room becomes lighter without the light one becoming darker. I know this is no headline, but it’s a marvelous footnote.”

Also on display were lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” which call out White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Home Security Secretary Kristi Noem:

It’s our blood + our bones

And these whistles + phones

Against Miller +

Noem’s Dirty Lies.

New artwork appears daily. An oil painting depicting a smiling Pretti in glasses, a beanie and a scarf, was among the most recent.

Leah Dunbar, 50, was moved to tears looking at it. Dunbar, who lives nearby, had brought Somali chicken sambusas for fellow mourners standing in the cold.

The George Floyd memorial marks the spot at the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where he was killed in 2020 at age 46.

Reflecting on his death, she had asked herself, “What is the good that is coming out of this? Do we have space in our lives to see the good?”

“Of course we do,” she said. “Look — people are making, people are creating, people are sharing.”

Tariff turmoil. Threats against Iran. An anti-immigration surge that has taken two innocent lives.

And there’s a sizable slump hitting the stock, bond, precious metals and cryptocurrency markets.

What’s the connection?

The answer is: Not much.

When it comes to Trump policies, investors have come to realize that Trump is often all talk, little action—that’s the underpinning of the “TACO” trade, for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” which I described in May.

As recently as Jan. 20, for example, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell by more than 2% in a possible reaction to Trump’s saber-rattling over Greenland and threat to hike tariffs on European countries he felt were thwarting his imperial ambitions.

The next day, the index began a comeback, rising nearly 1.2%. By three sessions later, it had recovered all that first day’s loss. The index went on to set an all-time record on Jan. 27, one week after the Greenland sell-off.

The latest sell-off in the investment markets doesn’t appear to be connected to Trump’s policymaking. The current narrative blames artificial intelligence. There’s an inchoate expectation that AI will have a great economic impact, though little of that has emerged thus far, and no one is very clear on what form it will take or even whether it will happen at all.

Investors and investment analysts don’t really know what to make of AI. From reading the most recent market commentaries, one might conclude that investors are unnerved by the potential of AI to upend industries across the spectrum.

“For two years, we have been talking about how AI is going to change the world,” Michael O’Rourke, chief investment strategist at Jonestrading, told Bloomberg. “In the past two weeks, we have seen signs of it in practice.”

The evidence that most Wall Street pundits cite is the downdraft in technology stocks, including software companies that (according to the narrative) may lose their franchise to AI bots. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index has lost a cumulative 5.6% since notching a high on Jan. 28 and has lost 6.2% since its all-time intraday high, reached on Oct. 29.

Yet companies that are seen as winners in the AI derby, such as Google parent Alphabet (down 5.4% this week) and chipmakers AMD (down about 26% since its recent peak in late January) and Nvidia (down 7.5% in the last week), also have been caught in the downdraft.

Leaving the hard numbers aside, conjectures about the effects of AI on individual companies are exactly that — conjectures. The specific trigger of the current downdraft, it’s said, was the release by AI company Anthropic of a tool with which law firms can use the company’s Claude AI bot for tasks including document reviews and research.

Anthropic’s announcement this week sent shares of legal publishing and legal technology companies plummeting. Thomson Reuters, the publisher of Westlaw, was among those most severely hit — down nearly 20% since the announcement.

Yet Anthropic’s real impact on the legal publishing and tech businesses is, at this moment, the subject of sheer speculation. No one can say whether the AI firm will actually dislodge the incumbent providers, several of which already claim to be powering their services with AI.

The sell-off was driven by “a lot of unsophisticated investors just really thinking that AI is going to immediately overnight take away the business of these legacy players,” Ryan O’Leary, a research director at International Data Corp., told Law.com. “A lot of this stuff has been offered for years from the legacy legal technology providers.”

Much of the recent commentary is produced by investment mavens searching for explanations for market moves in recent news nuggets. That’s always a mug’s game. Investors are looking in the wrong place when they try to tie market swings to current events.

(I know whereof I speak, for I used to have the job of conjuring up just such explanations for a market story on a daily basis.)

My favorite investment guru, Barry Ritholtz, author of the 2025 primer “How Not to Invest,” points out that the markets typically give back some portion of their gains after steep run-ups.

“Markets,” Ritholtz wrote, “go up and down; it is easier to ride out a downturn when you realize the giveback is but a small percentage of the recent gains.”

That may be what’s happening now. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has lost about 43 points this year. But that’s less than two-thirds of a percentage point, and it comes after the index turned in average annual gains of more than 23% from the start of 2023 through the end of last year. The Nasdaq composite has lost about 700 points this year, but that’s about 3% of its value, and it comes after gaining 43.4% in 2023, 28.6% in 2024 and 20.4% in 2025.

This record evokes the classic remark of physicist I.I. Rabi at the 1954 hearing convened to consider stripping J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance because of his opposition to developing the hydrogen bomb. After listing Oppenheimer’s wartime accomplishments, including overseeing the invention of the plutonium bomb, Rabi asked the inquisitors, “What more do you want, mermaids?”

Stocks and bonds aren’t the only investment showing signs of exhaustion after a period of sizable gains. Bitcoin traded as high as $97,916 on Jan. 13; on Thursday it traded at about $63,426. That’s a loss of more than 35% — but then, bitcoin is notoriously volatile.

None of this means that the investment markets’ performance is always driven by animal spirits. Real-world events can have significant and sometimes lasting effects. But those events tend to be intrinsic to business rather than externalities such as White House maneuvers or geopolitics.

Consider what happened to the Dow Jones industrial average on Jan. 27. That day, shares of the giant healthcare company UnitedHealth lost nearly 20% of their value due to as a weak earnings report, along with the Trump administration’s plan to limit rate increases for Medicare Advantage plans, an important component of UnitedHealth’s business, next year. The company’s plunge brought down the Dow by more than 400 points, or 0.8%.

But the Dow comprises only 30 companies, weighted by share prices, so a sharp change in an expensive stock can exert strong pressure on the average. But the rest of the market took the news in stride, with the S&P 500 riding a gain of about 0.4% to an all-time high.

It’s also true that the markets aren’t entirely immune to Trump’s policies. The problem is that investors and market outsiders often take him at his word, when he’s merely throwing out options, and thus overreact. Investors tend to take Trump’s tariff threats as done deals, when in the final analysis he has chickened out.

Expectations that the tariffs would drive inflation much higher, for instance — an eventuality that might actually have a genuine effect on the economy and therefore on market values — haven’t been borne out. But the reason, notes Paul Krugman, is that “effective tariff rates have risen much less than headline rates.”

That’s because some countries and some businesses have negotiated carve-outs from the official rates. Despite Trump’s blustering, more than 87% of the value of exports from Canada and Mexico still enjoy tariff exemptions under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement of 2018, which Trump, after all, negotiated and signed.

And Trump does have the power to turn his whims into reality, in ways that could have real-world effects on society and the economy.

All that can be said right now is that hasn’t happened yet. But many of his policy pronouncements remain so nebulous and unrealized that if you’re looking for why the stock market has been in a slump, you would be well advised to look elsewhere.

PM calls for civil debate as government faces backlash over efforts to roll back policies to support Maori community.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was positive for the country’s Indigenous Maori population.

Dozens of people started booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to offer a prayer during a dawn service at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where New Zealand’s founding document was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the two sides would govern the country.

Seymour made his controversial comments that colonisation had been an overall positive experience for Indigenous people on Thursday during a speech to mark national Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air grievances.

“I’m always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that’s happened in our country was all bad,” said Seymour, who is leader of the right-wing ACT Party and a member of the Maori community.

“The truth is that very few things are completely bad,” Seymour had said, according to local online news site Stuff.

Describing his hecklers on Friday as “a couple of muppets shouting in the dark”, Seymour said the “silent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of these antics”.

Following Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.

On Thursday, Indigenous leader Eru Kapa-Kingi told parliamentarians “this government has stabbed us in the front,” and the previous Labour government had “stabbed us in the back”.

Seymour’s government has been accused of seeking to wind back special rights given to the country’s 900,000-strong Maori population, who were dispossessed of their land during British colonisation and remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or be imprisoned compared with the country’s non- Indigenous population.

Controversial legislation that was tabled last year seeking to reinterpret the treaty’s principles and roll back policies designed to address inequalities experienced by Indigenous people led to protests and failed after two of the three governing parties did not vote for it.

Speaking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for national unity and for steps to address challenges faced by the Maori community.

Luxon also said the national debate over the legacy of British colonisation should remain civil.

“We don’t settle our differences through violence. We do not turn on each other; we turn towards the conversation. We work through our differences,” Luxon said in a social media post.

Denial about the destructive legacy of colonialism and its connection to contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous communities remains a frequent subject of contentious debate in former colonies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

US and Iranian officials are holding talks in Muscat amid escalating tensions and a US military buildup in the Gulf.

With the Trump administration reportedly in talks to create an anti-fraud task force for California, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Thursday vehemently denounced what he described as the administration’s “reckless” and “false” rhetoric about fraud plaguing the state.

At a news conference at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, Bonta said the Trump administration’s claims that state programs are overrun by fraud and that its government was itself perpetrating or facilitating this fraud was “outrageous and ridiculous and without basis.”

Bonta said most states struggle with some fraud from outside actors, saying that “anywhere there’s money flowing there’s a risk” and that the state’s Department of Justice has thrown immense resources into cracking down on illicit activities and recovering funds for taxpayers.

As a politicized national fight over waste, fraud and abuse led by Republicans have targeted California and its Democratic leadership, Bonta and other state officials have moved swiftly to combat the claims.

In California, Bonta said, authorities have recovered nearly $2.7 billion through criminal and civil prosecutions since 2016, including some $740 million through Medi-Cal fraud related prosecutions, about $2 billion under the state’s False Claims Act, and an additional $108 million from a task force focused on rooting out tax fraud in the underground economy.

State authorities have frequently partnered with the federal government in the past on such investigations and welcome a good-faith partnership in the future, Bonta said.

CBS News reported on the creation of a California-focused fraud task force earlier this week, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the plans. The outlet, whose new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, has been aligned with Trump and spearheaded a major overhaul of the news organization, reported that the president plans to soon sign an executive order naming Vice President JD Vance as head of a group that would also include the head of the Federal Trade Commission as vice chairman.

Trump’s rhetoric fueled doubts about California programs and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership at the start of the year, when he declared that “the fraud investigation of California [had] begun.”

On the president’s social media platform, in formal letters and in recent news conferences, officials in the Trump administration have alleged fraud in child care, hospice funding and unemployment benefits.

Last week, the topic took center stage again when Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, posted a video accusing Armenian crime groups of carrying out widespread hospice fraud in Los Angeles.

That viral video received more than 4.5 million views on X.

Oz’s video received fierce backlash from California politicians and the local Armenian community, who collectively alleged that it contained baseless and racially charged attacks on Armenians.

The video shows Oz being driven around a section of Van Nuys where he says that about $3.5-billion worth of medicare fraud has been perpetrated by hospice and home-care businesses, claiming that “it’s run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia.”

He also points to Armenian language signs, incorrectly referring to them as written in a cerulean script, and saying “you notice that the lettering and language behind me is of that dialect and it also highlights the fact that this is an organized crime mafia deal.”

Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Oz on Jan. 29, asking the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the “racially charged and false public statements” made in the video.

On Monday, California Sen. Adam Schiff followed suit, demanding an independent review of Oz’s alleged targeting of Armenian American communities.

“To suggest markers of Armenian culture, language, and identity are indicative of criminality underscores a discriminatory motive that could taint any investigation into fraud and incite the further demonization of the community,” Schiff said in a statement.

Glendale City Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian said in an interview that Oz’s statements feed into the Trump administration’s playbook of using allegations of fraud to sow racial divisions.

“This time the focus just happens to be the Armenians,” he said. “In places like Minnesota, it’s the Somali community.”

California has been investigating healthcare fraud since a 2020 Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered widespread Medicare fraud in the state’s booming but loosely regulated hospice industry.

From 2010 to 2020, the county’s hospices multiplied sixfold, accounting for more than half of the state’s roughly 1,200 Medicare-certified providers, according to a Times analysis of federal healthcare data.

Scores of providers sprang up along a corridor stretching west from the San Gabriel Valley through the San Fernando Valley, which now has the highest concentration of hospices in the nation.

The state Department of Justice has charged more than 100 people with hospice-related fraud since 2021 and shuttered around 280 hospices in the last two years, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

But those shuttered hospices barely represent a dent in the massive hospice home healthcare industry. There are 468 hospice facilities in the Van Nuys area alone, according to the state database of medical facilities.

There are 197 licensed medical practices, including 89 licensed hospices, in a single two-story building located at 14545 Friar St. in Van Nuys — suggesting a concentration of fraudulent businesses.

When asked why the number of licensed medical practices in Van Nuys and at that address are so high, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health said that the department is committed to fighting fraud and unable to comment on pending investigation.

Recent turmoil in Minnesota has demonstrated the potential ripple effects of allegations levied by the Trump administration.

Ahead of sending in thousands of immigration enforcement agents into the Midwest state, Trump had repeatedly cited a fraud case involving funds for a child nutrition program involving COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.

He used the case, which involved a nonprofit where several Somali Americans worked, to vilify the immigrant community, even though the organization was run by a white woman. After the state became a lightning rod, Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection plans.

At Thursday’s news conference, Bonta described major cases in other states, such as $11.4 million healthcare fraud and wire fraud conspiracy involving a nursing assistant in Florida and a $88.3 million Medicaid fraud case in in Ohio involving over billing by a pharmacy benefit manager — to show abuse of state programs is not unique to California — or to blue states.

“We know Vance hails from Ohio, so maybe he should take a look in his own backyard before leading an unnecessary political stunt focused on California,” Bonta said. “We thought we should set the record straight.”

Times staff writers Melody Gutierrez and Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is facing the possibility it could run out of funding next week, as Democrats press for reforms to its immigration enforcement tactics.

But Republican leaders on Thursday pushed back against the Democratic proposals, rejecting them as moot.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, for instance, called the demands “unrealistic and unserious”.

“This is not a blank check situation where Republicans just do agree to a list of Democrat demands,” Thune said, adding that the two parties appeared to be at an impasse.

“We aren’t anywhere close to having any sort of an agreement.”

Congress needs to pass funding legislation for the DHS by February 13, or else its programmes could be temporarily shuttered.

Ten demands from Democrats

Currently, Democrats are focused on changes to DHS’s immigration operations, particularly through programmes like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

But any funding shortfall stands to affect other Homeland Security functions as well, including the services offered by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which conducts security screenings at airports.

Top Democrats, however, have argued that a Homeland Security shutdown is necessary, given the abuses that have unfolded under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Just last month, two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, were killed at the hands of immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in incidents that were caught on bystander video.

Their shooting deaths have since gone viral, prompting international outrage. Other footage shows masked agents deploying chemical agents and beating civilians who were documenting their activities or protesting – activities protected under the US Constitution.

To protect civil liberties and avoid further bloodshed, Democrats on Wednesday night released a series of 10 demands.

Many pertain to agent transparency. One of the demands was a ban on immigration agents wearing face masks, and another would require them to prominently display their identification number and agency.

Body cameras would also be mandated, though the Democrats clarified that the footage obtained through such devices should only be used for accountability, not to track protesters.

Other proposed rules would codify use-of-force policies in the Homeland Security Department and prohibit entry into households without a judicial warrant, as has been common practice under US law. They would also outlaw racial profiling as a metric for conducting immigration stops and arrests.

Political battle over funding

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was “astounded to hear” that Republicans considered the demands to be unreasonable.

“It’s about people’s basic rights. It’s about people’s safety,” Schumer said. He called on Republicans to “explain why” they objected to such standards.

In a joint statement with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer appealed to members of both parties to coalesce around what he described as common-sense guardrails.

“Federal immigration agents cannot continue to cause chaos in our cities while using taxpayer money that should be used to make life more affordable for working families,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote.

“It is critical that we come together to impose common sense reforms and accountability measures that the American people are demanding.”

Already, Democrats succeeded in separating Homeland Security funding from a spending bill passed on Tuesday to prevent a partial government shutdown.

Some Democrats and Republicans have pushed for a second split in order to vote on funding for ICE and CBP separately from FEMA and TSA spending.

But Republican leaders have opposed holding separate votes on those agencies, with Thune arguing it would amount to giving Democrats the ability to “defund law enforcement”.

Thune added that he would encourage Democrats to submit their reforms in legislation separate from Homeland Security funding.

It remains to be seen whether the two parties can agree to a compromise before the February 13 deadline. Democrats, meanwhile, have continued to push for other measures, including the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina and the United States said they reached an expansive trade deal Thursday, boosting President Javier Milei as he moves to open up the South American nation’s notoriously protectionist economy and reflecting the close alliance between the radical libertarian and President Trump.

Argentina’s foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, posted a selfie on social media showing him and several diplomats beaming after emerging from a meeting in Washington where he said they’d signed the pact.

“Congratulations to our team and thanks to the U.S. Trade Representative’s team for building this great agreement together,” Quirno wrote. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative also confirmed the deal.

The countries announced a framework for the agreement in November, saying Argentina would ease restrictions on a range of American imports, including cattle, dairy products, medicines, chemicals, machinery, medical devices and vehicles. Those were key concessions for Argentina, where local industries long protected by steep tariffs have expressed concern about their ability to compete with American manufacturers.

The U.S., for its part, would remove reciprocal tariffs on imports of “certain unavailable natural resources” and ingredients for pharmaceutical goods from Argentina, according to the framework.

At the time, the White House reached similar frameworks with Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador — part of what it described as an effort to improve the ability of American firms to sell industrial and agricultural products in Latin American countries and bring down food prices for U.S. consumers.

Officials did not immediately offer details about the final version of the U.S.-Argentina deal signed Thursday.

The agreement marks the latest development in the close alliance between Trump and Milei, who has reshaped Argentine foreign policy to align with the U.S., earned Trump’s praise for stabilizing his nation’s crisis-prone economy and traveled to the U.S. more than a dozen times in the last two years. Milei is scheduled to appear at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate next week to speak at a gala.

Trump supported Milei’s fiscal program last year with a $20-billion credit line that succeeded in calming markets and boosting Milei’s prospects in a crucial midterm election in October. The U.S. Treasury also directly purchased U.S. dollar-denominated Argentine bonds that ratings agencies were classifying as “junk” at the time and snapped up the volatile local currency that Argentines were dumping in droves.

The extraordinary intervention drew backlash from across the U.S. political spectrum.

Trump’s MAGA base questioned the need to bail out a far-flung country that’s not only of little importance to the U.S. but also directly competes with its exports of corn, wheat, meat and oil.

Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage that Trump was staking taxpayer money on a political gift to an ideological soulmate.

That criticism has continued, with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, on Thursday appealing to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to end the $20-billion lifeline.

In a letter, she wrote that even though the Treasury promised its credit line for Argentina “was for an acute, short-term, and urgent purpose, it appears … to have left open the possibility of continued use.”

Debre writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso is not running for Los Angeles mayor, in a last-minute twist less than two days before the deadline to enter the race.

Caruso had been reconsidering whether or not to run, citing a Times article, published Wednesday, in which two unnamed sources described Mayor Karen Bass’ involvement in watering down an after-action report on the Palisades fire.

“Rick is incredibly moved by the outpouring of support but reached an earlier decision in a thoughtful process and it stands. He will not be a candidate for mayor,” said Mike Murphy, a political consultant for Caruso.

Caruso’s decision reaffirms the one he made last month, when he announced that he would not run for mayor or governor, ending a long period of speculation among political watchers. Caruso, who ran against Bass in 2022, said at the time that he was “deeply disappointed to step back from an election I believe is so critical to California’s future.”

His decision not to run comes the same day that former Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Austin Beutner bowed out of the race due to the death of his 22-year-old daughter.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath was still weighing a decision and said Thursday that she was receiving many calls from labor and business leaders who would support her run. Maryam Zar, founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, was also thinking about entering the race.

Bass already faces challenges from reality television star Spencer Pratt, a Republican who lost his home in the Palisades fire; Rae Huang, a community organizer who is a democratic socialist; and Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and nonprofit executive.

Candidates have until noon on Saturday to file their paperwork.

Caruso, the developer of popular malls such as the Grove and the Americana at Brand, lost to Bass by 10 percentage points in 2022 despite outspending her 11 to 1 after throwing $100 million of his own fortune into the race.

The 66-year-old served as president of the L.A. Police Commission in the 2000s, helping to hire William Bratton as police chief. He was appointed to the Department of Water and Power board in 1984, at age 26 — the youngest commissioner in city history at the time.

Caruso is a former Republican who registered as a Democrat in 2022 and has faced questions about his past party registration.

The developer has made public safety and quality of life issues his main talking points, along with criticism of Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire.

Caruso — whose son and daughter lost their homes in the Palisades fire — called The Times’ latest reporting on the after-action report an “absolute outrage.”

“Karen Bass actively covered up a report meant to examine the most significant disaster in Los Angeles history,” he said. “This is a complete loss of public trust and an intentional act of covering up the actions that led to people dying.”

Bass’ office said the mayor did not make changes to the report.

“There is absolutely no reason why she would request those details be altered or erased when she herself has been critical of the response to the fire,” the office said in a statement Wednesday after the Times article was published.

An amnesty law that would provide clemency to political prisoners in Venezuela has passed an initial vote unanimously in the National Assembly, stirring hopes among the country’s opposition.

On Thursday, members of both the governing socialist party and the opposition delivered speeches in favour of the new legislation, known as the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence.

“The path of this law is going to be full of obstacles, full of bitter moments,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the National Assembly.

But he added that it would be necessary to “swallow hard” in order to help the country move forward.

“We ask for forgiveness, and we also have to forgive,” Rodriguez said.

But critics nevertheless pointed out that the text of the bill has yet to be made public, and it offers no clemency for individuals accused of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, corruption or human rights violations.

Instead, media reports about the legislation indicate that it focuses on charges often levelled against protesters and opposition leaders.

What does the bill say?

The bill would grant amnesty to individuals accused of crimes like treason, terrorism, rebellion, resisting authorities, instigation of illegal activities, and spreading hate, if those crimes were committed in the context of political activism or protest.

Opposition leaders like Maria Corina Machado would also see bans on their candidacy for public office lifted.

In addition, the legislation specifies certain events that would qualify for amnesty, including the demonstrations that unfolded in 2007, 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2024.

That period stretches from the presidency of the late President Hugo Chavez, founder of the “chavismo” movement, through the presidency of his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro.

Both Chavez and Maduro were accused of the violent suppression of dissent, through arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killings.

But on January 3, the administration of United States President Donald Trump launched a military operation in Venezuela to abduct Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They have since been transported to New York City, where they await trial on charges related to drug trafficking.

While members of Venezuela’s opposition have cheered the military operation as a long overdue move, experts have argued that the US likely violated international law as well as Venezuela’s sovereignty in removing Maduro from power.

Weighing Maduro’s legacy

Images of Chavez were a common sight during Thursday’s debate at the National Assembly, which has been dominated since 2017 by members of the chavismo movement.

That year, Venezuela’s top court dissolved the opposition-led National Assembly and briefly absorbed its powers, before re-establishing a legislature stacked with Maduro supporters.

In 2018 and again in 2024, Maduro claimed victory in contested elections that critics say were marred by fraud.

In the July 2024 vote, for instance, the government refused to release voter tallies, as was previously standard practice. The opposition, however, obtained copies of nearly 80 percent of the tallies, which contradicted the government’s claims that Maduro had won a third six-year term.

After Maduro’s abduction last month, the remnants of his government remained in power.

Within days, his vice president — Delcy Rodriguez, the sister of the National Assembly leader — was sworn in as interim president.

She used her inaugural speech to denounce the “kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores”.

Rodriguez has nevertheless cooperated with US demands, including by supporting a bill to open Venezuela’s nationalised oil industry to foreign investment.

On the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday, her brother Jorge raised a photo of Chavez holding a crucifix while he spoke. Maduro’s son, National Assembly member Nicolas Maduro Guerra, also presented remarks.

“Venezuela cannot endure any more acts of revenge,” Maduro Guerra said as he appealed for “reconciliation”.

Venezuela’s opposition reacts

Still, opposition members in the National Assembly expressed optimism about the bill.

National Assembly representative Tomas Guanipa, for instance, called it the start of a “new, historic chapter” in Venezuelan history, one where political dissidents would no longer be “afraid to speak their minds for fear of being imprisoned”.

Nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent decades, fleeing political persecution and economic instability.

But there have been lingering concerns about the human rights situation in Venezuela in the weeks following Maduro’s abduction — and whether it is safe to return home.

President Rodriguez has pledged to release political detainees and close the infamous prison El Helicoide, where reports of torture have emerged. But some experts say the number of people released does not match the number the government has reported.

The human rights group Foro Penal, for instance, has documented 383 releases since January 8.

That figure, however, is lower than the 900 political prisoners the government has claimed to have released. Foro Penal estimates 680 political prisoners remain in detention.

Opposition figures also allege that the government continues to intimidate and harass those who voice sympathy for Maduro’s removal and other opinions that run contrary to the chavismo movement.

Still, the head of Foro Penal, Alfredo Romero, applauded the initial passage of the amnesty law as a step forward.

“Amnesty is the framework that will ensure… that the past does not serve to halt or derail transition processes,” Romero told the news agency AFP.

A second vote is expected to be held on Tuesday next week.

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of cyberstalking and threatening to kill or assault Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers involved in the crackdown in Minnesota.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Kyle Wagner, 37, of Minneapolis, was charged by complaint, and that a decision to seek an indictment, which is necessary to take the case to trial, would be made soon.

Court records in Detroit, where the case was filed, did not list an attorney who could speak on Wagner’s behalf. The complaint was filed Tuesday and unsealed Thursday.

Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi alleged in a statement that Wagner doxed and threatened law enforcement officers, claimed an affiliation with antifa and “encouraged bloodshed in the streets.”

And at the White House on Thursday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt held up Weber’s photo at the daily briefing and said such conduct by “left-wing agitators” won’t go unpunished.

“And if people are illegally obstructing our federal law enforcement operations, if they are targeting, doxing, harassing and vilifying ICE agents, they are going to be held accountable like this individual here who, again, is a self-proclaimed member of antifa. He is a domestic terrorist, and he will be held accountable in the United States,” Leavitt told reporters.

President Trump announced in September that he would designate antifa a “major terrorist organization.” Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups and is not a singular entity. It consists of groups that resist fascists and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations.

When Trump administration border policy advisor Tom Homan announced Wednesday that about 700 federal officers deployed to Minnesota would be withdrawn immediately, he said a larger pullout would occur only after there’s more cooperation and protesters stop interfering with federal personnel.

According to prosecutors, Wagner repeatedly posted on Facebook and Instagram encouraging his followers to “forcibly confront, assault, impede, oppose, and resist federal officers” whom he referred to as the “gestapo” and “murderers.”

The complaint alleges Wagner posted a video last month that directly threatened ICE officers with an obscenity-laden rant. “I’ve already bled for this city, I’ve already fought for this city, this is nothing new, we’re ready this time,” he said, concluding that he was “coming for” ICE.

The complaint further alleges that Wagner advocated for physical confrontation in another post, stating: “Anywhere we have an opportunity to get our hands on them, we need to put our hands on them.”

It also details how Wagner used his Instagram account to dox a person identified only as a “pro-ICE individual” by publishing a phone number, birth month and year, and address in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park. The complaint says Wagner later admitted that he doxed the victim’s parents’ house.

Federal prosecutors didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why the case was filed in Michigan instead of Minnesota. The alleged doxing was the only Michigan connection listed in the complaint.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota has been hit by the resignations of several prosecutors in recent weeks amid frustrations with the surge and its handling of the shooting deaths of two people by government officers. One lawyer, who told a judge that her job “sucks,” was removed from her post.

Trump’s chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota, Dan Rosen, told a federal appeals court in a recent filing that his office is facing a “flood of new litigation” and is struggling to keep up just with immigration cases, while his division that handles civil cases is down 50%.

Rosen wrote that his office has canceled other civil enforcement work “and is operating in a reactive mode.” He also said his attorneys are “appearing daily for hearings on contempt motions. The Court is setting deadlines within hours, including weekends and holidays. Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime.”

Karnowski writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Eric Tucker and Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican Leader John Thune warned Thursday that Congress is not close to an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security, signaling that another short-term extension may be the only way to avoid a shutdown as Democrats demand “nonnegotiable” ICE reforms ahead of the Feb. 13 deadline.

The Republicans are increasingly looking to punt the full funding package a second time if negotiations collapse. Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, Thune said that such a move would not include any reforms lawmakers had previously negotiated, including body cameras for immigration agents.

“As of right now, we aren’t anywhere close to having any sort of an agreement that would enable us to fund the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “If [Democrats] are coming to the table demanding a blank check or refusing to consider any measures but their own, they’re likely to end up with nothing.”

He spoke hours after House and Senate Democrats announced they were aligned behind a list of 10 demands they say must be passed before approving the Homeland Security funding package through September.

Democrats are pressing for statutory limits on immigration raids, new judicial warrant requirements, body-worn cameras, identification rules for agents and enhanced oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — reforms they say are necessary to rein in what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called an agency “out of control.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats are planning to propose the legislation as soon as possible.

“We want our Republican colleagues to finally get serious about this, because this is turning America inside out in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time,” Schumer said.

The coordinated demands signal unity among House and Senate Democrats after a rocky week on Capitol Hill. In a slim vote, 21 House Democrats joined Republicans on Tuesday to end a partial government shutdown by temporarily extending Homeland Security funding through Feb. 13.

The two-week stopgap, called a “continuing resolution,” was meant to leave time for the two parties to debate how to rein in ICE after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

But that truce has quickly unraveled. Republican leaders have little appetite for the full slate of reforms. Some have indicated openness to narrower changes, such as expanding body camera programs and training, but reject mask bans and the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already ruled out warrant requirements, which would limit immigration agents from entering private property without a court order. In remarks to reporters Wednesday, he also hinted at some interest in attaching voter ID and anti-sanctuary city policies to negotiations.

“It will be part of the discussion over the next couple of weeks, and we’ll see how that shakes out. But I suspect that some of the changes — the procedural modifications with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will be codified,” he said.

Johnson was confident the two sides could make a deal without further delays, adding that negotiations are largely between “the White House, Schumer and Senate Democrats.”

President Trump has privately supported the short-term extension to cool tensions while publicly defending immigration agents and expressing skepticism toward Democrats’ reform push, according to House leadership.

White House border policy advisor Tom Homan also announced a drawdown of 700 federal agents from Minneapolis this week as what officials framed as a goodwill gesture amid negotiations.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that the administration is willing to consider some of the demands Democrats have made, but said some of their requests are not “grounded in any common sense and they are nonstarters for this administration.”

Leavitt did not specify which reforms the administration was willing to consider. She did, however, say the president is committed to keeping the government open and supporting “immigration enforcement efforts in this country.”

The White House did not respond when asked if the president would support a short-term spending measure should negotiations stall.

Republicans continue to warn that a failure to reach a deal would jeopardize disaster response funding, airport security operations, maritime patrols, and increased security assistance for major national events, including the upcoming World Cup in Los Angeles.

“If we don’t do it by the middle of next week, we should consider a continuing resolution for the rest of the year and just put this all behind us,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

Democrats, however, remain adamant that verbal assurances are no longer enough.

“These are just some of the commonsense proposals that the American people clearly would like to see in terms of the dramatic changes that are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before there is a full-year appropriations bill,” Jeffries said.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.

Feb. 5 (UPI) — The White House is expected to launch its new prescription drug platform, TrumpRx, on Thursday evening, showcasing the president’s new “most favored nation” drug pricing policy.

President Donald Trump initially announced his plan in September with the launch of the TrumpRx website.

The idea is to sell prescription drugs at lower prices via the website, so that people without insurance can pay less. But users have to pay in cash because the site will not accept insurance.

The White House said at the time in a fact sheet, “foreign nations can no longer use price controls to freeride on American innovation by guaranteeing MFN prices on all new innovative medicines Pfizer brings to market.”

At the time, Pfizer was the only company on board. Since then, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Amgen, Gilead, GSK, Sanofi, Roche’s Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono and Novartis have joined.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the event on X.

“TONIGHT AT 7PM: President Trump, Dr. Oz, and National Design Studio Director Joe Gebbia will be officially unveiling TrumpRx — a state of the art website for Americans consumers to purchase low cost prescription drugs. This historic announcement will save millions of Americans money. You won’t want to miss it! Tune in.”

Former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner said Thursday that he is dropping out of the race for mayor, citing the recent death of his 22-year-old daughter.

Beutner, one of several candidates seeking to oust Mayor Karen Bass in the June 2 primary, made his announcement a month after the death of Emily Beutner, the youngest of his four children.

“My family has experienced the unimaginable loss of our beloved daughter Emily. She was a magical person, the light of our lives. We are still in mourning,” Beutner said in a statement. “A successful campaign, and more importantly the job of Mayor, requires someone who is committed 24/7 to the job. Family has always come first for me. That is where I need to be at this time.”

Beutner’s daughter died Jan. 6 at a hospital, according to officials with the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office, which has not yet determined a cause.

The announcement comes as the lineup of candidates is still in flux, with Saturday’s filing deadline fast approaching.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath has been weighing a run, as has Maryam Zar, founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022, is once again considering a mayoral bid — even though he publicly ruled that out last month — after The Times reported Wednesday that Bass was involved in watering down an after-action report on the Palisades fire.

Bass’ team said the mayor did not make changes to the report, saying “there is absolutely no reason why she would request those details be altered or erased when she herself has been critical of the response to the fire.”

Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term, already faces challenges from reality television star Spencer Pratt, a Republican who lost his home in the Palisades fire; Rae Huang, a community organizer who is also a democratic socialist; and Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and nonprofit executive.

If Bass secures more than 50% of the vote, she will win outright, avoiding a November runoff.

Beutner, who entered the contest in October, spent much of his campaign denouncing Bass’ handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. The fire severely damaged Beutner’s home in Pacific Palisades and completely destroyed the residence of Beutner’s mother-in-law.

During the early months of his campaign, Beutner also criticized the mayor for hiking the fees that the city charges for trash pickup, sewer maintenance and other basic services.

In his statement withdrawing from the race, Beutner continued to highlight some of the problems he discussed during his campaign.

“Los Angeles is a special place, but every day it’s becoming less affordable, less safe and a more difficult place to live,” he said. “To solve these problems, new ideas are needed along with leadership capable of implementing them.”

Beutner’s daughter, a student at Loyola Marymount University, was found last month by the side of a highway in Palmdale in a “state of medical distress,” according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. She later died at a hospital.

After that, Beutner largely disappeared from the public eye, canceling more than a dozen campaign events and asking the public for privacy.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has faced questions from the United States Senate about President Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign to slash interest rates, despite concerns that such a move could turbo-charge inflation.

Bessent appeared on Thursday before the Senate’s Financial Stability Oversight Council.

There, he received a grilling from Democrats over rising consumer prices and concerns about Trump’s attempts to influence the Federal Reserve, the US central bank.

One of his early clashes came with Senator Elizabeth Warren, who sought answers about a report in The Wall Street Journal that indicated Trump joked about suing his nominee for the Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, if he failed to comply with presidential demands.

“Mr Secretary, can you commit right here and now that Trump’s Fed nominee Kevin Warsh will not be sued, will not be investigated by the Department of Justice, if he doesn’t cut interest rates exactly the way that Donald Trump wants?” Warren asked.

Bessent evaded making such a commitment. “That is up to the president,” he replied.

Pressure on Federal Reserve members

Last week, Trump announced Warsh would be his pick to replace the current Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who has faced bitter criticism over his decision to lower interest rates gradually.

By contrast, Trump has repeatedly demanded that interest rates be chopped as low as possible, as soon as possible.

In December, for instance, he told The Wall Street Journal that he would like to see interest rates at “one percent and maybe lower than that”.

“We should have the lowest rate in the world,” he told the newspaper. Currently, the federal interest rate sits around 3.6 percent.

Experts say a sudden drop in that percentage could trigger a short-term market surge, as loans become cheaper and money floods the economy. But that excess cash could drive down the value of the dollar, leading to higher prices in the long term.

Traditionally, the Federal Reserve has served as an independent government agency, on the premise that monetary decisions for the country should be made without political interference or favour.

But Trump, a Republican, has sought to bring the Federal Reserve under his control, and his critics have accused him of using the threat of legal action to pressure Federal Reserve members to comply with his demands.

In August, for instance, he attempted to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook based on allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

Cook had been appointed to the central bank by Trump’s predecessor and rival, Democrat Joe Biden, and she has accused Trump of seeking her dismissal on political grounds. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the case.

Then, in early January, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Powell, echoing accusations Trump made, alleging that Powell had mismanaged renovations to the Federal Reserve building.

Powell issued a rare statement in response, accusing Trump of seeking to bully Federal Reserve leaders into compliance with his interest rate policy.

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell wrote.

Bipartisan scrutiny of Powell probe

Given the string of aggressive actions against Powell and Cook, Trump’s joke about suing Warsh fuelled rumours that the Federal Reserve’s independence could be in peril.

Within hours of making the joke on January 31, Trump himself faced questions about how serious he might have been.

“It’s a roast. It’s a comedy thing,” Trump said of his remarks as he spoke to reporters on Air Force One. “It was all comedy.”

Warren, however, pressed Bessent about Trump’s remarks and chided the Treasury chief for not rejecting them.

“I don’t think the American people are laughing,” Warren told Bessent. “They’re the ones who were struggling with the affordability.”

The prospect of Trump exerting undue influence over the Federal Reserve even earned a measure of bipartisan criticism during Thursday’s council meeting.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, opened his remarks to Bessent with a statement denouncing the probe into Powell, even though he acknowledged he was “disappointed” with the current Fed chair.

Still, Tillis emphasised his belief that Powell committed no crime, and that the investigation would discourage transparency at future Senate hearings.

He imagined future government hearings becoming impeded by legal formalities, for fear of undue prosecution.

“They’re going to be flanked with attorneys, and anytime that they think that they’re in the middle of a perjury trap, they’re probably just going to say, ‘I’ll submit it to the record after consultation with my attorneys,’” Tillis said, sketching out the scenario.

“Is that really the way we want oversight to go in the future?”

For his part, Bessent indicated that he backed the Federal Reserve’s long-term goal to keep interest rates at about 2 percent.

“It is undesirable to completely eliminate inflation,” Bessent said. “What is desirable is to get back to the Fed’s 2 percent target, and for the past three months, we’ve been at 2.1 percent.”

Scrutinising the lawsuit against the IRS

As Thursday’s hearing continued, Bessent was forced to defend the Trump administration on several fronts, ranging from its sweeping tariff policy to its struggle to lower consumer prices.

But another element of Trump’s agenda took centre stage when Democrat Ruben Gallego of Arizona had his turn at the microphone.

Gallego sought to shine a light on the revelation in January that Trump had filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — part of his own executive branch.

Trump is seeking $10bn in damages for the leak of his tax returns during his first term as president. The IRS itself was not the source of the leak, but rather a former government contractor named Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced to five years in prison.

Bessent was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, though he currently serves both as the Treasury secretary and the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Critics have argued that Trump’s lawsuit amounts to self-dealing: He holds significant sway over the Justice Department, which would defend the federal government against such lawsuits, and he could therefore green-light his own settlement package.

In Thursday’s exchange with Gallego, Bessent acknowledged that any damages paid to Trump would come from taxpayer funds.

“ Where would that $10bn come from?” Gallego asked.

“ It would come from Treasury,” Bessent replied. He then underscored that Trump has indicated any money would go to charity and that the Treasury itself would not make the decision to award damages.

Still, Gallego pressed Bessent, pointing out that the Treasury would ultimately have to disburse the funds — and that Bessent would be in charge of that decision.

That circumstance, Gallego argued, creates a conflict of interest, since Bessent is Trump’s political appointee and can be fired by the president.

“Have you recused yourself from any decisions about paying the president on these claims?” Gallego asked.

Bessent sidestepped the question, answering instead, “I will follow the law.”

NEW YORK — The Trump administration on Thursday will launch TrumpRx, a website it says will help patients buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers at a discounted rate at a time when health care and the cost of living are growing concerns for Americans.

The government-hosted website is not expected to be a platform for buying medication but instead set up as a facilitator, pointing Americans to drugmakers’ direct-to-consumer websites where they can make purchases.

The site’s unveiling, set for Thursday evening, was announced by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who in a post on X called it “a state of the art website for Americans consumers to purchase low cost prescription drugs.”

She said President Trump will make the announcement alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Joe Gebbia, director of Trump’s National Design Studio.

The president first teased TrumpRx in September while announcing the first of his more than 15 deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices to match the lowest price offered in other developed nations. He said in December the website would provide “massive discounts to all consumers” — though it’s unclear whether the prices available on drugmakers’ websites will routinely be any lower than what many consumers could get through their insurance coverage.

The website’s expected Thursday release comes after it faced multiple delays, for reasons the administration hasn’t publicly shared. Last fall, Oz told Trump the site would share prices for consumers before the end of the year. An expected launch in late January was also pushed back.

The president has spent the past several months seeking to spotlight his efforts to lower drug prices for Americans. He’s done that through deals with major pharmaceutical companies, including some of the biggest drugmakers like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Merck, which have agreed to lower prices of their Medicaid drugs to so-called “most favored nations” pricing. As part of the deals, many of the companies’ new drugs will also be launched at discounted rates for consumer markets through TrumpRx.

Many of the details of Trump’s deals with manufacturers remain unclear, and drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on many factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which shield them from much of the cost.

Trump’s administration also has negotiated lower prices for several prescription drugs for Medicare enrollees, through a direct negotiation program created by a 2022 law.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

COLLINGSWOOD, N.J. — The shawarma, falafel wraps and baklava at Jersey Kebab are great, but many of its patrons are also there these days for a side of protest.

A New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia has rallied around the restaurant’s Turkish owners since federal officers detained the couple last February because they say their visas had expired.

In fact, business has been so good since Celal and Emine Emanet were picked up early in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that they have moved to a bigger space in the next town over. Their regulars don’t seem to mind.

The family came to the U.S. seeking freedom

Celal Emanet, 52, first came to the U.S. in 2000 to learn English while he pursued his doctorate in Islamic history at a Turkish university. He returned in 2008 to serve as an imam at a southern New Jersey mosque, bringing Emine and their first two children came, too. Two more would be born in the U.S.

Before long, Celal had an additional business of delivering bread to diners. They applied for permanent residency and believed they were on their way to receiving green cards.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began and the delivery trucks were idled, Celal and Emine, who had both worked in restaurants in Turkey, opened Jersey Kebab in Haddon Township. Business was strong from the start.

It all changed in a moment

On Feb. 25, U.S. marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the couple at the restaurant. Celal was sent home with an ankle monitor, but Emine, now 47, was moved to a detention facility more than an hour’s drive away and held there for 15 days.

With its main cook in detention and the family in crisis, the shop closed temporarily.

Although the area is heavily Democratic, the arrests of the Emanets signaled to many locals that immigration enforcement during President Trump’s second term wouldn’t stop at going after people with criminal backgrounds who are in the U.S. illegally.

“They were not dangerous people — not the type of people we were told on TV they were looking to remove from our country,” Haddon Township Mayor Randy Teague said.

Supporters organized a vigil and raised $300,000 that kept the family and business afloat while the shop was closed — and paid legal bills. Members of Congress helped, and hundreds of customers wrote letters of support.

Space for a crowd

As news of the family’s ordeal spread, customers new and old began packing the restaurant. The family moved it late last year to a bigger space down busy Haddon Avenue in Collingswood.

They added a breakfast menu and for the first time needed to hire servers besides their son Muhammed.

The location changed, but the restaurant still features a sign in the window offering free meals to people in need. That’s honoring a Muslim value, to care for “anybody who has less than us,” Muhammed said.

Judy Kubit and Linda Rey, two friends from the nearby communities of Medford and Columbus, respectively, said they came to Haddon Township last year for an anti-Trump “No Kings” rally and ate a post-protest lunch at the kebab shop.

“We thought, we have to go in just to show our solidarity for the whole issue,” Kubit said.

Last month, with the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis dominating the headlines, they were at the new location for lunch.

The legal battle hasn’t ended

The Emanets desperately want to stay in the U.S., where they’ve built a life and raised their family.

Celal has a deportation hearing in March, and Emine and Muhammed will also have hearings eventually.

Celal said moving back to Turkey would be bad for his younger children. They don’t speak Turkish, and one is autistic and needs the help available in the U.S.

Also, he’d be worried about his own safety because of his academic articles. “I am in opposition to the Turkish government,” he said. “If they deport me, I am going to get very big problems.”

The groundswell of support has shown the family they’re not alone.

“We’re kind of fighting for our right to stay the country,” Muhammed Emanet said, “while still having amazing support from the community behind us. So we’re all in it together.”

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Trump has publicly pushed.

In letters first obtained by the Associated Press, Slotkin’s lawyer informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would not agree to a voluntary interview about the video. Slotkin’s legal team also requested that Pirro preserve all documents related to the matter for “anticipated litigation.”

Slotkin’s lawyer separately wrote to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, declining to sit for an FBI interview about the video and urging her to immediately terminate any inquiry.

The refusal marks a potential turning point in the standoff, shifting the burden onto the Justice Department to decide whether it will escalate an investigation into sitting members of Congress or retreat from an inquiry now being openly challenged.

“I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said in an interview Wednesday. “And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”

‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back’

Last November, Slotkin joined five other Democratic lawmakers — all of whom previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies — in posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.

The lawmakers said Trump’s Republican administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens” and called on troops to “stand up for our laws.”

The video sparked a firestorm in Republican circles and soon drew the attention of Trump, who accused the lawmakers of sedition and said their actions were “punishable by death.”

The Pentagon later announced it had opened an investigation into Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who appeared in the video. The FBI then contacted the lawmakers seeking interviews, signaling a broader Justice Department inquiry.

Slotkin said multiple legal advisers initially urged caution.

“Maybe if you keep quiet, this will all go away over Christmas,” Slotkin said she was told.

But in January, the matter flared again, with the lawmakers saying they were contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, security threats mounted. Slotkin said her farm in Michigan received a bomb threat, her brother was assigned a police detail due to threats and her parents were swatted in the middle of the night.

Her father, who died in January after a long battle with cancer, “could barely walk and he’s dealing with the cops in his home,” she said.

Slotkin said a “switch went off” in her and she became angry: “And I said, ‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back.’”

Democratic senators draw a line

The requests from the FBI and the Justice Department have been voluntary. Slotkin said that her legal team had communicated with prosecutors but that officials “keep asking for a personal interview.”

Slotkin’s lawyer, Preet Bharara, in the letter to Pirro declined the interview request and asked that she “immediately terminate any open investigation and cease any further inquiry concerning the video.” In the other letter, Bharara urged Bondi to use her authority to direct Pirro to close the inquiry.

Bharara wrote that Slotkin’s constitutional rights had been infringed and said litigation is being considered.

“All options are most definitely on the table,” Slotkin said. Asked whether she would comply with a subpoena, she paused before responding: “I’d take a hard look at it.”

Bharara, who’s representing Slotkin in the case, is a former U.S. attorney in New York who was fired by Trump in 2017 during his first administration. He’s also representing Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California in a separate case involving the Justice Department.

Kelly has similarly pushed back, suing the Pentagon last month over attempts to punish him for the video. On Tuesday, a federal judge said that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of Kelly as he weighed whether to intervene.

Slotkin said she’s in contact with the other lawmakers who appeared in the video, but she wouldn’t say what their plans were in the investigations.

A rising profile

Trump has frequently and consistently targeted his political opponents. In some cases, those attacks have had the unintended consequence of elevating their national standing.

In Kelly’s case, he raised more than $12.5 million in the final months of 2025 following the “illegal orders” video controversy, according to campaign finance filings.

Slotkin, like Kelly, has been mentioned among Democrats who could emerge as presidential contenders in 2028.

She previously represented one of the nation’s most competitive House districts before winning a Senate seat in Michigan in 2024, even as Trump carried the state.

Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to Congress last year and has since urged her party to confront him more aggressively, saying Democrats had lost their “alpha energy” and calling on them to “go nuclear” against Trump’s redistricting push.

“If I’m encouraging other people to take risk, how can I not then accept risk myself?” Slotkin said. “I think you’ve got to show people that we’re not going to lay down and take it.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press.

A tech executive who made a fortune developing education software, then waded into the fight against homelessness, is now entering the race for Los Angeles mayor.

Adam Miller, co-founder of Better Angels, a nonprofit focused on preventing homelessness and building affordable housing, filed paperwork on Wednesday to run against Mayor Karen Bass in the June 2 primary election.

Miller, in an interview, said the city is on a downward trajectory and beset with problems — and needs someone with strong leadership skills at City Hall.

“A lot of the issues we face in the city are management problems, and I know how to manage,” he said. “I’ve managed effectively teams that are big and small. I’ve managed teams that are domestic and international. And I’ve managed programs at every stage, so I know how to scale things up and make them operate at scale for a big system.”

The 56-year-old entrepreneur and nonprofit executive is making his move at a moment when the candidate lineup remains unsettled. Even with Saturday’s deadline for filing candidate paperwork fast approaching, some are still undecided on whether to run.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath has spent several days hinting that she may jump into the race, while also taking shots at Bass on CNN and elsewhere.

Maryam Zar, who founded the Palisades Recovery Coalition in the wake of the Palisades fire, is also weighing a run. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, who publicly ruled out a mayoral bid last month, told KNX on Wednesday that he may reconsider.

Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, who launched his campaign in October, has been out of the public eye since the death of his 22-year-old daughter on Jan. 6. Reality TV star Spencer Pratt has spent the last several weeks promoting his book “The Guy You Loved to Hate,” and emerged earlier this week to file his candidate paperwork.

Community organizer Rae Huang has been courting the city’s left-leaning voters, appearing with podcaster Hasan Piker in a conversation about housing policy.

Meanwhile, Bass has been using the trappings of her office to promote her work, scheduling two State of the City speeches in a three-month span. The first of those, delivered Monday, sounded in many ways like a campaign stump speech, except longer.

After Miller filed his paperwork, Bass spokesperson Douglas Herman immediately derided him, describing Miller as a “wealthy venture capitalist” who sold software that helped large companies “systematically lay off workers.”

“The last thing Los Angeles needs now is another self-funder who doesn’t understand the crisis of affordability in our city,” Herman said. “Mayor Karen Bass will continue working to solve the biggest problems facing our city with groundbreaking efforts on housing affordability, reductions in street homelessness and public safety stats sitting at 60-year lows.”

Miller pushed back on the mayor’s statement, saying his company’s software was used for training and helping employees build their skills. He said that, although he will provide a loan to his campaign to get things started, he will be raising money like any other campaign.

Miller is the former chief executive of Cornerstone OnDemand, the global training and development company that he built over more than two decades, growing it to more than 3,000 employees. The publicly traded company was sold in 2021 to a private equity firm for $5.2 billion, he said.

The Brentwood resident has been heavily focused on philanthropy, serving as chair of the nonprofit 1P.org, which is a charitable foundation that provides funding to other nonprofit groups.

Miller said he and his wife, Staci, while mapping out their philanthropic work, chose to focus on intractable problems at the local, state, national and global level. Locally, he said, homelessness was the issue they identified as the most intractable.

1P.org has been providing funding to Better Angels, which has been working to build affordable housing while also distributing micro-loans to families facing eviction. In addition, the nonprofit has developed an app to help homeless outreach workers stay connected.

Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, said its 700 volunteers use Better Angels’ outreach app to maintain relationships with one another and their clients in neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Atwater Village.

The app is not integrated with the homeless database maintained by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county partnership, and would be more effective if it was, Reyes said.

Miller said the city needs help with issues that go well beyond homelessness. For example, he said, city leaders have made L.A. “one of the least developer friendly cities in the country,” hindering the construction of new homes.

“We have a major housing shortage,” he said. “We have an unacceptable number of people who are unhoused. We have affordability issues. I’d say city cleanliness is on the decline. We are not well prepared for disasters, as was clearly seen last year.”

Feb. 5 (UPI) — Though still awaiting Senate confirmation, Jennifer Wicks McNamara is preparing to land in Hanoi not with a ceremonial bouquet, but with a tariff ledger in hand instead.

The ambassador-designate steps into a newly minted “comprehensive strategic partnership” now defined less by warship visits and more by a $144 billion trade gap, market-economy disputes and rising economic friction between Washington and one of its most pivotal Asian partners.

Her posting follows the Trump administration’s unusual mass recall of career diplomats, a move that rattled U.S. embassies worldwide and signaled the White House impatience with the slow, methodical pace of traditional diplomacy.

McNamara’s mandate appears blunt: recalibrate a relationship the administration views as fundamentally lopsided. While security cooperation has expanded in response to shared concerns over China’s maritime pressure in the South China Sea, trade has become the gravitational center of U.S.-Vietnam relations — and it is pulling both sides toward confrontation even as they speak of partnership.

At her December confirmation hearing, McNamara adopted a notably hard line. She told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the trade relationship is “imbalanced” and pledged to press for “equitable market access” for U.S. goods and services.

The phrasing echoed the administration’s “America First” doctrine, which treats tariffs not as economic distortions, but as instruments of leverage — diplomatic tools by other means.

“In my view, this rhetoric reflects McNamara’s political calculations and a sober recognition that she had better adapt to the administration she is being nominated to serve in order to succeed in her post,” said Hunter Marston, a foreign policy analyst at the Center For Strategic &International Studies Southeast Asia Program.

Marston said he believes this single-minded attention to the trade dispute risks eroding trust upending the extraordinary progress in bilateral relations which brought the United States and Vietnam to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership under the Biden administration.

That philosophy is already in motion. Since August, most Vietnamese exports have faced a 20% tariff, with a 40% duty imposed on goods deemed to be transshipped from third countries such as China.

U.S. officials describe these measures as necessary to prevent Vietnam from becoming a backdoor for Chinese manufacturing, but in Hanoi, they are widely seen as collective punishment that risks undermining two decades of economic integration.

Yet, the coercive power of tariffs has, so far, produced little correction. Vietnam’s trade surplus with the United States surged to $144.2 billion between January and October 2025, at times rivaling — and even surpassing — China’s surplus in key sectors such as electronics, textiles and consumer goods.

The data suggest that U.S. demand for Vietnamese production remains stubbornly inelastic, a reflection of deeply embedded supply chains that cannot be easily rerouted.

“Vietnam and the U.S. will have to navigate the trade issue to propel the relationship forward,” said Khang Vu, a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at Boston College.

For McNamara, the test will be whether she can translate tough rhetoric into tangible changes in market access, investment rules and industrial policy, or whether she will preside over a continuing cycle of tariffs, retaliation and rhetorical sparring that leaves the underlying imbalance largely intact.

“Jennifer Wicks is a very senior and respected official within the State Department. U.S. tariff policies have been central to the U.S.-Vietnam relations since President Trump announced tariffs last April, so [she] will likely continue efforts to complete a U.S.-Vietnam trade agreement,” said Ambassador Brian McFeeters, president & CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council.

At the core of the dispute lies Vietnam’s designation as a “non-market economy” by the U.S. Department of Commerce. That label allows Washington to calculate anti-dumping duties using surrogate prices from third countries — often higher-cost economies, such as Bangladesh or India — that inflates the “fair value” of Vietnamese shrimp, furniture and steel in the American market.

Hanoi has long argued that the classification is outdated and politically motivated. In September 2023, Vietnam formally requested a review of its status, pointing to reforms in pricing, competition policy and state enterprise governance.

But in August 2024, Commerce reaffirmed the non-market economy designation, citing continued “significant government involvement” in the economy despite acknowledging “substantive reforms.”

McNamara steps into an escalating legal and diplomatic standoff. While Hanoi has floated concessions on U.S. autos, medical devices and farm goods, Washington has made clear that limited tariff adjustments are not enough. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has called for broader structural reforms that would steer Vietnam toward a more market-driven system – a demand that challenges the core of its state-led economic model.

For Vietnam, shedding the non-market ecomony label is a matter of prestige and a multibillion-dollar economic imperative.

In practical terms, U.S. officials are expected to press Hanoi on several politically sensitive fronts. Currency policy is emerging as another point of tension. The officials question Vietnam’s management of the dong, citing limited convertibility and opaque reserve practices they say bolster export competitiveness.

Labor policy presents another fault line. A key metric for market economy status is whether wages are determined by free bargaining between independent unions and employers.

While Vietnam has introduced a revised Labor Code that allows more space for worker representation, U.S. officials question whether unions are truly independent from the ruling Communist Party. McNamara will almost certainly raise these concerns, even as Hanoi insists its model is evolving.

Equally contentious is the role of state-owned enterprises, which dominate sectors such as energy, telecommunications and transportation. Washington is likely to demand a faster pace of “equitization” — Vietnam’s term for partial privatization — along with tighter limits on state-backed financing.

U.S. negotiators also argue that government controls over land and energy prices distort production costs, giving Vietnamese manufacturers an unfair advantage. Addressing this would require Hanoi to relinquish a degree of control over core economic inputs — a politically fraught move that could unsettle domestic constituencies and state-linked elites.

Aware of the stakes, Vietnam appears to be preparing its own strategy: concessions rather than confrontation.

Diplomats in Hanoi say officials are preparing limited market-opening steps to ease pressure from Washington without reshaping Vietnam’s state-led economy. The measures could include selective tariff cuts and increased purchases of U.S. goods, offering visible trade concessions, while leaving core political and economic structures intact.

Vietnam is weighing major purchases of U.S. liquefied natural gas as it expands energy capacity to fuel industrial growth. Long-term LNG deals worth billions could help narrow the trade gap with Washington, while tying Hanoi more closely to U.S. energy supplies.

Agriculture could become another friction point. Vietnam enforces strict health standards on U.S. pork, poultry and grain imports, citing food safety concerns. McNamara is expected to press for science-based regulatory changes to expand access for American farm exports – a sensitive issue in a country where small farmers wield political influence.

Aviation is emerging as a highly visible battleground. Vietnam Airlines, VietJet and Bamboo Airways are all in the midst of fleet expansions. U.S. officials are keen for these multibillion-dollar orders to go to Boeing rather than European manufacturers, viewing aircraft sales as a concrete way to offset the trade deficit and demonstrate goodwill.

If Vietnam resists deeper reforms, it risks entrenching itself under punitive U.S. trade barriers that could discourage investment and slow export growth. If it moves too far, too fast, it could destabilize its own state-led development model and alienate domestic power centers that benefit from the current system.

For Hanoi, the challenge is even more delicate: proving it can behave like a market economy while remaining a one-party state — a contradiction that Washington is now probing with far sharper tools than before.

How McNamara navigates this dilemma will not only shape her legacy in Hanoi, but could redefine the future trajectory of U.S.-Vietnam relations in an era in which geopolitics and geo-economics are increasingly inseparable.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to reveal the vetting process used by the ruling Labour Party to approve Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States in December 2024 after new revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files about the relationship between the diplomat and the billionaire sex offender.

For one, the latest release of files relating to the investigation of Epstein by the US Department of Justice showed that Mandelson maintained his relationship with Epstein after Epstein served a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. But chief among the claims against Mandelson now are the suggestions he received payments from the late financier and may have shared market-sensitive information with him that was of financial interest to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison by suicide in 2019 before his trial stemming from his second prosecution for sex offences, including allegations of trafficking dozens of girls, could take place.

On Thursday, Starmer apologised to victims of Epstein for appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to the disgraced financier.

“It had been publicly known for some time that Mandelson knew Epstein, but none of us knew the depth and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said.

“I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him.”

Who is Peter Mandelson and what is he accused of?

Since the release on Friday of the latest tranche of Epstein files, including emails between Epstein and Mandelson, UK media have widely reported that the government suspects Mandelson may have illegally shared market-sensitive information with Epstein 15 years ago.

The newly released files include more than 3 million pages of documents and more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

As a life peer, Mandelson, 72, was a member of the House of Lords before he resigned this week. He was a veteran Labour politician who served in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. After Labour swept back into power after 14 years in the opposition in 2024, he was appointed ambassador to the US, taking up his post on February 10 last year.

He resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday.

“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter reported by British media.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.”

Alleged leaks of sensitive information by Mandelson took place in 2009 when he was serving as the UK’s business secretary in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is not the first time that Mandelson has been embarrassed by his friendship with Epstein. On September 11, the UK fired Mandelson as ambassador to the US over emails between the two men, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

On Tuesday, UK police launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson over suspected misconduct in public office linked to his relationship with Epstein.

Misconduct in public office is punishable in the UK with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Besides his sacking as ambassador, Mandelson has previously been forced to resign from ministerial posts for alleged misconduct on two occasions – in 1998 and 2001.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein was a billionaire financier born and raised in New York who was known for socialising with celebrities and politicians.

Criminal investigations indicated he may have abused hundreds of girls over the course of his high-profile career. He was arrested in 2019 on federal criminal charges relating to alleged exploitation of underage girls dating back two decades. He died in prison before he could come to trial.

He also was previously accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 2005 after her parents made a report to the police. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in relation to a single victim.

He spent 13 months in prison on a work-release programme, which allowed him to leave jail to go to work during the day and return at night.

The US attorney in Manhattan also prosecuted Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell as a coconspirator in his sexual abuse scheme. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, which she received in 2022.

What do we know about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein?

When Mandelson was fired as ambassador to the US in September, the FCDO wrote: “In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador.

“The emails show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”

These particular emails were obtained and published by the UK’s Sun newspaper in September. In them, Mandelson told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced in 2008.

“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told Epstein before his sentence began.

“I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain,” Mandelson wrote. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can.”

It is now clear from the latest tranche of Epstein files that Mandelson continued his friendship with Epstein for some time after the financier had been convicted of sex offences.

What do the new Epstein files reveal?

From 2003 to 2004, bank records indicated that Epstein made three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts connected to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said he does not recall receiving any such funds and has pledged to examine whether the documents are genuine.

According to these documents, in 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds ($13,607, or $20,419 today after inflation) to pay for an osteopathy course. This week, Mandelson told The Times of London: “In retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgement for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”

Emails revealed in the latest tranche of files from the US Justice Department also shine a light on the close friendship between the two men.

In October 2009, Epstein wrote in an email to Mandelson: “You can marry princess beatrice, the queen would have a queen as a grandson,” referring to the daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince whose royal titles were stripped last year over his own links to Epstein and allegations of the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, who successfully sued Mountbatten-Windsor.

“does that make it incest, how exciting,” Epstein wrote.

In 2010, Lesley Groff, known to have been Epstein’s long-term executive assistant, emailed his boss: “Mandelson’s holiday plans arc still being sorted out. They hope to be in touch soon.”

In 2013, Epstein emailed Mandelson, saying he knew Mandelson was visiting St Petersburg, Russia. Mandelson described the city as “a rave”, to which Epstein asked whether “its for gays”. Mandelson responded, “Er no, tastey [sic] models and dancing.”

But the emails also suggested Mandelson passed sensitive information to the financier.

On May 9, 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost compelte [sic].” The next morning, European governments approved a 500-billion-euro bailout for banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Also in May 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein, saying, “Finally got him to go today.” It is believed that Mandelson was referring to former Labour Prime Minister Brown.

Epstein replied to this email: “I have faith, the value of some chapters in your book should now increase.”

Brown announced his resignation just hours after this email exchange.

What has Starmer said?

Under mounting pressure from opposition politicians and within his own party this week, Starmer agreed to release information about the process through which Mandelson was appointed ambassador in 2024.

At a question and answer session on Wednesday in the House of Commons dominated by the Epstein revelations, Starmer admitted that he knew of Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein but said Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador”.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party,” Starmer said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

Starmer said he would ensure that “all of the material” is published, except for documents that compromise Britain’s national security, international relations or the police investigation into Mandelson’s activities.

On Tuesday, Starmer told his cabinet he was “appalled by the information” regarding Mandelson and was concerned more details could come to light, according to a Downing Street readout of the cabinet meeting.

Starmer also said he had ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

“The alleged passing on of emails of highly sensitive government business was disgraceful,” Starmer said, adding that he was not yet “reassured that the totality of information had yet emerged”.

How will this affect Starmer?

Members of parliament expressed their dismay and called on him to step down.

Conservative MP Luke Evans said: “At the end of the day, he [Starmer] made the decision to appoint Mandelson to the post of ambassador, so he must explain his decision-making process.”

Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “There is no doubt that the prime minister’s judgement is being called sharply into question at this moment. It is becoming harder to see how any of us can rely on his judgement in future.”

Conservative MP Graham Stuart added: “The fact is that he appointed a person who had already broken all the Nolan Principles before his appointment as well as doing so after it. I think that makes the prime minister’s position untenable.”

The Nolan Principles are a set of ethical standards for all public office holders in the UK.

“I would say that today is the crumbling of Starmer. His judgement is poor, and it is ruining this country and the Labour Party,” Conservative MP Esther McVey said.

What do we know about how Mandelson was approved as US ambassador?

Facing questions from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the House of Commons in September, Starmer maintained that “full due process was gone through” for the purposes of Mandelson’s appointment.

Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, who is said to have nicknamed him “Petie”, had been publicly known for years.

But The Times of London reported that Starmer received just a two-page vetting note from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team about Mandelson’s appointment.

That document suggested that while Epstein was in prison in 2009, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The report also contained a photograph of Mandelson and Epstein together.

This indicated that by late 2024, the UK government had documentation showing Mandelson had remained close to Epstein even after his 2008 conviction.