politics

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — She refused to ban books, many of them about racism and the experiences of LGBTQ+ people. And for that, Suzette Baker was fired as a library director in a rural county in central Texas.

“I’m kind of persona non grata around here,” said Baker, who had headed the Kingsland, Texas, library system until she refused to take down a prominent display of several books people had sought to ban over the years.

Now, Baker is fighting back. She and two other librarians who were similarly fired have filed workplace discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And as culture war battles to keep certain books from children and teens put public and school libraries increasingly under pressure, their goal is redemption and, where possible, eventual reinstatement.

So far, it’s a wait-and-see whether the claims will succeed — and set new precedent — in the struggle between teachers and librarians around the country who oppose book bans and conservative activists who say some books are inappropriate for young minds.

The fight has involved a record number of book-banning efforts, some libraries cutting ties with the American Library Assn. — which opposes book bans — and even attempts to prosecute librarians for allowing children to access books some consider too graphic.

At least one terminated librarian has gained a measure of success.

Brooky Parks, who was fired for defending programs on anti-racism and LGBTQ+ stories she organized for teens at the Erie Community Library north of Denver, won a $250,000 settlement in September. Reached through the Colorado Civil Rights Division, the settlement requires her former employer to give librarians more say in decisions involving library programs.

Parks’ settlement with the High Plains Library District capped a stressful eight-month period without work, when community donations helped her avoid losing her home. And it will probably resolve Parks’ claim with the EEOC, said attorney Iris Halpern, who represents Parks and the other two librarians.

“I just wasn’t going to back down from it. It was just the right thing to do,” said Parks, now a librarian at the University of Denver.

After her firing in 2022, Baker filed an EEOC claim against her employer, the Llano County Library System in Kingsland. And in September 2023, Terri Lesley filed a claim over her firing last summer as executive director of the Campbell County Public Library System in Gillette, Wyo.

Halpern, with the Denver firm Rathod Mohamedbhai, compared the wrongful-termination claims to civil rights-era legal battles.

“It is honestly sad that we’ve gotten to this point. But history is a constant struggle, and we have to learn from our past,” she said.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act established the EEOC to enforce laws against workplace discrimination. One legal expert thinks the librarians might be able to prevail on the grounds that, under those laws, employees may not be discriminated against for associating with certain classes of people.

“With any case, the devil can be in the details in terms of how the facts come out and what they can present. But these are definitely actionable claims,” said Rutgers University law professor David Lopez, a former EEOC general counsel.

An EEOC investigation can take more than a year. After that, the EEOC may attempt to reach a settlement with the employer out of court, sue on the employee’s behalf or issue a letter saying the employee has grounds to sue on their own.

The librarians haven’t yet received an EEOC response and none is expected before the end of next year.

“I would love to be optimistic,” Baker said. “I know there are a lot of people in this community who are just absolutely behind the library being open and free and equal for all. And there’s a lot of people who aren’t. So it’s a hard, hard situation.”

EEOC spokesperson Victor Chen declined to comment on specific filings, saying, “We can’t even confirm or deny we have these complaints.”

The county attorney offices and other representatives of the government officials who fired Parks, Baker and Lesley did not return phone and email messages seeking comment, or declined to comment.

At her Texas library, Baker displayed several books that have been targeted in recent book bans and a sign that read: “We put the ‘lit’ in literature” — a reference to a Tennessee pastor’s recent burning of books.

Baker was fired after refusing to take down the display and signs — considered the last straw after she resisted book banning in her library.

In March, a federal judge ordered 17 books returned to Kingsland library shelves while a citizen lawsuit against book banning proceeded. The works ranged from children’s books to award-winning nonfiction, including “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; and “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health,” by Robie Harris.

“Content-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional and subject to strict scrutiny,” Texas U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his March 30 ruling. He cited a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred communities from banning signs because of what they say.

The Llano County Commissioners Court decided against closing the county’s three libraries in response to the ruling. Closing the libraries would have echoed the history across the U.S. of closing swimming pools rather than desegregating them, Halpern said.

Like Baker, Lesley had trouble finding work after being fired from the library system she directed in Gillette, Wyo. Her dismissal followed two years of turmoil over challenges to the books available and library programs.

Some of the same county officials who opposed a transgender magician’s plans to perform at the library went on to join local residents in seeking to ban books, according to Lesley’s EEOC filing.

Baker and Lesley both were fired after local officials appointed new library board members willing to be more aggressive about pulling books.

“Our county commissioners appointed board members who were sympathetic to the people who wanted to remove the books. And it was a long dance to try to get it there. And in the end they had to fire me, I think, in order to be able to meet their goal,” Lesley said.

The Campbell County Commission skirted a deputy county attorney’s recommendation not to appoint past applicants for the board without reinterviewing them along with new candidates, according to Lesley’s EEOC claim.

“I saw this as a well-executed attack on the library by a group of citizens and elected officials. It was an attack on the LGBTQ+ community as well,” she said. “And it was an attack on the books.”

In 2023, California regulators levied more than $100,000 in fines against the private operator of a federal immigration facility, kicking off a three-year battle over whether detainees who do work at the facilities should be considered employees.

The question went beyond semantics: If considered employees, the detainees would be subject to state worker protection laws.

A legal settlement announced this week now affirms that private immigrant detention facilities are subject to California’s workplace safety and health requirements.

“Every worker deserves a safe and healthy workplace and should be able to report workplace hazards without fear of retaliation,” said Denisse Gómez, spokesperson for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health or Cal/OSHA.

“Individuals who perform work in these facilities are entitled to workplace safety protections, and this settlement reinforces Cal/OSHA’s commitment to enforcing those protections and safeguarding vulnerable workers,” she added.

Under the settlement between California and the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company, the company recently withdrew its legal challenges and agreed to pay more than $100,000 in the fines.

The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.

Back in 2023, Cal/OSHA issued $104,510 in fines against the GEO Group. The agency had found six violations of state code by the company after detainees complained about a lack of protective equipment and proper training while cleaning the facility for $1 per day.

Detainees alleged they routinely wiped black mold off shower walls at the facility, saw black dust spew from air vents and used cleaning solutions that lacked instructions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The biggest fine levied against the GEO Group was for failure to establish and maintain “effective written procedures to reduce employee risk of exposure to aerosol transmissible disease.”

Advocates viewed Cal/OSHA’S recognition of the detainees as workers as a victory that could pave the way for future labor rights fights at other detention centers in the state.

But the GEO Group appealed, arguing that detainees participating in ICE’s voluntary work program make their own schedules and aren’t employees, so hazard exposure couldn’t be “as a result of assigned duties,” as California law states. Plus, the company argued, there wasn’t enough evidence that detainees were exposed to any hazard.

Early last year, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board rejected the GEO Group’s argument and found that detainees should be considered “affected employees.”

The GEO Group sued, but three days before a California Superior Court hearing in May, the company and Cal/OSHA reached the settlement.

Along with paying the fines, the GEO Group agreed to draft plans for avoiding aerosol transmissions at 12 secure and reentry facilities in California, including five detention centers that hold immigrants.

“GEO ensures detainees are afforded the necessary tools, equipment, and personal protective equipment … to safely and effectively perform any necessary tasks,” the settlement states.

Gómez said the settlement also leaves intact the appeals board’s ruling that civil immigration detainees who participate in work programs can participate in proceedings anonymously, “acknowledging the potential for retaliation when individuals raise workplace safety concerns.”

But the question of whether detainees are employees and deserve certain protections isn’t entirely resolved — at least not for the federal government.

Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new standards for detention facilities across the country. The revised guidelines “emphasize that detainee volunteers participating in the voluntary work program are not considered facility and/or government employees” and thus not entitled to labor regulations.

Attorney Mariel Villarreal said the timing of the new detention standards made her question whether the GEO Group had asked ICE to specify in its standards that detainees are not workers in response to its battle with Cal/OSHA.

“To me, it’s a reaction to this very settlement,” she said. Villarreal works for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which filed the original complaint on behalf of detainees who said they worked in unsafe conditions.

Villarreal pointed to a Washington Post report that GEO Group executives privately asked ICE to specify that detainees are not employees of the facilities where they work. Two top Trump administration officials, border czar Tom Homan and acting ICE director David Venturella, previously worked for the GEO Group.

New versions of ICE detention standards take effect as contracts are established or modified, so this year’s rules won’t immediately apply to every facility.

An ICE spokesperson did not comment about the settlement. The spokesperson, who did not provide their name in an emailed statement Wednesday, said the agency has begun transitioning detention facilities to meet the 2026 standards, “building on its longstanding commitment to safe, secure, and professional detention operations.”

“ICE has consistently implemented many of these best practices independently, reinforcing its role as the leader in detention operations,” the spokesperson added.

The GEO Group and other immigrant detention center operators have faced other legal battles over workers’ rights, including lawsuits in Washington, Colorado and California over the $1-per-day payment.

Villarreal said she’s confident that the Cal/OSHA settlement would continue to hold even if California facilities incorporated the new standards. But she said she believes the statements are an attempt by the GEO Group to “sidestep responsibility” and avoid the possibility of being fined under similar circumstances in other states.

“These statements in the new standards are a way for them to try and preserve profits as much as possible,” she said. “GEO and ICE are so intertwined at this point that they have the same motives.”

WASHINGTON — A tentative armistice between the United States and Iran reached less than a month ago appeared all but dead Wednesday after the two sides traded fresh military strikes, and as President Trump directed further attacks on the Islamic Republic.

The escalation marked a dramatic turn after the Trump administration spent weeks selling a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran that proved controversial across the political aisle, lifting oil sanctions and a naval blockade on Iran in exchange for the promise of talks over the status of the Strait of Hormuz and its decades-old nuclear program.

Now, speaking to reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said he believed the truce — which diplomats describe as a memorandum of understanding — was “over” and that it was a “waste of time” dealing with Iranian leadership.

“They’re scum. They’re sick people,” Trump said of Iranian leaders, whom he had characterized last month as “very rational people” and “very nice to deal with.”

The president’s dim views of the ceasefire agreement’s fate were shared by Iran’s foreign ministry, which issued a statement on Wednesday saying the American attacks, the reinstatement of a U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s continuing attacks in Lebanon rendered “important and fundamental” parts of the deal “ineffective.”

The truce’s unraveling was underscored by Trump ordering the U.S. military to launch a series of strikes against Iran on Wednesday afternoon to “further degrade their ability to threaten” the commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media.

Earlier in the day, Trump signaled that the United States planned to “hit them hard” and floated the possibility of taking over Kharg Island, which is vital to Iran’s economy. His remarks quickly prompted oil prices to rise and global stock markets to fall, a worry that Trump acknowledged but which did not seem to sway his decision-making in relation to Iran.

“If we hit Iran, oil goes up a little bit, it is all right,” Trump said. He later added that the United States may “do some other thing that could lift it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s gonna lift it a lot at all.”

As Trump signals the continuation of fighting, his administration has been seeking more than $67 billion in funding to cover expenses related to the Iran war, a request that Congress has not yet approved as lawmakers have been split over the president’s handling of the conflict.

“The American people are paying the price for Trump’s total failure in Iran,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Wednesday. “Our troops are back in harm’s way and high gas costs are continuing to punish working families.”

The president’s stance on the war marked the latest setback to a fragile truce that has barely held since the 14-page agreement was signed June 17, as the U.S. and Iran engaged over the last few weeks in cycles of attacks and counterattacks.

Trump was noticeably angrier at Iran on Wednesday as he cast doubt over the deal. Last month, Trump had complimented Iranian leadership for trying to reach a peace deal and celebrated the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for the world’s oil and gas. But based on his remarks, it was clear he was out of patience.

“I am not happy with them,” Trump said. “They’re cuckoo. There’s something wrong with these people. For 47 years, they’ve been the bully of the Middle East and they are not the bully anymore. They are not the bully anymore.”

Trump expressed frustration with Iran’s negotiators and their resistance to abiding by U.S. demands to reopen the strait. When asked if he intended to send troops to Iran, the president dismissed the idea.

“Why would I go in now?” Trump said. “I’d go in when they’re completely eliminated or an agreement is made.”

Still, the president kept the door open for negotiations, saying that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner “want to negotiate.”

“They’re good people, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me,” Trump said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with [the Iranians]. They’re liars.”

The latest breakdown to the ceasefire followed a now-familiar chain reaction of tit-for-tat attacks, starting with a series of strikes on three oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including a Qatari vessel carrying natural gas, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.

The Qatari tanker was off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the maritime monitor said, in what experts say was a move to thwart ships attempting to use an alternate transit route to the one Iran specified. Iran did not claim responsibility, but a report on Iranian state television said the Qatari tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings to turn back.

The two other vessels were damaged but were able to continue to their destination, according to the U.K. group.

Qatar, which has played a vital role in facilitating negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, condemned the attack on its tanker as “unacceptable.”

The U.S. responded with a wave of strikes against more than 80 Iranian targets aimed at “impos[ing] heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. That tally included roughly 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in the strait.

Iranian state media said U.S. strikes targeted Sirik, Qeshm Island and Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, while a U.S. drone strike on the port city of Mahshahr killed one Revolutionary Guard member.

Ahead of the strikes, the White House revoked the 60-day temporary license given to Tehran to sell and deliver oil during the truce.

Iran’s military countered with its own strikes on 85 U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait; it also shot down an MQ-9 drone, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Kuwait said its military intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones, but that none had resulted in material damage or casualties.

Global oil prices surged 6% on news of Trump’s reversal on the deal, rising to more than $78 a barrel, down from the peak during the war but still above prewar levels.

The renewed violence appeared to have little effect on the funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Feb. 28, in the war’s opening hours.

The funeral, a days-long period of mourning, is set to end on Thursday, when Khamenei’s body will return from Iraq to be buried in the city of Mashhad, his birthplace. Negotiations were to begin once more.

In his remarks Wednesday, Trump said Iranian leaders had asked for a “timeout” to attend the funeral, and that he had promised not to kill them.

“And I said give it to them, and they start shooting missiles,” Trump said.

Whether those talks — which were meant to deal with the thorniest issues between the two countries, including the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program — will go ahead remains unclear. Iran, for its part, maintained a defiant attitude.

“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” wrote Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker. “It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to the supreme leader, posted on X that Trump’s policy had “driven the region towards fire.”

“We had previously warned that the region is not a place for the political gambling of small countries, and we have repeatedly proven that adventures are met with an immediate response,” he wrote.

He added that the Axis of Resistance — a reference to Iran’s network of allied groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — would not be “silent against humiliation and adventurism” and has “its finger on the trigger.”

Bulos reported from Beirut and Ceballos from Washington.

A three-judge panel on Wednesday denied a request from the Kennedy Center’s board to keep President Trump’s name on the institution while the board appeals an earlier ruling that dubbed the name change illegal and had it rescinded.

It’s another setback for the board of trustees, of which Trump is chairman, in a saga that began earlier this year when the Kennedy Center became: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

The conspicuous addition, and ensuing legal battle, became symbolic of Trump’s broader push to imprint his legacy — and, in this case, his actual name — on the nation’s capitol in his final term.

The panel of judges wrote Wednesday that the request “failed to show how they will be irreparably injured” if Trump’s name remains off the building through the appeal process.

The board had argued that the the removal “threatens to impede” fundraising efforts, but the judges found that claim came without the support of “specific facts or evidence.”

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A federal judge earlier this year ruled that the name change was illegal, and Trump’s name was removed from the building’s white marble facade in June.

Bedayn writes for the Associated Press.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is directly asking Sen. Mitch McConnell, the state’s most powerful figure in Congress, to disclose more about his condition after three weeks of silence from the 84-year-old since he was hospitalized in Washington.

The letter released Wednesday from Beshear, a Democrat who is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028, to the former Senate Republican leader says “Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and well-being, and ability to hold office.”

McConnell, whose physical condition has visibly declined in recent years, was hospitalized June 14. He has not released a public statement, photos or videos since. Aides have disclosed nothing specific about his condition, other than to say last week that McConnell “continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”

That lack of detail has fueled rampant speculation about his prognosis and whether he will return to the Senate when it reconvenes next week. The firestorm was enough that Republican Senate leaders made public statements Tuesday saying they had talked to McConnell and that he was alert and discussing current events.

McConnell is retiring at the end of his term in January, and the campaign to elect his successor already is underway. Kentucky’s Senate succession law, which Republican legislators have twice changed during Beshear’s tenure, does not give the governor a role in picking a temporary successor should McConnell’s seat become vacant before his term ends.

Under the latest change in 2024, Beshear would call a special election if the seat became vacant. The winner of that election could take office after the result is certified. The general election winner would be sworn in as part of the new Congress in January. But there are unresolved questions about the timing of a special election under the untested law, and the seat could remain vacant until January.

Beshear ended the letter by wishing McConnell “a safe and speedy recovery.”

A look at what an absence from the Senate or a vacancy could mean.

What happens if McConnell isn’t able to return?

There is not much, if anything, that Beshear, Kentucky lawmakers or the Senate could do if McConnell remains in office but is unable to perform his duties between now and when the current Congress expires in January.

Senate rules do not allow proxy voting. But there have been extended Senate absences before, and the chamber has continued its business with however many senators are in attendance. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 advantage. Without McConnell, that means a maximum of 52 Republican votes are available.

McConnell had been among the senators blocking war powers resolutions that seek to limit President Trump’s military options in Iran. Without him, the administration has less of a buffer. On the other hand, McConnell had already been among the Republicans refusing to support Trump’s sweeping elections law overhaul.

Why wouldn’t Beshear have a say in filling any vacancy?

The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution calls for Senate vacancies to be filled by popular elections. But it allows state legislatures to empower governors to appoint an interim senator to serve through those campaigns. Most states have taken this option, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Kentucky law allowed interim appointments until 2021, when McConnell and other state GOP leaders persuaded the Republican-run Legislature to make a change. They did not want Beshear to shift the partisan balance in Washington if he got the opportunity. They called for a committee of the previous senator’s state party to select three people from whom the governor could choose an interim senator. In this case, that would mean Beshear picking which Republican would fill a vacancy. Several states have this system.

Kentucky lawmakers changed the law again in 2024 to require a special election. The only role for the governor is to call that election.

Beshear vetoed the 2021 and 2024 changes, but Republican lawmakers overrode him.

How would a special election work?

The 2024 law says Beshear “shall” issue a proclamation for a special vote but it does not say when he should make that proclamation or what the election date must be. Separate laws require certain minimum windows between a proclamation and the election date, but not necessarily a maximum window.

Some officials have argued that any vacancy after Aug. 3 would mean a special election concurrent with the general. They have even speculated that at some point, it would be impractical to have a special election at all given the regular election already taking place.

The Kentucky secretary of state’s office declined to speculate on a hypothetical time frame.

If a special election was needed, the simplest option would be to hold it at the same time as the regular general election.

For the full Senate term that begins in 2027, Republicans nominated U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, and the Democratic nominee is former state lawmaker Charles Booker. Concurrent elections would be separate, requiring new nominations by the parties, though they could choose Barr and Booker. Regardless, in this scenario, voters would be electing the immediate replacement and the full-term lawmaker on the same Election Day.

Multiple vacant House seats have been filled that way with little national attention.

Could there be a legal fight?

Yes. The 2024 law has never been tested. If a vacancy occurred, there could be different interests between parties and even among Republicans about special election timing and whether to hold one at all. That could create any number of legal questions and disputes that have to be settled by the courts.

Beshear’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how he interprets the law.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

The fatal shooting of a Houston man by a federal immigration officer Tuesday marks at least the eighth death during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, and the first fatality amid a newly intensified push by the administration to carry out its mass deportations agenda.

Department of Homeland Security officials said in a statement that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, ignored commands while trying to evade arrest during an enforcement operation. They say he attempted to ram his car into an agent, who opened fire in self-defense.

Araujo’s family said he was on his way to work at a construction job. He died on the way to the hospital.

The fatal shooting drew immediate criticism from immigrants rights groups and some Democrats who called for an independent investigation and for all footage, communication and evidence to be preserved.

Video footage in several previous shootings has contradicted the accounts of federal officers. No immigration officers have been charged in those fatal encounters.

Man shot during vacation trip traffic stop

A fatal late-night traffic stop in Texas in March 2025 marked the earliest deadly shooting by federal officers during the nationwide immigration crackdown. It took almost a year for records in the fatal shooting of the 23-year-old U.S. citizen to be disclosed.

A Homeland Security Investigations team was conducting an immigration enforcement operation with local police when agents stopped Ruben Ray Martinez, who was on his way from San Antonio to South Padre Island. Family members said he had just turned 23 and was with his best friend on his way to celebrate.

DHS officials said Martinez was told to exit the vehicle, but he refused and instead “intentionally ran over” an agent. Another agent fired shots through the open driver’s window, striking Martinez, who died at a hospital. The HSI agent was treated for an undisclosed knee injury.

Martinez’s mother said she was contacted by investigators with the Texas Rangers who told her there was video that contradicted the account given by federal agents. Federal and state authorities have declined to comment on potential discrepancies.

Nurse shot during Minneapolis protest

A Border Patrol officer shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, during a Jan. 24 protest against the Metro Surge immigration operation in Minneapolis.

Federal authorities immediately described Pretti, a U.S. citizen, as an armed agitator who was a threat to officers. But bystander video showed Pretti was on the ground and had been holding a cellphone during the interaction with officers.

The video showed an officer appearing to pull a gun from Pretti’s waistband and step away before the first shot was fired by another officer, followed by more shots. Pretti had a permit to possess a firearm.

State and local officials pushed back against the federal officials’ initial characterizations of Pretti, with Gov. Tim Walz calling the comments “despicable.”

Driver shot behind the wheel of an SUV

Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was repeatedly shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Videos show she was turning the wheels of her car away from an officer, Jonathan Ross, when he opened fire. Trump administration officials have repeatedly defended Ross, claiming his life was at risk from the moving vehicle.

Good’s death caused a firestorm across the country. The U.S. Justice Department said it wouldn’t share information on the shooting with state authorities.

State and local officials subsequently sued to try to stop the immigration sweeps. Protesters with whistles trailed officers who, in response, deployed tear gas and other chemical irritants.

Cook from Mexico shot during a traffic stop

ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop Sept. 12 in suburban Chicago. Relatives said the 38-year-old line cook from Mexico had dropped off a child at daycare that morning.

At the time, DHS officials said agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who was in the country illegally. They alleged Villegas González evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle.

Homeland Security said the officer opened fire fearing for his life and was hospitalized with “serious injuries.” However, local police videos showed the agent walking around and dismissing his injuries as “nothing major.”

DHS has said the death remains under investigation.

Farmworker fell from greenhouse roof during ICE raid

Authorities were arresting dozens of farmworkers July 10 at Glass House Farms in Camarillo when Jaime Alanis fell from the roof of a greenhouse and broke his neck. The 57-year-old laborer from Mexico died at a hospital two days later.

Relatives said Alanis had spent a decade working at the farm. During the raid, Alanis called family to say he was hiding. Officials said he fell about 30 feet from the greenhouse roof.

Homeland Security said Alanis was never in custody and was not being chased by immigration authorities.

Man struck on California freeway after running from officers

A man fleeing from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in Monrovia died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway on Aug. 14.

Monrovia police said ICE agents were conducting enforcement operations when the man was hit while running across the eastbound lanes of the 210 Freeway.

The man, identified by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdez, 52, of Guatemala, died at a hospital.

Homeland Security said Montoya Valdez wasn’t being pursued by immigration authorities when he ran.

Gardener from Honduras killed on Virginia interstate

A pickup truck fatally struck Josué Castro Rivera on a highway in Norfolk, Va., as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop on Oct. 23.

Castro Rivera, 24, of Honduras, was heading to a gardening job with three passengers when ICE officers pulled over the vehicle, according to his brother, Henry Castro.

State and federal authorities said Castro Rivera ran away on foot and was hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 264.

Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

Bynum and Lauer write for the Associated Press. Bynum reported from Savannah, Ga. Lauer reported from Philadelphia. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump flew home from a NATO summit in Turkey on an old baby blue Air Force One plane instead of the new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet he arrived in, a surprise swap that came as the U.S. and Iran once again began trading strikes.

Trump offered little clarity on the swap, instead saying he would fly on the legacy aircraft “for old time’s sake,” and indicating that both aircraft would make a previously unscheduled stop on the way back to the U.S. at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, a base used by U.S. troops.

The travel switch raised fresh security questions about the new aircraft that the U.S. spent $400 million to retrofit. Images of the Qatari-gifted jet captured since its unveiling show it is not equipped with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as the older jets.

The swap was also announced less than a day after the U.S. military conducted a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region. Iran shares a border with Turkey.

Trump first announced in a social media post that the gleaming new plane he had proudly shown off a day earlier would instead visit the U.K. base on the way home so military members could “tour the Aircraft.” Trump said he instead would be flying home in an older plane previously used as Air Force One.

When asked later during a news conference if security concerns had played a role in the switch, Trump didn’t directly answer but said that when it came to Iran, he was “No. 1 on the list for killing.”

When another reporter followed up, Trump said he’d be “going home by normal methods” while the new plane would be shown off to troops.

When asked if the missing countermeasures systems played a role in the jet being swapped out, the U.S. Air Force directed questions to the White House.

“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal— including distraction and misdirection— to address those threats.”

Trump departed Turkey aboard one of the older Boeing VC-25As that have carried presidents for three and a half decades. Consumer flight trackers were unable to monitor its transponder early in the flight after takeoff, suggesting it had been temporarily disabled by the crew — a security measure used when ferrying the president to and from high-risk environments like war zones, not a major NATO ally hosting a long-scheduled summit.

Other world leaders’ flights departed with trackable transponders, including those from Germany and the U.K.

The luxurious Boeing 747-800 gifted by Qatar, that was modified to carry Trump, departed earlier Wednesday from Turkey and landed at RAF Mildenhall on Wednesday afternoon, flight trackers showed.

Iran has several missiles and drones in its inventory with enough range to make the roughly 800-mile flight from its own borders to Turkey, including some of its Shahed drones and Shahab ballistic missiles.

However, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Iran does not possess weaponry that would be capable of effectively striking England at a range of roughly 2,500 miles.

The U.S. Air Force, which oversees the running of the fleet of aircraft used by every president, had previously said that they had to prioritize making only some of the necessary upgrades and changes in order to deliver the Qatari jet — also known as the “bridge” aircraft — into service.

The Air Force argued that the rapid conversion of the jet was done “without accepting any risk regarding security, safety, or secure communications,” but did concede that “several highly complex engineering modifications required for the final (Air Force One aircraft) were intentionally excluded from the Bridge aircraft.”

Jeremiah Gertler, a senior analyst for Teal Group, an aviation and defense consulting firm, previously told The Associated Press that the absence of countermeasure systems, as well as a seemingly smaller number of communications antennas, suggested that the Qatari jet was better suited to only work as a domestic aircraft.

Trump’s first flight on the new Qatari jet was to North Dakota last week.

The original Air Force One planes were built from scratch near the end of the Cold War and they were hardened against the effects of a nuclear blast and included a range of security features, such as anti-missile countermeasures and an onboard operating room.

The jets are also equipped with air-to-air refueling capabilities for contingencies, though it has never been utilized with a president on board.

The pair of Boeing jets that are currently being modified to act as the permanent upgrades to the Air Force One jets have been delayed, and are expected to be delivered in 2028.

Price and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

The order comes three years after a jury found out Trump has sexually abused and defamed the writer.

A federal judge has ruled that writer E Jean Carroll can collect the more than $5.8m that US President Donald Trump was ordered to pay after a jury found he sexually abused and defamed her, clearing the way for the money to be released after the US Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

Judge Lewis A Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that Carroll can be paid the original $5m award granted to her by the jury, along with interest that has accrued since the verdict in 2023. Carroll’s lawyers had asked for the funds to be released after the Supreme Court refused on June 29 to hear Trump’s appeal.

“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan wrote in a court filing, adding, “It is time for him to pay Carroll.”

Less than an hour after the judge issued the order, Trump appealed it.

“The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” a spokesperson for Trump’s lawyers said in a statement.

Carroll first accused Trump in 2019, writing in a memoir that he had sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1996. Trump denied the allegation, saying he had never met Carroll, accusing her of lying to sell books and for political reasons, and calling the claim a “hoax.”

Carroll sued him for defamation over those comments later that year, accusing him of damaging her reputation by suggesting she had lied for personal gain. She filed a second lawsuit in 2022, accusing Trump of battery/sexual abuse and defamation over another denial he posted on Truth Social in 2022, again calling the allegation a hoax.

In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her through his 2022 statements. It did not determine that Trump was liable for rape.

A second jury awarded her $83.3m in 2024 for the defamatory statements Trump made in 2019 when he was president, after she first went public with the allegation.

Trump has continued to fight both verdicts.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal, He called the lawsuit “a Fake Case” and pledged to continue fighting what he described as a “Weaponisation and Lawfare Case.”

On Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear the appeal. They argued that Trump would suffer “irreparable harm” if the money is paid out, because Carroll has said she intends to donate it, which would make it difficult to recover the funds if the verdict is later overturned.

Trump is also still appealing the $83.3m judgment, arguing his 2019 comments were made while he was president and are therefore protected by presidential immunity. The Department of Justice has also launched a criminal investigation into Carroll over whether she committed perjury during her testimony.

Photo: Juan Barreto / AFP

In 1999, Hugo Chávez coined the ‘civic-military union’ as a founding concept for the Bolivarian Revolution. At its core, he sought to blur the line between soldier and militant: the armed forces would no longer be subordinate to the civilian authorities, but become active political actors, essential not only to build and sustain the Bolivarian project, but to merge with the rest of society in conducting the nation. The old fuerzas armadas, FFAA, formed by the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the National Guard, were transformed into a single Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, FANB. Soldiers were granted the right to vote. Officers flooded the bureaucracy and started to give orders to civilians. They were, in practice, sworn to a movement rather than a constitution.   

In its later years, chavismo stretched the phrase to unión cívico-militar-popular, supposedly integrating the whole of el pueblo into the martial body of the revolution. In 2008, Chávez created the Bolivarian Militia to provide military training to millions of civilians, and turned it into a branch of the armed forces in 2020, when it started to operate more as a propaganda and clientelism resource rather than a defensive corps. 

How, then, were Venezuela’s armed forces made “useful”?

A government and an armed forces that claim to be in union with its people were caught outside of the massive, spontaneous popular mobilization Venezuelans pulled off…

In the Maduro years, soldiers guarded the ration lines of CLAP boxes and the gasoline pumps of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. Others were stationed in the southeast of the country to run the Orinoco Mining Arc, formally assigned to FANB, in tandem with non-state armed groups—some pocketing up to $800,000 a month in gold as bribes. The luckier or best-positioned of the bunch got handed high-ranking positions in public companies and ministries. The “popular” leg, then, was never el pueblo but its keepers, united to protect the Bolivarian Revolution and themselves over their fellow countrymen.

In the morning of June 24th, the Financial Times revealed that Caracas would acknowledge a debt of roughly 240 billion dollars and prepare for the largest restructuring on record. Hours later, two M7.2 and M7.5 earthquakes changed the landscape of the country. As the news broke, Venezuelan civilians quickly organized to save relatives, friends, and strangers. For the first forty-eight hours, a somewhat coordinated response from FANB was nowhere to be seen, even after Delcy Rodríguez said a joint staff led by a National Guard general was managing the emergency response. It was as if Venezuela didn’t have soldiers.

What the State guarded most jealously was not the living, but keeping the credit. A government and an armed forces that claim to be in union with its people were caught outside of the massive, spontaneous popular mobilization Venezuelans pulled off after the earthquake. When civilians pulled strangers from the rubble with their bare hands without waiting for an order, they proved that el pueblo is perfectly capable of being a body on its own, and most notably, that the State is not the vital organ that Chávez envisioned, but a dead weight.

So the aid had to be captured, rerouted, or rebranded. On June 27, Delcy Rodríguez ordered the militarization of roads and access points to devastated areas like La Guaira, slowing down the flow of ordinary citizens delivering supplies for survivors and machinery for those trying to find more of them. Just a day after the quake, opposition party Vente Venezuela reported that police had stopped a truck of supplies in Altamira and would let it move only if the cargo were transferred into the officials’ own vehicles, and the UCV student movement denounced that seven trucks of supplies en route from Bolívar to Caracas were seized by state agents before they could arrive.

“When you are [repressing] on the Francisco Fajardo highway, you are badasses. Show me you’re a badass here, then. Show me with a pickaxe and shovel.”

Organizers from a donation center at Escuela Francisco Pimentel were informed that CONAS, a joint unit of police commandos and National Guards, would be taking over the site and its supplies. Would they have done the same if a PSUV banner hung next to the supplies? A video shows the truck carrying the donations away belongs to SENIAT, the tax authority commanded by Diosdado Cabello’s brother for 18 years until yesterday. Even digital efforts were policed: a network matching volunteer interpreters to foreign rescue teams shut down and wiped its database after participants were allegedly harassed by DGCIM and SEBIN officers.

When the authorities did appear where they could help, soldiers and policemen scrolled on their phones, posed in front of the rubble and left before their uniforms got dirty. They were the last responders. Why so late, then so heavy? Incompetence covers part of it, but watch what the greens reached for in the most critical moments of this crisis and the reason why the ‘union’ has propped up chavismo for decades becomes clearer. 

DGCIM agents diverted an active rescue to recover an official’s rifles from a penthouse while people were still alive below. Neighbors stopped four CICPC policemen in Catia La Mar from trying to take cash found in the rubble, tearing the bills apart so they couldn’t. Chilean rescuer Francisco Lermanda says a soldier seized a colleague’s phone over suspicions of espionage after the crew videocalled their doctors to guide a rescue. At the Residencia Gradisca in La Guaira, where Mexican Topos had marked three points with signs of life, a Corpoelec crew sealed the site on a general’s order because a body, “por orden de arriba”, had to be recovered first. Our ‘protectors’ were filmed carrying off televisions and refrigerators, drinking the liquor they had found, lying on piles of donated clothes while giggling away.

When push came to shove, the union was not incompetent to protect the regime’s weapons, the regime’s secrets, the regime’s chain of command. The FANB did not forget how to save people during the earthquake. It never learned because saving people was not supposed to be part of the job. Faced with people to rescue instead of people to subdue, they stood guard over the dying. A man looking for his family among the collapsed buildings of Tanaguarena dared soldiers to be as brave as when they face dissidence: “When you are [repressing] on the Francisco Fajardo highway, you are badasses. Show me you’re a badass here, then. Show me with a pickaxe and shovel.”

MILWAUKEE — Former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was spared from prison Wednesday for ushering a Mexican defendant out of her courtroom to evade U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A federal judge fined her $5,000 and cited her otherwise law-abiding life in issuing the sentence.

“I think this is a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment,” U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said.

Dugan, 67, was convicted of felony obstruction in December. Her lawyers argued during her trial that President Trump’s administration sought to “crush” Dugan in an effort to ensure judicial compliance with the ICE strategy of targeting immigrants as they showed up for court hearings.

Dugan resigned the Milwaukee County circuit judgeship she had held for nine years in January amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers who labeled her an activist judge. In her resignation letter, she said her prosecution threatened “the independence of our judiciary.” Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a fierce Trump loyalist running for Wisconsin governor, urged authorities to “lock her up” in a social media post following her conviction.

Two Marquette University law professors spoke on her behalf, including a former state Supreme Court justice and a Jesuit priest who read a statement describing Dugan as a defender of oppressed people and saying he didn’t believe there was a need for punishment. “Hannah models what it means to be a Christian,” Gregory O’Meara said.

Dugan says she was just trying to do her job

Dugan then rose to address the court, saying she’s tried to do her best as a judge, and that her actions that day in April 2025 were not done maliciously but rather to maintain the “decorum and safety of the courtroom.”

“I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who’s just trying to do my job,” Dugan said, adding that she has had to retire from public life due to threats against her and her family.

A prosecutor then acknowledged that “she has experienced collateral damage because of her conduct,” but said “judges can’t choose to disregard the law.”

Adelman then spoke, saying he doesn’t believe prison is necessary. He noted that Dugan lost her job, now has a felony conviction and experienced threats that forced her to move and stop attending community events.

“This is a few minutes of conduct for someone who has dedicated her life to public service,” the judge said. “It’s a marked deviation from an otherwise law-abiding life.”

He also noted that Dugan’s actions didn’t stop the ICE agents from arresting the defendant outside the courthouse.

Prosecutors pushed for a ‘serious sentence’

While jurors found her guilty of felony obstruction, they acquitted her of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

Prosecutors argued in a sentencing memo filed last week that Dugan violated her oath as a judge and put both law enforcement and the public at risk.

“Judges are entrusted with tremendous discretion, but there is a line they cannot cross,” Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Frohling wrote. “The defendant crossed that line.”

Dugan’s attorneys argued she has been “punished enough,” including resigning as a judge and facing threats of violence. They argued in her sentencing memo that she should not be sentenced to any jail time besides the part of one day she already spent in federal custody.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, the presentence report calls for 15 to 21 months behind bars. The judge is not bound by those guidelines.

Prosecutors said the average sentence for obstruction cases is 16 months, but they did not recommend a sentence.

“This was a serious offense, and it warrants a correspondingly serious sentence,” Frohling wrote.

Attorney Jason Luczak said after the sentencing that they would still appeal Dugan’s conviction.

Dugan’s case was a first for Wisconsin

Dugan’s case marked the first time that a state judge in Wisconsin went to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents.

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office, saying their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Savage and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Bauer reported from Madison, Wisc. AP contributors include Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa.

July 8 (UPI) — New York Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered that writer E. Jean Carrol be paid $5 million plus interest in damages owed to her after President Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

But Trump’s attorneys have already filed an appeal of Kaplan’s order with the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

“The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again,” a spokesperson from the legal team told CNBC.

Trump and his attorneys filed a motion Tuesday to pause the payout, arguing there was still a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. They were arguing against Carrol’s motion to disburse the money from escrow filed on June 30.

Trump’s attorneys had argued that a “timely petition for rehearing remains pending before the Supreme Court.”

“Collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case,” lawyers Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio wrote in their response to Carroll’s petition.

In his order, Kaplan mentioned an agreement between Carroll and Trump that called for the money to be given to her if the Supreme Court denied his appeal.

The Court declined to hear Trump’s case on June 29. That means the verdict finding him liable stands.

Kaplan didn’t agree with lawyers’ arguments about the Supreme Court because Trump’s petition for reconsideration isn’t likely to succeed. The Court rarely grants those requests, CNBC reported.

Carroll was awarded the damages by a jury in 2023 after finding him liable for sexual abuse in a department store dressing room in the 1990s and for defaming her in 2019 after she came forward with the allegations. Trump denies the allegations.

In the defamation case, Carroll was awarded $83.3 million in damages.

“Surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me by a woman I never met (Decades old celebrity photo line, standing with her husband, does not count!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social in late June. “I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength.”

Trump’s lawyers claim that a petition for rehearing is “pending” before the Supreme Court, but records show it wasn’t accepted for filing this week, The Hill reported.

In the petition, the lawyers argue that Trump would have “unrecoverable loss” if the money were disbursed then overturned on appeal because Carroll has said she would donate all the money from the defamation suit.

“Plaintiff has repeatedly stated that she intends to give away all funds that she collects from him, and once those funds are distributed to third parties, they likely cannot be recovered,” lawyers Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio wrote in the filing.

Carroll’s attorneys argued that Trump is trying to unjustly delay the payment.

“This is the end of the line,” they wrote in a June 30 filing. “After four years of litigation across every level of the federal court system, it is time for this case to end.”

NEW YORK — E. Jean Carroll can be paid the $5.8 million that was set aside after a jury found three years ago that President Trump sexually abused her in 1996 before he became president and defamed her after she publicly revealed the attack, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued an order that says the money can be paid to Carroll, along with interest that has grown since the verdict.

Carroll’s lawyers had requested the disbursement after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil verdict.

Trump had resumed defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.

Both sides’ attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by him in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.

Carroll, 82, first talked about the attack publicly in 2019 in a memoir while Trump was president. He repeatedly insisted that he never knew Carroll. He also accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and having political motives.

Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a January 2024 trial at which Trump briefly testified.

At that trial, Kaplan required the jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her as president.

Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press.

The University of California Board of Regents is being asked to consider whether to bring back the SAT and ACT for admissions, a debate so hot even New York is weighing in on this Golden State dilemma.

Despite dire warnings from our right-coast friends and thousands (yes, thousands) of professors who claim incoming students lack necessary skills, I’m here to present a somewhat contrarian position, based on reality, common sense and one key fact that keeps getting shuffled to the side: California parents pay taxes so their California kids can attend these excellent schools, even if they can’t do advanced calculus.

UC is not Harvard, and was never meant to embody that type of self-perpetuating exclusivity disguised as a meritocracy. As the parent of two (hopefully) college-bound teens, I understand the resentment toward both the UC admission process and the post-pandemic, artificial intelligence mess that plagues our K-12 schools.

But at its best, this push to immediately bring back these tests is a disservice to both the mission of our public universities and the remaining classes of kids who lost learning during the pandemic. At worst, it is jumping on the misguided and retrograde anti-diversity, anti-inclusion bandwagon being led by the Trump administration — and pretending we don’t see where this caravan is headed.

Here’s the common sense: This isn’t a problem of scamming students or lazy teachers, though of course both exist. This is a problem with high schools, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Bringing back a test solves neither.

“For sure, these are systemic structural problems and inequalities,” Michal Kurlaender, the chancellor’s leadership professor of education policy at UC Davis, told me.

Still, the argument is that we are letting in the “wrong” candidates — those who lack academic skills that would solve for the derivative of f(x) = 3x² + 2x − 5 but who are desirable for other, perhaps invalid, reasons that our current admissions are favoring.

This narrative was given a rocket-fuel boost when UC math professors released an open letter demanding standardized tests be reinstated to weed out the unprepared students cluttering their classes. That letter has now been signed by more than 3,000 UC faculty.

Shockingly, the letter seems to be pushing for a return to standardized tests by, in effect, arguing that a growing percentage of their students are simply too stupid to succeed, no matter what professors do.

“UC has finite resources and can help only so many students, and only when the preparation deficits they need to overcome are within reach,” the letter reads.

These “wrong” candidates are supposedly sneaking through the grueling admissions process with inflated grades and AI cheating (never mind their numerous Advanced Placement test scores, which are largely being ignored in this debate), and what some apparently believe is the foolish decision of administrators to emphasize an admissions process that goes beyond rankings, scores and grades.

The result of the unwelcome presence of these “wrong” admits in our elite academic halls is world-class professors being forced to teach beneath-them basics, and a diminishing of the reputation of our top schools — despite the fact that Berkeley was just rated the No. 1 public university in the country (UCLA is No. 2) and received a record 133,000 first-year applications in 2026.

Here’s that reality I mentioned: When we talk about wrong candidates, we are actually largely talking about race and socioeconomics (including the ever-squeezed middle class).

In California, where the Latino population is more than 40% and growing, our universities have increasingly pushed to serve this demographic and other “first-generation” or underrepresented college applicants. We have also significantly increased the number of students our universities accept, from all demographics.

It is useful to know that standardized testing was eliminated by the regents in a controversial 2020 vote, largely based on the idea that it was discriminating against this broader pool of students — though the data didn’t actually back that up.

In fact, a 19-person task force that investigated the issue found the opposite: that the tests were useful predictors of college success and could pluck diamonds in the rough out of otherwise average applications — when used as one factor among broader admissions criteria.

Wait, what?

Then why am I against returning to these tests? Because the part of that report we are ignoring is that it also found that the University of California can do better than the SAT or the ACT. Saul Geiser, a UC Berkeley professor and a top expert on this issue, says the task force report was flawed because it failed to account for factors including family income and parent education. He calls the SAT “antithetical” to the mission of UCs and says that it is an “illusion” to think bringing them back would do anything but hurt diversity.

“Unlike private Ivy League colleges, public universities must strive to serve all sectors of the state and all segments of the population,” he told me. “The SAT, with its strong correlation with inherited privilege, is a major barrier to achieving that mission.”

The task force originally suggested that California create its own, alternative test by 2025 that would go beyond math and English to measure the persistence, resilience and determination that have always been the markers of success, in college and in life.

The pandemic and costs killed off that project, but our new era of AI has made it more possible than ever. Li Cai, a UCLA professor who was on the task force and who serves as the director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, told me that he supports bringing back standardized testing and that the test-blind decision process is a “failed” experiment — even though he voted for it six years ago.

But he also still supports a test designed by the UC system for the UC system — a test that could be free, available to take anytime at your school or local library as many times as you want, and that gives continuous feedback so students can better see their weaknesses and prepare.

“My vision has not really changed very much,” Cai told me. “A public university, a prominent one like the UC … has almost an obligation to not let the private sector take the charge in terms of intellectual leadership.”

On top of that hesitancy about the real effects of returning to the SAT is the fact that not all UC professors agree it is impossible for lacking students to catch up. Björn Birnir is the chair of the Mathematics department at UC Santa Barbara, and one of only two math chairs in the system who did not sign the open letter.

He told me that Santa Barbara sees the same deficiencies in math, especially in non-math majors, but it has found an effective way to deal with it that doesn’t involve slashing admissions based on test scores.

When students don’t have the basic skills, they are sent to the nearby community college, often over the summer, to catch up. They usually come back, he said, ready for the rigor he expects.

“These problems, they have to be addressed, but you don’t address them by reinstating the SAT,” Birnir said. “Just shutting the door is not really the best solution. We think the best way is to have a path for these students to make up deficiencies.”

Problem solved.

Bringing back the SAT may satisfy frustrated professors and parents, but it is a test that can never contend with the complicated reality of our state universities: We want them to be both world-class and a pathway for our imperfect, still-recovering kids to achieve their dreams, even if it involves summer school.

On my way through Skid Row to meet up with Estela Lopez, things looked pretty much as they did when I spent time there more than 20 years ago and first heard the promises that things would be better soon.

Tents lined some of the sidewalks, making them unpassable. Some people wore the damage of physical or mental disease, addiction, poverty, or all of the above. Outreach workers with ID lanyards strode through the trash-strewn landscape like lifeguards working against endless tides of fresh emergencies.

When I arrived at Lopez’s office in the 700 block of Crocker Street, where she runs a business improvement district on behalf of 600 or so beleaguered merchants, she had just completed a tour of the neighborhood with John McKinney, a candidate for city attorney.

She held a note card in her hand and shared some numbers, telling McKinney that by her latest count, 131 of the 702 streetlights in the district were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.

“I came out here because I think this symbolizes the greatest failure in government,” McKinney said. “I think it’s the result of bad law and bad policy. I think it’s the result of a lack of leadership and indifference to the way people are living out here. To me, it’s completely untenable.”

But will anything ever change?

It’s a question two people in particular need to address, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

A lot of people I trust and admire work tirelessly to make a difference on Skid Row, and they’re always eager to share the success stories of those who move through and move on. (I’ve got a column on that coming up soon.)

The long-standing problem is that Skid Row is both a social service center and a mecca of drugs and other vices, with traps on every block. And so it’s a neighborhood at war with itself, with some viewing Skid Row as one of the largest recovery centers in the country while others see a snapshot of social collapse.

Estela Lopez has reached out to me several times over the years. About illegal dumping. Typhus. Calls to City Hall that don’t get answered. About the relentless plague of fires, overdoses and assaults.

“Can you imagine, in 24 years, how many people I’ve seen dead on these streets?” Lopez asked me near her office last week.

Estela Lopez runs a business improvement district on behalf of 600 or so beleaguered merchants.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

When the local post office closed recently in part because of security issues, Lopez told The Times’ Melissa Gomez that “we have reached a point in this city where we are unable to address criminal activity. … It’s surrender.”

We walked to the corner of 8th Street, where paramedics had just pulled away from a medical emergency. Cars and pedestrians stopped at tents for brief transactions, leaving little doubt as to the nature of the business being conducted.

We passed a caged dog and saw a puppy on a short leash being loaded into a vehicle. There’s a lot of talk about dogs being bred and sold, and Lopez said she’s seen evidence of animals being mistreated.

On 7th Street we passed the charred residue of a recent fire. A half block east, four men were slumped on the sidewalk, hitting pipes. Lopez gets calls from exasperated merchants dealing with vandalism and with people blocking their storefronts.

“I’ve never seen so many people overdose right here,” said Sergio Moreno, who runs a check-cashing business and said his family has been in business going back to the ‘70s. He said he’s seen paramedics use naloxone to revive opioid users, only to see the same people go down again just days later.

“How can you run a business?” asked Moreno, who chairs the board of the business improvement district Lopez runs. “This business is our life. This is how we got through school, this is how we put our kids through school.”

And yet despite paying city taxes and BID fees, Moreno said, problems persist and his customers fear for their safety.

Dr. Susan Partovi, a street medic for 22 years, has been advocating for more proactive intervention for those in obvious distress. Partovi told me she recently saw a man rise from a gutter, pull down his pants and defecate in front of her. She called to get help for him but said neither paramedics nor police determined him to be gravely disabled.

Lopez walks past residents of Skid Row last week. By her latest count, 131 of the 702 streetlights in the district were out, 27 children were living on Skid Row, and 72 RVs were parked in the area.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“We have become complacent with having people lying in the gutter, having diarrhea, speaking nonsensically and putting their lives at risk,” said Partovi, whom I once accompanied as she administered long-acting anti-psychotic injections, arguing that people need clear heads to make better choices.

One sore point for Lopez is the Skid Row Care Campus in the 400 block of Crocker Street, which opened a little more than a year ago and offers all sorts of social services, meds that reduce drug cravings, and supplies that allow for safe use of drugs.

Lopez said she understands the theory of harm reduction: Engage people with a goal of getting them into treatment and back on track. But she wonders how successful such programs are, and argues that they become magnets for lawlessness.

As we talked, a young man approached and told Lopez he’d seen her airing her grievances on TV news.

“I’m wondering, what would be your solution?” he asked.

“I would hope that people could return to life in sobriety,” Lopez responded.

The man said he is “trying to elevate” himself, but that he’d been on a waiting list for housing for six months.

Lopez is tired of being on a waiting list, too.

“If something is working down here,” she told me, “you can’t prove it by me.”

Progress is undeniable, said Sieglinde von Deffner, a social worker and Skid Row coordinator for the Los Angeles County Department of Homeless Services and Housing. But given the “highly vulnerable” nature of the population, “the need is colossal,” she said.

A man stands among his belongings along 7th Street in Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“I have not yet met someone here who doesn’t want housing of some kind. We just don’t have enough affordable housing for everyone,” Von Deffner said, and long-term homelessness makes people harder to reach. “Now, if we could just stop the inflow.”

Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who researches homelessness and served as an L.A. County consultant, said there are other ways to get people indoors than investing billions of dollars in new housing that takes years to build. Culhane said single adults who are not veterans, including the elderly and disabled, constitute a majority of the homeless population. But assistance is scarce.

“It’s like you have a famine, and you’ve only got food for 15% of the people,” Culhane said.

Rapid rehousing is critical for the newly homeless, he said. But it can take two years for them to qualify for Social Security disability, and once they do, the $1,000 a month “is completely deficient in the face of rising rents.”

Culhane recommends faster approval of SSI benefits and supplementing that income with additional sources of rental assistance. He believes there are enough vacancies at the low end of the housing market to make a sizable dent in homelessness without new construction.

Judy Mauricio, 65, who has been homeless for nine years, rests inside her tent next to her walker. She says her drug addiction has kept her on the street. She receives state disability funds and says she has cancer.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

As campaign season warms up, I’d like to know if Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, Councilmember Nithya Raman, agree.

The mayor of L.A. is limited by a power split with the City Council, and the county oversees most addiction and mental health services. But Skid Row sits just a few blocks from the seat of city authority, and nobody has more power or responsibility to address the decades-long human catastrophe on Skid Row than the mayor.

Estela Lopez and the merchants deserve better. The people on the street deserve better. Thousands of housed residents deserve better.

Does Bass have a plan other than what’s currently in place? Does Raman have a better one?

If so, I’d like to hear the details, and I’m available.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

July 8 (UPI) — A Nicaragua-flagged oil tanker under investigation for allegedly transporting fuel subject to U.S. sanctions ran aground off India’s western coast after breaking free from its anchor during severe weather.

India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence said the vessel was unmanned when it ran aground, according to Nicaraguan news outlet 100% Noticias.

Indian authorities have identified the 597-foot MT Al Jafzia as part of a suspected “shadow fleet” used for clandestine maritime operations.

According to the investigation, the tanker allegedly switched off its tracking system to conduct ship-to-ship fuel transfers at sea, a practice commonly used to conceal the origin of oil cargoes.

The vessel ran aground near Manori Beach, north of Mumbai, drawing renewed attention to the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Nicaraguan economist and opposition figure Juan Sebastián Chamorro wrote on X that the Al Jafzia’s use of the Nicaraguan flag showed Ortega’s government had joined what he described as a “shadow fleet” transporting Russian and Iranian oil to evade sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries.

“Ortega is now selling the Nicaraguan flag and joining the shadow oil fleet,” Chamorro wrote. He added that the case “demonstrates Ortega’s ties with Putin to evade sanctions.”

Press reports said the MT Al Jafzia was one of three vessels detained by Indian authorities after investigators detected suspected fuel smuggling, fuel theft and illegal ship-to-ship transfers at sea.

Such operations are commonly associated with networks that help sanctioned countries, including Iran and Russia, sell energy exports through illicit channels by using flags of convenience to avoid international scrutiny.

The incident prompted criticism from Nicaraguan opposition leaders and political analysts in exile, who said the case exposed what they described as the Nicaraguan government’s involvement in illicit international activities.

Political scientist José Antonio Peraza told 100% Noticias that the operation appeared to be an illegal transaction intended to evade sanctions or obtain favorable transport terms for the fuel.

“Nicaragua does not have a long tradition of merchant ships sailing under its flag around the world. Therefore, it is very difficult to believe this could happen without the involvement of the Nicaraguan authorities or the Ortega dictatorship,” Peraza said.

Economic analysts warned that the incident could increase the risk of additional international financial and commercial sanctions against Nicaragua if foreign governments conclude the country’s flag is being used to facilitate shipments of sanctioned Iranian oil.

Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported that Ortega’s government had not commented publicly on the incident.

Nicaragua maintains close ties with Russia and Iran. Nicaraguan Vice Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke was in Iran this week to attend the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ortega has previously described Nicaragua’s revolution as the “twin” of Iran’s revolution.

ANKARA, Turkey — President Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. will give a license to Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air defense systems to help counter Russian missile attacks, a huge coup for Ukraine which has badly needed the technology for the war now in its fifth year.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO summit in Turkey. “I think they can produce them pretty quickly.”

Patriots are expensive, in high demand and take a long time to produce. Zelensky has for years been asking for more of them, and more recently for a license so that Ukraine can manufacture its own.

The tone of Trump’s meeting with the Ukrainian leader was a break from earlier encounters which ended in acrimony, and Trump praised Zelensky’s willingness to reach a deal on ending the fighting in Ukraine.

He said the Ukrainian president has “done an amazing job” and “been very effective” in the war.

“We’ve actually developed a good relationship. It’s hard to believe,” Trump said, adding he believed a deal on ending the war was on the horizon and that the U.S. would “work on some kind of security package” to provide to Ukraine.

Trump takes aim at NATO partners

Trump wasn’t as friendly, however, with some his NATO partners, saying he was unhappy with the alliance for pushing back against his efforts to take control of Greenland and for not supporting his war in Iran.

NATO’s European members plus Canada have scrambled to meet the increased defense spending targets Trump has demanded, as the U.S. draws down the number of troops it has in Europe and insists that the continent take more responsibility for its own security.

But Trump reopened old wounds as he arrived at the meeting of 32 NATO leaders by insisting again that the United States should control Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. He blasted some European countries for refusing to participate in the Iran campaign, singling out Spain as “a terrible partner in NATO” and renewing his threats to cut off trade.

Ahead of the summit, Trump said Greenland “is very important” for the U.S. but not for Denmark, declaring, “We need it for protection of the world, not just the United States.”

But Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her country is “ready to defend every inch of NATO including our own territory” in the event of an attack, and would rely on NATO allies to honor their commitment to defend each other.

Trump’s criticisms have in the past drawn European countries closer together as they confront wars in Ukraine and Iran, a ballooning trade deficit with China, and threats from Russia.

The president’s renewed interest in Greenland could put at risk the entire future of NATO, which was founded in 1949 to counter the threat to European security posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte sought to tamp down the president’s ire by giving him credit for recent increases in defense spending from NATO allies.

“Grab the win. It’s there,” Rutte told Trump on Wednesday.

NATO chief backs latest U.S. strikes on Iran

Ahead of the summit, Rutte praised Trump for the series of U.S. strikes on Iran overnight, after Tehran struck three merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think what you did last night was absolutely necessary,” Rutte said to Trump. “It was a very strong response, and I’m with you on this.”

The U.S. strikes, as well as the revoking of a license allowing Iran to sell its oil on global markets, underscored the fragility of an interim deal to end months of fighting.

Trump said of the interim agreement with Iran: “For me, I think it’s over” — but added he will allow talks to continue.

“It’s just a waste of time dealing with them,” he said.

NATO leaders sought to show Trump they were boosting defense

Rutte has dedicated a huge amount of energy to keeping Trump’s support for NATO and to holding the summit together.

The NATO chief pointed to countries including Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Denmark that are investing more in defense, but noted the Trump administration expects “the Europeans and Canadians will equalize their spending with the United States.”

Last month Rutte went to Washington to hail the “Trump Trillion” — the $1.2 trillion that European allies and Canada have added to defense spending since Trump came to power in 2017.

As leaders converged on Ankara, Rutte hosted a “big reveal” event to showcase the many deals planned for the increased spending — much of it to be spent on U.S. companies, creating thousands of jobs for Americans.

At last year’s summit, the allies agreed to invest 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — 3.5% on their defense budgets and 1.5% on infrastructure so troops and equipment can move faster in times of conflict.

Yet figures released by NATO on Tuesday showed that Slovenia, Belgium, Spain and the Czech Republic have struggled to meet the alliance’s old spending target of 2% of GDP.

The Trump administration wants to see a leaner “NATO 3.0,” with Europe taking responsibility for its own security, including Ukraine, with conventional weapons while America would continue to provide its nuclear umbrella.

The Pentagon has launched a six-month review of U.S. military presence in Europe, leaving allies to seek clarity on just how deeply Trump intends to cut U.S. force numbers.

Ukraine’s Zelensky pushes for NATO entry

Zelensky made a fresh appeal Tuesday for Ukraine to be allowed to join the alliance, saying Ukrainian armed forces are highly experienced and would only boost NATO’s defense capabilities.

He’s highlighted Ukraine’s adaptability and its ability to strike deep inside Russia. He said Ukraine’s armed forces are “eliminating” on average 30,000 Russian troops every month.

Concern has been mounting among some countries with borders near Russia that Moscow might be preparing a hybrid attack — a combination of conventional warfare with tactics like cyberattacks — on the continent as President Vladimir Putin struggles to secure victory in Ukraine.

Trump will also meet with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former insurgent who led the offensive that unseated autocrat Bashar Assad in December 2024. Despite having once been an al-Qaida fighter, al-Sharaa has won Trump’s backing as he seeks to rebuild Syria and restore its shattered ties with the West.

Cook, Kim and Fraser write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Collin Binkley and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Nexstar Media Group’s The Hill, the political web site that started as a free newspaper read in most congressional offices in Washington, is launching a new direct-to-consumer streaming service that will be behind a paywall.

Starting Wednesday, Nexstar will offer The HIll Insider, which will carry daily streaming video programs and newsletters. Subscribers will also be able to interact with The Hill’s journalists and analysts, who will take questions live.

The service, available for $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year, is the first digital subscription product for the Irving, TX-based Nexstar, the largest owner of television stations in the U.S. Premium memberships are available for $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year, which will be ad-free and offer access to live events presented by The Hill.

The endeavor is the first subscription streaming service offered by Nexstar. The Hill already produces a free ad-supported streaming channel distributed on such platforms as Roku.

The free version of The Hill is the most viewed political web site in the U.S. with 1.24 billion page views in 2025, a year-to-year increase of 7%, according to Comscore. The Hill is known for offering brisk, up-to-date reports out of each branch of government in Washington, and is often linked to on other websites.

Nexstar, which also owns the cable network NewsNation, acquired The Hill in 2021 from New York-based entrepreneur James Finkelstein for $130 million. NewsNation adapted The Hill brand name for its Washington-based programs, including a Sunday roundtable show with Chris Stirewalt, politics editor for The Hill and NewsNation.

NewsNation politics editor Chris Stirewalt on the set of “The Hill Sunday.”

(NewsNation)

Stirewalt and the Washington journalists and commentators seen on NewsNation programs will be featured on The Hill Insider. The service will also use the resources of Decision Desk HQ, the political media firm that was the first to call President Trump’s victory on election night in 2024. Decision Desk will be involved in a streaming show called “Data Nerds.”

The Hill Insider will be aimed at the political junkie who wants to go deeper on polling data and hear longer, in-depth discussion on issues. Bill Sammons, senior vice president of editorial content for Nexstar, said the company’s research shows there is a national appetite for such content, as only 5% of The Hill’s current audience is based in Washington.

The Hill has long touted itself as non-partisan and Stirewalt hopes users will gravitate to the subscription version to become better informed about legislative and political issues and not reaffirm their existing opinions.

“My imagined audience is of people in America who are not addicted to politics but are addicted to good citizenship and the idea of fulfilling their civic virtue,” Stirewalt said in a recent interview. “And they would like to do it in a way that doesn’t insult their intelligence.”

While the free version of The Hill has been growing, the new subscription product enters a crowded field of digital programs and platforms aimed at the consumers of political news.

The launch comes as journalists from legacy media such as former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran, and Chuck Todd, the longtime moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” have launched their own daily podcasts and newsletters as second acts in their careers.

MS NOW, the progressive-leaning cable news channel, is entering the direct to consumer market later this year making the channel available outside of pay-TV packages for the first time. Like The Hill Insider, the MS NOW streaming product is expected to offer users additional benefits, such as access to live events and content not seen on the cable network.

Original topical programming that does not have a shelf life is challenging to sustain on a streaming service. When Fox News Media launched its streaming service Fox Nation in 2018, it carried a line-up of live, politically-oriented shows aimed at its conservative-leaning audience. The service eventually pivoted to documentary, movies and lifestyle programming and became the home of the annual Fox News fan event, The Fox Nation Patriot Awards.

SACRAMENTO — For all the media attention California’s proposed billionaire tax has generated nationally — with some blasting it as a foolish Left Coast assault on American enterprise — the November ballot item has actually triggered a rift among progressive labor unions and Democrats, groups critical to the measure’s success.

Championed by California’s largest health workers union, Proposition 40 would levy a one-time, 5% tax on California’s roughly 200 billionaires. The measure aims to backfill Medicaid cuts signed into law last year by President Donald Trump, and would raise an estimated $100 billion.

Dave Regan, the measure’s architect and president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, said the tax was intended to prevent “the imminent collapse of California’s health care system because of the Trump cuts in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’”

Regan, who has become well-known for using ballot measures as leverage in negotiations with state lawmakers and the healthcare industry, seemed poised to channel public anxiety over economic affordability, access to medical care and anti-Trump sentiment when the initiative was announced last fall.

Today however, the initiative not only faces heavy and well-funded opposition from those it aims to tax, but also divided support among groups who traditionally favor taxes on the wealthy — labor unions. Both the powerful California Teachers Association and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California have come out against Prop. 40, while Teamsters California and AFSCME California support it. Others unions have yet to weigh in, including the California Federation of Labor Unions and SEIU California, a parent organization for Regan’s healthcare worker union.

Establishment Democrats are also divided. Gov. Gavin Newsom aggressively opposed the measure and sought to negotiate with Regan to remove it from the ballot beginning last year. Days before a state deadline to withdraw ballot measures in late June, Regan publicly offered to trim the wealth tax to 2% over two years, an offer Newsom quickly rejected.

To some close observers, the offer signaled that Regan may have been looking for a way out of an expensive ballot fight.

“I found it unusual that he did that because he’s usually not that kind of negotiating type — he’s no nonsense,” said Democratic political consultant Steven Maviglio. “I don’t know if he felt it was a hot potato or what.”

Regan’s union spent $31 million to gather 1.6 million voter signatures to put the tax on the ballot.

“At the outset, this may have looked like the replay of a strategy he’s employed successfully many times in the past, but he ended up painting himself into a corner, and so now he’s stuck with an initiative that he knows he probably can’t pass,” said Dan Schnur, a politics and communications professor at Pepperdine, USC and UC Berkeley.

A March poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies showed 52% of registered voters support the billionaire tax while 33% opposed it and 15% were undecided. However, campaign experts say its position remains precarious, due in part to the deep pockets of its opponents.

Several billionaires, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, have so far pumped a combined $118 million into a campaign committee that gathered enough signatures to place two other measures on the ballot aimed at undercutting the billionaire tax.

Groups that might otherwise support more revenue for healthcare have also come out against Prop. 40, including Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the California Medical Assn.

“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” leaders of the California Medical Association, California Primary Care Association and California School Boards Association wrote in a joint statement.

Regan and fellow supporters insist that, without approval of the tax measure, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will gut the state’s healthcare resources.

“This will take between $20 and $25 billion annually out of our healthcare system, meaning three and a half million people are going to lose insurance, 150,000 health care workers will be laid off and over 20 million consumers are already paying more in premiums, deductibles and copays,” he said.

While prominent progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) have voiced support for the measure, some progressive opponents say its near exclusive focus on healthcare is a problem. (Only a small portion of tax revenues would go toward education and food security.)

The CTA said after reviewing the measure, its council of delegates “determined that this policy will not provide the sustainable and long-lasting funding that our schools and communities deserve.” Leaders of the state’s largest teachers union plan to focus their efforts on passing Proposition 3, which would make permanent an existing tax on certain high earners to fund schools and community colleges.

Labor unions have typically aligned in support of tax-raising ballot measures, including earlier temporary versions of this year’s Prop. 3 and an unsuccessful 2020 proposal to revamp commercial property taxes.

But the billionaire tax “doesn’t benefit everybody. It benefits workers in the healthcare sector primarily, and I think that’s why not everybody’s on board. It’s not a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ kind of proposal,” Maviglio said.

In the 15 years he has led SEIU-UHW, Regan has become known for using expensive ballot measures — or the threat of them — to bring lawmakers and industry opponents to the negotiating table.

In a landmark 2023 deal, Regan secured a statewide $25 wage floor for healthcare workers after qualifying initiatives to raise industry wages in Los Angeles and other cities. The deal included a 10-year moratorium on minimum wage propositions. He also pushed ballot measure regulations on kidney dialysis clinics for three subsequent election cycles. Though none of them passed, the dialysis industry spent hundreds of millions between 2018 and 2022 to defeat them.

“Everybody knows that he is wielding ballot measures as a weapon to leverage his unionization or political demands. It’s not a secret. He’s admitted it,” said Brandon Castillo, a ballot measure strategist who often finds himself opposite Regan in ballot fights including the dialysis clinic propositions.

The measure retroactively applies a tax on billionaires who were residing in California as of Jan. 1. Newsom and other opponents say the initiative would drive the ultra-wealthy out of the state and their departure would blow a hole in the state budget.

California’s budget is dependent on income taxes the rich pay on stock market profits. The Legislative Analyst’s Office said the measure would “likely” result in an “ongoing decrease in state income tax revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year.”

“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote in a post on Substack in late June. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes.”

After the talks ultimately failed to result in a deal, Newsom endorsed the idea of a national wealth tax instead.

“It’s easy to see how they may have believed that Newsom’s strongest incentive was simply to stay out,” Schnur said. “There’s a huge potential downside for a Democratic governor [to weigh in] on either side of this initiative. If you oppose it, you’re alienating your base. If you support it, you’re putting your state in dire fiscal peril.”

Focusing on raising taxes at the federal level allows the governor to support a popular idea nationally, which he can campaign on if he runs for president. His opposition to the measure in California could still leave him vulnerable to criticism from progressives in a national Democratic primary.

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

Since last week, the world’s attention has been set again on Venezuela just like six months ago.

Of course, the differences between the events of January 3rd and the terrible disaster of June 24th could not be more stark, even if both evenets have massive implications for the country’s future.

Most coverage coming from international media these days has highlighted two things: first, the terrible devastation seen in worst-hit areas like parts of Caracas and especially in La Guaira State (formerly known as Vargas); and second, that many are complaining about the official response and even calling it “negligent”, like in this report from BBC News correspondent Yogita Limaye.

Interestingly enough, in recent months there has been a reopening to the presence of foreign reporters in the country, a shift from the heavily restricted access during the Maduro years. A larger number of reporters and media crews arrived in the last few days. They have been mostly allowed to do their job (unlike Sky News’ Trump 100 podcast, interrupted by government officials while recording), but they’ve been facing their own set of specific challenges.

Earlier this week, NGO IPYS Venezuela offered a summary of some apparent restrictions from the Communication and Information Ministry to international media workers, like indicating that they could be mobilized to affected areas only through State-authorized buses and establishing a schedule for those trips from the Media Center established at La Carlota Airport in Caracas.

One person quoted in the summary is British freelance journalist Catherine Ellis, who’s covering the disaster for Al-Jazeera and UK weekly magazine The Spectator while also doing some radio interviews for other outlets. She has worked in Venezuela since 2023 and, before that, volunteered for an NGO in Colombia and Spain, helping Venezuelan immigrants. It was Ellis who published on X a picture of the buffet the regime was offering to foreign correspondents while thousands of people were thirsty and hungry.

At the time of writing, several international reporters told Delcy Rodriguez during her recent press conference what they’ve seen firsthand. She minimized those criticisms against the official response and pointed her finger at “media matrixes created in laboratories” (matrices de opinión is a popular term in Venezuela to describe artificial narratives in journalism or social media). 

Caracas Chronicles interviewed Ellis earlier this week to discuss what she recently witnessed.

How has it been for you and other international correspondents to cover the disaster on the ground? Have there been any limitations by government officials and particularly from the Communication and Information Ministry?

The experience so far as a journalist in terms of getting in and communicating with the Ministry has been quite strange in some ways. It needs to be said that it has been much more open than it usually is. Quite often, if I come to Venezuela, I can’t really do any reporting or get a journalist visa; they give very few journalist visas, and it’s particularly hard for freelance journalists when you’re not a fixed employee for a certain media outlet. But this time they let journalists in. They’re letting foreign journalists in without visas. On one hand, it’s been much, much better. This time journalists are actually allowed into the country, and access is not restricted, although we don’t know how long that will go on for. Communications have been terrible and completely lacking to the point of being almost non-existent. 

How was your experience with the bus trip to La Guaira the day after registering at La Carlota airbase in Caracas? 

We took the bus on June 28, the day after we registered in La Carlota. They told us they would take us there, and we left for La Guaira an hour and a half late. No problem, that happens sometimes, but there was no communication about what was happening. The following day was the worst because I arrived early thinking it might leave on time, only to wait for two hours with no explanation at all. Then we knew from other journalists that the trip was cancelled and access had been suspended for 48 hours for journalists. No one on the logistics team provided any explanation. They just said: “we are not in charge of it, we don’t know.” One person told me: “you have to be patient, you have to wait… This is a complex situation, and things don’t move quickly.”

How are you and your colleagues doing your work in the disaster area? 

We were completely given free rein… We were taken to a Misión Vivienda place, but we could go wherever we wanted, so I spoke to people from that place, and some were very critical of the government. I went to other buildings around, which were either for retired people or just normal apartment buildings, and I spoke to lots of people. I was very, very free to speak to people. So much that I missed the bus and the Guardia (Nacional) took another journalist and me to the next site to speak to people. 

Have there been any issues involving the police, the military, intelligence services or local officials?

Some people have been helpful, and some haven’t in terms of the authorities. In La Guaira, generally, no one stopped me from doing anything. Police and military pulled me away from a building because they were excavating to take bodies out, but to be honest, that was more for health and safety reasons, and I did understand. I went to the hotel in Caracas where the Venezuelan deportees were supposed to arrive after they got back, and the hotel collapsed. It was full of SEBIN agents. We weren’t allowed to pass because of “security reasons.” When I started to take photos, I was told off by SEBIN. That was interesting. 

Genuinely, I have to say the police and military have not stopped me speaking to anybody or stopping doing anything. And to be honest, some of them haven’t really been around. I think it’s because, as you wear the pink armband (identifying as foreign press), they know you’re press, that you’ve been approved, but getting to the hotel where the deportees were was impossible.

How has the relationship been with the civilians in the area? How do they react to the presence of the media?

Civilians have been brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Everybody is very, very open to talking. Venezuelans are incredibly warm and open people. I have no problem chatting to people. If I see people who are visibly, incredibly upset, who have family (members trapped) in buildings, it’s not the right time to talk to them.

Sometimes, I’ve approached them very sensitively, and people have shared their stories, described the people they have lost, told about what they’re lacking or what they need. Some people openly criticize the government, but others who have criticized the government then say they don’t want their names used, and others are not thinking about politics. They’re just in shock.

How has the relationship been between international correspondents and Venezuelan journalists?

Venezuelan journalists are incredibly helpful. I think there has been a lot of solidarity between all journalists, between Venezuelan and international journalists and among the international journalists themselves. I’ve been speaking to people from the US, Canada, Argentina, parts of Europe, and they all want to help each other. 

On a critical note, there have been a couple of international journalists who either pushed me out of the way at certain sites because they want to film or come up to me when I’m interviewing people and taking my interviewees. This isn’t a show, people have lost (their) lives. I would encourage the international press to have a heightened level of sensibility and respect for all Venezuelans and all affected by this crisis.

Have you noticed the difference between how you see the situation on the ground, how it is covered outside, and how it is covered inside, how the government is presenting it? 

From what I’ve seen, Delcy and the government are trying to project an image of solidarity with the international community, thanking and praising them for being here and helping Venezuelans in their time of need. But not necessarily announcing tangible and concrete steps of what they’re actually putting in place. Someone put it to me like this: “The government has been very visible, key figures have been very visible in terms of presence on social media and even visiting sites, but there has not been enough concrete information about donation centers, about what’s happening next, about actually managing the actual crisis.”

How have people in La Guaira been coping?

A lot of people are still in shock. It’s very hard to process, but everybody seems to be very grateful to everyone who is helping them, either members of their own community or the international rescue teams. Some people have said, “Other governments are helping us more than our own government.” 

I think the most important thing to emphasize, which is non-political, is that people are saying “Venezuelans are helping Venezuelans, they’re helping each other.” Someone said to me the other day, “We are a family, this is what we do, we help each other, we won’t give up, and you know, keep going.”

I spoke to a guy who came from Valencia. He had three kids back home and said, “I couldn’t bear to think of my own kids lying somewhere like that and no one going to find them,” so he came on his way, he got lists from people, and he came so he can help with the search and rescue. 

There’s definitely a lot of shock. A lot of kids are still scared and adults feel that any movement or anything, not just aftershocks, mean something is going to happen again. People are getting through by supporting each other.

Is the aid arriving properly? Have you seen aid being delivered?

There’s so much aid everywhere. In Caracas, I’ve seen so many trucks coming in. The problem is that I can’t exactly say what’s happening to the aid. Some aid is getting through, but there seem to be a little bit of bottlenecks or bureaucracy; I don’t know the full reasons… It’s getting through to some people but isn’t getting through to other people, and they’re running out of some things. People want proper accommodation also. Definitely, in a lot of places there are now international NGOs setting up food points as well.

– 

Just yesterday, while covering relief efforts taking place at Parque del Este, Ellis was approached by a couple of suspicious looking fellows. This was the exchange:

I was in Parque del Este tonight speaking to volunteers and affected families camping there. I was chatting to one family when two men came over to look what was going on then left. I started helping the family move their stuff to the road (I was carrying the cat!) as they were moving somewhere else. The two men called me over, asked me if I was a journalist, to which I said yes and showed them my wristbands. Asked more questions, who I was, where from, what I was doing. I asked who they were, as they still hadn’t introduced themselves by this point. One (the politer one) said they were intelligence police, asked what I was doing, so I said speaking to the family etc. Asked if I knew them, I said no. Then asking qus like my age, which was weird as one had my passport which has my DOB. Took photos of my passport. Asked where I lived, said I didn’t want to give that info. I asked why they wanted to know all this, they said for security and that people were taking children, so I asked if they thought I was taking kids. They said no. I told me they were asking me because I was a journalist and there was not a real free press. One was fairly polite and said they didn’t want to make me uncomfortable. I said they already had. Eventually they gave me it back. It’s ok to check who someone is, check they have a wristband which you now should have in the park – but I did, and I showed them, so why the need for questionning and taking photos of my passport? And why was the first qu, are you a journalist? Does everyone who enters the park get that level of treatment?

It doesn’t take much for chavismo to step back into its old ways.

Here’s a theory: It’d sure be easier for politicians to get away with flip-flops if there weren’t a bunch of their old tweets lying around like crime-scene DNA.

Check out this exchange from Monday night’s presidential debate.

HILLARY CLINTON: “Donald Trump thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.”

DONALD TRUMP: “I did not. I did not. I do not say that. I do not say that.”

Except there’s this.

Even though it was four years old, Trump’s old tweet began picking up tens of thousands of retweets as the presidential debate raged on. (Reports that Trump’s team had deleted the tweet mid-debate were inaccurate. Also, while we’re here, the evidence is overwhelming: Climate change is real.)

It’s hard to imagine similar mass-sharing happening with a hard copy of a newspaper article, a years-old clipping suddenly passing through thousands of curious hands again. But thanks to Twitter, one of this election’s great accountability machines, what was old became new(s) again.

The phenomenon is also thanks in part to Trump himself, a prolific social-media user who, throughout this election, could have avoided storms of unfriendly retweets by deleting his old tweets — but he hasn’t, leaving himself a little more vulnerable to the searching eyes of his opponents.

Social media has been a dominant campaign medium in 2016, not just for the candidates but also for professional and amateur fact-checkers who have been doing their work with ferocious speed.

For gumshoes, it’s an arena of political argument aided by keyword searches, hyperlinks and screenshots, the kind of work that can be done on a smartphone while sitting on the couch. Opposition researchers, journalists and nonprofessionals alike have seen their handiwork go viral.

That means, for casual Twitter users, a candidate’s real-time remarks at a rally or a debate might appear in their feeds side-by-side with other users posting footage or transcripts of contradictory past statements.

Trump, who fact-checkers say routinely peddles fake information — like the lie that President Obama was born in Africa — has disproportionately seen his old tweets become targets, emerging again and again as objects of criticism, renewed with as little effort as hitting the retweet button. (Retweets are definitely not always endorsements.)

Twitter in particular has long been known as a place where professionals can lose their jobs or come under international pressure for saying something — well, often something pretty stupid, if not merely controversial. In recent years, online guides have offered recommendations for how regular users can delete old tweets lest they become liabilities.

The pressure is much higher on public figures. When comedian Trevor Noah won the job of hosting “The Daily Show,” he soon drew heat for old politically incorrect Twitter jokes; the same thing happened last week to new “Saturday Night Live” cast member Melissa Villasenor.

Some politicians have also gone on tweet-deleting escapades when a political situation suddenly goes sideways. Several lawmakers who welcomed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl home from captivity in Afghanistan in 2014 later backtracked when information emerged suggesting Bergdahl may have deserted from his platoon. (Bergdahl goes to trial in 2017.)

Hoping to prevent politicians from editing the historical record, the Sunlight Foundation, a D.C.-based transparency advocacy group, runs a tool called Politwoops that tracks and preserves a record of when politicians delete tweets.

Many of the deleted tweets snared by Politwoops are innocuous typos. But a few reveal statements withdrawn after second thoughts, like U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller’s (R-Fla.) 2012 tweet, “Was Obama born in the United States?”

Yet Trump has not scrubbed his own notorious “birther” tweets, which he only recently publicly disavowed. (Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

For a politician who has routinely made news with his tweets — from retweeting white supremacists to congratulating himself after the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. (“for being right on radical Islamic terrorism”) — Trump’s history of Twitter deletions in Politwoops is mostly for mispellings and bygone media appearances, rather than withdrawing substantive remarks.

Trump, for example, drew criticism in August for tweeting: “Dwayne Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”

Critics accused Trump of using a person’s death to pander to black voters, pointing out he hadn’t even bothered to offer condolences, and the Trump account soon deleted the tweet — so it could put up a new version of the same tweet, this time with NBA star Dwyane Wade’s name spelled correctly.

It’s still there.

Clinton’s Twitter account deletes a few tweets a month, though in each instance it’s not clear why. Clinton is better known for her tweet to Trump, “Delete your account” — a popular Internet joke — which has earned nearly 500,000 retweets.

Now, the question arises of how Trump changes — or doesn’t change — after the election, win or lose.

“In this election, we’re talking more about the tweets that aren’t deleted than the tweets that are, and that’s an interesting reflection on where we are and how we view social media,” said Josh Stewart, a spokesman at the Sunlight Foundation. “It would be interesting to see if the use of social media by politicians changes after this election, or if he’s an outlier.”

Email: matt.pearce@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @mattdpearce

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When Barack Obama made history as the first African American president, a dichotomy was born: Would Obama showcase his black heritage too much? Or would he, the son of a white mother, prove not to be “black enough”?

The latest speculation comes from Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who implied to Politico that he’s more authentically African American than the president.

“He’s an ‘African’ American. He was, you know, raised white. Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.”

Obama has addressed the concept of blackness before.

“The notion that there’s some authentic way of being black, that if you’re going to be black you have to act a certain way and wear a certain kind of clothes, that has to go,” Obama said in 2014.

Conversely, activist Michael Skolnik started #ObamaAndKids this weekend in honor of Black History Month. The hashtag quickly became a top trending conversation on Twitter.

“This would be the last Black History Month celebration at The White House during the presidency of the first African-American in the history of The United States to hold the highest office in the land,” Skolnik wrote in a Medium blog post.

Obama himself has spoken openly about his race in connection with his presidency. Earlier this month, he talked with Los Angeles Times reporter Christi Parsons about his legacy.

“You’ve got a whole generation of kids where the only president they know … is African-American,” Obama said.

On Sunday, the White House released a video of 106-year-old African American Virginia McLauren meeting the president and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House in a Black History Month celebration.

And last week, the president made a Black History Month joke in reference to black culture.

We’re nine months out from election day and at the start of official retrospection on the 44th presidency. But judging by the past eight years, and even the past month alone, Obama’s race will likely continue to be a topic of debate and conversation even after the torch is passed.

July 8 (UPI) — Britain has summoned Iran’s charge d’affairs after a judge last week sentenced two Romanian men to prison for stabbing an Iranian journalist in London in 2024, an attack the court found was carried out on behalf of the iranian state.

“We take threats posed by Iran and those who do its bidding extremely seriously,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement.

“Iran’s actions attempt to undermine UK sovereignty and security, and are completely unacceptable — it must cease in these activities immediately.”

Ali Nasimfar, charge d’affairs of the Iranian Embassy in London, was summoned by Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer on Tuesday, after a British judge sentenced Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, to prison over the March 29, 2024, attack.

According to prosecutors, the two men attacked Pouria Zeraati, a reporter with the Britain-based Persian-language broadcaster Iran International, as he was leaving his Wimbledon home.

One of the men asked Zeraati for money before the other grabbed him. Zeraati suffered multiple stab wounds to his leg before both men fled on foot and entered a blue Mazda car that was waiting nearby and driven by a third accomplice.

Prosecutors accused Badea of having been involved in the attack, while Stana drove the getaway car, which had been bought through Facebook. The third suspect has been identified as David Andrei.

The three suspects were arrested by Romanian police in December 2024. Badea and Stana were extradited to Britain that same month, while Andrei remains in Romania, where he is subject to domestic criminal proceedings.

During the trial, the judge agreed with the prosecution that the crime was a state-sponsored attack, as evidence “overwhelmingly” supported the finding that it was carried out on behalf of Iran.

Stana was sentenced to 12 years in prison, as the judge ruled that the Foreign Power Condition under the National Security Act was met in his case. The judge said the extensive planning and involvement in the plot indicated that he knew — or at the very least ought to have known — of the connection to Iran.

Badea was sentenced to eight years behind bars.

“Protecting national security, upholding media freedom and freedom of expression, remain our top priorities,” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

“This government will take all measures necessary to protect the British people, and those living and working in the UK.”

British officials and allies have accused Iran of a longstanding pattern of targeting critics, journalists and dissidents abroad with assassination plots.

In the United States, authorities have several times thwarted Iran-backed attempts to assassinate and kidnap Masih Alinejad.

In 2024, the United States and Britain issued coordinated sanctions targeting those they accused of being behind threats to assassinate Iranian dissidents abroad.