TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The state Senate has passed a bill that says women cannot be charged with indecent exposure or lewd behavior for breast-feeding in public. The House had earlier approved the measure. The bill passed Tuesday now goes to Gov. Lawton Chiles, who is expected to give his approval.
North Korea on Saturday staged another of its show-of-force ballistic missile launches — pictured is one launch during a test in December — that sent 10 missiles off its west coast, which traveled more than 200 miles and landed just outside the Japanese exclusive economic zone in the Sea of Japan. Photo by KCNA/EPA
March 14 (UPI) — North Korea launched 10 ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday — which landed just outside Japan’s economic zone in the East Sea — in a show of force amid a U.S.-South Korea military exercise.
The launch, confirmed by the Japanese and South Korean defense ministries, is one of the largest North Korea shows of force that it has ever launched, The Japan Times and The Independent reported.
The missiles were launched from the west coast of North Korea, flying roughly 211 miles before falling just outside the Sea of Japan.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense in a statement called the launch a continued effort to “threaten the peace and security of Japan, the region and the international community.”
Shinjiro Koizumi, the Japanese defense minister, added that the ministry would remain in close contact with the United States and other allies “to remain fully vigilant and maintain surveillance in preparation for any unforeseen contingencies.”
The launch is the largest since at least November 2022, when Kim Jong Un’s regime launched a volley of 23 missiles that included short-range ballistic missiles and surface-to-air missiles, among others.
Analysts have said that it is unlikely that North Korea would attack U.S. or other nation’s assets in the region while the United States has diverted missile defense systems, among other things, to the Middle East amid the war in Iran.
They say, rather, that the show of force is meant to show that it can defend itself if it is invaded.
North Korea’s launch also comes as the United States and South Korea are about halfway through the annual 11-day Freedom Shield combined joint exercise that includes land, air and sea training events to allow the two nation’s armed forces to integrate seamlessly in combat.
One warship that was involved with the exercise, the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship carrying 2,500 Marines and 2,500 sailors, has been redeployed to the Middle East to bolster U.S. military power there amid the war in Iran.
Don’t blame the beleaguered voter for the record-low statewide turnout of 34% of registered voters in Tuesday’s primary election. Don’t call the stay-at-homes lazy or berate them for failing to do their duty. Don’t wonder why the patriotism stirred by Sept. 11 didn’t translate into an energized electorate.
The truth is, for many Californians, there were just too many reasons not to vote. The lack of hot contests on the Democratic ballot resulted in dismal turnouts of 23% in heavily Democratic Los Angeles County and 27% in San Francisco. The confusing rules of the primary had been changed again as to who could vote for which slate of candidates.
The campaign was overshadowed first by the Super Bowl and then by the Winter Olympic Games. When the political ads finally got the public’s attention, their constant carping and attacks surely turned off many voters. On election day some locales, including Los Angeles, were plagued with the failure of some polling places to open on time, ballots that weren’t delivered and voting locations that were changed or yanked.
The real culprit, however, was the ridiculously early primary date, more than eight months before the Nov. 5 general election. Many Californians didn’t even realize an election was coming up.
The Legislature and governor should make sure this doesn’t happen again. Lawmakers need to take a close look at SB 1975, by Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), a bill that would move the primary for state and local candidates to the second Tuesday in September every election year while maintaining a separate presidential primary in March.
The idea is to enable California to have a rational primary date while retaining some clout in the choosing of the presidential candidates. More discussion is in order about whether September balloting would allow enough time for an informative general election campaign. However, nine states have August primaries, and 10, including New York, vote on the second Tuesday in September, the day Johnson has proposed. A cheaper proposal would be for the state to stop playing presidential primary leapfrog for ever-earlier dates and move all primaries back to June.
Election officials struggle to make it convenient for Californians to vote, but the process remains complex and confusing. “It felt more like doing your taxes,” one expert said. The first step toward rationality is getting rid of this March madness.
WASHINGTON — Anti-Muslim rhetoric from some Republicans in Congress intensified this week against the backdrop of the Iran war, with several lawmakers — including one who said that “Muslims don’t belong in American society” — drawing condemnation from Democrats but little response from GOP leaders.
The derogatory language has been percolating among Republican officials for months, often prominent when criticizing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim. But against the backdrop of the Iran war, a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, and attacks at a synagogue in Michigan and a college in Virginia, the tone sharpened this week.
“The enemy is inside our gates,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama wrote Thursday in response to a photo of Mamdani sitting on the ground during an iftar dinner at New York City Hall. The photo was juxtaposed with a picture of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hours later, Tuberville added: “To be clear, I didn’t ‘suggest’ Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly.”
The rhetoric intensified Friday as GOP lawmakers responded to the attacks in Michigan and Virginia by urging a halt to all immigration into the United States. Some singled out Muslims specifically.
For many Muslims, it’s a political moment that carries echoes from the early 2000s, when the Sept. 11 attacks and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars generated hostility toward Muslim communities in the United States, often accompanied by discrimination and racist violence.
“When members of Congress speak, it’s not just words,” said Iman Awad, the national director for policy and advocacy for the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action. “It shapes public perception. It legitimizes prejudice.”
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) in his social media post stated flatly that Muslims don’t belong in the United States. He stood behind it after criticism mounted, later writing that “paperwork doesn’t magically make you American” and that “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.”
Asked about Ogles’ post Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he had spoken to members “about our tone and our message and what we say.” He said Ogles used “different language than I would use,” but added that he believes the issue raised by the comments is “serious.”
“There’s a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose sharia law in America is a serious problem,” Johnson said. “That’s what animates this.”
Sharia is a religious framework that guides many Muslims’ moral and spiritual conduct. References to “sharia law” have often been invoked by officials to suggest Muslims are attempting to impose religious practices on communities in the United States.
Many Republicans point to a Muslim-centered planned community near Dallas as proof of “sharia law” — though the developers have denied the allegations and said they are being targeted only because they are Muslim.
With Johnson not condemning Ogles’ remarks — or recent comments from Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one” — the anti-Muslim rhetoric grew louder. After the photo circulated of Mamdani at the iftar dinner, several Republicans responded with critical posts.
Democrats broadly condemned the Republican messages. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the leader of Senate Democrats, called Tuberville’s post “mindless hate.”
“Islamophobic hate like this is fundamentally un-American and we must confront and overcome it whenever it rears its ugly head,” Schumer said.
Mamdani — in response to Tuberville’s post that “the enemy is inside our gates” — said: “Let there be as much outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as there is when I break bread with New Yorkers.”
Federal officials identified a man who rammed his vehicle into a hallway at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., this week as a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon. Officials have said that the man — who was killed by security guards at the temple — had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon during the ongoing war in the Middle East, just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
In Virginia, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University before ROTC students subdued and killed him. Court documents showed that he had served time for attempting to aid the militant group Islamic State and was released less than two years ago.
Some Republican lawmakers claimed vindication for their views. Others pushed for legislation. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the House Republican whip, said that “the security of our nation hinges on our ability to denaturalize and deport terrorists.”
Rep. Riley M. Moore (R-W.Va.) said he would introduce a bill to denaturalize and deport any naturalized citizen who “commits an act of terrorism, plots to commit an act of terrorism, joins a terrorist organization or otherwise aids and abets terrorism against the American people.”
Similar rhetoric and policy efforts have surfaced before and stoked controversy. Protesters connected to demonstrations in recent years over the Israel-Hamas war were arrested and targeted by authorities, including former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the government has sought to detain and deport.
Middle East conflicts bringing domestic tensions is nothing new. With the war in Gaza, both Muslim and Jewish communities have faced faith-based discrimination and attacks.
Mamdani said the posts invoking the 9/11 attacks are problematic not just because of the words, but because of “the actions that often accompany them.”
“I think too of the smaller indignities, the indignities that many New Yorkers face, but that Muslims are expected to face in silence,” the mayor said. “Of the exhaustion of having to explain yourself to those who are not interested in understanding. Of the men who introduce themselves by their given name only to be called Muhammad for years on end.”
The stark silence from Republican leaders, including President Trump, reflects a broader change in the party. After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Republican President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington to explicitly warn against Muslim discrimination.
“America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” Bush said during the visit, adding: “They need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.
“Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior,” Bush said.
Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press.
March 14 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday said that a coalition of nations affected by Iran choking off the Strait of Hormuz will send warships to open it back up.
Trump said that although the United States and Israel have “destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability” in its war in Iran, its attempt to close the strait — by attacking ships and possibly laying mines along the shipping route — is affecting global trade.
Iran started to limit traffic in the strait since the war started two weeks ago and on Thursday, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojaba Khamenei, said it would remain closed as a tactic to pressure the United States and Israel to end their attacks on the country.
The Strait of Hormuz is a significant global trading route, and sees roughly 20% of the global oil and fuel supply pass through it every day.
“Many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, Axios and The Guardian reported.
“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated,” Trump said.
On Friday, several news organizations confirmed with the Department of Defense that the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship that was operating in the Philippine Sea, is headed to the Middle East.
The Tripoli brings with it 2,500 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Group, along with 2,500 more sailors, after U.S. Central Command requested additional military options for the conflict.
The 31st MEU can conduct ground operations, which the Trump administration has not ruled out in Iran, but Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caines told reporters at a press conference that the Pentagon plans to go after Iran’s mine-laying capability and its ability to attack commercial vessels.
BOSTON — A U.S. court ruling in Massachusetts has temporarily paused the looming termination of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Somalia.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs’ ruling Friday said there would be “weighty” consequences if Somalia’s TPS designation were allowed to expire Tuesday. Advocates filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to pause the termination after the Trump administration promised to end the designation last month during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many Somalis live.
“Over one thousand people will face ‘a myriad of grave risks,’ including detention and deportation, physical violence if removed to Somalia, and forced separation from family members,” the ruling said.
Burroughs said implementing an administrative stay and deferring ruling on the postponement gives both sides time to file briefs on the emergency motion.
“While the stay is in effect, the termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the ruling said, noting that those with TPS status or pending applications will retain rights including eligibility for work authorization and protection against deportation and detention.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the ruling is the latest example of a judge preventing Trump from “restoring integrity” to the U.S. immigration system.
“Temporary means temporary,” the statement said. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. The Trump administration is putting Americans first.”
Representatives of the plaintiffs fighting the termination said in a statement that even though the order is temporary and “many battles lie ahead,” they are “heartened by the interim protection today’s order affords all Somali people in the U.S. who have TPS or pending TPS applications.”
DALLAS — A federal jury Friday convicted nine people — eight on terrorism charges — over a shooting at a Texas immigration facility that federal prosecutors tied to antifa, the decentralized far-left movement that has become a target of the Trump administration.
One person was also found guilty of attempted murder after prosecutors say he opened fire last summer outside the Prairieland Detention Center outside Fort Worth, wounding a police officer. The Justice Department called the violence an attack plotted by antifa operatives, but attorneys for the accused denied that characterization, saying there were no antifa associations and that there was merely a demonstration with fireworks before gunshots broke out.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of President Trump, presided over the nearly three-week trial in Fort Worth. It was closely followed by legal experts and critics who called the proceedings a test of the lengths the government can go to punish protesters.
FBI Director Kash Patel had said the case was the first time charges of providing material support to terrorists had targeted people accused of being antifa members.
“Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement.
Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not an organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
Defense attorneys told jurors that there was no plan for violence on July 4 outside the facility in Alvarado.
Of the nine defendants on trial, eight faced the charge of providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was charged with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He was found guilty of both.
Sanchez Estrada’s attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said he can’t believe jurors “came to this conclusion.” Weinbel said his client had deployed as a member of the U.S. Army several times and he’d hoped what he sacrificed for the country “meant something.”
“But I feel like it turned its back on justice with this. … The U.S. lost today with this verdict,” Weinbel said.
Prosecutor Shawn Smith told jurors during closing arguments that the group’s actions — including bringing firearms and first aid kits and wearing body armor — were all signs of nefarious intent. He said they practiced “antifa tactics” and were “obsessed with operational security.”
Attorneys for the defendants have said that there was no planned ambush and that protesters who brought firearms did so for their own protection — in a state with very lenient gun laws.
The terrorism charges followed Trump’s order last fall to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Those charges did not require a tie to any organization, and there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. That’s in part because organizations operating within the United States are protected by broad 1st Amendment rights.
Critics of the Justice Department’s case have said the outcome could have wide-reaching effects on protests.
“That opposition is something that the government wants to squash, so a case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting,” said Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group.
Attorneys for the defendants have said most protesters began leaving when two guards from the center came outside. That was before any shots were fired.
Prosecutors said Benjamin Song, a former Marine Corps reservist, yelled, “Get to the rifles,” and opened fire, striking one police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Though it was Song who opened fire, prosecutors charged several other protesters with attempted murder of an officer and discharging a firearm, but they were found not guilty. The prosecution had argued that from the group’s planning, it was foreseeable to those others that a shooting could happen.
The officer who was shot, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, testified that when responding to the scene he saw a person clad in all-black with their face covered and carrying a rifle. He told jurors he was shot with a round that went into his shoulder and out of his neck.
Song’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, told jurors during closing arguments that there wasn’t a call to arms before Gross arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. Hayes suggested that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer.
Leading up to the trial, several people pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists after being accused of supporting antifa. They face up to 15 years in prison at sentencing.
Some of them testified for the prosecution, including Seth Sikes, who said he went to the detention center because he wanted to bring some joy to those held inside.
“I felt like I was doing the right thing,” he said.
Stengle writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Joshua Bogdan was born and raised in the United States. The only time the New Hampshire resident has left the country was for a day and a half in seventh grade, when he went to Canada to see Niagara Falls.
Even so, that did not mean proving his U.S. citizenship in last fall’s local elections was easy.
The 31-year-old arrived at his voting place in Portsmouth and handed the poll worker his driver’s license, just as he had done in other towns when arriving to vote. She said that would no longer do.
The poll worker said that under the state’s new proof-of-citizenship law, which took effect for the first time during town elections in 2025, Bogdan would need a passport or his birth certificate because he had moved and needed to re-register at his new address. A scramble ensued, turning the voting process that he had always found fun and invigorating into a nerve-racking game of beat the clock.
“I didn’t know that anything had officially changed walking in there,” he said. “And then being told that I had to provide a passport that I’ve never had or a birth certificate that’s usually tucked away somewhere safe just to cast my vote — which I’ve done before — it was frustrating.”
Bogdan’s experience in New Hampshire is a glimpse into the future for potentially millions of voters across the country. That is if Republican voting legislation being pushed aggressively by President Trump passes Congress and a “show your papers” law is put in place in time for the November midterm elections.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, cleared the House last month on a mostly party-line basis. Republicans say it would improve election integrity. Trump has called its safeguards common sense. Democrats and voting rights advocates call it a clear act of voter suppression. The bill is scheduled to come up for debate and voting in the Senate next week.
Republican messaging has mostly highlighted a less divisive provision in the bill that would require voters to show a photo ID. But the mandate for people to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections is likely to have the most wide-ranging consequences. Noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in federal elections, and it is not allowed by any state. Cases where it occurs are rare and harshly punished.
Obtaining the necessary documents under the SAVE Act is not as easy as it might sound. A similar effort was tried in Kansas a decade ago and turned into a debacle that eventually was blocked by the courts after more than 30,000 eligible citizens were prevented from registering.
Rebekah Caruthers, president and chief executive at the Fair Elections Center, said the legislation’s strict documentation requirements could move the U.S. “in the opposite direction” of representative democracy.
“If this bill passes, it would deny millions of eligible Americans their fundamental freedom to vote,” she said in an email. “This includes millions of people who make up your communities, including married women, people of color and voters who live in rural areas.”
The list of qualifying documents in the SAVE Act for proving citizenship appears long, but many of them come with qualifiers.
Under the bill, a Real ID-compliant driver’s license would have to indicate that “the applicant is a citizen,” but not all do. Only five states — Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington — offer the type of enhanced Real IDs that explicitly indicate U.S. citizenship.
Standard driver’s licenses, generally available to both citizens and noncitizens, often do not include a citizenship indicator. Some states, including Ohio, have recently added them.
The stipulations continue, buried in the fine print.
While military ID cards are listed as qualifying documents under the act, they will not suffice on their own. The bill says a military ID must be accompanied by a military “record of service” that indicates the person’s birthplace was in the U.S.
A DD214, the current standard-issue certificate of release or discharge for all military service branches, does not fulfill that requirement. According to the Pentagon, that document lists only where someone lived at points of entry and discharge and a person’s current home of record. It does not list where someone was born.
For most provisions, the SAVE Act contains no phase-in period that would give voters and local election offices time to adjust. If passed by Congress and signed by Trump, its documentary proof-of-citizenship mandate would apply immediately, meaning it would be in place for this year’s midterm elections.
That could lead to a rush to obtain documents by those who want to register or need to reregister. A 2025 University of Maryland study estimates that 21.3 million Americans who are eligible to vote do not possess or have easy access to documents to prove their citizenship, including nearly 10% of Democrats, 7% of Republicans and 14% of people unaffiliated with either major party.
A passport would most effectively meet the requirement, but only about half of American adults have one, according to the State Department. The SAVE Act requires the passport to be current; an expired one does not count.
Obtaining a passport in time for a looming voter registration deadline is another potential hurdle.
Workers who process passports had layoffs at the State Department reversed, but just last month the department forbid passport processing at certain public libraries that had long helped relieve pressure at the department. Government libraries, post offices, county clerks and others still provide the service.
It takes four weeks to six weeks to get a passport, according to the department’s website, excluding mailing time. A new passport costs $165 for adults and renewals cost $130, while the photo costs $10 or $20 more. The turnaround time can be sped up to two weeks or three weeks for an additional $60 — and for even faster processing, add $22 more. The fully expedited process for a new passport would cost at least $257, a significant burden for many voters.
A birth certificate may be a quicker and cheaper choice for most people, but there are twists.
The SAVE Act requires a certified birth certificate issued by a state, local government or tribal government. What does not appear to qualify is the certificate signed by the doctor that many new parents are given in the hospital when their child is born. It provides information similar to a certified birth certificate, but would not meet the letter of the federal legislation.
Like passports, birth certificates can sometimes take weeks to obtain. Those who live near their birthplaces can visit the local vital statistics office, but staffing shortages and escalating demand for Real IDs have caused significant backlogs in some states. In New York, the waiting period for certified copies is four months, the state said. Average processing times for online certificate requests vary widely by state, from as few as three days to 12 weeks or longer.
People whose birth certificates don’t match their current IDs — mostly women who changed their names when they married — would probably need additional documentation to register to vote under the bill. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found about 80% of women in opposite-sex marriages in the U.S. take their husband’s last name.
Notably, the SAVE Act does not provide any money to help states and local governments implement the changes or promote them to voters.
For Bogdan, that was part of the problem when New Hampshire’s proof-of-citizenship law took effect. People who have voted elsewhere in the state are not required to show proof of citizenship in their new towns if poll workers confirm their registration history. But Bogdan said workers at his polling place did not seem to know that or try to look up the information.
He eventually was able to cast his ballot because, by luck, he had recently retrieved his birth certificate from his parents’ house more than an hour away so he could apply for a Real ID. But he said government notices to voters would help prevent possible disenfranchisement.
“Young voters like myself don’t always carry around our birth certificate, Social Security card, all that important stuff, because it’s not used ever or very often,” he said. “And so all those young kids who are going to go out and try and vote will be held back from that.”
Smyth writes for the Associated Press.
It’s a political gambit that
“Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess,” he tweeted last week.
The unconventional proclamation from the unconventional president raised concern from both sides of the aisle.
His comments came as lawmakers agreed to a $1-trillion bipartisan budget bill that funds the federal government through September, which means another battle and potential government shutdown looms this fall.
Under a shutdown, thousands of federal employees would go without pay and national parks would close, among other things. In short: It will upset a lot of people.
Here’s a look at the key players and fallout from recent government shutdowns.
October 2013
It’s simple — the battle over healthcare closed the government.
That year, House Republicans, angered by
The government shut down for more than two weeks after
On the political front, the ramifications went both ways.
Members of the bipartisan budget conference Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Rep.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
The then-Senate majority leader was a vocal Democratic critic of Republican-led efforts to defund President Obama’s healthcare bill. He relentlessly castigated Republicans for their tactics to defund Obamacare, which ultimately led to the shutdown.
“You know with a bully you cannot let them slap you around, because they slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow. We are not going to be bullied,” Reid told reporters.
In the end, Reid came out of the shutdown with a bolstered reputation as a fighter of Democratic causes and earned plaudits from Obama.
(Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times)
At the time, the botched rollout of the healthcare law drew daily headlines. Web sites for healthcare exchanges didn’t work and the administration had few answers. Still, the healthcare law was able to remain intact and public scorn focused on Republicans as the government remained shuttered for 16 days and federal employees nationwide stayed home. Republicans thought their efforts would prove fruitful.
(T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images)
In the months and weeks leading to the shutdown, McCain served as a voice of reason for the Republicans. He insisted that it would be unwise for the party to allow a shutdown over Obamacare.
“I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: ‘Repeal and replace Obamacare.’ That was not the mandate of the voters. If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different,” he said at the time.
Ultimately, his efforts faltered as Republicans charged ahead with efforts to defund Obamacare and the government shutdown.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
He failed to rein in the most conservative grassroots wing of his party. Boehner was the middle man of sorts in negotiations between Democrats, moderate Republicans and conservative activists. Two years later, he resigned because of the strong opposition he faced from the Republican caucus.
(Andrew Burton / Getty Images)
While Cruz raised his national profile as a staunch critic of Obamacare, he also made a lot of enemies. Weeks before the shutdown he delivered a 21-hour talkathon on the Senate floor, assailing the health care law — a move that drew scorn from Democrats and Republicans alike. Cruz’s vocal opposition to the law helped establish him as a force within the GOP grassroots and set him up for a presidential run in 2016.
(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)
(Carolyn Kaster / AP)
Public opinion polls consistently showed that Republicans were blamed for the government shutdown. Even so, the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman was unable to turn that into victory in the 2014 midterm. Many Democrats fault her leadership as a factor in the party’s sweeping losses in the midterm election.
November/ December 1995 and January 1996
This battle over funding
President Clinton and bipartisan leaders meet at the White House on Dec. 30, 1995, for talks on the federal budget. (Greg Gibson / Associated Press)
(GREG GIBSON / AP)
(Marcy Nighswander / Associated Press)
(Marcy Nighswander / AP)
He stood firm in his battle with the Republican-controlled Congress. Clinton wanted a budget that increased expenditures on, among other things, Medicare and public education, but Republicans wanted to slow government spending. This led to months of negotiations — the government closing, opening, then closing again — and through it all, Clinton’s public approval ratings dipped only slightly. He easily won reelection in November 1996.
(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)
(J.SCOTT APPLEWHITE / AP)
After sweeping gains in the 1994 midterm election, Republicans were emboldened and ready for a showdown.
“He can run the parts of the government that are left, or he can run no government,” Gingrich told reporters weeks before the first shutdown. “Which of the two of us do you think worries more about the government not showing up?”
News reports at the time also noted that Gingrich was open to a shutdown after Clinton made him exit the rear of Air Force One after the two attended the funeral of slain Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin. The comments made the Republican leader appear petty. In the end, after weeks of a shutdown, Republicans ultimately conceded to Clinton and Democrats.
May 2017
Last week Congress passed a $1-trillion budget that funds the federal government through September. However, the budget bill does not allocate funds for Trump’s much-promised border wall. It’s the first bipartisan piece of legislation of the Trump presidency and funding for his signature proposal is nowhere to be found. The bill, however, does have funding for border security and increases to defense spending — both of which were touted as wins by the Trump administration.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), flanked by Sen.
(Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images)
It’s clear Trump does not like to lose and does not like bad headlines. By all accounts, Trump and his policies did not come out on top in the budget deal.
Trump blamed the Senate rules, which require 60 votes to pass most legislation, for the exclusion of key priorities from the spending bill.
This has in turn led some conservatives to push for Trump to support a government shutdown if Congress does not heed his policies this fall. Trump has always trusted his gut instinct in politics — so far it’s seemed to benefit him — and his comments will be closely watched this fall.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.)
(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)
He’s often had to stake out a position when Trump tweets. Indeed, this time was no different. Ryan alluded to Trump’s qualms with Senate rules.
“Look, we’ve got a long ways to go between now and September, but I share the president’s frustration,” Ryan told reporters. “What a lot of people in America don’t realize is appropriations bills, they take 60 votes to pass. They can be filibustered. So, all appropriations bills therefore have to be bipartisan because Democrats can always filibuster an appropriations bill. Having said all that, I feel very good about the wins that we got with the administration in this bill.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)
(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)
He’s Trump’s chief critic in Congress and warned the president that a government shutdown is not wise.
“The president’s threat to shut down the government in September is just a very, very bad idea because it would hurt so many average folks,” Schumer said recently. “I strongly urge my colleagues, and they have already … said they have no desire to shut down the government. That is not the way to govern. That is not the way to come up with bipartisan compromise.”
Voters
Public opinion is not on Trump’s side when it comes to talk about a government shutdown.
In a Politico/Morning Consult poll released in April, 65% of voters said that Congress should “take all necessary steps to avoid a government shutdown.”
Other polls show similar disapproval among voters toward a government shutdown.
Twitter: @kurtisalee
ABOUT THE BEST THING to be said about this year’s special election campaign is that it will soon be over. No one will really win, except for the political consultants who will walk away with pockets full of cash for raising and spending more than $200 million of other people’s money, and no one will really lose, at least not literally, because there are no candidates on the statewide ballot. The safest prediction is that, on the day after the election, California politics will be just as dysfunctional as today.
So why are we having this election? And why should anyone vote? The immediate answer to the first question is clear enough: Because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted it. The answer to the second question is that not voting would leave government to the special interests that finance these initiatives. The choices offered on the ballot require voter decisions, not a boycott.
All eight propositions on the ballot were put there by initiative petitions circulated by paid signature gatherers. The governor embraced four of them as elements of his reform of state government, including Proposition 76 to restrict state spending and Proposition 77 to take the job of drawing legislative and congressional districts away from the Legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges.
Schwarzenegger called a special election this year even though all the proposed reforms easily could have waited until the regular primary election in June. A majority of voters opposed this election, in part because of the estimated $50-million cost to the state and in part out of sheer exhaustion — six statewide elections, including primaries, in the last four years. No one is quite certain why Schwarzenegger insisted on this, although he claimed his reforms were too urgent to wait six months.
The irony is that, according to opinion polls, the more the governor campaigned for his measures, the less voters liked them. So if he called this election primarily to give his 2006 gubernatorial campaign a head start, he may be disappointed. One recent poll showed his approval rating at a meager 33%.
As for reforming state government, only Proposition 77 promises to bring about fundamental, beneficial change in how state government operates, ultimately resulting in a more moderate Legislature that is not deadlocked in partisan battle the way it is now. Propositions 74 and 75 offer some hope for modest improvements in education and Sacramento politics.
But it’s not just the governor’s misguided intentions that make this election objectionable. It has carried abuse of the ballot initiative to an unprecedented extreme (at least until the next election). All the measures were written by a variety of special interests and put on the ballot because those interests were able to spend the necessary money. If they all pass, the state’s overburdened Constitution will be weighed down by even more details about what state government can or cannot do.
This would all be unbearably depressing were it not for one fact: The people of California do want change in Sacramento.
That’s why they kicked out Gray Davis and elected Schwarzenegger in the 2003 special election. And that’s why, even as they question the wisdom of this special election, they remain supportive of the initiative process. The perfect initiative has yet to be written. (Although the two-sentence proposition proposed by San Francisco State professor Jules Tygiel in these pages last Sunday comes pretty close: “There shall be no further initiatives. All previous initiatives may be modified by a majority vote of the Legislature.”) But initiatives do succeed in forcing debate, if often clumsy or distorted, on important issues.
What Californians do not want is political gridlock. They want strong leaders who can get results without resorting to the ballot, much as Schwarzenegger did in working with the Legislature in 2004. It’s alarming that now Schwarzenegger is promising to produce even more ballot measures next year regardless of Tuesday’s outcome.
For all its faults, Tuesday’s election presents voters with choices. These choices may be unsatisfying. But by staying home, voters would only further exclude themselves from the governing process. See you at the polls on Tuesday.
Vancouver, Canada – Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to unite Canadians around protecting the nation’s economy from the US are hitting roadblocks as he nears one year in power.
Indigenous peoples across Canada are increasingly divided over Carney’s aggressive push to expand resource extraction and projects on their ancestral lands.
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Some experts question how his government can advance its agenda while respecting Indigenous rights enshrined in the country’s constitution.
March 14 will mark one year since Carney, former head of Canada’s central bank, was sworn into office.
After an election last year, his centrist Liberal party formed a minority government with the highest share of the popular vote in 40 years.
A key to Carney’s victory was his pledge to “stand strong” against US trade threats and grow Canada’s economic sovereignty, an assertive approach the prime minister has called “elbows up”.
“In the face of global trade shifts … we will build big and build fast to create a stronger, more sustainable, more independent economy,” Carney said in a statement on March 6.
Part of that push was to create a Major Projects Office to speed up approvals of economic developments, starting by fast-tracking 10 mega-projects.
They include two massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants and an open-pit mine in British Columbia, a nuclear plant in Ontario, a Quebec shipping terminal, and wind power in Atlantic Canada.
Those developments are worth 116 billion Canadian dollars ($85bn), the government estimates.
Carney’s approach to the US trade war has gained support from Canadians, according to recent opinion surveys.
A March 3 poll of 1,500 citizens by Abacus Data found that 50 percent say Carney is protecting Canada’s core interests when dealing with Trump — compared with 36 percent with negative views.
“Whenever Canada is threatened, the protectionist nature of the state kind of re-emerges,” said Shady Hafez, assistant politics professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“Self-preservation of Canada becomes the priority.”
Hafez, a research associate with the Yellowhead Institute, is a member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation in Quebec.
He said there are growing concerns in his community and others about Carney’s push to accelerate mega-projects across the country.
“For that to happen, Canada needs land, and it needs resources,” Hafez said, “and it takes those lands and resources from us.”
Blowback was swift after Carney pledged to build a highly controversial oil pipeline to the west coast in a late November deal signed with Alberta, Canada’s oil powerhouse.
Carney’s culture minister swiftly resigned, decrying “no consultation” with Indigenous nations and “major environmental impacts”.
And the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), which represents more than 600 Indigenous chiefs, unanimously passed an emergency resolution opposing a new pipeline.
“First Nations people, we stand with Canada against Trump’s illegal tariffs, but not at the expense of our rights,” AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Al Jazeera in an interview. “If you want to fast-track anything, you better make sure that First Nations are being included right off the bat.
“Trying to sideswipe or push aside First Nations people when there’s agreements between provinces and the feds — they have to remember that First Nations are here … and they are to be respected in their own homelands.”
The rights of Indigenous people in the country are enshrined in Canada’s constitution.
But too often, Hafez said, in the name of national prosperity, “Indigenous communities have to suffer.”
“Whenever there’s somewhat of an emergency, our rights get pushed to the side.”
But the resistance to the major projects push isn’t universal.
The First Nations Natural Gas Alliance praised Carney’s “much more aggressive” approach compared with his predecessor on developing energy resources.
But the group’s CEO, Karen Ogen, acknowledged there’s a “highly charged environment” on such issues.
“First Nations communities continue to face significant socioeconomic barriers”, stated the former chief of Wet’suwet’en First Nation. “LNG and natural gas development are not just an opportunity; they are a national imperative.
“Billions of dollars in procurement benefits and revenues are flowing to First Nations.”
The trade war with the US has galvanised and united many Canadians — but with little acknowledgement of the impacts on Indigenous communities, said Sheryl Lightfoot, political science professor at the University of Toronto.
Lightfoot is vice-chair of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“These projects, by many accounts, are advancing without full consultation or transparency”, she told Al Jazeera.
“It appears that economic or geopolitical pressures … are being used to justify bypassing Indigenous rights and environmental safeguards.”
But Canada’s Major Projects Office insists it will “seek input, hear concerns and ideas, and work in partnership moving forward” with Indigenous communities — and “will not be skipping over vital project steps including consultations with Indigenous Peoples,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
“We are unlocking Canada’s economic potential, while respecting our environmental responsibilities and the rights of Indigenous Peoples,”
A significant number of projects on Carney’s fast-track list are concentrated in British Columbia (BC).
Those include two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on the Pacific coast — LNG Canada and Ksi Lisims LNG — as well as the electric transmission line to power the sector, and a copper and gold mine.
BC is unique in the country because, historically, very little of its land was subject to treaties between the Crown and First Nations. Canada’s top court has repeatedly ruled in favour of First Nations rights and title in the westernmost province.
All four major projects in the province have proven divisive among the region’s Indigenous peoples — even though several have the backing of individual First Nations governments.
One of those is the massive Ksi Lisims LNG plant, in which the Nisga’a Nation is a direct partner.
Co-developed with Texas-based Western LNG, the mega-project will “benefit all Canadians,” said Nisga’a President Eva Clayton.
In 2000, her nation became the first in BC to reach a modern self-government treaty.
“We are co-developing the Ksi Lisims LNG project on land that our nation owns under our treaty,” she told a parliamentary committee on February 24.
“This project is expected to bring in 30 billion [Canadian] dollars [$22bn] in investment, create thousands of skilled careers, and strengthen Canada’s leadership in low-emission LNG.”
But LNG is fiercely opposed by other nearby First Nations.
Tara Marsden is Wilp sustainability director for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, traditional leaders of the 900-member Gitanyow community.
“We have a lot more concerns and evidence regarding impacts in our territory,” she said.
“The federal government has done zero consultation on their fast-track list and the projects that actually affect our territory.”
Gitanyow oppose the BC projects on the fast-track list as harming their interests.
She said Ottawa cannot ignore First Nations opposition, even if there is support from others like the Nisga’a.
“They have a right to develop in their own territories”, said Marsden. “But if you have maybe 20 to 30 First Nations whose territory would be crossed — and you get maybe three on board — that’s not a resounding consensus.
“They’re just trying to use this small handful of nations to steamroll over everybody else.”
If Canada truly wants to strengthen its sovereignty and economy, she said, it must do so alongside Indigenous people.
“This is something that First Nations across the country have been saying since Carney took the ‘elbows up’ approach,” Marsden said.
“The government has really just ignored that … and actually now back-stopping these mega-projects with taxpayer dollars.”
McGill University economics lecturer Julian Karaguesian served for decades in the Department of Finance and Canada’s Embassy in Washington, DC.
He agreed that most Canadians support Carney’s attempt to boost the economy with “nation-building” projects.
“I think they’re a fantastic idea”, he told Al Jazeera. “But we’ve committed to consultations with First Nations, Metis and Inuit people.
“Once we’ve started compromising on economic and social justice … we can create bitterness. First Nations leaders understand the situation we’re in, and I think [Ottawa] can work with them.”
Even on projects endorsed by some First Nations, the international legal principle of “free, prior and informed consent” must still apply to other communities impacted, said Lightfoot.
That’s “not simply a procedural requirement” to rubber-stamp projects, she said.
“It is a substantive right, anchored in Indigenous peoples’ self-determination and their ability to make decisions about matters that affect their lands, communities, and futures.”
And that could risk slowing down Carney’s hopes to speed through projects if there is no Indigenous consensus — potentially tying more divisive ones up in the courts.
“Failure to include Indigenous knowledge and decision-making early in the process,” Lightfoot said, “can undermine the legitimacy and fairness of project approvals.”
Carney’s ratings among First Nations are “mixed,” says AFN’s national chief. One positive, she noted, is his openness to meeting Indigenous leaders raising concerns.
But with many of the prime minister’s economic hopes dependent on building “national interest” infrastructure on First Nations homelands, Woodhouse Nepinak said the relationship needs care.
“Carney is at a crossroads in his personal relationship with First Nations,” she said.
“And we understand First Nations rights are under threat in new ways by this government.”
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser and Melissa Gomez, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Former Deputy City Atty. Michelle McGinnis wants to know why she was escorted out of City Hall in front of her colleagues, forced to turn in her work computer and placed on administrative leave in April 2024.
In her search for answers, a separate issue has arisen: whether her former boss is withholding or deleting text messages.
In a lawsuit against the city, McGinnis subpoenaed text messages about her between City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and one of her top deputies, Denise Mills.
But according to a new petition that McGinnis filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Feldstein Soto produced zero text messages between her and Mills, and Mills produced just three with Feldstein Soto. The subpoena also asked for messages on Signal and other apps.
McGinnis’ lawyer, Caleb Mason, said the lack of texts strains credulity and probably means that some were deleted or withheld. McGinnis, who headed the criminal branch of the City Attorney’s Office, was fired in January 2025.
“It is obviously relevant and critical … to see what Ms. Feldstein [Soto] and Ms. Mills were saying to one another about Ms. McGinnis … that led to the extraordinary and unprecedented action of escorting a Branch Chief out of the building,” Mason wrote in a Feb. 23 brief.
A deputy city attorney representing Feldstein Soto and Mills disputed Mason’s claims in court filings, calling the new petition “uncomprehensible [sic]” and asserting that the two officials complied with the subpoenas. The attorney also sent 2,061 pages of documents to Mason.
Feldstein Soto, in a declaration, said that she “diligently searched for any documents” and shared them with her lawyer.
Mills said she did the same. In an effort to “retrieve any backup text messages,” she performed a factory reset of her phone on Jan. 30. McGinnis said the subpoenas were served on Dec. 15.
McGinnis’ lawyer said that was tantamount to spoliation — or destruction of evidence.
“Every court and every attorney in the country knows that ‘performing a factory reset’ means erasing information from a phone,” he wrote.
“It is reckless or negligent to reset a device when you know the opposing party is seeking that info,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School.
Still, Levenson said, politicians and lawyers often prefer speaking in person or on the phone to avoid their communications being exposed in a lawsuit. So it’s possible that the two didn’t exchange many text messages.
Feldstein Soto said in a statement that she has turned over all text messages about McGinnis. “There is nothing new here,” she said. “Ms. McGinnis was terminated, for cause. We remain confident in that decision.”
The city has argued that McGinnis “routinely opposed” Feldstein Soto’s policy and prosecutorial decisions.
McGinnis was placed on administrative leave due to a “pattern of insubordination and failure to meet minimal job requirements,” the city wrote in a legal filing in 2024.
The lawsuit that McGinnis filed against the city in 2024 alleged that Feldstein Soto retaliated against McGinnis and made prosecutorial decisions based on “personal relationships” or “perceived political gain.” The lawsuit also accused Feldstein Soto and Mills of “inappropriate alcohol consumption” in the office.
Other local politicians have also coughed up remarkably few text messages in response to public records requests.
Mayor Karen Bass came under scrutiny following the Palisades fire over the fact that her text messages auto-delete after 30 days, destroying potentially critical information about her decisions surrounding the devastating blaze. The Times sued the city after Bass’ counsel argued that her texts were “ephemeral” and not subject to public records requests. L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger also said she auto-deletes messages after 30 days — and sometimes manually deletes them.
City Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson, meanwhile, turned over zero texts, emails, Signal and WhatsApp messages in response to a Times public records request for his communications with Bass from Jan. 6 to Jan. 16, 2025 — before, during and after the Palisades fire.
Harris-Dawson’s office said it had “conducted a search and found no responsive records for this request.”
— IDK, VOTERS SAY: A majority of Angelenos have not made up their minds about the June 2 mayoral primary, according to a poll released this week. Bass had the most support at 20%, while reality TV star Spencer Pratt had 10% and Councilmember Nithya Raman had 9%, the poll found.
— HOMELESS DEATHS DROP: For the first time in the decade that homeless mortality has been tracked in Los Angeles County, fewer people have died on the streets and in shelters than the year before, the Department of Public Health reported Tuesday. A sharp decrease in overdose deaths drove a decline of 10% in the rate of homeless deaths from all causes in 2024, the most recent data analyzed by the county.
— LAST-MINUTE MEMO: The City Council was set to vote on a $177-million contract for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles to continue representing tenants for the next three years, with other groups providing related services. But the night before the March 3 vote, Feldstein Soto sent a confidential memo to council offices recommending that council members “reconsider the award of such a large contract to a frequent litigant against the city.”
The council approved the contract, with changes, a week later.
— CAMPAIGN REVELATION: Community organizer Jordan Rivers, who is running against incumbent Tim McOsker to represent Council District 15, said he will continue his campaign after a report surfaced that he stabbed a neighbor when he was 12. Rivers, now 22, stabbed the 8-year-old boy in the neck and shoulders, inflicting “severe and life threatening physical and emotional injuries,” a lawsuit said. On Monday, Rivers said it was an “accident” that happened a decade ago.
“I do not believe that past situations or indeed past mistakes define or determine who a person is or what they are,” he said.
— LAPD REFORMS: A series of proposed changes to the city’s charter — essentially its constitution — could give elected leaders in Los Angeles more oversight over the Police Department and enable the police chief to fire problem officers. The changes, recommended by the city’s Charter Reform Commission, have long been sought by advocates and are likely to face fierce opposition.
— SUPE SPEAKS: Embattled Los Angeles schools chief Alberto Carvalho made his first public statement since the FBI raided his home and district office on Feb. 25. He denied any wrongdoing and asked to return to his duties.
“While the government’s investigation remains ongoing, no evidence has been presented by prosecutors supporting any allegation that Mr. Carvalho violated federal law,” the statement said.
— A WEEK OF WIPEOUTS: With city officials finalizing the list of candidates for the June 2 election, a number of hopefuls failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. They include community leader Eddie Ha, publicist Dory Frank and entrepreneur Jeremy Wineberg on the Westside; residential connectivity specialist Rosa Requeno on the Eastside; neighborhood council member Jon Rawlings in the San Fernando Valley; and neighborhood council president Adriana Cabrera, civil rights attorney Chris Martin and social worker Michelle Washington in South L.A.
— REWORKING ULA (TAKE 3): The City Council voted Wednesday to create an ad hoc committee to look at potential changes to Measure ULA, the tax on high-end property sales passed in 2022. City leaders have made two previous moves to rewrite the measure, neither of which succeeded.
— VOTING OLYMPIC VALUES: The council voted Friday to “express concern” about LA28 Olympics committee chairman Casey Wasserman, saying his appearance in the Epstein files poses a “potential conflict” with the values of the Olympic movement. Several elected officials at City Hall, including Bass, had already called for Wasserman to step down.
— MEETING OF MAYORS: On Friday, about 20 mayors and city council members from across L.A. County, including Bass, came together to discuss the impact that immigration raids have had on their communities. Many raised concerns about the role of local law enforcement in allowing federal agents to act with what they described as impunity.
One mayor suggested that all the cities that contract with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department should get together to demand accountability for deputies in their interactions with immigration agents.
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Reporting from El Progreso, Honduras — Not long after Jesuit priest Jack Warner met a bearded, 22-year-old Midwesterner in 1980, the two Americans bonded, drawn together by the goals and questions that led them both to El Progreso, a small city not far from vast banana fields — the campos bananeros.
Warner was 35 and had arrived a year earlier to form the Teatro La Fragua, a theater company for Hondurans. As the young priest looked to forge a relationship with the campesinos, his friendship blossomed with Tim Kaine, who had taken a year off from Harvard Law School to join the Jesuit mission.
“He was 22 years old,” Warner said, “and it was the typical thing that a 22-year-old would do: What do I do with my life?”
Kaine, now a 58-year-old U.S. senator from Virginia and the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has often said that his time in Honduras helped him answer that question, giving him “a North Star” to guide his life toward public service. It’s central to his biography and likely to arise Tuesday night when he debates his Republican opponent, Mike Pence.
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When Kaine traveled to Honduras, the nation was in the throes of turmoil, flanked by countries torn by civil war and ruled by the heavy hand of a U.S-backed military bent on stamping out what it perceived to be communism spreading in the region.
“I got a firsthand look at a system — a dictatorship — where a few people at the top had all the power and everyone else got left out,” Kaine said in July at the Democratic National Convention.
He also witnessed extreme poverty. His experiences, coupled with the Jesuit goal of being “men for others,” led him to become a civil-rights lawyer for 17 years, specializing in housing-discrimination cases. Honduras convinced him, he said, “that we’ve got to advance opportunity for everyone.”
Kaine now serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and this year co-sponsored a bill that would increase aid to Central America’s “Northern Triangle” — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Key to his experiences in Honduras was the friendship and example of Warner and a handful of other Jesuits. And a Christmastime visit to a poor man’s house taught him a lesson that resonates decades later.
During his time in El Progreso, Kaine lived in a barracks, along with Warner and other Jesuits. After their work days wrapped up about 5 p.m., he and Warner frequently commiserated over office duties, students, the teatro and the poetry Kaine was writing. Warner, a former English teacher, worked with Kaine on his verse. Over time, they became confidants.
Father Jack Warner admires a painting created by an actor who performs in the Teatro la Fragua in El Progreso, Honduras.
(Veronica Rocha / Los Angeles Times )
Both men grew up in the Midwest — Kaine in the Kansas City, Kan., suburb of Overland Park; Warner in St. Louis — and had been drawn to the Jesuit mission of social justice from an early age.
Kaine attended Rockhurst High School for boys, run by Jesuit priests who ran a demanding schedule of daily Masses, theology classes and community service activities with retreats.
Kaine, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Missouri, was at Harvard Law when he began to question his faith and the path he should take in life, he says. Because he had made a brief trip to Honduras in 1974 to deliver donations to the Jesuits, he decided to write them and see whether they could use some help. They said yes.
“He took a rather strong decision to seek out an answer — not everyone comes to Progreso,” Warner said.
Kaine had to tell his law school dean, and his parents, of this new direction. “The dean, not to mention my parents and friends, were confused about what I was doing and even questioned whether I would come back,” Kaine once recalled in a Virginia Tech speech.
By September 1980, Kaine was rumbling along in a bus into northern Nicaragua, where he visited another American Jesuit, Father James Carney. In Honduras months earlier, Carney had encouraged peasants to fight for their land, and he was expelled by the Honduran military, which saw him as one of the leftist priests who embraced liberation theology and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.
Activists, some of them priests or the peasants they worked with, would be banished or killed by authorities. Carney would later disappear in what was believed to be a clandestine Honduran military operation backed by the CIA.
“It was a time when anytime the police stopped you, you got really nervous. You never knew what was going to happen,” Warner recalled. “We were under a military dictatorship at the time and very heavy military control. It was scary, and one had to live very carefully.”
We were under a military dictatorship at the time and very heavy military control. It was scary, and one had to live very carefully.
— Father Jack Warner, on Honduras in the 1980s
In El Progreso that September, Kaine soon met another Jesuit, Brother James O’Leary, a missionary also from Missouri.
O’Leary, who died in 2002, was often described as an outspoken, occasionally cranky but also skilled carpenter, painter and electrician who built houses and chapels for the poor. Kaine worked with him at his Loyola Technical Vocational Center, helping to boost the school’s enrollment and teaching carpentry and welding. As a youngster, Kaine had picked up skills working in his father’s ironworking shop in the Kansas City area.
Kaine declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, he recalled what O’Leary taught him.
“I learned from a great mentor there, Brother Jim O’Leary, that faith is about more than words or doctrine — it’s about action,” he said. “And that led me to spend my life in public service.”
One of Kaine’s former students at the vocational center, Alex Hernandez Monroy, recalled the daily lessons in carpentry and welding from the shaggy-haired young American.
“His Spanish wasn’t very good, but despite all that he interacted with us,” said Hernandez Monroy, then 13 and now 48. Although Kaine couldn’t pronounce certain words, the students appreciated his efforts.
“Something very important that he did was that he visited the families of the students,” he said. “We were not used to interacting with Americans, so it had an impression on us to see someone like him educating us.”
Their debate might not matter much, but Mike Pence and Tim Kaine would be key White House players »
Using some of the skills he learned from Kaine and O’Leary, Hernandez Monroy teaches carpentry to a group of 15 students at the school. “They taught us that we could help our kids,” he said. “The majority of our youth are at risk, so that left an impression on us.”
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About 35,000 people lived in El Progreso in 1980, when it was dominated by the presence of the United Fruit Co., the world’s largest — and often exploitative — banana company. Today it has a population of about 200,000, and the winding roads leading to the city are lined by brightly colored, one-story concrete homes.
During Kaine’s time there, however, it was a collection of dusty, rural villages and banana camps, with mountaintop towns accessible only by foot or mule. As a center for union activity, it became a target of the communism-fearing Reagan administration.
While war raged in neighboring El Salvador and Nicaragua, Honduras remained calm — but was gripped in fear. It was the staging ground for many of the United States’ clandestine operations aimed at toppling other governments.
People dared not speak about activism or union organizing lest they risk being among those who “disappeared.” More than a dozen priests were killed in the 1970s and 1980s after being associated with liberation theology, considered a Marxist-tinged doctrine that preached to the poor.
While Catholic priests in Central America were attacked for advocating on behalf of the poor, Kaine maintained a low profile and didn’t attract notice from the military.
Warner, a slender man with gray shoulder-length hair, recalled Kaine’s time in Honduras during a recent interview at the theater in El Progreso.
“His interest was in the students and what he was doing in his work, which is what we were all doing,” Warner said. “Trying to figure how we can do the work without being kicked out of the country for exploring it.”
Kaine also saw poverty and expressed his feelings about it through writing, as did Warner.
The priest maintained a daily newsletter with accounts of poverty and life in El Progreso. “We all have our defenses to shut out the existence of human misery, most of which consist of closing our eyes and pretending it doesn’t exist,” Warner wrote in a December 1980 newsletter. “Hopelessness then becomes a way of life for both parties.”
Warner published one of Kaine’s poems, titled “Still Life,” in which he described the “thick misery” of the town of San Pedro Sula. “In the saddest slum of San Pedro, lives are played out in the shade of a highway where buses glide like lost thoughts overhead.”
He likened the challenges, or “questions marks” facing the town to fingers testing the wind. “Each predicts change that just won’t come.”
Kaine spent nine months in El Progreso before returning to Harvard. He has kept in occasional touch with Warner and has returned to Honduras several times, most recently last year. This year, he and 25 senators called for an end to immigration raids in the U.S. targeting women and children who were fleeing violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
When he accepted the nomination for vice president, Kaine said that the three basic values he absorbed in Honduras hold true today: “Fe, familia y trabajo.” Faith, family and work.
Students take a break before heading to class to learn carpentry at Loyola Technical Vocational Center, where Tim Kaine volunteered, in El Progreso, Honduras.
(Veronica Rocha / Los Angeles Times )
“I came to understand the power of faith and communal worship,” Kaine said at Virginia Tech in 2006. “I learned how to speak Spanish and began to understand how the things which can seem to divide us — like language and skin color — were so much smaller than the dreams and fears that unite us.”
Kaine also has repeatedly recalled what became one of his most indelible memories of Honduras.
He and Father Jarrell Wade, a Jesuit known as Father Patricio, had traveled by mule to visit a dirt-poor family around Christmas. As they prepared to leave, the husband handed Wade a bag. “Merry Christmas, padre,” he said.
Inside the worn bag were fruits and vegetables he had saved for the priest. Wade took the bag and thanked him.
Kaine was appalled and angered that the priest would take food from such a poor family — “I was fuming” — until Wade imparted the lesson: “You must be really humble to accept a gift of food from a poor person, and the most important thing in life is the ability to give.”
Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.
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Contradicting his secretary of State and other top officials, President Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyberattack against the United States and tried to downplay its impact.
In his first comments on the breach, Trump scoffed at the focus on the Kremlin and minimized the intrusions, which the nation’s cybersecurity agency has warned posed a “grave” risk to government and private networks.
“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control,” Trump tweeted. He also claimed the media are “petrified” of “discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).”
There is no evidence to suggest that is the case. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said late Friday that Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the attack.
“This was a very significant effort and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” he said in the interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin.
Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused Russia of being “the main actor” in the hack, but were told at the last minute to stand down, according to one U.S. official familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
It is not clear whether Pompeo got that message before his interview, but officials are now scrambling to figure out how to square the disparate accounts. The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the statement or the basis of Trump’s claims.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has refused to blame Russia for well-documented hostilities, including its interference in the 2016 election to help him get elected. He blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, has endorsed allowing Russia to return to the Group of 7 of nations and has never taken the country to task for allegedly putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Pompeo in the interview said the government was still “unpacking” the cyberattack and some of the details would likely remain classified.
“But suffice it to say there was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of U.S. government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well,” he said.
Though Pompeo was the first Trump administration official to publicly blame Russia for the attacks, cybersecurity experts and other U.S. officials have been clear over the past week that the operation appears to be the work of Russia. There has been no credible suggestion that any other country — including China — is responsible.
Democrats in Congress who have received classified briefings have also affirmed publicly that Russia, which in 2014 hacked the State Department and interfered through hacking in the 2016 presidential election, was behind it.
It’s not clear exactly what the hackers were seeking, but experts say it could include nuclear secrets, blueprints for advanced weaponry, COVID-19 vaccine-related research and information for dossiers on government and industry leaders.
Russia has said it had “nothing to do” with the hacking.
While Trump downplayed the impact of the hacks, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has said it compromised federal agencies as well as “critical infrastructure.” Homeland Security, the agency’s parent department, defines such infrastructure as any “vital” assets to the U.S. or its economy, a broad category that could include power plants and financial institutions.
One U.S. official, speaking Thursday on condition of anonymity, described the hack as severe and extremely damaging.
“This is looking like it’s the worst hacking case in the history of America,” the official said. “They got into everything.”
Trump had been silent on the attacks before Saturday.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern told reporters Friday that national security advisor Robert O’Brien has sometimes been leading multiple daily meetings with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence agencies, looking for ways to mitigate the hack.
He would not provide details, “but rest assured we have the best and brightest working hard on it each and every single day.”
The Democratic leaders of four House committees given classified briefings by the administration issued a statement complaining that they “were left with more questions than answers.”
“Administration officials were unwilling to share the full scope of the breach and identities of the victims,” they said.
Pompeo, in the interview with Levin, said Russia was on the list of “folks that want to undermine our way of life, our republic, our basic democratic principles. … You see the news of the day with respect to their efforts in the cyberspace. We’ve seen this for an awfully long time, using asymmetric capabilities to try and put themselves in a place where they can impose costs on the United States.”
What makes this hacking campaign so extraordinary is its scale: 18,000 organizations were infected from March to June by malicious code that piggybacked on popular network-management software from an Austin, Texas, company, SolarWinds.
It’s going to take months to kick elite hackers out of the U.S. government networks they have been quietly rifling through since as far back as March.
Experts say there simply are not enough skilled threat-hunting teams to identify all the government and private-sector systems that may have been hacked. FireEye, the cybersecurity company that discovered the intrusion and was among the victims, has already tallied dozens of casualties. It’s racing to identify more.
Many federal workers — and others in the private sector — must presume that unclassified networks are teeming with spies. Agencies will be more inclined to conduct sensitive government business on Signal, WhatsApp and other encrypted smartphone apps.
“We should buckle up. This will be a long ride,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former chief technical officer of the leading cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “Cleanup is just Phase 1.”
Florida became the first state to acknowledge falling victim to a SolarWinds hack. Officials told the Associated Press that hackers apparently infiltrated the state’s healthcare administration agency and others.
SolarWinds’ customers include most Fortune 500 companies, and its U.S. government clients are rich with generals and spymasters.
If the hackers are indeed from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, as experts believe, their resistance may be tenacious. When they hacked the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department in 2014 and 2015 “it was a nightmare to get them out,” Alperovitch said.
The Pentagon has said it has so far not detected any intrusions from the SolarWinds campaign in any of its networks — classified or unclassified.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has earned a rare rebuke by the Senate for — believe it or not — quoting Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.
The Massachusetts Democrat ran afoul of the chamber’s arcane rules by reading a 30-year-old letter from Dr. Martin Luther King’s widow that dated to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ failed judicial nomination three decades ago.
The chamber is debating the Alabama Republican’s nomination for attorney general, with Democrats dropping senatorial niceties to oppose Sessions and Republicans sticking up for him.
King wrote that when acting as a federal prosecutor, Sessions used his power to “chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”
Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for “impugning the motives” of Sessions, though senators have said far worse stuff. And Warren was reading from a letter that was written 10 years before Sessions was even elected to the Senate.
Still, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell invoked the rules. After a few parliamentary moves, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to back him up.
Now, Warren is forbidden from speaking again on Sessions’ nomination. A vote on Sessions is expected Wednesday evening.
Democrats pointed out that McConnell didn’t object when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called him a liar in a 2015 dustup.
“I’m reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Judiciary Committee from 1986 that was admitted into the record. I’m simply reading what she wrote about what the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be a federal court judge meant and what it would mean in history for her,” Warren said.
March 13 (UPI) — A State Department official was barred Friday from going to Brazil because of a proposed visit to jailed former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for plotting a coup four years ago.
The official, Darren Beattie, was approved for a visa to attend a critical minerals summit next week, but his visa was pulled because the meeting with Bolsonaro was determined to be outside his diplomatic authorization, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday, Bloomberg and The Guardian reported.
After the ruling, current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered his government to revoke Beattie’s visa entirely, at least partially because U.S. President Donald Trump denied Brazilian health minister Alexandre Padilha a visa and revoked visas held by his wife and daughter.
“That American guy who said he was coming here to visit Bolsonaro, he’s been barred from visiting and I have forbidden him from to Brazil so long as they don’t free up the visa of my health minister, which has been blocked,” Lula said Friday.
Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after he was convicted for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula.
The charges were based on Bolsonaro’s supporters storming government buildings in January 2023 — a plan that had started in 2021, before the 2022 election — in an effort to prevent Lula from taking office.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said that although Beattie’s visa application included the minerals summit and meetings with other Brazilian officials, he only asked for the other meetings after asking for the Bolsonaro visit.
Trump and many within his administration, including Beattie, have been critical of the Brazilian Supreme Court and the country’s officials for jailing Bolsonaro on the coup charges.
“It should be noted that a visit by a foreign state official to a former president in an election year may constitute undue interference in the internal affairs of the Brazilian state, Vieira told the Supreme Court.
Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro, who is the son of the former president, are currently locked in a close race for Brazil’s presidency after a poll found them tied for the first time with 41% of participants, which would lead to a runoff election.
The Brazilian presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 4, and a runoff would be Oct. 25.
The list of candidates running for Los Angeles city and school board offices is set, with a number of incumbents facing what could be competitive primary elections on June 2.
Fourteen Angelenos have qualified to run for mayor, including incumbent Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt.
Seven City Council incumbents face at least one challenger, while Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is running unopposed to represent her northeast San Fernando Valley district.
City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto is running against three opponents — deputy attorney general Marissa Roy, human rights attorney Aida Ashouri and Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney.
In the race for city controller, incumbent Kenneth Mejia will battle it out against Zach Sokoloff, who is on sabbatical from his job as senior vice president of asset management at Hackman Capital Partners.
For the last week and a half, workers at the City Clerk’s Office have been verifying the legitimacy of voter signatures submitted by the candidates, finishing the last batch on Friday.
Gathering the required 500 signatures is relatively easy in citywide races but harder in council and school board districts. Some candidates who submitted petitions by the March 4 deadline failed to qualify because some of their signatures were deemed invalid.
In each race, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in June, the top two finishers will compete in a November runoff.
The field of 14 for mayor narrowed significantly from the roughly 40 who filed initial paperwork on Feb. 7. The qualifiers include a game streamer, a singer-songwriter and a tech entrepreneur, as well as government veterans like Asaad Alnajjar, a longtime engineer for the city. Rae Huang, a pastor and housing advocate, will also appear on the ballot.
Raman, a former Bass ally, shook up the race with her surprise entry, hours before the filing deadline.
A recent poll found that about 51% of Los Angeles voters are undecided on who they want for mayor. Bass led at 20%, followed by Pratt at just over 10% and Raman at slightly more than 9%, according to the Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics poll.
Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller was supported by just over 4% of those polled, with Huang at about 3%.
In District 1, which stretches from Glassell Park and Highland Park to Chinatown and Pico Union, four challengers are looking to unseat City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. They are Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles Police Commissioner and founder of the nonprofit Legacy LA; Nelson Grande, an executive consultant and former president of Avenida Entertainment Group; Raul Claros, founder of CD1 Coalition, which organizes cleanup days; and Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and former council aide.
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield is terming out in District 3, leaving the race to represent the southwestern San Fernando Valley open to a newcomer. The three candidates are Timothy K. Gaspar, who founded a private insurance company; Barri Worth Girvan, a director of community affairs for an L.A. County supervisor; and Christopher Robert “C.R.” Celona, a tech entrepreneur.
In District 5, which includes Bel-Air, Westwood, Hancock Park and other West L.A. communities, Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky faces two challengers: tenants rights attorney Henry Mantel and accountant Morgan Oyler.
With Councilmember Curren Price terming out in District 9, six candidates are vying to represent parts of downtown and South L.A. They are Jose Ugarte, who was formerly Price’s deputy chief of staff; Estuardo Mazariegos, a lead organizer at the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment; nonprofit director Elmer Roldan; entrepreneur Jorge Nuño; professor and therapist Martha Sánchez; and educator Jorge Hernandez Rosas.
Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Westside communities of District 11, including Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Venice, will face off against civil rights attorney Faizah Malik.
In District 13, which includes Hollywood and East Hollywood as well as parts of Silver Lake, Echo Park and Westlake, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez is defending his seat against three challengers. They are Colter Carlisle, vice president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council; Dylan Kendall, an entrepreneur and founder of Grow Hollywood; and Rich Sarian, vice president of strategic initiatives for the Social District.
And in District 15, which includes San Pedro and other harbor-area communities as well as Watts, Councilmember Tim McOsker is running against community organizer Jordan Rivers, who is continuing his campaign after reports that he stabbed a neighbor when he was 12. Rivers said it was an “accident” that happened a decade ago.
Three seats are open on the Los Angeles Unified School District board.
In District 2, incumbent Rocío Rivas is being challenged by Raquel Zamora, an LAUSD teacher and attendance counselor.
In District 4, incumbent Nick Melvoin is facing off against Ankur Patel, director of outreach at the Hindu University of America.
District 5 school board member Kelly Gonez is running unopposed for her third term.
Fans of the musical “Hamilton” know three things about the nation’s first Treasury secretary because of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliance. First, that Alexander Hamilton cheated on his wife, Eliza. Second, he was killed by the vice president, Aaron Burr. Third, and most importantly, he was considered a highly principled man. And when it came to the topic of nationalizing elections, do you know how this Revolutionary War vet and founding father characterized doing so?
A threat.
Referring to corruptible public officials, Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers: No 59: “With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, a combination of a few such men, in a few of the most considerable States, where the temptation will always be the strongest, might accomplish the destruction of the Union, by seizing the opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among the people to discontinue the choice.”
Hamilton’s prescient views became the framework for the Election Clause in the Constitution. And since returning to the White House, President Trump has been searching for ways to usurp it. Last month he made calls to nationalize elections. This month he’s at it again.
He’s also pushing Congress to pass his so-called SAVE Act, which would require voters to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. It sounds innocuous until you realize a driver’s license isn’t good enough; a passport would often be required. But half the country doesn’t have a passport, and it costs roughly $200 and a few weeks to get one. The logistical burden is unreasonable and cruel: Consider that this year, during primary season, we’ve already witnessed natural disaster — such as the tornadoes that recently ripped through the Midwest or the fires in Texas — upend entire communities. Many people would not have been able to vote, simply because they had been separated from their papers during the disaster.
The financial obstacles that would be created by the SAVE Act are at least as onerous: Why would Congress choose to financially burden voters — with what is essentially an unlawful poll tax — at a time when the unemployment rate and gas prices are up and the approval rating for nearly everyone in office is down? There are a couple of reasons. One is that the party controlling Congress hopes to suppress voting in order to defy the will of the American majority and cling to power.
Another reason lawmakers support this terrible bill is simply that Trump wants it. Some Republicans in office are so afraid of angering a vengeful president that they would rather entertain his authoritarian tendencies than go through the fire of his opposition during a primary.
For politicians such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who this week changed his long-held position on the filibuster in order to push the SAVE Act, it’s simply about political survival. He needs the president’s endorsement heading into the runoff for his Senate seat.
Trump has called the election overhaul bill his top priority — not the war he started with Iran, not returning the billions collected from illegal tariffs, not justice for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Before there was a Constitution, there was a warning, written by Hamilton and other founders, whose concerns about nationalized elections are well documented and have proved to be well founded.
You would think a nation in the midst of beating its proverbial chest about our 250th birthday would take more heed from the country’s founders. But nope: This week Florida state lawmakers, in an attempt to appease their state’s most powerful resident, passed an election overhaul law that mirrors the federal SAVE Act. More red states are likely to follow, not because a national wave of voter fraud has been unearthed by authorities, but because the authorities want to stay in the good graces of someone who has yet to prove any widespread fraud other than his own.
The party that famously railed against “the bridge to nowhere” is now offering bills that solve nonexistent problems. Or in some cases, creating problems, particularly for women who changed their names after marriage so their state IDs don’t match their birth certificates.
Cornyn is not alone in exchanging his principles for Trump’s favor; he’s just the most recent. However, the manner in which he announced his flip flop was particularly tone deaf.
“If a man takes a swing at you and barely misses, that doesn’t make him a pacifist — it just means he has bad aim,” Cornyn wrote in an op-ed about the bill for the New York Post, the newspaper founded by Hamilton in 1801. “Standing still and giving him a second free swing wouldn’t be wise or honorable: it would be foolish.”
In 2016, then-candidate Trump took his first big swing at our elections when he implied — without evidence — that his opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, had rigged the election after losing to him in the Iowa Republican caucus. Reportedly Trump even tried to get the state’s party chair to overturn the result. He’s been throwing jabs at our elections ever since. The Jan. 6 riot was a haymaker that barely missed. Given the president’s propensity to hand out Trump 2028 hats, it seems passing the SAVE Act would be, in Cornyn’s words, setting voters up to stand there while Trump takes another swing at our democracy.
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Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist No. 59, warned that exclusive state power over federal elections posed an existential threat to the Union, cautioning that “a combination of a few such men, in a few of the most considerable States” could “accomplish the destruction of the Union” through control of election regulations[1]
The SAVE Act requiring proof of citizenship to vote imposes unreasonable logistical and financial burdens on voters, effectively functioning as a poll tax by requiring passports costing approximately $200 that roughly half the country does not possess[1]
Natural disasters and unforeseen circumstances already disrupt voting access, and citizenship verification requirements would further prevent Americans from voting by separating them from necessary documentation during emergencies such as tornadoes or fires[1]
The stated rationale for election overhaul legislation—addressing voter fraud—is not supported by evidence, as authorities have failed to unearth a national wave of voter fraud despite repeated claims[1]
Republicans supporting the SAVE Act are motivated by partisan interests rather than election security concerns, with some lawmakers abandoning long-held principles to secure Trump’s political endorsement during primary races[1]
Election nationalization efforts represent an authoritarian threat to democracy that the nation’s founders specifically warned against, making it imperative to heed historical lessons about centralized electoral control[1]
Hamilton argued in the Federalist Papers that the national government required ultimate authority over election regulations to prevent state legislatures from abandoning their responsibility to choose federal representatives, which could render “the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy”[4]
The Constitution’s design allocates election regulation authority primarily to states with a federal backstop, recognizing that the national government must possess a check on state power to maintain union stability and prevent states from exploiting their regulatory control[3][4]
Federalist No. 60 establishes that the system of separated powers—with the House elected directly by people, the Senate by state legislatures, and the president by electors—creates structural safeguards preventing any single faction from monopolizing electoral control[2]
Voter identification requirements serve legitimate election integrity purposes, with proponents arguing that citizenship verification represents a reasonable measure to ensure eligible voter participation[1]
Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, one of the top Democrats running for California governor, on Friday blasted USC and the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles for hosting a debate that he argues purposely excludes all candidates of color.
Becerra said he and the other candidates were excluded from the televised debate unfairly, a decision that he said “smells of election rigging” in a hotly contested race less than three months before the June primary.
“My father used to tell me of the days when he would encounter signs posted outside establishments that read ‘No Dogs, Negroes or Mexicans Allowed,’” Becerra wrote in a public letter to USC President Beong-Soo Kim. “USC’s actions may not seem so transparent. But, you have deliberately chosen to selectively filter the voters’ view of the field of gubernatorial candidates in what all observers characterize as a wide-open race.”
The university said in a statement that it authorized a political expert to create the formula to determine who would be included in the debate.
“At the request of the Center for the Political Future, Dr. Christian Grose, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, independently established the methodology that determined eligibility for the debate,” according to a statement from the center. “No one in the USC administration had any role in developing, reviewing or approving those criteria.”
The center later said in a statement on Friday that it reiterated the criteria that determined which candidates were invited to participate in the debate, and that nothing had changed since the forum was first planned.
The criteria for gubernatorial candidates to participate considered opinion polling and campaign fund raising. Six candidates were asked to participate in the March 24 debate, which is cosponsored by ABC7 Los Angeles and Univision.
There was conflicting information about USC’s stated criteria, however. The methodology says that the fundraising totals considered were based on semi-annual reports campaigns filed with the California Secretary of State’s office. However, the document later says that the fundraising figures also includes large donations that campaigns are required to immediately report.
This is a critical difference, because San José Mayor Matt Mahan did not enter the race until late January, and thus far has not been required to file any semi-annual fundraising disclosures with the state. However, he has received significant donations since he entered the race.
Mahan agreed with Becerra, saying that he ought to be part of public forums about who will lead the state.
“The former Secretary is absolutely correct, he should be included in the debate,” Mahan said in a statement. “His long record of service to California has earned him a place on every debate stage in this campaign for Governor.”
USC officials said they are clarifying how they selected candidates to participate in the race.
“We are reissuing the criteria to make clear that they include current fundraising totals, including semi-annual and late reports, which were always part of the formula,” the Center for the Political Future said in a statement. “We are not changing the criteria. We have updated even as of today and the rank order includes the same top 6 candidates.”
Grose said that the selection of candidates was based upon polling and fundraising numbers, and that the sentence about semi-annual fundraising reports was inaccurate.
“It was just a wording issue. It’s not a methodology issue,” he said.
Six candidates are scheduled to appear at the debate: Republicans Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton; and Democrats Northern California Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer and Mahan.
The kerfuffle occurs after Democratic candidates of color accused state party leaders of trying to oust them from the race in favor of white candidates, who have more support in opinion polls.
In addition to Becerra, other prominent Democratic candidates excluded from the debate include former state Controller Betty Yee, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who also condemned the candidate-selection formula.
“Californians deserve a fair process, and voters deserve to hear from all qualified voices,” Villaraigosa, who taught public policy at USC for three years after leaving office, said in a statement. “But this biased and bigoted action by USC to manipulate the data to exclude every qualified Black, Latino, and API candidate in favor of a less qualified white candidate is shameful.”
Becerra said USC went to great lengths to justify the candidates that were excluded, but the bias was clear.
“You can’t escape the detestable outcome: you disqualified all of the candidates of color from participating while you invited a white candidate who has NEVER polled higher than some of the candidates of color, including me,” he said.
Becerra was clearly referring to Mahan, who recently entered the race and has received millions of dollars of support from Silicon Valley leaders. Becerra noted that veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy, co-director of the USC Center for the Political Future, which is a sponsor of the debate, is assisting an independent expenditure committee backing Mahan.
Murphy said he had recused himself from anything involved in the debate, and that he was a volunteer for the outside group backing Mahan. If he becomes a paid advisor to the independent expenditure committee, he said he has requested unpaid leave from the university through the June 2 primary.
“I’ve been transparent that I’m personally a Mahan supporter,” Murphy said. “I’ve had zero to do with the debate.”
Voters in the Republic of Congo will choose their next president on Sunday, although longtime leader Dennis Sassou Nguesso is likely to be elected unchallenged, analysts say.
The central African nation, which has been led almost continuously by Nguesso for more than 40 years, is one of the most politically repressive in the world, with Freedom House giving it a 17 out of 100 rating for freedom.
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The country is Africa’s third-largest oil exporter. It sells between 236,000 and 252,000 barrels per day, alongside copper and diamonds.
Congo is also highly biodiverse. Sprawling expanses of tropical rainforest in the country form part of the Congo Basin – the second-largest rainforest network in the world after the Amazon. The Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the north is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is home to elephants, endangered lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Still, the country of 6 million people is racked by economic woes. Corruption and mismanagement, analysts say, contribute to Congo being 171st of 193 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index.
A fractured political opposition, meanwhile, has only allowed Nguesso’s governing Congolese Labour Party (PCT) to consolidate power over the years, although a newcomer is raising hopes.
Here’s what we know about Sunday’s polls:
Polls will open on Saturday, March 15, between 6am (05:00 GMT) and 6pm (05:00 GMT). More than 2.6 million people are eligible to vote; that is, they are more than 18 years old and have been registered.
Voter turnout in 2021 — during the last election — was 67.70 percent according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Authorities have announced that borders will be closed during voting.
Candidates with an absolute majority usually win the elections, or in rare cases, a run-off will be called between the two top polling candidates.
Presidential terms in Congo are for five years. While the constitution had previously allowed a maximum of two terms and an age limit of 70, those were removed in 2015.
Dennis Sassou Nguesso: The 82-year-old was first elected to office in 1979 and led the country for 12 years under a one-party state. He lost elections after opposition lawmakers voted to introduce a multiparty system. On his second attempt in 1997, he seized power in a bloody civil war and has remained in office since. He is Africa’s third-longest serving ruler.
Nguesso’s legacy has been one of gross underdevelopment and corruption, said Andrea Ngombet, the exiled founder of Sassoufit, a group advocating for Nguesso’s exit. In 2015, Nguesso pushed through a controversial referendum that reset presidential term limits from two to three. It also completely removed age restrictions, allowing him to run for the fifth consecutive time in 2021.
A strong hold on the country’s judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Body (CENI) has helped secure Nguesso’s hold, analysts say. His strategic international alliances, from Beijing to Moscow to Paris, have ensured foreign investments and boosted his influence, according to Ngombet. However, since 2013, France has launched investigations into his family’s numerous assets in Europe and the US under pressure from civil society. French authorities seized property belonging to his son, Denis-Christel Sassou Nguesso, in 2022.
Melaine Deston Gavet Elengo: At only 35, Elengo’s candidacy has caused ripples. The oil sector engineer leads the Republican Movement and is the youngest contender in the race. Although a first-time presidential candidate, Elengo appears to be pulling an unusual amount of interest as he presents himself as a departure from the old system. His campaign has emphasised a government built on transparency, an independent justice system, and inclusive development.
“He could secure at least 20 percent of the vote, signalling a generational shift,” Ngombet said.
“His unique advantage lies in the unspoken support from UPADS dissidents frustrated with the boycott,” he added, referring to the opposition party, Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS), which boycotted the March 21, 2021, presidential election over concerns of integrity. UPADS is doing the same this year but has called on its supporters to go out and vote according to their “conscience”.
Elengo is also closely allied with political heavyweights like the opposition Union of Humanist Democrats, founded by the popular opposition figure, late Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who came second in 2016.
Joseph Kignoumbi Kia Mboungou, 73: The veteran lawmaker is the leader of the political party The Chain and represents the southwestern Lekoumou department. He has run several times in the past without much success, with his 2021 bid resulting in just 0.62 percent of the vote. Mboungou’s campaign promised political change and an economy that diversifies from oil, while reducing poverty.
Uphrem Dave Mafoula, 43: The economist is leader of the New Start party. He is making his second bid for the top post after running as the youngest candidate in 2021 and securing just 0.52 percent of the vote. Mafoula’s goal, he says, is to implement governance reforms, create jobs, and reduce inequalities.
Vivien Romain Manangou, 43: The independent first-timer is a university lecturer campaigning on institutional reforms, improving public finances, and promoting national unity.
Mabio Mavoungou Zinga, 69: Running under the opposition coalition Alliance party, the retired customs inspector and former member of parliament promises to tackle corruption and free jailed opposition leaders. It’s his first bid.
Anguios Nganguia Engambe, about 60: The president of the Party for Action of the Republic is running for his fourth time as presidential candidate. In 2021, he won only 0.18 percent of the vote. This time, he has pledged to bridge political divisions in the country and foster better political participation.
Several opposition leaders are either jailed or have fled into exile. Some are:
Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko,78: A former chief of the army and an adviser to Nguesso, who turned against the president and ran for elections in 2016. He called for protests after the results showed that he won 13.74 percent and placed third. He was arrested afterwards on charges of undermining state security and was in 2018 sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Andre Okombi Salissa: a one-time leading member of the governing Congolese Labour Party, and a former minister, Salissa also switched to the opposition in 2016 to contest the polls. He was arrested shortly after, also on security charges. In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years of hard labour.
Analysts have long warned that a lack of economic diversification hurts the country’s prospects. As Africa’s third-largest oil producer, Congo earns more than 80 percent of its export revenue from oil, according to the World Bank, making the economy vulnerable to shocks.
Government investment in hydrocarbons has only intensified in recent years. In 2015, authorities aimed to boost daily output to 500,000 barrels of oil per day within three years. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and export also began in 2024.
Despite this, around half the population lives below the poverty line. Most live in the main cities of Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire where access to electricity and roads is available but dismal. The situation is even worse in rural areas, analysts say.
While the population is young, with nearly half under 18, job creation is weak. Many young people with degrees have to turn to menial work for survival. The unemployment rate hovers at approximately 40 percent, with inadequate electricity being one of the major barriers for business, according to the World Bank.
Before it began extracting oil in the 1970s, agricultural produce and timber were the biggest revenue generators in Congo.
However, Congo has become reliant on food imports amid the shift to oil.
Although the country has up to 10 million hectares (24 milllion acres) of arable land, only a small percentage is being cultivated, and that’s mostly for low-yield subsistence farming.
The government has touted plans to boost cassava, maize, sorghum, and soy farming, along with developing fisheries and poultry.
Meanwhile, deforestation in the Congo Basin, which encompasses parts of Congo and five neighbouring countries, nearly doubled between 2010 and 2020, compared to the previous decade.
Protests are rare in the country as authorities don’t provide permits and respond with violence when demonstrators gather, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Opposition members are routinely jailed. Nguesso appoints national judges himself, meaning the judiciary is not independent.
Many Congolese expect Nguesso to win Sunday’s elections, so much attention is now on who will likely take over leadership in the country in the coming years.
Analysts say an intense succession race is already brewing behind the scenes.
Denis-Christel Nguesso, the president’s son and minister of international cooperation, is the clear favourite, but he faces challenges from the president’s nephew and Head of National Security Jean-Dominique Okemba.
The Nguessos’ cousin, Jean-Jacques Bouya, who is currently the minister of planning and works, is another contender.
In remarks that are likely to stoke concerns through the corridors of CNN, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Friday he is looking forward to Paramount’s ownership of the network.
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network the better,” Hegseth said during a morning briefing.
Hegseth’s invoking the name of the Paramount Skydance chief executive — whose company will take control of CNN once its deal to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery is finalized — amplified the fear many have that the cable news channel will seek to appease the Trump administration.
The typically combative Hegseth made the remarks after blasting CNN’s reporting on the U.S. military action in Iran. CNN said the Trump administration underestimated the impact its attack would have on the Strait of Hormuz, echoing the claims of other media outlets. Oil tankers have been unable to get through the passage due to attacks by Iranian drones, escalating gas prices as a result.
“CNN doesn’t think we thought of that,” Hegseth said. “It’s a fundamentally unserious report.”
Paramount declined to comment on the remarks by Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has a lot of experience in bashing the mainstream media. A CNN representative said the network stands by its reporting.
Trump has a friendship with Ellison’s father, Larry, and the two have reportedly discussed changes to CNN once Paramount takes ownership. But it’s the rare time such expectations have been offered up publicly by a top member of the administration.
Trump, who has long expressed disdain for CNN, expressed his preference for Paramount to prevail over Netfilx in its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery so that CNN would be in the hands of the Ellisons.
In his last public statement about CNN, David Ellison said he wants to be in the “truth business” and insisted there would be no corporate interference in the network’s coverage.
“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team, and we absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained, obviously, for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward,” Ellison told CNBC on March 5.
Paramount has been forced to battle the perception of that its news organizations will tilt to the right under its stewardship. One of David Ellison’s first moves after his company Skydance Media took over CBS was installing Bari Weiss as editor in chief of the network’s news division despite having no experience in TV news. Ellison acquired Weiss’s the Free Press, a centrist digital news site that often targets excesses of the political left and is staunchly pro-Israel.
The acquisition and the appointment of Weiss were seen as a way to help smooth the regulatory approval of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount last year. CBS News has been under intense scrutiny for signs that is shifting its coverage to please the administration.
A number of CBS News journalists unhappy over the division’s direction under Weiss have already departed. Scott MacFarlane, the Justice Department correspondent who announced his exit Monday, was said to be particularly unhappy over the network’s handling of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who wanted to overturn the 2020 election results.
Anderson Cooper also passed on signing a new deal with “60 Minutes,” where he has been a correspondent since 2007. But with the merger, the CNN anchor will still be a part of the company.
Weiss’ has had some early missteps. The Jan. 6 story was among several highly criticized segments during the first week of “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil.” She delayed a “60 Minutes” segment on the government’s use of an El Salvador prison to detain undocumented migrants for more reporting, only to have it air with minor changes. The delay prompted charges that Weiss was trying to placate the White House, which CBS denied.
Notwithstanding the controversy, some insiders contend there has
not been a significant shift in how CBS News is covering most stories.
The network was among the first to report that the severity of injuries to U.S. service members from an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait were far more serious than the government initially said.
CBS News is also moving ahead with the hiring of Jeremy Adler, once a top advisor to former congresswoman and outspoken Trump nemesis Liz Cheney, to handle communications for Weiss, according to people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Axios — citing unnamed sources — reported that White House officials are angry about Adler joining the network, as Cheney was vice chairman of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the most conservative members of Congress during her time, supported Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the 2020 election.
Adler was Cheney’s deputy chief of staff and senior communications advisor from 2019 to 2023. He also served as a regional press secretary on now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
President Trump announced on social media Friday that Richard Grenell, the former ambassador to Germany who Trump appointed as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts more than a year ago, is stepping down. Grenell will be replaced by Matt Floca, the vice president of facilities operations at the center.
Change has been the only constant at the Kennedy Center since Trump fired the center’s board in early February of last year and had himself appointed chairman. A week later amid mass artist defections that included Shonda Rhimes and Renée Fleming, Trump appointed Grenell, a close ally, as interim executive director, a post Grenell held until now.
“Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that after an upcoming two-year closure for renovations, the center “will be, at its completion, the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the World!”
News of the center’s imminent closure came as a surprise to employees and arts fans still reeling from Trump’s announcement late last year that the board had voted to rename the venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, which prompted another wave of performance cancellations, including by composer Philip Glass. The Washington National Opera also announced in early January that it would leave the center.
Grenell’s tenure was marked by controversy every step of the way, which Grenell met with combative defiance, often slamming artists that criticized the center’s decisions. He also was known for not granting interviews to press that he deemed unfriendly, instead speaking on the record only to right-leaning news organizations.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment on Grenell’s departure.