politics

WASHINGTON — Precarious talks to end the war with Iran appeared close to collapse on Tuesday as renewed fighting across the region threatened to derail fragile progress toward a comprehensive settlement.

U.S. strikes against targets in southern Iran — the first since a ceasefire was declared in the war seven weeks ago — coupled with escalating attacks by Israel in Lebanon have undermined optimism that an agreement was within reach.

The attacks occurred just hours after U.S. and Iranian diplomats arrived in Qatar for peace talks. Iran’s top negotiators left Doha on Tuesday without comment. News of the strikes, and threats of retaliation by Tehran, sent global oil prices soaring back to more than $100 a barrel.

U.S. Central Command described Monday’s actions as “self-defense strikes” that were restrained and modest in scope, targeting missile launch sites and Iranian boats “attempting to emplace mines” in the Strait of Hormuz.

But the attack came as President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been projecting confidence that a framework agreement to end the war could be reached within days. Under the proposed deal, Iran would restore the strait to its prewar status as a free and open international waterway, while both sides entered 60 days of negotiations over the removal of Iran’s nuclear stockpile.

Laying mines in the strait in the 11th hour of the negotiations could signal to the Trump administration that Iran is not serious about reopening traffic there. But the Iranians said Tuesday that renewed U.S. strikes suggest it is Washington that is unprepared to commit to peace.

Iran’s Foreign Mministry condemned what it called “aggressive actions” by the United States, describing them in a statement as a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

“The commission of these aggressive acts — occurring concurrently with the ongoing diplomatic track mediated by Pakistan — has once again exposed the hostile nature and perfidy of the ruling establishment in the United States,” the statement said.

Iran “will not leave any hostile act unanswered,” the ministry added.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s elusive supreme leader, declared in a scheduled speech that U.S. allies throughout the Middle East “will no longer serve as a shield” for the American military, suggesting retaliatory strikes against U.S. assets in the region could be imminent.

Prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough were already dim. Over the last week, U.S. and Iranian officials projected optimism while outlining seemingly incompatible visions of a deal.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran would not receive any sanctions relief until its stockpile of fissile material is removed and destroyed. But Iranian officials reiterated Tuesday that unfreezing the country’s overseas assets remains a precondition for continued negotiations.

And it is unclear whether Iran would agree to a peace deal with the United States that does not also restrict the actions of Israel, whose leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has expressed deep skepticism about the diplomatic process.

Netanyahu said in recent days that Israel would not be bound by any nuclear pact, and that his government would continue military action against targets throughout the region — including in Lebanon — as it views necessary.

Israel’s continued assault on Lebanon nearly jeopardized the ceasefire between Iran and the United States before Trump brokered a separate, temporary halt to the fighting there. Since then, however, Israeli strikes have resumed, and Netanyahu vowed to intensify his campaign against Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.

“We are not removing our foot from the pedal,” Netanyahu said in a video address Monday. “On the contrary, I said to step on the pedal even more.”

Israel’s military ramped up its operations Tuesday, attacking what it said were more than 100 Hezbollah sites across southern and eastern Lebanon, while extending ground incursions deeper into Lebanese territory.

The overnight strikes struck weapons storage facilities, command centers, observation posts and infrastructure sites, according to an Israeli military statement.

Israeli media also reported that Israeli troops were operating beyond a 6.2-mile zone they occupy in southern Lebanon, in what many fear may be a prelude to a wider invasion.

Those fears were further stoked Tuesday by fresh Israeli evacuation orders for the entirety of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon’s second-largest city.

Hezbollah upped its campaign as well, peppering Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and areas of northern Israel with drones and rocket attacks, according to statements from the group. Hezbollah-affiliated media reported the group’s fighters clashing with Israeli troops to prevent their advance.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has increasingly relied on fiber-optic drones — which are both low-cost and impervious to jamming — to harass Israeli positions.

On Sunday, an Israeli soldier was killed and another wounded when a Hezbollah kamikaze drone hit their armored personnel carrier, according to the Israeli military; 23 Israeli soldiers and a civilian defense contractor have been killed in the current conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel’s military says.

The latest bout of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel began March 2, when the Iran-backed group launched attacks on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s ayatollah, Ali Khamenei.

So far, Israeli strikes have killed 3,213 people, wounded more than triple that number, and left more than a million displaced, according to Lebanese health authorities.

A ceasefire signed April 17 sidelined the capital, Beirut, from strikes but has done little to stop the fighting otherwise, with Hezbollah and Israel continuing attacks despite unprecedented direct negotiations taking place between the Israeli and Lebanese governments.

It was unclear whether Netanyahu’s warning meant Beirut would be targeted once more. Israeli drones buzzed throughout the day over the capital and the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs Tuesday.

Hezbollah opposes direct negotiations and insists it will keep fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon and stops attacks. Israel has demanded the Lebanese government do more to disarm Hezbollah and to move toward a peace deal.

Bulos reported from Beirut.

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center is part of a “top-down” campaign of retribution against President Trump’s perceived political enemies and constitutes a vindictive prosecution that must be dismissed, lawyers for the nonprofit argued Tuesday in urging a judge to toss out the case.

The Alabama-based nonprofit was indicted in April on fraud and money laundering charges that accuse it of misleading donors by paying informants inside white supremacist and other extremist organizations to obtain inside information about their activities.

Lawyers for the SPLC already argued that law enforcement agencies have long known that the nonprofit paid informants to report on the movements of hate groups. They also said acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche made a false statement at a news conference and in interviews when he said the organization had not shared with law enforcement information it learned from informants. Blanche later appeared to walk back that claim in a television interview, saying it was true that the SPLC “selectively” shared information with law enforcement over the years.

The attorneys for the center expanded on those arguments Tuesday, saying in a motion to dismiss the case that the prosecution was the “culmination of a top-down, retributive campaign” in which Trump pushed the Justice Department “to go after those individuals and groups he deemed his political enemies, including the SPLC.”

Defense says indictment fits broader retaliation campaign

The motion was filed against the backdrop of other politically charged prosecutions that have raised concerns that the Justice Department is operating as a weapon to target Trump’s opponents. It aims to draw a parallel between the SPLC indictment and the human smuggling prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was dismissed Friday on similar vindictive prosecution grounds by a judge who called the case an “abuse of prosecuting power.”

The SPLC has said its now-defunct program of paying informants to infiltrate hate groups was developed to glean key insights into their activities so that potential victims could be protected. An earlier federal investigation into the practice was closed without charges, but the motion paints the current Justice Department as pursuing the case with renewed — and rushed — vigor.

The department decided to pursue the indictment without interviewing any current SPLC employees and did not seek any documents from the group until after it told defense lawyers that criminal charges were coming, the defense motion states. During a meeting requested by defense lawyers who hoped to avert to indictment, Justice Department officials informed them that the decision already had been made to pursue charges, according to the motion.

“These procedural irregularities show that the charges against the SPLC were a foregone conclusion based on prosecutorial vindictiveness — driven by the White House and FBI leadership’s retribution campaign — rather than the result of a good faith examination of the evidence,” the motion states, saying the indictment was “premised on conclusory accusations but devoid of provable facts or a proper statement of the law.”

The motion also cites whistleblower accounts that accused top Justice Department officials of rushing forward with an indictment despite internal concerns about the merits of the case and the strength of the evidence.

“For weeks, we have been arguing against these false allegations levied against the SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive,” Bryan Fair, the interim president and chief executive officer of SPLC, said in a statement. “The government can’t prosecute the SPLC as payback for its protected speech — it violates basic constitutional rights.”

The administration has painted SPLC as partisan

Founded in 1971 as a civil rights organization, the SPLC over the decades has used litigation to fight white supremacist groups. It also tracks the activities and locations of domestic extremists. But its work has made it a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The center, for instance, received fresh attention last year after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk because the SPLC had included a section on the group that Kirk founded and led, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel announced in October that the bureau would be severing its relationship with the SPLC, saying it had turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged antigovernment and hate groups inside the United States.

The defense motion says “animus” from senior levels of the administration helped shape the indictment.

It cites, among other comments, a statement from Trump deriding the SPLC as “a total scam run by the Democrats,” as well as a news media interview in which Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights official, said the indictment was “personal” to her because she had “a lot of journalist friends … and groups that I’ve represented who have been targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

PLANO, Texas — Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, bringing to a close the extended, bitter and expensive primary where President Trump weighed in late to tip the race in another effort to rid the GOP of leaders less devoted to him.

Trump’s endorsement of state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton over four-term Sen. John Cornyn gives the challenger a late boost and puts Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.

That’s despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90 million in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton.

It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.

Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.

“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” he said hours after the endorsement.

The winner will run in November against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.

The primary has been long, bitter and costly

Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary but failed to win a majority in the three-way contest that also included U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished in a distant third.

That was after Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton for ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial when allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds.”

The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups have continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary, asking the unchosen candidate to withdraw. But he didn’t act until after early voting began on May 18.

“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”

Pro-Cornyn groups lately have been airing ads criticizing the attorney general office’s handling of a Waco sex abuse case. Pro-Paxton groups had seized on Cornyn’s awkward relationship with Trump.

Trump snubs Cornyn amid retribution campaign

The negative tenor could diminish turnout in an election already complicated by coming a day after Memorial Day, Texas Republican strategist Tyler Norris said. About 2 million of Texas’ 18.7 million voters participated in the GOP primary.

The dynamic could favor Paxton, whose support draws from more of the most loyal Trump base in Texas, said Norris, who isn’t affiliated with either campaign.

“The defining battle lines are based around hyper-negative messaging, which dampens turnout to begin with,” he said. “So who is going to show up is the hardest of the hard core.”

Trump in his endorsement also poked at Cornyn, as he has done with other Republicans who are not in lockstep with the president.

He blasted Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy as “a Disloyal Disaster” on May 16, before Cassidy lost a GOP primary for the office he has held since 2015. The two-term senator had voted to convict Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who advanced to a runoff with John Fleming, the state treasurer. Cassidy finished well behind them.

Last week, Trump celebrated as Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a critic of the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, lost his primary to Ed Gallrein. Trump called Massie “the worst congressman in the history of our country.”

In endorsing Paxton, Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”

Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his “time has passed him by.” He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.

Senate GOP leaders backed Cornyn, saying he would be stronger in the general election. Some GOP strategists have argued a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority.

Democrats also will choose U.S. House nominees

Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee and veteran Rep. Al Green are vying for the party nod in Texas’ 18th District, which the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew last year to help the GOP. The new map led to a contest between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area. Menefee was elected in a special runoff in January to the seat that had been held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.

Menefee finished narrowly ahead of Green in the March 3 primary but didn’t win a majority to avoid the runoff.

Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead is looking to return to the House.

Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.

Beaumont and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. Bedayn reported from Austin.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants all current and future federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements, part of a continuing crackdown on leaks to the media.

The notice in the Federal Register from the Office of Personnel Management posted Tuesday asked for comment on a draft NDA to be used by federal agencies for “both new and existing employees.”

“The form is intended to document Federal employees’ acknowledgment of, and agreement to comply with, current legal obligations to safeguard non-public, confidential, or proprietary information, created or obtained through their official duties, while expressly preserving the right to make disclosures authorized by law,” the notice said.

The Office of Personnel Management noted “several recent instances” where internal agency communications related to rulemaking and policy development were disclosed without authorization. It also discussed specific instances in which federal employees at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security disclosed information without authorization about planned immigration enforcement actions.

In one case, the New York Times and Washington Post received unauthorized information on the U.S. raid on Venezuela in January and delayed “publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops,” the request for comment said.

Representatives for the two newspapers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ferreting out leaks that the administration deems harmful to its messaging has been a priority across multiple agencies since President Trump returned to the White House. As part of that crackdown, the FBI in January seized the electronic devices of a Washington Post reporter, a move that alarmed media organizations and advocates of press freedom.

One other notable incident occurred last year when dozens of reporters turned in their access badges at the Pentagon, rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.

The American Federation of Government Employees did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

May 26 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance hosted a meeting Tuesday afternoon with state attorneys general as part of his task force on fraud.

The event was largely attended by only Republican officials, however, because the task force invited attorneys general from the Democratic party with less notice than their Republican peers, Politico reported.

The Democratic attorneys general were invited to the meeting Friday, with a deadline to respond by Saturday. Republicans were invited about a week earlier. The 24 Democrats affected by this wrote Vance a letter declining the invite, CNBC reported.

“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” the letter said. “This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners. Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”

When President Donald Trump announced Vance’s role as “fraud czar” in April, he said the investigations would center on Democrat-run states.

Vance on Tuesday said that in two months, the task force has “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that had been stolen from the American people.”

“We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection,” he said. “We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California. We put a six-month hold on enrollments for new hospice and home health care providers, because so many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services but were just focused on fraud.”

About 15 Republican attorneys general attended, as did Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and White House adviser Stephen Miller.

In a press release, the White House said Trump and Vance are “unleashing an unrelenting, full-scale assault on the fraudsters, scammers and corrupt operators who have looted billions from American taxpayers.” The release included a list of alleged fraud cases and actions, including many instances focused on Minnesota and California. No Republican-led states were cited.

WASHINGTON — President Trump had another medical exam Tuesday, putting his health under renewed public scrutiny as he has worked to dismiss concerns over his age and stamina.

The 79-year-old president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups. It was Trump’s fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term, and it comes as he tries to project strength ahead of midterm elections that will test his sway with voters.

In a social media post after the visit, Trump said he just finished his “6 month physical” and “Everything checked out PERFECTLY.”

For decades, administrations have released selected results from presidential physicals, offering the public a glimpse at the commander in chief’s health. But the results are filtered through the White House and must be approved by the president, raising questions about what the public does and doesn’t get to see.

Trump turns 80 next month and was the oldest person elected president. His immediate predecessor, President Biden, was 82 when he left office, dropping out of the 2024 race because of widespread concerns he was too old for the job.

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.

“I think concern for the president’s physical health is probably at an all-time high, and I think advanced physical age is the No. 1 concern,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician for more than a decade under Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Clinton.

For a president of Trump’s age, a complete physical would be expected to include advanced heart testing, screening for common cancers and a cognitive assessment, along with basics like height, weight and blood pressure, Kuhlman said.

The White House has not disclosed what the visit entailed but expressed confidence in what it will show.

“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.

No law requiring presidents to disclose medical records

In the weeks leading up to his visit, Trump has been saying he feels as good as he did five decades ago — even as he jokes about his fondness for fast food and his minimal exercise regimen. Yet he’s also sensitive to perceptions about his age, noting that he takes extra caution descending the steps from Air Force One to avoid headlines about a stumble.

There is no law requiring presidents to publicize their health records, and the degree of transparency has varied by administration. Trump’s past reports have been criticized for offering scant detail and providing statistics that some medical experts eyed with skepticism.

At public appearances, Trump often is seen wearing makeup to conceal bruising on his hands, which the White House attributes to handshaking and regular aspirin use. He sometimes has appeared drowsy during meetings and closed his eyes for long stretches, though he denies having fallen asleep.

Trump often boasts of having “aced” cognitive tests while frequently deriding Biden, who faced questions about his mental acuity. Biden and his aides pushed back aggressively against doubts raised about his fitness for office.

Some of Trump’s previous physicals have included the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, used to screen for dementia and cognitive impairment. His physicians reported a score of 30 out of 30 for him at 2018 and 2025 checkups.

Yet critics have pointed to Trump’s meandering speeches and sometimes bellicose rhetoric as evidence of cognitive decline.

Last month, a statement from more than 30 neurologists, psychiatrists and other medical experts — who acknowledged they’ve never examined him — said Trump was mentally unfit to serve and warned of an “increasingly dangerous decline” in his behavior based on what they called “objectively observable signs of serious medical concern.″

“Any so-called medical professionals engaging in armchair diagnosis or false speculation for political purposes are clearly breaking the Hippocratic Oath they’ve sworn to,” Ingle said.

Just like any other patient, presidents get to choose what’s disclosed about their health, said Sara Rosenthal, a bioethicist at the University of Kentucky who studies presidential health. Questions about transparency have become more acute as America elects aging presidents like Trump and Biden, she said.

“We can expect very little disclosure about the true health status of any president unless they’re in perfect health,” said Rosenthal, who has suggested an independent medical organization to review and report on the health of the president and those in the line of succession.

‘Nothing should be hidden’

Trump’s first medical report in his second term was released in April 2025. In July, he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins. Photographs have shown the president with swollen feet, ankles and calves, described by the White House as a symptom of chronic venous insufficiency leading to “mild swelling” in his lower legs.

Following his last publicly disclosed exam, described as a routine follow-up in October, Trump’s physician issued a one-page summary saying the president was in “exceptional health” without divulging many specific results.

The frequency of Trump’s medical checkups is not uncommon for someone his age, according to S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois-Chicago, who has studied the health of past presidents. It’s part of a strategy to catch problems while they’re still treatable, Olshansky said.

Olshansky says the public deserves to see more than White House medical summaries that “may be subject to editorial discretion.” Full, unredacted medical records should be made public, he said. “Nothing should be hidden.”

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

PM Nikol Pashinyan, who deepened ties with US, faces challenge from pro-Russia parties in upcoming parliamentary polls.

Armenia has signed a strategic partnership agreement bolstering ties with the United States, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces a challenge from pro-Russia parties in the country’s upcoming election in June.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also signed a framework on critical minerals and cooperation on a transit corridor in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Tuesday.

“This agreement marks the biggest step to date on making this historic route a reality, on advancing peace, and on increasing prosperity in Armenia and frankly in the region,” Rubio said at a signing ceremony at the Yerevan airport.

The 43-km (27-mile) corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), would traverse southern Armenia and provide Azerbaijan with a direct route to the exclave of Nakhchivan and into Turkiye, a close ally of Baku.

Pashinyan has sought closer ties with the US and Europe, drawing the ire of longtime ally Russia. Moscow has said that it could raise the price of gas Armenia receives from Russia if it continues to pursue greater integration with Western countries.

Armenia had historically been a close security and economic partner of Russia, but Yerevan started to turn towards the West for alliances after the 2023 conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

Russia, which is fighting its own war in Ukraine, did not intervene militarily when Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a large Armenian population and had been de facto independent since the 1990s.

Last year, the US and Armenia held joint military drills for the first time.

“I wish to reaffirm that the comprehensive strategic relations between our two nations are stronger than ever,” Mirzoyan said of relations with the US on Tuesday.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, for its part, has cast its relationship with Yerevan in largely economic terms and sought concessions in areas such as critical minerals.

“We are laying the groundwork for the sort of economic engagement that allows Armenians to make money and find prosperity and Americans to do the same and to do it together, which is one of the strongest ways to bind nations with one another,” Rubio said on Tuesday.

A US State Department framework for the transportation corridor, part of a peace agreement signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan last August, also grants the US a 74 percent share in the “TRIPP Development Company”, with an explicit pledge to benefit US companies.

This article is also published in Spanish on the Hacha y Machete Substack

Last weekend, the opposition achieved the familiar show of unity in Panama City, something that is not always easy to pull off. Party representatives agreed to fight for free elections and to back María Corina Machado as the candidate in any eventual vote. Machado, for her part, promised to return before the end of 2026. 

This is a milestone that should inspire at least some optimism. Five months ago, this group of people was scattered, waiting, in exile or in hiding. But given the sheer scale of Venezuela’s democratic challenge, the unity photo-op, the return of exiled leaders, and the reemergence of figures from hiding remain insufficient. 

Some politicians have returned to the country or emerged from hiding, but without a clear, politically binding agenda for achieving free elections recognized by all actors. The current dynamics still force us to react to the regime’s horrors. The case of Víctor Quero and Carmen Teresa Navas is among the clearest examples. 

Before Venezuela can achieve a true transition, the country’s pro-democracy movement must first undergo its own internal transition. Returns and displays of unity can alter incentives only if they become part of a public, coordinated, and understandable strategy. These are the main elements such a strategy should include.

A clear division of roles and responsibilities

Opening up the political playing field requires a clear division of roles and responsibilities. María Corina Machado and Juan Pablo Guanipa can embody a kind of “good cop/bad cop” dynamic within the democratic movement. The “good cop” would be Machado, whose messaging is already closely aligned with Trump’s policy toward Venezuela. The “bad cop” is Guanipa, whose rhetoric has become increasingly impatient regarding the goal of democratic transition.

If the democratic transition is truly a la venezolana, the debate about it must be taken out of the conference rooms in Washington and Caracas. 

But that differentiation cannot remain confined to national leadership figures alone. Student organizations, victims’ groups and human rights defenders, labor unions, and social organizations are equally crucial. These actors have earned legitimacy on the ground before January 3, when many were swept aside by a brutal wave of repression from which parties are still recovering. Since then, civil society has reaffirmed new leadership figures who, despite lacking party experience, could play important roles in the looming political cycle.

What matters is that this differentiation of roles be coordinated rather than improvised or competitive. Opening up the political field does not mean diluting political leadership. It means expanding the democratic movement’s range of action.

Combine negotiation with protest

There is no contradiction between the two. Negotiation without social pressure does little more than managing stagnation. Protest without a political roadmap burns out. What is needed is to give the streets political content: mobilizing not only against the regime’s abuses, but also in favor of a concrete transition agenda.

The role of movements is to protest, propose, and articulate the kind of transition they want. Just as students in 2007 embraced the campaign against the constitutional referendum and defeated Hugo Chávez, these grassroots movements should also assume a proactive role in shaping the type of transition they identify with.

That requires organizing a kind of “social roundtable” capable of coordinating different causes. These are autonomous rivers that can converge into the same lake: free elections and a broad national agreement on the direction of post-electoral public policy. Each movement has its own identity and internal dynamics, but there must be some degree of coordination and communication among them and with the broader national political agenda.

Protests also present a constant dilemma for the ruling Rodríguez siblings, a litmus test for their supposed liberalization. Demonstrations must remain peaceful and disciplined in order to deepen their dilemma.

Open up the conversation about democratic transition

The Machado-led opposition coalition and its allies have a responsibility to promote an open discussion about transition: what it means, how it is built, and what dilemmas it entails.

Dilemmas are never truly solved. They are weighed in terms of risks, benefits, opportunities, and threats. If the democratic transition is truly a la venezolana, the debate about it must be taken out of the conference rooms in Washington and Caracas. Not everything was decided in Panama City.

This time, the goal would be to bring together different groups and individuals to debate the diverse and legitimate visions of our own transition.

That conversation should include at least three dimensions:

The political-institutional dimension: What minimum guarantees would make a transition possible? What conditions would make an election politically binding? Should Venezuela pursue a constituent assembly? Should the process begin with a presidential election or a parliamentary one? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option?

The social-humanitarian dimension: How do institutional reforms connect with people’s daily needs, such as wages, public services, security, justice and family reunification?

The electoral dimension: What should the sequencing of elections look like? (As far as we know, there was no agreement on this point in Panama). Should Venezuela return to a manual voting system? How can a trustworthy electoral authority (CNE) be guaranteed, and who should be part of it? What expectations and steps are required to secure the political inclusion of the diaspora and of millions of citizens inside Venezuela who cannot vote in the current circumstances?

Before the 2023 opposition primaries, there was one essential experience that helped build momentum: the Hablan los Candidatos debate, organized by students and activists in July 2023 at the Aula Magna of Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Now imagine an event, or a series of events on a much larger scale. But this time, rather than candidates, the goal would be to bring together different groups and individuals to debate the diverse and legitimate visions of our own transition.

Use technology boldly

Technology can become a central tool to expand this deliberative process. Digital consultations, hybrid assemblies, spaces for dialogue with the diaspora, coordination mechanisms among professional associations, students, parties, unions, victims, and social organizations: all of this can help rebuild a democratic infrastructure for participation.

Producing a political milestone is not enough. A sequence must be built.

During both the primaries and July 28, the democratic movement used technology in exemplary and innovative ways. Through different applications, people found their polling centers, filed complaints, participated in defending the vote, and helped publish the real results. We need to use technology with that same boldness again, this time within a broader strategy of deliberating, coordinating, and disseminating the agenda of democratic transition.

Plan the sequence

The experience of January 2019 reminds us of something important: political milestones are never improvised. That strategy (whether or not one agrees with its tactics and consequences) was planned months in advance among political parties, civil society, and the leadership of the 2015 National Assembly. What is needed today is a similar level of preparation, but with one additional lesson that may prove decisive: producing a political milestone is not enough. A sequence must be built.

A unity photo may mark the beginning of a new phase. The return of political leaders may help shift public expectations or reshape the outlook of potential voters. A protest met with repression can show  the limits of the regime’s liberalization, something we have already seen this year with students, public-sector workers, and pensioners. A public debate can help organize competing visions of transition, giving oxygen and substance to a public sphere that must continue looking for spaces for deliberation. But none of these things, in isolation, constitutes a strategy.

The democratic movement has already found innovative, intelligent, and popular solutions to political dilemmas. It has pulled rabbits out of hats, brilliant plays in a perverse game, such as the feat of July 28, 2024. However, even rabbits do not appear by magic. The next move must emerge from the lessons and achievements that are already part of the movement’s democratic inheritance. 

We should do what we have already done and know we can do: open up the political field, bring people down from the stands, turn indignation into an agenda, and transform the return of many into movement-building.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Florida’s long-shot attempt to sue California and Washington state over the issuance of commercial driver licenses to truckers who don’t speak English and are not authorized to be in the United States.

The case stems from a crash in Florida last year that killed three people. The driver, Harjinder Singh, is accused of making an illegal U-turn that caused the accident. Singh, who is from India, was carrying a valid commercial driver’s license from California and had earlier been granted one by Washington state.

Republican-led Florida has accused the Western states, led by Democrats, of openly defying immigration laws and asked the justices to rule that states lack the authority to issue CDLs to people who are not citizens or legal permanent residents.

The Supreme Court typically hears appeals of lower-court decisions, but it sometimes takes on what are known as original lawsuits in which states sue each other in the nation’s highest court.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented from Tuesday’s order, as they often do when the court rejects an original lawsuit, saying that the court has no choice but to hear such cases.

Separately, a federal appeals court has blocked a Trump administration proposal to impose new restrictions that would severely limit which immigrants can get commercial driver’s licenses to drive a semitrailer truck or bus.

NEW ORLEANS — At least four states have adopted laws this year making it a crime to disrupt worship services, a reaction to a high-profile protest inside a Minnesota church that prompted outrage from faith leaders.

The Republican lawmakers sponsoring most of the legislation say those gathering at sacred sanctuaries deserve protection beyond what existing trespassing laws provide. They also say these new laws will prevent escalating clashes between congregants and protestors as many churches, mosques and synagogues remain on edge over recent mass shootings and acts of violence targeting religious groups.

“People should go to church to be able to sit in peace, worship as they please, without having to worry about people coming in and harassing them,” said Idaho Sen. Mark Harris, a Republican who co-sponsored legislation criminalizing protests inside places of worship. “I think the thing that happened in Minnesota was kind of a shock to some of us, that churches would be used as a place to berate people.”

Critics in both parties have warned that the laws infringe on free speech rights.

Here’s a look at the situation.

The laws make it a crime to interfere with worship

Bills have been signed into law in Republican-dominated Idaho, Louisiana and Oklahoma. In Kansas, a bill is becoming law without the signature of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

Similar bills have been introduced for this year’s legislative sessions in at least seven other states and in Congress. Nassau County, New York, passed a similar measure this year. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed a law making it a federal crime to intentionally injure or interfere with or intimidate someone entering a place of worship or a reproductive health facility.

The details in the bills differ, but they all make it a crime to interfere with religious assemblies.

Laws against trespassing already apply to disruptions on the grounds of churches or other private property. But legislators say the new laws would boost penalties and bar other protest activity like holding signs near places of worship.

The penalties could be harsher than for trespassing. In some states, people could face up to a year in prison and fines as high as $10,000 for first offenses. The laws also give the states a way to prosecute cases if local authorities decline to do so.

A protest in Minnesota touched off the call for action

Thirty-nine people, including two journalists, were charged in February for roles in a protest during a St. Paul, Minnesota, church service. The protesters had learned that one of the church pastors was also an official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who had been overseeing an intensive Minnesota operation.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged the protesters with conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom. The protesters and journalists have pleaded not guilty and the cases are pending in federal court.

Louisiana Rep. Gabe Firment, a Republican, said he was inspired to introduce legislation that allows protestors to be forcibly removed from churches and other places of worship after seeing videos showing the fearful expressions of children at the Minnesota church.

“The first thought that came to my mind was those poor kids,” Firment said. “You certainly have a right to protest, but just like you don’t have the right to come into someone’s home and act like that, you don’t have the right to come into private church property to do that.”

Oklahoma Sen. Todd Gollihare, a Republican, wrote his bill after anti-abortion protestors disrupted his church service last year. His law bars blocking highways within one mile of a service or approaching someone to hand them a flyer within 100 feet of a place of worship.

His Republican colleague, Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, described the law as extreme and said she was afraid of the precedent it would set.

Court challenges could await the laws

The Nassau County ordinance is already facing a court challenge from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says there’s no history of residents facing intimidation, harassment or violence outside places of worship — and that the statute denies people their constitutionally protected rights of expression in public places.

Kevin Goldberg, vice president at Freedom Forum, which advocates for First Amendment rights, said that if the laws are challenged in courts, governments would have to show there’s a need for them. “You can’t be guessing, you can’t be speculating,” he said. “There has to be some evidence that there’s an actual threat going on — that there’s been a problem there, that you can reasonably forecast there will be a problem.”

In Louisiana, Democrats raised concerns about mandatory jail time for disrupting services and warned that the laws were too arbitrary, suggesting that they could be applied against a congregant for singing out of turn as a pastor delivers a homily.

“If the spirit just hits me and I start singing during the middle of his homily, and it disrupts his homily in a way where he’s got to say ‘Hey, take a seat’, I mean that would materially disrupt his service and now I’m going to jail for 30 days,” Rep. Edmond Jordan said during a March hearing in the Louisiana Legislature.

The law’s proponents said police officers and judges would have discretion about how to apply the law.

Brook and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, N.J.

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.

In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.

That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.

Tuesday’s letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.

Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday’s letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.

The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.

Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.

It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. The Associated Press was making efforts to contact them.

“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus’ letter states.

It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.

“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”

The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America’s role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.

President Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year’s midterm elections.

The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.

Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Biden’s Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”

“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Federal judges on Tuesday blocked Alabama’s plan to use a congressional map that could give Republicans an advantage in a key U.S. House race in the midterm elections.

A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from switching maps, ruling that the Republican-backed plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district. The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.

The ruling is a setback for Republicans, who want to use a map for the November midterms that would give the GOP a chance to reclaim the seat now held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures. However, the state could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Figures said he is pleased with the ruling but expects an appeal. “This is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled,” Figures said.

The court order is the latest development in the twisting legal and political saga following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.

Alabama court fight stretches back several years

The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.

After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.

In the meantime, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set Aug. 11 special primaries using the new map.

Upon further review, the panel said there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination. It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.

The decision to temporarily block the map switch came after a seven-hour court hearing Friday in which judges sharply questioned state lawyers about the timeline and the impact of the Louisiana ruling.

Using the same districts that had been in place for the previous election would prevent “an expensive, aggressive, and perhaps logistically impossible voter reassignment effort,” the judges wrote.

“Candidate and voter confusion is troublesome and warrants significant consideration, but we do not see that a preliminary injunction will worsen it. To the contrary, we expect a preliminary injunction to lessen it,” the judges said.

Deuel Ross, director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the court ruling “again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt, and our clients look forward to voting under a fair map this fall.”

Redistricting changes affect primaries in several states

Other states also have considered adjustments to their primary elections to allow time for congressional redistricting after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision affecting the Voting Rights Act. Louisiana’s congressional primaries, scheduled for May 16, were postponed until later this summer by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry so that state lawmakers could consider a new U.S. House map that would eliminate a majority-Black district.

In South Carolina, the Republican-led legislature is considering a plan that could throw out the votes from its June 9 congressional primary and instead hold a new primary in August under revised districts that could improve Republicans’ chances of winning an additional seat.

Tennessee also moved quickly to enact new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court’s ruling, carving up a Black-majority district based in Memphis that had elected the state’s only Democratic representative. The new map gives Republicans a chance to sweep all nine of the state’s seats. As part of the plan, Tennessee temporarily reopened the candidate qualifying period for its August congressional primaries, allowing new candidates to enter the race and existing ones to either switch districts or drop out.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last summer, about a half-dozen Republican-led states have enacted new voting districts, though some still face legal challenges. Democrats countered with new districts in California and also expect to gain a seat from new court-imposed districts in Utah.

Chandler and Lieb write for the Associated Press.

May 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s endorsements loom large over Tuesday’s primary election runoffs in Texas with longtime Sen. John Cornyn facing Trump-pick Ken Paxton.

Cornyn, the Republican who has held a Texas Senate seat since 2002, edged Paxton by a percentage point in the March 3 primary. Neither candidate reached 50% of the vote, necessitating Tuesday’s runoff.

Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, frequently challenged Biden administration policies and was given Trump’s endorsement about one week before the primary election. Trump has called Paxton a “True MAGA warrior.”

The president has also been critical of Cornyn for being on the fence about Trump during his 2016 campaign and saying Trump’s “time has passed him by” in 2024.

The winner of the primary will be set to face Rep. James Talarico, D-Texas, in November.

“It is now time for Texas Republican voters to decide if they want a strong nominee to help our GOP candidates down ballot and defeat Talarico in November, or a weak nominee who jeopardizes everything we care about,” Cornyn said.

As Paxton runs for Cornyn’s Senate seat, the role of attorney general is up for grabs between Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and state Sen. Mayes Middleton. Paxton has held the office of the attorney general since 2014.

Trump has not weighed in on the race between Roy and Middleton. Roy has often backed Trump policies but has broken from the president in key moments, including after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Roy alleged that Trump had committed “clearly impeachable conduct.” He did not vote to impeach Trump for a second time though.

Longtime Democratic Rep. Al Green is being challenged in a runoff election by 38-year-old Christian Menefee on Tuesday. Green, 78, has represented the Houston-area 9th Congressional District since 2005.

Cryptocurrency has become a key issue in the race between Green and Menefee. An industry-aligned super PAC has spent about $5 million in support of Menefee.

A new report warns that Britain is undergoing a “deeply troubling transformation” in how it treats political protest as climate activists and pro-Palestine campaigners increasingly face lengthy prison sentences, sweeping legal restrictions and months in jail before trial.

The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, copublished by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and the campaign group Defend Our Juries, said the UK has “witnessed an increase in anti-protest powers granted to the police and the courts through legislation” that has “created a significantly more repressive legal terrain for activists engaging in civil disobedience and direct action”.

It traces the shift from crackdowns on protests by Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil to more recent prosecutions linked to Palestine solidarity actions, including campaigns targeting British factories operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that a combination of new laws, broader police powers and increasingly punitive court tactics has reshaped Britain’s protest landscape since 2019.

The United Kingdom has witnessed numerous mass protests and direct actions by activists to pressure the government to stop selling arms to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza, in which more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 40,000 women, children and elderly.

So what does Britain’s shifting stance on protests mean for civil rights, and what’s behind the legal clampdown on climate and pro-Palestine protests?

How Britain’s legal system has changed since 2019

The report painted a stark picture of how Britain’s legal system has changed in response to climate and pro-Palestine direct action campaigns through a mix of new laws, expanded police powers and what campaigners describe as increasingly punitive court tactics. What this means for protesters is longer jail sentences, stricter bail conditions and harsher treatment in the courts than was once typical for acts of civil disobedience, according to the report.

At the centre of that shift are two major laws introduced after waves of demonstrations by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, two environmental groups that employ nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to pressure governments to address the climate crisis.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 transformed the old common law offence of “public nuisance” into a formal criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This means actions that seriously disrupt the public – such as blocking roads, stopping traffic or shutting down infrastructure – can now lead to far more severe criminal penalties than before because the offence was never previously codified into legislation. Campaigners said the law has given prosecutors a powerful new tool to pursue long prison sentences against protesters.

The Public Order Act 2023 introduced a series of protest-specific offences in May of that year, largely in response to climate protests by groups including Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, whose actions included blocking motorways, occupying oil terminals and targeting infrastructure projects in an attempt to pressure the government to halt new oil and gas extraction.

Such offences under the act included “locking on”, in which protesters attach themselves to roads, buildings, vehicles or each other using chains, glue or other devices to make removal difficult. The law also criminalised tunnelling, a tactic used by some activists to delay infrastructure projects, and introduced offences for disrupting major transport networks, oil terminals and other nationally important infrastructure. 

The legislation also significantly widened police powers whereby officers may now place restrictions on even one-person protests if they are deemed disruptive. Police were also granted powers to carry out stop-and-search operations in designated protest zones without needing reasonable suspicion that someone has committed an offence – a significant expansion of police authority criticised by civil liberties groups.

But the report argued the crackdown extends beyond parliament and into the courts.

One of its central findings is the growing use of civil injunctions and contempt of court proceedings against activists.

Oil companies, arms manufacturers, councils and universities have increasingly obtained court orders banning protests near their sites, the report said.

The report identified contempt of court as the most common route to imprisonment among the 249 protest-related cases it analysed. Contempt of court usually refers to someone disobeying a judge’s order or behaving in a way the court says interferes with justice. In protest cases, it has increasingly been used against activists who ignore injunctions or refuse to follow restrictions imposed during trials.

Because contempt proceedings are handled directly by judges rather than juries, campaigners argued they allow courts to imprison protesters more quickly and with fewer legal safeguards.

Researchers also highlighted what campaigners described as the “gagging” of defendants. Judges have increasingly stopped protesters from mentioning climate concerns, Gaza, international law or their political motivations in front of juries.

Courts have often argued that juries should focus only on whether a defendant broke the law, not on the political or moral reasons behind their actions. Critics said those restrictions prevent activists from fully explaining why they protested in the first place.

Campaigners also said the legal shift reflects a broader political change, driven in part by corporate lobbying under successive Conservative governments and continuing under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. They argued that peaceful protest is increasingly being criminalised to protect corporate interests, regardless of wider ethical concerns about the supply of arms to Israel during its war on Gaza or opposing fossil fuel projects linked to the climate crisis.

Perhaps most controversially, the report pointed to the growing use of lengthy pretrial detention. That means protesters being held in prison before they have been convicted of any crime.

According to the findings, many activists spend months on remand awaiting trial while some Palestine Action defendants have been held for more than a year before their cases are heard in court.

In 60 percent of the cases studied, the final sentence handed down was shorter than the time defendants had already spent in custody awaiting trial.

Are lobbyists influencing the crackdown?

Tim Crosland, director of Defend Our Juries, said the findings challenge Britain’s claims of ensuring democratic protections.

“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” Crosland said.

“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.”

The report pointed to what it described as growing political and corporate pressure behind Britain’s crackdown on protest movements.

Researchers cited reports that parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may have originated in proposals from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. According to the investigative news site Open Democracy, Policy Exchange has previously received funding from ExxonMobil. The think tank had earlier published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, which called for new laws targeting Extinction Rebellion activists.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the links between the think tank and the legislation.

The report further alleged that British officials came under pressure from both Elbit Systems and the Israeli government to take a tougher approach towards Palestine Action protests targeting Elbit’s UK factories.

According to correspondence quoted by the researchers, the British government said in 2022 that it had “expressed our support in recognising the attacks and boycott on Elbit UK”. The report said the issue was later raised directly with then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a visit to Israel, where he reportedly “declared that the British government is committed to stopping the attacks”.

Zoe Blackler, founding director of the London events space Kairos, said: “In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest, we need to come together in solidarity and defiance.”

Which are the cases at the centre of Britain’s protest crackdown?

The report traced Britain’s hardening response to the protests through a series of landmark cases involving climate activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners, many of whom received lengthy prison sentences or spent months behind bars before trial.

Among the most high-profile is the case of the Whole Truth Five, a group of Just Stop Oil activists jailed in July 2024 over a Zoom call discussing plans to disrupt the M25 motorway. The five were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and initially sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

The report described the case as one of the clearest examples of the tougher approach now being taken towards protest movements. Campaigners argued the sentences were extraordinary because the activists were punished largely for planning disruptive action rather than carrying it out. Prosecutors relied on conspiracy laws, which allow people to be charged for agreeing to commit an offence even if the planned action never ultimately happens.

Four Palestine Action activists were also sentenced to between 23 and 27 months for conspiring to damage an Israeli-linked arms factory in Wales. Meanwhile, four Just Stop Oil activists received prison terms of up to 30 months over plans to disrupt Manchester Airport despite never reaching the site. A fifth defendant, Noah Crane, spent almost a year in jail on remand before later being acquitted.

Another major case involved the Filton 24, Palestine Action activists prosecuted after a protest at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol. Some defendants were held on remand for up to 18 months before trial.

After several activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary charges, most were eventually granted bail.

The report said the case raises “serious concerns” that prosecutors used unusually serious charges to justify holding defendants in prison for long periods before trial.

The report also highlighted the Brize Norton Five, activists accused of spray-painting air force planes in protest against Britain’s military links to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. According to the report, the group has remained on remand since August and is not expected to stand trial until 2027, meaning some could spend close to two years in jail before a verdict is reached.

Other cases revealed the growing use of judicial “gagging orders”.

During the retrial of the Filton 6, a separate trial from the Filton 24, the judge barred defendants from mentioning Gaza, Elbit’s role in supplying weapons to Israel and their political motivations for protesting. Critics argued such restrictions make it harder for juries to hear the broader context behind direct action campaigns.

In another case, three Insulate Britain activists were imprisoned for contempt of court after defying a judge’s order not to mention the “climate crisis” or “fuel poverty” before a jury.

Despite the legal restrictions, several juries continued to acquit activists. The report pointed to acquittals involving Just Stop Oil protesters, Extinction Rebellion activists and a hung jury in the first Filton 6 trial as evidence that some jurors remained unconvinced by the increasingly aggressive prosecution of protest movements.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK CEO, told Al Jazeera that “the right to protest is being eroded before our eyes.”

“We’re seeing a worrying shift where the state is using remand, sweeping injunctions and contempt proceedings to lock people up or silence them before they’ve even stood trial.

“The broader legal implications here are concerning. It’s not just about one group of activists; it’s about a systemic attempt to shut down dissent, something we’ve been ringing the alarm on for a long time.

“By replacing the presumption of liberty with preemptive legal intimidation, it creates a chilling effect, undermines the rule of law and flies in the face of basic human rights.”

WASHINGTON — Last June 16, armed immigration agents broke the locks to forcibly enter an Oxnard auto body shop. Juan Carlos Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, filmed as they arrested his father.

Then the agents pepper-sprayed Ramirez, slammed him onto the hoods of two vehicles, punched his face and kneed him in the side, according to a legal claim he later filed against the federal government.

Local attorney Vanessa Valdez denounced Ramirez’s arrest at an Oxnard City Council meeting the next day. The following month, Valdez found herself in a similar situation when agents raided the cannabis company Glass House Farms.

Despite identifying herself as a legal observer, she said, agents — or possibly National Guard — deployed tear gas and shot her six times with rubber bullets. She ran and then, unable to see, crawled on all fours to escape.

Vanessa Valdez, a Ventura-based attorney, has filed a claim against the federal government, alleging she was hit with tear gas and six rubber bullets during the Glass House Farms raid last July.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“They were just shooting aimlessly, it seemed like,” she said. “I thought maybe they had fractured a rib because that’s how painful it was. I couldn’t sleep face down for three weeks.”

Ramirez and Valdez are among the dozens of U.S. citizens and immigrants who are seeking financial compensation for damages they say they suffered during President Trump’s immigration dragnet. For Valdez, that includes the cost of hospital visits, lost wages as she recovered, anxiety medication and seeing a therapist.

After reviewing public accounts and legal documents and interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and immigrants, The Times found that claimants from across the country are seeking at least $260 million.

In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis wrote that ICE officers are held to the highest professional standard and receive regular training. Bis said that when agents are faced with danger, they use their training to protect themselves and the public.

“The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force. It’s a pattern of violent agitators attacking our law enforcement,” she wrote.

Asked about Valdez, Bis said law enforcement deployed chemical irritants including pepper balls, but not rubber bullets, after agitators attempted to breach the perimeter at Glass House Farms. She said Ramirez refused officer’s commands and physically attacked them, so they pepper-sprayed him in self-defense.

Lawyers who are experts in tort claims said the bureaucratic process is lengthy and complex, and any damage award would likely be lower than what a claimant is seeking.

Still, seeking redress through the Federal Tort Claims Act is one of the few legal remedies available for those seeking financial compensation for deaths, physical injuries, emotional trauma, unlawful detention or property damage caused by federal employees.

The number of claims is expected to rise.

Federal agents, some wearing street clothes and some wearing uniforms and protective gear, form a defensive line against hundreds of protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 30.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In recent months, advocacy organizations have prepared practice advisories for attorneys interested in filing tort claims, and law groups across the country have begun holding training sessions on the process.

“There is no question in my mind that a lot of people — hundreds, thousands — have been harmed significantly and will be legally entitled to large damages payouts, which are going to come from the federal government,” said Jonathan Feinberg, a Philadelphia-based attorney.

Feinberg, who specializes in cases involving excessive use of force by police and abuses of detained immigrants, is president of the board of directors for the National Police Accountability Project, which focuses on law enforcement misconduct.

“We’re going to be talking about Minneapolis in 2030,” he added.

Before they can sue in federal court, individuals must first request a review by the agency that they say is responsible, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection. The agency has six months to respond and deny the claim or offer a settlement.

If the agency doesn’t respond or denies a claim, the claimant can then file suit.

Unlike civil rights lawsuits, in which juries decide the verdict, in tort cases, judges make that call. Only the agencies are named as defendants, not individuals.

The Times reviewed the claims of nearly 80 people filed since the start of 2025. The vast majority remain in the review stage. Lawyers anticipate most will not be settled, unleashing a flood of lawsuits starting this summer.

Federal law since 1871 has established that people can sue state and local officials for violating their constitutional rights. But the law left out federal actors.

One hundred years later, the Supreme Court allowed for damages lawsuits against federal officials who violate a person’s civil rights, though decisions in recent years have substantially narrowed that ability.

Democrats in California are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for residents to seek financial damages for constitutional violations committed by federal agents. Similar laws were already enacted in Maryland, Illinois and Connecticut, though the Trump administration has sued to block the latter two.

But there is a different route — tort claims.

Tort cases can be difficult to win, in part because the government can claim a “discretionary function exception,” which shields the agency from liability when the situation involves a policy-driven judgment call.

“So that’s what a lot of plaintiff’s lawyers are really anxious about, that the Trump administration is going to say, ‘Well, we’ve got our own immigration policies. Of course a lot of people disagree with them, but the statute is designed to give us the right to make those policy judgments,’” said Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor who studies torts.

“Now, if I were the plaintiff’s lawyer, I would say, ‘Yeah, but shooting somebody in cold blood because you’re just mad about their political views, and they’re not really threatening your life at all — that’s not a policy judgment,’” he said.

The law office of John Burris, an Oakland-based attorney who represented Rodney King after he was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, has taken on damages clients in Minnesota. He said he anticipates filing around 80 tort claims stemming from the immigration enforcement actions there.

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

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Burris said the experience has given him flashbacks to the period before King’s beating and the subsequent protests over police brutality, when officers felt they could act with impunity.

“There’s 1779798656 a more fundamental understanding that bad stuff does happen,” he said. “Everyday people are not as willing as they once were to just accept a police officer’s perspective.”

Public disapproval over immigration enforcement rose after federal immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed two 37-year-old U.S. citizens, Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, in separate incidents.

Other deaths took place before the Minnesota operation: 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, who was killed by an ICE agent in Texas who fired repeatedly through the open window of his car; Keith Porter, 43, who was killed in Los Angeles by an off-duty ICE agent after shooting his gun into the air on New Year’s Eve; and Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, who fell 30 feet from atop a greenhouse while fleeing agents at the Glass House Farms site in Camarillo.

Lawyers for the families of Good, Martinez and Garcia confirmed they are pursuing tort claims. Lawyers for the other families did not respond to requests for comment.

Additional highly publicized cases have also resulted in tort claims: Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago; Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist who spent 104 days detained after the administration labeled him a national security threat; Aliya Rahman, a disabled woman on her way to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis who blacked out at a detention facility after ICE agents detained her.

New claims appear to be filed weekly. Seventeen men, women and children who were detained in a military-style raid at a Chicago apartment complex filed claims this month seeking about $5 million each.

In many of the cases, Bis said, the claimants impeded or assaulted agents. Pretti’s death remains under investigation, she said.

Willy Wender Aceituno stands in the parking lot where he was arrested last November by ICE agents in Charlotte, N.C.

(Jesse Barber / For The Times)

Willy Wender Aceituno was already a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina challenging the policy allowing warrantless immigration arrests after he was stopped twice in a span of minutes by immigration agents last November. In March, he also submitted a tort claim.

Aceituno is a Honduran-born U.S. citizen who voted for Trump. On the day he was arrested, a group of masked agents checked his identification and left. Aceituno then filmed as a second group surrounded his red truck.

“If you break it, you will pay for it,” he tells them in Spanish seconds before one agent smashes the window with a baton. “Why did you do that, sir?”

Aceituno suffered cuts when agents threw him to the ground, which was covered in shattered glass. They placed him in an SUV with other detainees and drove him around Charlotte, N.C., before releasing him, still bleeding, more than 2 miles from his vehicle.

The moment brought back Aceituno’s childhood memory of watching his father be arrested by the Honduran military and disappeared.

“I remember they broke down the door, entered, put him in handcuffs and threw him to the ground,” he said. “I thought, ‘It’s happening again.’ To see the other Hispanics in the car made it feel like this is racial persecution. This is about skin, not criminality.”

Bis, the Homeland Security spokesperson, said Aceituno acted erratically, escalated the situation and refused to comply with officers’ commands.

Lawyers said many people, especially immigrants, who have viable claims have chosen not to pursue them out of fear of being targeted for deportation. Some were deported before they could sue.

“Even now, our clients wake up some days thinking, ‘What am I doing suing the federal government?’” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Lawyers for Civil Rights. “You have to have a lot of courage to be able to stand up against an administration that has put a bull’s-eye on you and that has targeted you based on your identity.”

Others have turned to mutual aid or online fundraisers to pay for medical bills or to repair property damage. On the website GoFundMe, donation campaigns describe shattered car windows, broken limbs, head trauma and mounting bills.

Some damage can’t be fully recompensated, Espinoza-Madrigal added.

Members of the Haitian community hold signs in support for the extension of Temporary Protected Status during a rally last month in Miami.

(Carl Juste / Miami Herald / Getty Images)

One of the organization’s clients is Jose Pineda, a Salvadoran man with Temporary Protected Status. A year ago, Pineda was stopped by ICE officers on his way to work in East Boston as a landscaper. They wouldn’t accept his Social Security and work authorization cards as proof enough that he was not deportable, and detained him without explanation, according to his tort claim.

So Pineda spent nearly two days in a holding cell at the ICE Boston Field Office with around 50 other people. He couldn’t sit or sleep and received minimal water and food.

Bis said agents “briefly questioned” Pineda because he matched the description of the subject of an operation, and that he was released after being identified.

When he was released, the claim alleges, his documents were returned but $600 in cash that he was saving to pay rent was not. The incident left him with frequent headaches, anxiety and memory loss, and exacerbated his gastritis. His absence from work resulted in a demotion from lead foreman to an assistant role.

“Whenever I drive, if someone stays behind me for three, four or five minutes, I start to imagine that it’s them again,” he said in an interview.

Pineda’s arrest also caused recurring nightmares that leave him shouting and thrashing around in bed. Out of fear that he could inadvertently harm his wife, they now sleep in separate beds.

SACRAMENTO — The state’s biggest energy utility has made the unusual move to attack candidate Tom Steyer in the California governor’s race.

State campaign filings show that Pacific Gas & Electric has plowed at least $13.5 million into efforts to oppose Steyer. Other major utilities in the state have also donated to another committee backing the anti-Steyer effort.

Steyer, a billionaire and former hedge fund founder who became a high-profile environmental advocate, accuses the big three California utility companies — PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison — of “raking in” record profits at the expense of their customers. He blames the utilities for high consumer bills and causing deadly wildfires with their faulty utility equipment.

Though other candidates in the race are also criticizing the utilities, Steyer is the most aggressive.

“Big energy companies really piss me off,” Steyer said in one of his own campaign ads earlier this year.

In another attack, Steyer called PG&E less of an electric company and more of a “sophisticated Sacramento lobbying and influence operation that also happens to sell electricity. California needs a governor who will stand up to these monopolies, hold them accountable, and break them up.”

Lynsey Paulo, a spokesperson for PG&E, declined to answer questions about the utility’s spending, referring The Times to the committee running anti-Steyer ads.

“Tom Steyer has spent over $200 million trying to buy the Governor’s office,” the committee said in a statement.

Steyer, a Democrat who is relying on his vast fortune in the race, is seeking to advance past the June 2 primary to the November general election. Recent polls put him behind Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, and onetime Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

The utility-funded advertisements against Steyer don’t mention his position on energy policies, focusing instead on his onetime hedge fund’s investments in coal and for-profit detention centers. One ad compares him to President Trump.

“When Steyer sells himself as a different kind of billionaire, tell him where to stick it,” a voiceover says.

Another advertisement from the anti-Steyer group California is Not for Sale highlights its support for Becerra. The California Assn. of Realtors and the California Building Industry Assn. are also supporting the group.

Steyer’s campaign last week embraced the spending from PG&E and others.

“When you’re opposed by the people responsible for devastating wildfires and outrageous rate hikes, you’re doing something right,” Steyer spokesperson Sepi Esfahlani said.

Steyer has used his criticism of the California utilities and the oil industry as a shield against attacks that he made billions of dollars from fossil fuels when he ran his hedge fund, and to elevate himself as an advocate for working-class Californians.

When Democratic rival Katie Porter ripped into Steyer at a recent debate for using his riches to support his gubernatorial campaign, Steyer pointed to the attacks by PG&E and others as evidence that he’ll take on Sacramento’s powerful special interests.

“There is one person that the corporations are going after, including Big Oil, who is spending millions of dollars to stop me,” Steyer responded during the April debate at Pomona College in Claremont.

“The electric monopolies, PG&E, millions of dollars to stop me, because I’m the person on this stage who’s the change agent,” he said. “I’m the person who’s going to drive down costs for the people of California by taking on the special interests.”

PG&E CEO Patti Poppe and Steyer lauded one another in social media posts after appearing together at various conferences last year, the California Post reported.

“Loved sitting down to talk the future of energy with Tom Steyer at the Galvanize Solutions Summit,” Poppe wrote on LinkedIn in December. Steyer co-founded Galvanize, an asset management firm.

The California Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee this year collected at least $2 million each from PG&E, Sempra — the parent company of SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric — and Edison. The chamber’s committee in turn has donated $9.75 million toward the anti-Steyer committee.

John Myers, a representative for the Chamber of Commerce, said the committee’s leadership, not donors, make spending decisions.

California electric rates are the nation’s second highest after Hawaii, contributing to the state’s high cost of living — one of the biggest concerns of voters.

PG&E serves Northern and Central California, while Southern California Edison is available in Central, coastal and Southern California. San Diego Gas & Electric services Southern California.

The California Public Utilities Commission sets the rate of return that the companies can make. Steyer has argued that “perverse” structure allows utilities to disregard cheaper cost-effective solutions in favor of more expensive options, such as undergrounding power lines.

Despite Steyer’s talk of “breaking up” utilities, he doesn’t propose dismantling them. Instead, he vows to put reform-focused appointees on the regulatory agency and reduce utility rates. He also wants more battery storage for renewal energy, as well as additional rooftop and community solar.

The three utilities recently opposed a bill to require that wildfire safety spending by Southern California Edison, PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric be audited by an independent accounting firm.

The bill by Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner, an Encinitas Democrat, stalled out earlier this month. It would have required the state’s regulatory agency to consider the audits’ findings before agreeing to raise customer rates to cover even more wildfire prevention spending.

Audits of the three companies’ wildfire spending from 2019 to 2020 found that $2.5 billion could not be accounted for.

Matt Abularach-Macias, political director of Environmental Voters, said the utilities probably consider Steyer as a threat to their business. The companies plan infrastructure projects five or 10 years ahead and don’t want disruptions, he said.

Environmental Voters has endorsed Steyer and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter. The group’s educational arm received a $500,000 donation from a Steyer-backed entity in 2013.

Leah Stokes, associate professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara, called PG&E’s outlay in the governor’s race part of a “corrupt system.”

“These are monopoly companies, you can’t choose to buy from anybody else,” Stokes said. “They take your money, turn it into profits because they are poorly regulated, and then undermine political candidates who would actually hold them accountable.”

Stokes has publicly endorsed Steyer.

A spokesperson for Southern California Edison said the company funds its political contributions from “shareholder dollars.”

“No customer dollars, or any part of the rates paid by Southern California Edison customers, are used to support political candidates,” he said.

Times staff writer Melody Petersen contributed to this report.

Corporations, labor unions, tech titans, Native American tribes and other special interests have donated a record-shattering $79.6 million to independent committees focused on swaying the volatile California governor’s race ahead of the June 2 primary.

Many of the largest backers to these committees will have significant business interests in front of the state’s next governor and state agencies, with hopes of either strengthening a candidate aligned with their political priorities or undercutting those who oppose them.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen IEs [or independent expenditures] have this kind of an impact on a governor’s race,” said veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson, who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor. “It’s totally unprecedented.”

Election laws bar independent expenditure committees from communicating or coordinating with campaigns, allowing candidates to emphasize that they have no control over the money that pours into these outside groups. The wall between the two has long been viewed as performative and penetrable.

The greatest amount of outside spending has been directed at attacking billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, a leading Democrat in the race.

Nearly $32.3 million had been donated to opposing his candidacy as of Monday, according to the California Target Book, a nonpartisan political almanac, which tracks independent expenditure committees. Among the major donors are utility giant PG&E, a political action committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. of Realtors’ independent expenditure committee, which combined have utility, business, property tax and building issues affected by lawmakers and regulators in the state capital.

Independent expenditures supporting Steyer’s bid for governor have been minimal compared with the record-breaking $212 million Steyer has donated to his own campaign as of Monday, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Still, more than $1.4 million of outside money has been spent supporting his bid, largely by the California Nurses Assn., which shares his goal of creating single-payer healthcare.

Expenditure committees linked to Uber, the California Medical Assn., the kidney dialysis company DaVita and the California Dental Assn. contributed nearly $7.3 million to independent efforts backing former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) before he dropped out of the gubernatorial race in April because of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.

Several of those donors then coalesced behind former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra, who was struggling to connect with California voters before he surged to become a front-runner, recent opininon polls show. More than $13 million has been contributed to outside groups backing the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

The outside money has led to flashpoints in the race. Steyer points to corporations backing Becerra, such as a $500,000 Chevron donation to a group supporting him that was reported to state election officials on Thursday.

“The Becerra campaign was running out of gas until the latest half-million dollar influx from Chevron,” said Steyer spokesman Anthony York.

The message echoes a Steyer theme on the campaign trail — that candidates ought to be judged by who is supporting them and who is opposing them.

Becerra accused Steyer of misleading voters because the $500,000 from Chevron went to an independent expenditure committee supporting him that he has no control over. However, Becerra did receive a direct $39,200 contribution from the oil company to his campaign committee in June 2025.

“For him to say that I took the [$500,000] … that’s just an outright lie,” he said in a television interview this weekend. “It pains me to see that candidates for office believe that they have to descend to telling lies in order to gain favor with voters. If that’s what you do as a candidate, what will you do when you’re in the office?”

Steyer’s campaign, which used the Memorial Day weekend to attack Becerra with billboards highlighting high gas prices in Los Angeles and Fresno, said it was disingenuous for Becerra to feign ignorance of how the political system works.

“Chevron is charging Californians record gas prices on one hand and turning right around to spend $500,000 to elect Xavier Becerra with the other,” said Steyer spokesperson Danni Wang. “Now Becerra is playing semantic gymnastics trying to pretend voters are too stupid to understand how dark money in politics works. Californians aren’t buying it.”

Becerra’s campaign argued that such comments are the height of hypocrisy coming from a billionaire whose campaign is funded by his profits from a hedge fund that made investments that are opposed by many voters. Becerra said he continually took on oil companies when he served as California’s attorney general.

“Tom Steyer made his billions off fossil fuels and private prisons, then decided that qualified him to run California,” said Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland. “He’s now attacking the only candidate in this race who actually held Big Oil’s feet to the fire and beat [President] Trump 100 times as [state attorney general]. The irony would be funny if Tom’s checkbook weren’t so thick.”

Mahan, a moderate Democrat, has benefited from $21.7 million in spending by outside groups backing him, while $570,000 has been spent by independent committees opposing him, according to the Target Book. The donors who supported his bid are a who’s who of Silicon Valley, including venture capitalists Michael Moritz and L. John Doerr, Stripe Chief Executive Patrick Collinson and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. Other notable donors include billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, who unsuccessfully ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2022, as well as Griff Harsh V, the son of billionaire Meg Whitman, the unsuccessful 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee turned Democrat who once led EBay.

Despite that generous support, Mahan remains mired in the single digits in the polls. On Wednesday, billionaire Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings received a refund of $1 million he had donated to one of the independent expenditure committees supporting Mahan’s bid.

Hastings said he had not requested the money to be returned to him.

“I’m voting for Matt Mahan. I didn’t ask for any refund and they shouldn’t have done it,” he posted on X on Saturday. “Go Matt.”

Matt Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Back to Basics committee backing Mahan, said that he believes Mahan’s standing in the race is a reflection of a number of factors — an underwhelming contest as well as Mahan’s January entry into it and the fact that he was not well known statewide.

“He got in a little bit late and it was a big climb … with an apathetic electorate,” Rodriguez said. “Politics is all about money and timing — both the amount of time and being there at the right time.”

Mahan’s priorities, such as housing and homelessness improvements he oversaw in San José, had an impact on the campaign, the Democratic strategist said.

“Democrats have to perform, and if we are going to perform, we have to have results,” he said.

The only other candidate who saw seven figures in independent expenditure spending was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator who has been endorsed by Trump and is the leading GOP candidate in the race. More than $1.8 million has been spent opposing Hilton and $13,750 was spent supporting him.

SEIU California donated $250,000 to opposing gubernatorial candidates. Oscar Lopez, the union’s political director, said it has opposed Hilton, Mahan and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

“Each of these candidates represents a serious threat to the wages, rights and dignity of California’s working people,” Lopez said.

Hilton said the spending against him represents Democratic recognition of him as a threat.

“They know that they’re vulnerable. The Democratic machine understands they’ve got weak candidates and a terrible record,” he said in an interview. “They see me as outsider and change agent. The only argument they have — if you can call it an argument — is to endlessly repeat the words Trump and MAGA.”

Outside spending has grown exponentially after a voter-approved 2000 California ballot measure limited how much donors can contribute directly to candidates. For the current election, it’s $78,400 for the primary and the general election in the governor’s race.

But donors can contribute unlimited amounts to outside groups, which are formally called independent expenditure committees. Though such donations were already legal in California, they greatly increased in the state and across the nation after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that said limits on independent political spending by corporations, unions and other entities violated 1st Amendment free speech protections.

“It has been a steady increase in the amount of money going to outside groups,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA.

In California, independent expenditure groups set a record in 2010 when they spent about $25 million supporting then-gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown. Largely union money, it was spent in the summer after the primary and was viewed as critical to stalling self-funding Republican billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign. Brown ultimately won the race by 13 percentage points.

In the 2018 gubernatorial primary, records were once again broken by more than $26 million of outside spending, with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa being the biggest beneficiary. Charter school backers spent nearly $16 million on unsuccessful efforts to boost his campaign.

In addition to an enormous financial advantage over campaign committees, outside groups have the ability to trumpet highly provocative adversarial attacks without the candidate they support being blamed for the often controversial messaging.

“IEs are as free to go as negative as they want without that negativity boomeranging back to hurt the candidate,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.

While communication between candidate campaigns and independent committees is forbidden, these rules are commonly circumvented using legal but obvious methods. One called “red boxing,” which Becerra employed earlier this year, literally puts messages inside red-lined boxes on candidate websites that their campaign strategists would like to see outside groups highlight.

“There are technical rules that prevent certain types of communication, but it’s easy enough to communicate in public and be on the same page on messaging,” Hasen said.

Among the major donors in the 2026 campaign are the California Chamber of Commerce, PG&E, the California Assn. of Realtors, the Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition PAC, the Pechanga Band of Indians, the California Nurses Assn., and corporations and leaders or founders of companies such as Meta, Google and Uber.

Californians for the People, an outside committee that has spent nearly $32.3 million opposing Steyer, is the most well-funded independent expenditure committee this year. Among it’s largest donors is JOBSPAC, a group sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, that has donated nearly $11.8 million to the effort.

“CalChamber is participating in an independent expenditure campaign because voters deserve to know more about Mr. Steyer,” said John Myers, a spokesman for the chamber. “His policy promises will cost billions, driving investment out of California and worsening the state’s affordability crisis.”

The Pechanga Band of Indians has spent $1.5 million on pro-Becerra efforts.

“Secretary Becerra has stood with Indian Country for decades and understands Tribal sovereignty,” said Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro. “When tribal healthcare was on the line, he was there. This experience comes from a lifetime of public service, not a checkbook.”

May 25 (UPI) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday called a bid by the premier of Alberta to hold a referendum on separation a “dangerous bluff” that could produce deep regrets much like Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

Carney, who was governor of the Bank of England when British voters opted by a narrow margin to approve “Brexit” in 2016, said the referendum proposal announced Thursday by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith risks economic consequences that its backers cannot predict and are not prepared for.

During a press briefing in Ottawa, the prime minister issued his strongest remarks yet on Alberta’s referendum, under which voters will be asked on Oct. 19 if they want to remain part of Canada or if the provincial government should initiate the process for holding a future, legally binding referendum on separation.

The risk in that, he said, is that the results of a referendum on whether to hold another referendum can be seen by many as the final word, even though proponents may say the results can merely be used for leverage.

“In these separation issues, it is often advanced that, ‘vote for this and it is a free option,’ or ‘vote for this, and we will strengthen our hand in a future negotiation.’ That is a very dangerous bluff,” Carney said. “I saw it firsthand in the U.K.”

Britain, he said, is “still trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for” with Brexit.

He said Albertans derive great economic benefits from federal government programs such its pension plans, health-care transfers and the Canadian version of Social Security for seniors which would disappear under separation.

Smith, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, announced last week that a citizen-led petition was signed by well in excess of the 300,000 people required to trigger a vote on seceding from Canada’s federal confederation, despite polling showing widespread disapproval of the idea in the oil-rich western province.

She said she herself would vote against secession, but that it was necessary for Albertans to have their say.

“Kicking the can down the road only prolongs an emotional and important debate, and muzzling the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans who want to be heard is unjustifiable in a free and democratic society,” she wrote in an opinion piece published in the Calgary Herald.

Carney, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, argues the 37-word referendum question is a complicated one in which residents were being asked about holding a second referendum rather than a straight-up question about remaining in Canada.

The question reads: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

A poll published Monday by the Angus Reid Institute found that across Albertans overall, 60% would vote “no” (Alberta stays) and 35% would vote “yes” (begin the process).

However, when Albertans are instead asked a direct hypothetical — should Alberta leave Canada or stay? — support for remaining in Canada rises from 60% to 67%, while the “leave/yes” side falls from 35% to 30%, the survey found.

Carney told reporters Monday the federal government is reviewing Smith’s question to see if it complies with a Canadian law requiring clarity in referendum questions, adding that he will actively campaign against any move to separate.

“Canadians take care of each other,” he said. “It’s not perfect. We need to continue to work together, we are making progress. We’re Canadian, we’ll come together.”

Smith on Monday fired back at Carney’s remarks.

“This is a decision for Albertans — not Ottawa — and Albertans’ frustrations have been fueled by the last 10 years of disastrous policies from Ottawa under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau,” she said in a statement issued to the CBC.

“I would also remind all Canadians that we should not dismiss the legitimate grievances of Albertans. Instead, we should focus on addressing these issues, restoring hope in Canada and demonstrating that our country can work and is working,” she added.

Murrell admitted the offences at the High Court in Edinburgh after an investigation into the party’s finances.

The former chief executive of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), and ex-husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than 400,000 British pounds ($540,000) from the party’s funds.

Sixty-one-year-old Peter Murrell admitted the offences at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, following a years-long investigation into the SNP’s finances and the alleged diversion of donations intended to support the Scottish independence campaign.

Murrell, who was the SNP’s chief executive from 2001 to 2023, was remanded in custody by the judge before a sentencing hearing scheduled for June 23.

Judge James Young said Murrell was responsible for a “gross breach of trust” for embezzling offences between August 2010 and October 2022.

Murrell’s arrest came after a lengthy investigation into the diversion of 600,000 British pounds ($810,400) in SNP donations intended to support the party’s campaign for Scottish independence.

Although part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has a devolved government with powers over areas such as health and education. But the country has so far rejected calls for full independence.

Sturgeon, the former head of Scotland’s administration, quit as SNP leader and first minister in February 2023.

Murrell was arrested in April that year after officers searched the home he shared with Sturgeon near Glasgow, as part of an investigation into the SNP’s finances.

Sturgeon was herself arrested in June 2023 and questioned for seven hours before being released without charge.

Current First Minister John Swinney, who was re-elected to his post following the SNP’s victory in local elections in May, said he felt “betrayed” by Murrell’s actions.

“By embezzling from the SNP, Peter Murrell was stealing the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of thousands of people all over Scotland,” said Swinney.

‘I am betrayed’

Sturgeon, who was cleared in the probe last year, announced in January 2025 that she and Murrell had separated.

In an Instagram post, she said she was “utterly appalled” by her former partner’s admission and that she had “no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever”.

“To be deceived and let down by a husband I loved and trusted has caused me acute pain,” she added.

Sturgeon stepped down as a lawmaker earlier this year, ending a nearly 30-year career as one of the independence movement’s main figureheads.

Good Morning Britain paid tribute to Jules Fielder, an inspirational lung cancer campaigner who appeared on the ITV show to raise awareness

Good Morning Britain honoured a campaigner who had featured on the programme multiple times following her tragic passing this month. Jules Fielder, a lung cancer advocate who channelled her own diagnosis into raising public consciousness.

She was recognised for her tireless efforts surrounding the condition. And following her death, the programme delivered a heartfelt tribute.

Jules’ constituency MP, Helena Dollimore, appeared on the show to discuss preserving her work. The GMB Twitter/X account posted a moving message, saying: “Jules Fielder was an inspirational lung cancer campaigner who used her own experience of being diagnosed as a motivator to raise awareness around the symptoms of the disease.

READ MORE: Zoe Ball reveals daughter Nelly has moved in with dad Fatboy Slim saying ‘my house is so quiet’READ MORE: I’m A Celeb’s Gemma Collins poses in swimwear saying ‘confidence is not a dress size’

“Sadly, she passed away earlier this month. Jules appeared twice previously on Good Morning Britain, speaking about her advocacy work.”

During the broadcast, Dollimore stated: “The thing about Jules is she made whoever she spoke to sit up and listen, whether it was the audience here on Good Morning Britain, whether it was politicians, and I raised her case in parliament.

“She met the health secretary, the prime minister, and she also made companies like Boots sit up and listen. And she had this vision that actually companies like Boots had a big role to play in raising awareness of these symptoms.”

She went on: “She won that campaign by getting them to roll out on-shelf awareness labels in 200 stores. So now, when people go into the Boots in Hastings, they see these signs saying, have you had this ough for longer?

“But actually, if Jules were here, she would be saying, okay, what next? Where do we take this next? And is that your job now? And I feel very much that she lit the torch and it’s up to those of us still here to carry that torch forward. There is so much more that could be done.”

Heartfelt tributes flooded in, with one supporter writing: “What a pity she died.” Another shared their own painful experience, posting: “Lung Cancer: my friend was 46 and was diagnosed with lung, liver and bowel cancer. She never smoked or vaped. Started her treatment in August 2023. Passed away January 2023.”

Jules had recently been praised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In the letter he sent her on March 30, the PM said he was ‘moved’ by Jules’ campaigning.

She had stage 4 lung cancer, the most advanced stage, and was diagnosed with the disease in November 2021. She was aged just 37 and had found a lump in her neck.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

At least 24 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a suicide car bomb detonated on a train carrying soldiers in Quetta, capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, on Sunday.

The attack came amid Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s four-day visit to China, and the day before his meeting in Beijing with China’s President Xi Jinping, marking 75 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations.

Pakistan is among an exclusive group of countries China regards as an “all-weather strategic partner”, with ties featuring close economic, trade and security cooperation.

Responsibility for the train attack was claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), an armed Baloch separatist group which, apart from calling for an independent state, also strongly objects to large-scale Chinese investment in the region.

While the BLA has long carried out attacks that have killed civilians and members of the security forces in Balochistan and beyond, there has been a recent uptick in such incidents.

We examine what is behind this increase in attacks:

What happened in Sunday’s attack?

Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said several houses and buildings adjacent to the railway line were severely damaged in the blast, which caused train carriages to overturn and catch fire.

According to local media reports, a state of emergency was declared at public hospitals in Quetta, with doctors and other medical staff ordered to remain on duty.

Footage shared online showed charred vehicles and train carriages lying on their sides, with thick plumes of black smoke rising into the sky.

Pakistan has experienced several attacks by separatist groups in recent months. The attacks have increased in ferocity and have also targeted Chinese workers amid protests over Beijing-backed infrastructural projects in Balochistan.

As part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project – one of the main arms of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” designed to improve trading routes – China’s Xinjiang region has been connected to Pakistan’s deep-sea Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea in Balochistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif condemned Sunday’s train attack in Quetta in a post on X.

“Such cowardly acts of terrorism cannot weaken the resolve of the people of Pakistan. We remain steadfast in our determination to eliminate terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he said.

He added that while initial reports indicated a suicide bombing, this has not been officially confirmed. If it is, Yunas Samad, an emeritus professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK, told Al Jazeera, “this would reflect tactics that insurgent organisations in the region have increasingly adopted over recent years”.

“There are also persistent claims regarding the circulation of sophisticated weaponry originating from stockpiles left behind after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan,” he said.

Are we seeing a new phase of armed separatist attacks in Balochistan?

According to research gathered by the independent, Islamabad-based think tank Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, Balochistan recorded at least 254 attacks in 2025 – roughly 26 percent more than in 2024.

A December 2025 report published by independent conflict monitor Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) found that separatists had also intensified attacks and pressure on security forces. The report said the number of attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and grenades, mainly targeting convoys and police stations, grew by more than 65 percent in the first 11 months of 2025, compared to the same time period in 2024.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report this year found that there has been more Baloch armed group activity in Pakistan in 2025 as well. The GTI is an annual report published by the Australia-based independent think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

Its 2026 report states that the BLA was responsible for Pakistan’s largest terror attack of 2025 – when the Jaffar Express, a train travelling from Quetta to Peshawar, was hijacked in March.

The BLA claimed responsibility and reported that six military personnel had been killed. Hundreds of people were taken hostage from the train, which was carrying 400 passengers.

“What can reasonably be said is that, following the earlier coordinated attack on the Jaffar Express, the Pakistani authorities appear to have intensified security measures around transport infrastructure, military personnel and key lines of communication,” Samad, of Bradford University, told Al Jazeera.

“The fact that this latest incident nevertheless occurred may suggest that militant groups retain a significant operational capability despite those efforts,” he noted.

The group stunned Pakistan’s security establishment in 2022 when it ‌stormed army and navy bases. In August 2024, militants carried out coordinated ⁠attacks across Balochistan, including highway assaults in which passengers were pulled from buses and shot after identity checks.

“While statistics in such conflicts are always contested and should be treated cautiously, they do indicate that the intensity of the conflict has not significantly diminished,” Samad said.

“Whether this constitutes an entirely ‘new phase’ is perhaps too strong a conclusion at present. However, it does appear to indicate a degree of resurgence in militant capability and confidence among sections of the Baloch insurgency.”

Who are the BLA and major Baloch armed groups?

The BLA, which has a suicide squad called the Majeed Brigade, says it is fighting for the independence of Balochistan, a province located in Pakistan’s southwest and bordering Afghanistan to the north and ⁠Iran to the west.

It is the largest of several ethnic separatist groups that have been fighting the federal government for decades. Balochistan’s mountainous border region serves as a safe haven and training ground for both Baloch separatist fighters and Islamist armed groups.

The BLA often targets infrastructure and security forces in Balochistan, but has also struck in other areas – most notably the southern port city of Karachi.

The BLA has deployed women suicide bombers, including in an attack on Chinese nationals in Karachi, and was designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States in August 2025 in a move welcomed by the Pakistani government. Analysts say BLA is particularly known for its ability to recruit young, often well-educated fighters.

The group, separately, was at the centre of tit-for-tat strikes in 2024 between Iran and Pakistan over what each said were armed group bases on each other’s territory, which brought the neighbours to the brink of war.

What is the Baloch cause?

Home to about 15 million of Pakistan’s roughly 240 million people, according to the 2023 census, Balochistan is the country’s poorest region despite its wealth of natural resources, including coal, gold, copper and gas.

These resources generate significant revenue for the federal government – unfairly, according to the BLA, which wants Balochistan’s natural wealth to belong to its people and rejects federal control over resource extraction and security.

The province is Pakistan’s largest by area, but smallest by population. It has a long Arabian Sea coastline, not far from the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.

Balochistan is also home to one of Pakistan’s major deep-sea ports at Gwadar, a crucial trade corridor for China’s $65bn investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a wing of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.

The province is home to key mining projects, including Reko Diq, which is operated by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold and is believed to be one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines.

China also operates a gold and copper mine in Balochistan.

The province – which was annexed by Pakistan in 1948, six months after partition from India in August 1947 – has a long history of marginalisation. It has since experienced at least five separatist uprisings.

Separatist sentiment was particularly high in the 2000s, around the time the BLA emerged. Analysts of Baloch resistance movements say it was led by Balach Marri, the son of veteran Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri.

After the government of military ruler Pervez Musharraf killed prominent Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006, the separatist movement escalated.

Rebel fighters have targeted Pakistan’s army and Chinese interests, in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad to exploit the province. Fighters have killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing’s consulate and language centre in Karachi.

More recently, the BLA has also attacked civilians and migrant labourers from other provinces, a shift that officials say marks an escalation in tactics.

Pakistan accuses India and Afghanistan of backing Baloch armed fighters, an allegation both countries deny.

“Baloch separatist groups themselves have, at times, sought to internationalise their cause and last year publicly appealed for diplomatic recognition by India,” Samad said.

“However, establishing clear evidence of direct state support is considerably more difficult, and much of the discussion in this area remains politically contested.”

Hundreds of Baloch activists, many of them women, have protested in Islamabad and Balochistan over alleged abuses by security forces – accusations the government denies.

Over time, the BLA has set itself apart as a group explicitly committed to Balochistan’s full independence from Pakistan. Unlike more moderate Baloch nationalist parties, which press politically for greater provincial autonomy, the BLA has consistently rejected compromise.

Why is this significant now?

Regional stability and international investment

The attack comes as Prime Minister Sharif meets with China’s President Xi in Beijing to discuss economic and security cooperation – something the BLA is strongly opposed to.

The movement could pose a challenge to Pakistan’s attempts to retain Chinese and American investment, experts say, if it reveals a deeper instability.

The Baloch separatist movement is one of the major unresolved questions over Pakistan’s statehood. It is a constant reminder of the challenges of the Pakistani state to stay united, they say.

“More broadly, the persistence of insurgency has had implications for Pakistan’s wider political system,” Samad explained. “Security concerns in Balochistan have increasingly shaped governance and political discourse, strengthening the role of the military and security establishment in national affairs and undermining the democratisation process.”

“Internationally, the issue matters because Pakistan remains a nuclear-armed state of enormous strategic importance,” Samad told Al Jazeera.

“While speculation about state fragmentation is highly premature, any significant escalation in internal instability in a country with nuclear capabilities inevitably attracts international concern. For that reason alone, developments in Balochistan are likely to remain closely watched both regionally and globally.”

Rare-earth metals

Another major issue is that geological assessments suggest Balochistan contains 12 of the 17 rare-earth minerals on the periodic table. Rare earths are critical minerals used to manufacture a vast array of modern items, including batteries, clocks, wiring, military hardware, smartphones and semiconductors, among other technological products.

Since the start of his second term, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed plans to diversify Washington’s stockpile of critical minerals in order to reduce reliance on China, which currently dominates the supply and processing of the world’s rare-earth minerals.

When Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif met with Trump at the White House in September 2025, he offered the US access to critical minerals and rare earths.

Then, in December 2025, the US announced a $1.25bn investment in critical minerals mining at Reko Diq to drive “economic growth in Balochistan”.

SACRAMENTO — Like millions of Californians, I haven’t voted yet in the primary election. That’s because I can’t decide who should be our governor. Here’s what I’m thinking:

It’s an underwhelming field. But one of these Democratic contenders will very likely replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in January.

Based on the latest polling, a Democrat — probably Xavier Becerra — will qualify for the November general election ballot. That Democrat will face a Republican — very likely Steve Hilton.

It’s inconceivable that a Democratic gubernatorial candidate would lose to a Republican in this polarized, deep blue state. That means we’ll actually be choosing the governor in next Tuesday’s primary. You can dismiss the November face-off as essentially moot.

My mail ballot, like millions of others in California, has been sitting on the kitchen table for weeks.

As of this writing, I only know who I’m not voting for. And that’s either of the two Republicans: former Fox News host Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. That’s not because they’re Republicans. I’ve voted for plenty of Republicans — for governor, senator and president.

But Hilton won’t acknowledge that President Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020. And anyone who doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to Trump and recognize a basic fact of our democracy shouldn’t be trusted as our governor.

Bianco disqualified himself by buying into Trump’s persistent lies about election fraud and seizing 650,000 ballots from last November’s Proposition 50 voting. The sheriff wasted taxpayer resources and, moreover, doesn’t have any vote-counting expertise.

Now for the Democrats:

It has been a disappointing campaign — a missed opportunity to seriously discuss crucial issues such as the need to become more self-sufficient locally on water supply, significantly improve wildfire prevention and regulate the coming AI menace.

I’ve winced during televised debates and TV ads at ugly attacks against opponents.

For a while, I considered casting my vote for the Democrat ranking highest in the polls. I thought that in a large Democratic field, the vote could be splintered and only two Republicans would qualify for November. But that now seems inconceivable because three Democrats dropped out.

Anyway, an individual’s vote is too precious not to be used for the candidate considered best for the job.

These are my thoughts on who that might be:

Becerra, 68. He’s the Democratic front-runner and seemingly the safe choice. Not a huge risk taker. He probably wouldn’t screw up and make things worse. He might even marginally improve some stuff.

Calm and understated. Decent. Likable. He brings an impressive resume with the experience and knowledge to handle the job: a former U.S. health secretary, California attorney general, longtime congressman from Los Angeles and a state assemblyman.

Unfortunately, he has often been too vague about what he’d do as governor. That’s largely because he’s not the sort who rushes into things. He wants to first “scrub” the matter. Not a bad trait.

He should have better answers, however, for accusations that he was derelict in Washington for releasing thousands of undocumented immigrant children to sponsors who exploited them as laborers — and also for a scandal involving his top aide who pilfered Becerra’s campaign account. Becerra said he didn’t know about it. But he should have.

Becerra would be California’s first elected Latino governor. Like many California Latinos, he’s the son of hardworking Mexican immigrants who took advantage of their opportunity to seek the California Dream.

Tom Steyer, 68. Here’s the liberal firebrand who wants to shake up Sacramento.

The question is whether he has the ability and knowledge to pull it off. Steyer wants to split up the private utility monopolies and lower consumers’ electricity bills. And how’s he going to do that? We really haven’t heard.

He’s a billionaire who has never held public office and is trying to start at the top by spending $200 million of his own money to buy into the governor’s suite. California voters have always rejected such candidates.

I’ve got nothing against billionaires. In fact, I think it’s a noble use of their money to participate in democracy and try to fix the state.

But in Steyer’s case, his recent unrelenting attack ads against surging Becerra — now his chief campaign rival — are disturbing and seem like overkill. He’d be better off telling us how he plans to improve our daily lives.

Katie Porter, 52. I find her refreshing, despite a feisty personality that grates on many voters.

She’s a former Orange County congresswoman and longtime professor of consumer law who’s plenty smart.

What I like is she has done her homework, is very conversant on most issues and is specific about what she’d do as governor.

OK, some of her goals are probably beyond financial reach: single-payer healthcare, free college tuition and free child care.

But she’d shake up Sacramento and that’s needed. She’d stand up to special interests. And she’d be California’s first female governor.

Could she work well with the Legislature? Probably well enough, given a governor’s immense power to reward and punish.

Matt Mahan, 43. The centrist San José mayor hasn’t spent enough time in his current job to prove himself to voters beyond the San Francisco Peninsula. And he entered the race too late.

He’s not quite ready. Knock again in a few years.

Antonio Villaraigosa, 73. He might be the best potential governor of the lot.

He understands Sacramento as a former Assembly speaker and urban problems as an ex-Los Angeles mayor. He’s a no-nonsense guy who has been leveling with voters..

But age discrimination is a problem, although he’s only five years older than Becerra and Steyer. And he hasn’t held office in many years. His time is past.

For me, it’s time to pick up my ballot and decide who should be California’s next governor.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election
Money, it’s a gas: Billionaire Tom Steyer’s $192.4-million self-funded California gubernatorial bid shatters records
The L.A. Times Special: Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt need Latinos, not Trump

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.