politics

America, the Land of Immigrants, has always been ambivalent about just what that mantle should mean, but that ambivalence has taken on an edge. The middle ground has shifted, decidedly to the right.

And California, characteristically, is ahead of the trend.

Now, when liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer suggests that National Guard troops be stationed along the southern border, only immigrant-rights activists are publicly aghast. When Gov. Pete Wilson says the Constitution should be changed to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, a Field poll shows that half of all Californians like the idea.

“This is a state of siege in California,” says an observer from Washington, immigration expert Demetrios Papademetriou of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“There is an enormous bombardment out there. There is always something new about immigration. One’s senses get bombarded every day, which is the worst possible moment for trying to make fundamental decisions regarding immigration. I am delighted that they will be made in Washington, rather than California.”

Yet California is where the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates 52% of all illegal immigrants live, where dueling studies constantly argue the benefits and costs of the immigrant mix, and where, increasingly, many see an immigration apocalypse born of neglect.

Even the membership of the Sierra Club is in the midst of an emotional debate about whether to take a public stand on the hot button topic of the day.

“It’s not as simple as clean air, or like pollution, where less is better,” said Executive Director Carl Pope.

But millions of other Americans seem to have made up their minds. The polls say most Americans believe illegal immigration is out of control, that the country has too many immigrants, illegal or otherwise, and that this is very bad news for the economy and for our national quality of life.

Every day, Americans are clamoring that something should be done. So everyone from the President of the United States to the president of the local homeowners association is offering suggestions.

Hire more Border Patrol agents and get them equipment that works. Issue tamper-proof identity cards. End taxpayer-funded medical care and schooling for anyone in the country illegally. Seize the assets of employers who hire illegal immigrants. And get serious, finally, about welfare fraud. The list goes on.

“Under bold, centrist political leadership, California could have been avoided,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, the grandfather of a growing family of groups calling for a moratorium on immigration.

“What is happening in California is the direct result of the isolated and removed nature of immigration policy decisions in Washington.”

Many call this brouhaha a backlash against immigrants, scapegoating during an economic recession and a shortsighted repudiation of the principles that made America great.

Others call it unadorned common sense.

“If you set your table for five people in your home and then 15 people show up unexpectedly, you aren’t prepared, and you’ve got problems,” said Fred Vines, a retired state policeman who lives with his wife, a teacher, on Los Angeles’ Westside.

“We’re billions in the hole,” he said. “This has never happened before. It’s got to be overpopulation. You’ve got people coming here who shouldn’t be here.

“Put up a Berlin Wall!” cried Vines, an African-American who denies that racism has anything to do with his get-tough stand. He says that any fool can see it: Immigration is bringing this country down.

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The organizers of this night meeting of Citizens for Action Now, an 18-month-old immigration reform group in Orange County, have called for more folding chairs to accommodate an overflow crowd of about 60 mostly middle-aged, mostly white citizens or legal immigrants.

Barbara Coe, a police records clerk and co-director of the group, has made a point of emphasizing the legal immigrant component to the newcomers in the room.

It is not immigrants the group is against, she says, but illegal immigrants. She stressed that racism has no place here.

“We decided that the only way we are literally going to save our heritage is to put the focus on the illegal alien problem,” she said.

Early arrivals at the meeting talk among themselves. A middle-aged woman tells of the “marauders” who take over the streets at night. A man who lives and works in Santa Ana, the county seat that is now 70% Latino, says of the city: “It’s gone! It’s gone!”

Before everyone stands to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sheets of blue cards are passed around. Citizens for Action Now, part of the 15-member California Coalition for Immigration Reform, asks its members to carry the cards with them and leave them in businesses such as restaurants, “where it seems fairly apparent” that illegal immigrants are employed.

“Stop the Invasion! Close our Borders NOW! Deny benefits to ILLEGAL ALIENS NOW! Defeat GATT/NAFTA NOW!” read the cards, which leave a space for the sender’s name and address.

The evening’s guest speaker, William E. Dannemeyer, the former Orange County congressman considering another U.S. Senate bid, arrives to detail his controversial, and unsuccessful, legislative efforts to stem the immigrant flow.

But during the question and answer session after his remarks, members of Citizens for Action Now intimate that Dannemeyer, who was one of the most conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, hadn’t been tough enough.

One woman told Dannemeyer: “I feel desperate that the battle is lost.” Another man detailed his inspection of Israel’s border defense system, praising that country’s swift actions to thwart enemy incursions.

“If we can go to the moon, are you going to tell me we don’t have the technology to do what this little country Israel can? That’s baloney!”

The room erupts in applause.

*

Immigrant rights groups say they have heard such sentiments before, only they are hardly blase.

They are afraid that the angry, frustrated public mood might translate into laws that will codify discrimination and divert attention from more onerous economic problems in favor of an easy target: the illegal immigrant without a vote. They warn of a rise in hate crimes.

“We in the immigrant rights community are on the defensive right now,” concedes Roberto Lovato, who heads the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles. “We are not being sought out for solutions.”

At a recent news conference in Downtown Los Angeles, Latino community leaders displayed enlarged copies of stories that appeared in the Los Angeles Times from the 1930s to the present. The idea was to trigger a public deja vu .

“Ousting of Aliens Will Be Speeded,” read a headline from 1931. “Government Maps War on Wetbacks,” said another from 1954, and in 1971: “Illegal Alien Growing Peril to U.S. Worker.”

The last offering, “Wilson Urges Stiff Penalties to Deter Illegal Immigrants,” was from the week before.

“We know well in our community that this is a historical cycle,” says Arturo Vargas, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Indeed, during the 19th Century, the state Legislature imposed special taxes on Mexican miners, and the state’s Workingmen’s Party rallied around the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go.” During the Great Depression, and again in 1954, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were sent home.

Yet, cyclical or not, the country’s anti-immigrant mood seems unlikely to cool on its own. Based on a mix of fact, myth and fear, feelings run deep. Ambivalence–and contradictions–thread through it all.

The restaurant busboy might be admired for his willingness to work hard for little pay. But the faceless mass of illegal immigrants is threatening our way of life.

Although it is true that, as a percentage of the population, immigration levels today are a third of what they were during the peak years of 1900-20, the numbers are about the same. And those numbers–about 10 million legal and 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants over the past decade–seem huge.

This is especially true during economic hard times, or perhaps, as immigrant rights group suggest, when people consider who the new immigrants are. Unlike the immigration boom at the turn of the century, more than 90% of the latest immigrant tide comes from the Third World.

Bottom line: The United States takes in more immigrants than the rest of the world combined. And people here are wondering out loud if America has not done enough.

Consider this reaction from homemaker and mother Ellie Kiefer, who recently moved from her Burbank home of 11 years to Simi Valley: “They are just letting them come in. If it was something very positive, starting nice businesses, or really trying or something, that might be different.

“But the crime is getting worse, there are more gangs. The killings. It’s ridiculous. That’s one of the reasons I’m so sick of it.”

Or this from a middle-aged African-American woman who works as a teaching assistant in the Los Angeles Unified School District: “We have to go back to school to speak their language. That’s not fair. And I have to pay for it out of my own pocket. If you are born here in the United States, and you speak English, you have to adjust to them. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Lucy Bermudez, a Philippine-born nurse who just left heavily immigrant Panorama City for Ventura County, says: “I waited for 15 years to become a citizen. It’s unfair of the illegal ones. They are just popping in.”

For Spanish-speaking shopkeeper Maria Elba Miranda, who emigrated illegally from El Salvador 13 years ago, the burning issue is security, and fear. “I’ve noticed a change in the type of people coming, even from my own country,” she said.

“There are just too many people here. . . . I remember when I came, I was really scared, timid, just looking for work, but now they come here looking for trouble.”

On the same Los Angeles street where Miranda lives and works, immigrants openly hawk fake green cards for $50. If you want a phony Social Security card, they can arrange that too. And to the untrained eye, all the documents look good.

“What we do is help people work, not like those guys, they’re the ones who should be deported,” says a 17-year-old nicknamed Orejas, or Ears, who arrived illegally from Mexico six months ago.

Orejas points across the street at the “bad immigrants” to distinguish himself and his friends from their ilk. Go to them, he says, if you want to buy drugs.

*

The INS estimates, conservatively, that about 3.2 million illegal immigrants now live in the United States. Most of these migrants–up to 70% of them from Mexico–arrived after the estimated 3.7 million others who have taken advantage of the amnesty provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Although that law is widely acknowledged to have ended life in the shadows for many immigrants, it has failed to stop the illegal flow. To wit: the control part of the act has become a joke:

Thousands of mandated Border Patrol jobs remain unfilled. Employer sanctions are rarely enforced. And states such as California complain bitterly that Washington does not reimburse them for services to illegal immigrants whose entry the federal government should have blocked.

Such a situation has led many to believe that no sooner do illegal immigrants cross the border than they end up on the dole. In fact, undocumented immigrants are legally ineligible for almost all public benefits other than maternity and emergency medical care under Medi-Cal or Medicaid, and some prenatal care.

But because of the thriving market in counterfeit documents, fraud appears to be widespread.

Moreover, U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are also entitled to all citizenship benefits, such as the fast-growing Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, and like foreign-born children, free education through the 12th grade.

And beyond the costs vs. revenue debate that is the subject of academic debate, residents of areas with large immigrant populations say they feel the impact of the newcomers in more personal ways.

An African-American police officer married to a Mexican immigrant says the couple’s two children are enrolled in a Los Angeles public school that is 90% Latino, “so my kids have a hard time.”

“The teachers are spending all this time on the Spanish,” he said. “So it slows down my kids. So I’m moving mine to a private school.”

Puerto Rican Miguel Rodriguez, 35, of Carson recently recovered from a car accident and went back to reclaim his welding job.

“They told me they didn’t have anything,” he said. “They hired a couple of guys, Latinos who don’t speak any English, who will take less. They’re making $8 an hour. I was making $13. . . . It kind of pisses me off.”

And from Lanie Wong, 65, a mother of five grown children and a daughter of Chinese immigrants, there is this: “It bothers me that the illegals think they can outsmart our system. They brag. It doesn’t affect me, personally. But it’s the principle.”

*

Felix Martinez, a 43-year-old father of four, and his friend, Milton Monterosa, 41, a father of two, have arrived hours early for an appointment at a Los Angeles office of the state Economic Development Department. They have gone months without work and are hoping for a lead on a job.

Like hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of others, Martinez, of Mexico City, and Monterosa, from San Salvador, overstayed their entry visas and slipped unnoticed into the underground economy that traditionally welcomed illegal immigrants with abundant, low-paying jobs.

Under the amnesty granted to illegal immigrants residing in the country before 1982, both men legalized their status, but the American dream escapes them still.

“My friend and I were just talking,” Martinez says. “Los Angeles has fallen down so much. Before, there used to be a lot of work. Things were good. Now the situation is desperate. There is no work. There is nothing.”

Monterosa just nods.

“On the one hand, I think it’s good that immigrants come to this country,” Martinez goes on. “But, you know, I’m in this position. I can’t condone more people coming. I tell my brothers, everybody. They say, ‘Oh, the streets are paved with gold there. There is a lot of work. I’m coming.’ I tell them: ‘There is no work. Why should you come to suffer? Don’t come.’ ”

Inside the unemployment office, Los Angeles-born Lawrence Cush, 31, is also waiting for a lead. He says he has prepared himself for a good job with a college education and experience as a PBX operator at the Ambassador Hotel.

But he has been out of work since 1985.

“I feel in competition with the immigrants,” he says. “Everyone should speak English, but they don’t. . . . I applied for a job at Continental Cable and they told me that I had all the qualifications but that I didn’t get hired because I didn’t speak Spanish.”

Cush is on welfare. He is looking for a job that pays at least $8 an hour “so that I could make $17,000-$20,000 a year, and that’s not that much. That way I could do my part to support my family.

“I’m not going to take the minimum wage,” he said.

Outside, Martinez speaks in Spanish: “I have these desperate nights where I hug my knees together in bed and pray to God for a miracle, to send me a job, any job, a gardener, a cook, whatever. I’m not talking about some fancy job in an office, a secretary.

“I’ll take anything.”

SACRAMENTO — Assembly Speaker Herb J. Wesson Jr. has awarded nearly $350,000 in consulting contracts to half a dozen political allies, including Los Angeles City Council candidate Martin Ludlow and Councilman-elect Tony Cardenas.

The contracts, several of them for more than $8,000 a month, call for contractors to give Wesson advice on such issues as education, the state budget, the agricultural industry and outreach to local elected officials in Southern California.

Wesson issued the contracts unilaterally, without legislative review, and is the only overseer of their performance. The money comes from the Assembly’s overall $114-million budget.

Other contractors include Pasadena City Councilman Chris Holden and former Assemblyman Mike Briggs, a Republican from Fresno who broke with his party to cast a critical vote on the budget last year.

Wesson (D-Culver City) defended the contracts. They were obtained through a public records request.

“The speaker is empowered to bring people on to do the things he thinks need to be done,” Wesson said. “I’m big on people that can help me connect with other people.”

All told, Wesson extended several contracts begun by his predecessor, entered into at least two very small contracts and made six new consulting deals of more than $2,300 each.

In addition to Ludlow, Cardenas, Holden and Briggs, Alice Huffman, a former lobbyist for the California Teachers Assn., and Virginia Strom-Martin, a former assemblywoman, made agreements with Wesson to perform consulting work for him and the Assembly. Each of their deals is different, of varying lengths and amounts, ranging from $5,000 a month for Holden and Huffman to $8,470 a month for Ludlow.

‘Budget Dust’

The contracts were issued as the state wrestles to bring its multibillion-dollar budget shortfall under control.

Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at Cal State Sacramento, called the money involved in Wesson’s contracts “budget dust” compared to the state’s overall shortfall, which has been estimated at $35 billion between now and June 30, 2004. Still, Hodson said the contracts would fuel public skepticism about government leaders and decisions.

“People look at it as a symbol and say, ‘That’s why we don’t like government, that’s why we’re not sure there’s a budget deficit, that’s why the Republicans are right and you shouldn’t raise taxes because the money all goes to people like Mike Briggs,’ ” he said.

Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) said giving out the contracts was within Wesson’s prerogative as speaker. But Strickland added: “It’s not the Legislature’s money. It’s the people’s money.”

The speaker described several of the contractors as friends. Most of them are Democrats and all but two have held political office. Many also stand to help him after his Assembly career ends due to term limits next year. Associates of Wesson have said he has expressed interest in replacing Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, his former boss, on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in the event that Burke does not seek reelection.

Wesson refused to describe the work contractors have done for him in great detail, saying: “A lot of what I get from them I would not and should not share.”

But generally, Wesson said, the contractors have arranged symposiums, appeared at functions for him and offered advice.

Chris Holden, for instance, organized a budget briefing with city managers and is arranging a round table on affordable housing and a symposium on youth activism, Wesson said. Holden is the son of Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden, for whom Wesson once worked as chief deputy. Wesson hired Chris Holden in March 2002, shortly after he became speaker of the 80-member Assembly, for a contract that is to expire at the end of June and not exceed $77,500. The pay is $5,000 per month.

Wesson said he and Chris Holden are “very close because of the relationship I have with his father.”

“I wanted to take advantage of Chris’ relationships with cities throughout the state and in some respects throughout the nation,” Wesson added.

Holden could not be reached for comment.

Ludlow, who was on contract until early March, said he was consulting for the speaker’s Los Angeles office, performing many of the same functions he did as Wesson’s deputy chief of staff. He left that post in August.

“I spent numerous hours working on briefings, working with the district director and legislative people,” said Ludlow, who is running for the 10th Council District seat. “Whether it’s day or night, his staff engaged with me on a daily basis.”

Wesson added: “You couldn’t find a better, more energetic person than Martin. He’s one of the best organizers in the state.”

Former Legislators

Wesson hired three ex-lawmakers as consultants, including Briggs, who cast a key vote on last year’s budget.

Wesson employed Briggs as a consultant on agricultural and horse racing issues at $8,250 a month. Briggs’ contract expired April 1 but will be extended indefinitely, said Wesson spokeswoman Patricia Soto. Briggs was not available for comment

When he represented Fresno in the Assembly, Briggs was one of four Republicans to join Democrats in voting for a budget in 2001 and 2002. He left the Assembly to run for Congress but lost in the March 2002 primary.

Wesson said Briggs’ contract has no connection to his budget votes. He called Briggs a friend with useful contacts in the farm and racing industries.

“And he has four children,” Wesson said. Asked what that has to do with Briggs’ consulting work, Wesson said, “I do the best I can to be fair and help people.”

In December, Wesson also hired Cardenas, a former San Fernando Valley Democratic assemblyman, as a consultant at $7,850 a month. Wesson said Cardenas, a former budget committee head, has been advising him on budget and Los Angeles issues. Cardenas was recently elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

Asked what he does to earn the consulting fees, Cardenas said, “I’ve spoken to [Wesson], I’ve spoken to his staff, I’ve met with people in the building…. I’ve been available to him morning, noon and night.

“I don’t necessarily keep track of hours,” Cardenas said. On Tuesday, Wesson extended his contract for another month. Cardenas takes his council seat July 1.

In December, Wesson also hired Strom-Martin, a Democrat who termed out of her North Coast Assembly district last year, for $8,250 a month. Soto said she advised on “matters of education and fisheries.”

Strom-Martin’s contract ended Feb. 5 when Wesson promoted her to a $114,000-a-year job on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Huffman, president of the California National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, runs her own public relations firm and has received $5,000 a month from her Assembly contract since March 2002. She “would be a coup on anybody’s … staff,” Wesson said. Her contract is due to expire in June.

In addition to those people who now work as contractors, Wesson put another former legislator on the Assembly’s permanent, regular payroll. Sally Havice, a Cerritos Democrat ousted from the Assembly by term limits last year, now earns $99,000 a year as a permanent consultant to the Education Committee. Havice’s vote in favor of a bill to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases was key to its passage last year.

*

Times staff writers Peter Y. Hong and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and ‘50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85.

Morgan, who was still working on new books and poems, died Saturday in New York after suffering a series of health problems in recent weeks, said her son, Blake Morgan. Her death came just days after that of her close friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem.

During the 1960s and ’70s, Morgan embodied and inspired historic changes in how women lived and thought. As she was happy to point out, the onetime “Ideal American Girl” and adored “Little Robin Morgan” was a rule breaker and justice seeker with a notable list of achievements, along with a prison record and an FBI file.

Morgan was at the center of the some of the defining moments of what came to be called second-wave feminism, expanding upon the achievements of the suffragists a half-century earlier. In 1968, she was among the organizers of the first protest against the Miss America pageant, joining fellow activists in tossing their bras (soon mythologized as burning) into a “Freedom Trash Can.” The 1970 essay anthology she edited, “Sisterhood is Powerful,” is considered one of the essential texts of the modern women’s movement.

Yet she considered herself primarily a poet and artist, and that work fed into her activism, her son said.

“She was someone who was able to take very big ideas and distill them succinctly, like a poet, into a few words,” said Blake Morgan, pointing to such quotes of hers as “hate generalizes, love specifies.”

Morgan was credited for coining ‘herstory’

Her legacy was one of deeds, words and images. Morgan is widely credited with coining the term “herstory,” the feminist reworking of “history,” and popularizing the clenched fist/female symbol icon of the liberation movement. Her poem “Monster,” with such lines as “I want a women’s revolution like a lover/I lust for it,” was quoted at feminist rallies and beyond. Her poem “Arraignment” helped capture the movement’s embrace of the late Sylvia Plath and condemnation of her husband, poet Ted Hughes, whom Morgan and others blamed for Plath’s suicide in 1963. Morgan’s rhyming couplet “I accuse/Ted Hughes” inspired the title for Sonic Youth’s song “J’Accuse Ted Hughes.”

Labeled an “anarchist housewife” in one government report, Morgan confronted the establishment, left and right. In 1970, she and fellow protesters were arrested and jailed after occupying the offices of the counterculture Grove Press, whose owner, Barney Rosset, was fighting employees’ efforts to unionize. In the widely reprinted 1970 essay “Goodbye to All That,” she called out activists and libertines from Abbie Hoffman and Hugh Hefner to Dave Dellinger and the music group the Fugs.

“Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement, where sweet old Uncle Dave can say with impunity to a woman on the staff of Liberation magazine, The trouble with you is you’re an aggressive woman,” she wrote.

“Goodbye to the idea that Hugh Hefner is groovy ’cause he lets Conspirators come to parties at the Playboy Mansion — goodbye to Hefner’s dream of a ripe old age. Goodbye to Tuli and the Fugs and all the boys in the front room — who always knew they hated the women they loved. Goodbye to the notion that good ol’ Abbie is any different from any other up-and-coming movie star who ditches the first wife and kids, good enough for the old days but awkward once you’re Making It.”

She led an unconventional personal life

In her personal life, Morgan had male and female lovers and was married for more than 20 years to the gay poet Kenneth Pitchford, with whom she had her son, a musician, producer and record company founder. She once described her marriage as a “two member commune” and was so resistant to labels that she remembered being “straight-baited” by feminists who thought she should be a lesbian and chastised by conservatives who assumed she was a lesbian.

In her 2001 memoir “Saturday’s Child,” she expressed joy and amazement at how her life turned out and how she was able to retain “a threadbare, somewhat surreal sense of humor.”

“Put that in your apple pie and smoke it,” she wrote.

She wrote more than 20 books, including a memoir

Besides “Saturday’s Child,” she completed more than 20 books, including “The Word of a Woman: Feminists Dispatches,” and the poetry collections “Monster” and “Dark Matter.” She followed “Sisterhood is Powerful” with “Sisterhood is Global” (in 1984), and “Sisterhood is Forever” (2002), featuring such contributors as Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir and Eve Ensler. For several years, she was editor in chief of Ms. Magazine, which Steinem co-founded.

Steinem would call her an ideal “utility player,” gifted in almost every way a protest movement might require. As an organizer, she helped found such 1960s feminist groups as New York Radical Women and Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.). She was part of the Youth International Party, the left-wing Yippies led by Hoffman and Jerry Rubin among others, but soon became disgusted with how the group treated women and left.

In 1984, she was a founder of an early feminist think tank, the Sisterhood Is Global Institute. In 2005, she, Steinem and Jane Fonda launched the Women’s Media Center, which has a mission to support “the visibility, viability and decision-making power of women and girls in media.”

More recently, she hosted a syndicated radio show and remained active despite being diagnosed 16 years ago with Parkinson’s disease, which inspired several poems and a TEDWomen talk in 2015.

A child star in the ‘40s

In a different era, Morgan might have been just another forgotten child star. Born in 1941 in Lake Worth, Fla., and raised in New York, she never saw her father while growing up and was told — falsely — by her mother that he was dead. Her mother also shaved a year off her age, claiming she was born in 1942, to make her early public career seem even more impressive.

The blond, talented Robin was modeling by age 3, hosted her own “Little Robin Morgan” radio show at age 5 and around the same time was featured on the radio (later television) game show, “Juvenile Jury.” From 1949-57, she appeared on the hit TV domestic comedy series “Mama” and made appearances on “Robert Montgomery Presents,” “Kraft Television Theatre” and other shows.

She would meet some of the era’s biggest stars, from Abbott and Costello to Sal Mineo, and was popular enough to inspire such commercial tie-ins as Robin Morgan dolls. Magazines described her as “unspoiled” and “courteous” and “the ideal girl-next-door,” immune from “violent outbursts of antagonism against established society.”

But off camera, and sometimes on, she was so apart from her image that her first “serious” childhood poem began: “Go, rage, winter the world with despair.” During one broadcast of “Juvenile Jury,” the question was whether a boy deserved to be spanked. Morgan was supposed to joke that he should wear padding under his pants, but instead declared that all physical punishment was wrong.

As she recalled in “Saturday’s Child,” producer Dan Ehrenreich squeezed her shoulder so hard that Morgan could feel his fingernails. He turned her microphone away and eventually placed his hand over her mouth.

“I realized that I loved and respected that child who fought back in what was the first political act I recall ever daring to make,” Morgan wrote.

Her political activity began in her late teens

Once in her late teens, she began taking classes at Columbia University, attended poetry workshops and became politically active. She marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War and met protesters, artists and such poets as W.H. Auden and Anthony Hecht, who she said gave her a man’s-eye view of the creative process: “But, my dear, women should be poems, not write them.”

In 1962, she met Pitchford at a Manhattan party. Once the other guests (“boozy bikers” and “stoned, hallucinating Joffrey dancers”) had left and the host urged others to go with them, Pitchford lighted candles, put Dvorak’s “New World” symphony on the record player and became her “first.” They later walked for hours and ended up on a downtown park bench.

“You have such an air of possibility about you, Robin,” he told her. “It makes me believe anything can happen.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

The Los Angeles federal public defender’s office on Friday joined a renewed effort to oust Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Southern California, accusing the government of “playing shadow games with the most consequential powers a government can wield against its population.”

Citing a recent order from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Jackson, the public defender’s office renewed a motion seeking to disqualify Essayli from participating in or supervising the prosecution of their client, Jaime Ramirez.

The federal appellate court ruled last month that the Department of Justice cannot keep an official who has not been confirmed by the Senate in charge of a U.S. attorney’s office simply by giving that person a different title and the full powers of the job.

In their motion filed Friday, James Anglin Flynn and Ayah A. Sarsour, deputy federal public defenders, accused the government of asking them “to trust that there are some undisclosed limits on Essayli’s authority that render it valid.”

“The buck should stop here, and it should stop now,” they wrote.

The U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

H. Dean Steward, a defense attorney, first kicked off the renewed effort last week, filing a motion asking Senior U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright to reconsider his prior ruling. Steward argued that Essayli should not be allowed to continue leading the office.

Seabright previously disqualified Essayli as acting U.S. attorney in October, finding he was “not lawfully serving” in the top role. But Seabright — who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush — said the court had “no basis to preclude Essayli from performing the lawful duties” of first assistant U.S. attorney, which left the door open for him to remain in charge.

Seabright scheduled a hearing for Oct. 13 on the latest motion. At a Zoom hearing on Aug. 28, Seabright appeared to signal which way he is leaning.

“I’m not sure if the government is just saying my decision was different from Jackson and therefore it stands. I’m not sure that passes muster given how the 9th Circuit ruled in Jackson,” Seabright said. “I think there’s going to have to be more in-depth briefing than the government has given me to date.”

The federal appellate court ruling stemmed from a challenge to the authority of Nevada’s top federal prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, whom the Justice Department had designated “first assistant” U.S. attorney. With no one above her in the office, Chattah has seemingly been calling the shots on federal prosecutions in the state, handling cases referred by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies.

The Justice Department previously said it disagreed with the 9th Circuit’s decision and plans to appeal it to the Supreme Court. The agency did not respond to questions about what effect the ruling could have on Essayli.

The Trump administration has used a similar workaround to keep Essayli running the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. without going through the Senate confirmation process, where he likely would have faced strong opposition from California’s elected representatives.

Essayli, 40, has continued leading the federal prosecutor’s office in the Central District of California as “first assistant” despite a federal judge’s ruling last year that said he was unlawfully serving as the acting U.S. attorney. The Justice Department did not appeal that ruling.

Instead, Essayli’s office has maintained that he can prosecute and supervise cases as first assistant. He also was appointed as a “special attorney” by the Trump administration, a title similarly held by Chattah in Nevada.

“To be sure, First Assistant Essayli may be the highest-ranking DOJ lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and (like many in the office) he supervises others,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander P. Robbins said in a filing last month. “But that cannot make him a “de facto” U.S. Attorney, and he does not purport to exercise “all of the functions of [that] office.”

Flynn and Sarsour pushed back on that claim in their motion, arguing that the government “is asking this Court to accept a theory that the Ninth Circuit rejected, nearly verbatim less than three weeks ago.” The government, they wrote, “appears to be asking this Court to consider and approve a hypothetical delegation to Essayli of some subset of the U.S. Attorney powers.”

“For over a year, this illegal exercise of prosecutorial powers has violated Mr. Ramirez’s constitutional rights and undermined the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in this district,” Flynn and Sarsour wrote. “In line with Jackson, two other Courts of Appeals have now affirmed the common-sense remedy that this illegality should be stopped.”

The deputy federal public defenders said a defense analysis identified invalid service as acting or de facto U.S. Attorneys in at least 16 districts across the country.

A former Republican member of the California state Assembly from Riverside, Essayli has used his position to act as one of Trump’s fiercest legal foot soldiers. He has pursued criminal charges against protesters, activists and immigrants while dropping cases involving administration allies and supporting lawsuits challenging transgender and environmental policies in California.

Essayli was sworn in as interim U.S. attorney in April 2025. Around the time he hit that role’s 120-day limit, he resigned from his interim role and was allowed to continue under his current titles by then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi.

Challenges to Essayli’s position were brought in several criminal cases, with defense lawyers arguing that charges filed under his watch are invalid and should be dismissed. The federal public defender’s office in L.A. had asked the judge to disqualify Essayli from participating in and supervising criminal prosecutions.

Both Russia and Ukraine vow not to strike each other’s capitals for three days during talks in Moscow and Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun talks with United States envoys on ending more than four years of war in Ukraine, ahead of their first visit to Kyiv expected on Sunday.

Putin met Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – respectively President Donald Trump’s special envoy and business ally, and his son-in-law – at the Kremlin on Saturday.

“Dear colleagues, I warmly welcome you to Moscow. The situation is, of course, not simple,” Putin told the envoys in a grand Kremlin hall in footage aired by Russian TV.

Both Russia and Ukraine vowed not to strike each other’s capitals for three days during the negotiations, as Washington tries to revive US-led talks to end Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

Trump earlier said Kushner and Witkoff were bringing “a proposal to end the war”.

In Putin’s address to the two men, he said: “I would like to ask everyone to convey their best wishes and words of gratitude to US President Mr Trump”.

Witkoff said Trump had sent his best wishes to Putin and ⁠thanked him for ⁠the limited ceasefire during the delegation’s visit. Putin said ⁠Russia would do its ⁠utmost to ensure ⁠the safety of the mediators.

‘Refrain from strikes’

The talks come as the grinding war – which began with a Russian invasion in 2022 – has seen increasing civilian deaths and attacks this summer.

Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine.

Russian strikes on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least seven people, including in the Kyiv suburbs, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kremlin said it would not strike Kyiv from midnight on Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would halt strikes on Moscow “from now” until Monday.

“The Russian president, the commander-in-chief, has given the order from midnight tonight not to strike Kyiv for three days,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Zelensky – who had offered a truce during the US visits – later said he had spoken to the US envoys and also promised Kyiv would not strike Moscow.

“From now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow,” Zelensky said on social media.

The Ukrainian leader said he had spoken to the US officials and that he expected them in Kyiv on Sunday.

It will be the first time that Witkoff and Kushner visit Kyiv since Trump returned to office last year with a pledge to resolve the conflict.

BERLIN  — Leaders of an extremist, far-right party in Germany have quietly borrowed pages from President Trump’s playbook to cast doubt on the integrity of absentee voting — alleging without evidence that residents of nursing homes have had their ballots manipulated and calling for an end to postal voting.

The attack on mail ballots comes as Germany approaches a potentially historic state election that could shatter one of the taboos of its postwar political order by opening the door to a far-right government.

Politicians across the ideological spectrum, mindful that polls show Trump to be widely unpopular, don’t invoke his name.

But the specter of the American president nevertheless hangs over the election that could have reverberations across Europe if the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party — tacitly echoing Trump’s attacks on migrants, the media and the integrity of elections — pulls off an unprecedented political shock in postwar Germany.

In a country where the guilt of its Nazi past is never far from the surface, the AfD has unapologetically campaigned against what it portrays as the shackles of Germany’s history and won over many new supporters, in part by adopting Trump’s hard-line stance on migrants and his drumbeat of attacks on mainstream news outlets.

The AfD leader, Tino Chrupalla, surprised Germans recently with warnings of voter fraud in the Sunday election in Saxony-Anhalt state, telling a national television audience that some senior citizens in nursing homes had had their absentee ballots cast and signed for them without their knowledge.

This week, in neighboring Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, the AfD candidate for governor, Leif-Erik Holm, declared, “Postal voting is more vulnerable to potential attempts of manipulation.”

Election officials and organizations representing nursing home caregivers have rejected the allegations and say there is no evidence of voter fraud.

The AfD, considered one of the most extreme far-right parties in Europe, has surged so far ahead in opinion polls that it could emerge as the dominant political force in Saxony-Anhalt and potentially lead a German state government for the first time, either with an absolute majority or with a junior coalition partner.

Trump has spent years attacking mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud, despite scant evidence of widespread abuse. Trump himself has voted by mail in recent elections. His administration continues to fight court battles to limit voting by mail.

“Sowing distrust in political institutions is part of the strategy of right-wing populist parties,” said Marcel Lewandowsky, a political scientist at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany.

“The ‘rigged election’ lie is a powerful narrative within the MAGA movement,” he added, “and serves as a crucial element that fosters a shared identity” with far-right parties in Europe. (Such messaging has also been employed by many rightist politicians in Latin America.)

An AfD victory in one of Germany’s 16 federal states would in one fell swoop obliterate a central tenet of the postwar order: that the far right must never return to power in the country responsible for the Holocaust and the devastation of Europe in World War II.

Many fear that taking power there could serve as a springboard for the ostracized party at the national level, where it is leading opinion polls with about 29% support, putting it far ahead of the other four parties with seats in the federal Parliament.

“Trumpism and the MAGA movement have undoubtedly been an inspiration and model for many European radical right parties,” said Lars Rensmann, a political scientist at the University of Passau who has studied the far right. “In many ways, Trump has been the successful model many European radical right parties try to follow while adopting it to European conditions.”

The AfD’s ascent has parallels across Europe, from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party to Britain’s Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Herbert Kickl in Austria. In France, the far-right Rassemblement National is looking to the 2027 presidential race with its candidate, Marine Le Pen, having perhaps her strongest chance yet of winning after reaching the runoff in 2017 and 2022.

Meloni`s relationship with Trump has cooled during her nearly four years in power, due in part to the war in Iran, tariffs and security policies that have strained U.S. relations with Italy and all of Europe.

President Trump greets Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a summit Egypt in 2025. Their once warm relationship has since cooled.

(Evan Vucci / Pool via Associated Press)

Yet there is no pan-European alliance of the far right, in part because these parties champion their own national interests.

“Some components of Trumpism can be shared and exported, such as hostility towards migration and ‘wokeism,’ but it is very clear that national interests that the far-right champion cannot be defended the same way as the American national interests,” said Giovanni Orsina, head of the political science department at LUISS University in Rome.

“If you put your nation first and do so aggressively, you have diverging national interests and so it’s not possible to have an international network of nationalists,” Orsina added.

But many far-right leaders are united in one sense. They admire not just Trump’s tactics, but the “boldness of his transgressions, dismantling liberal and civil norms by repeating things that were once deemed unacceptable for someone seeking public office,” said Rensmann.

“Trump is unpopular in Germany, even across the political right,” Lewandowsky said. “It would be risky for the AfD to embrace him openly, especially because he failed to keep his promise not to start any further wars and large segments of the public feel threatened by the United States under Trump.”

The AfD was created in 2013 as a small anti-euro party before morphing into an anti-migrant force that tapped into voter frustration over immigration and the strains many Germans perceive on housing, jobs and public services.

Despite being ostracized by mainstream parties and kept out of coalition cooperation, it has survived and thrived as a disruptive force.

In the last decade Germany has sheltered millions of refugees, mainly from Syria and other troubled countries in the Middle East. It provides housing, medical care and generous financial support to refugees that AfD politicians say serve as a magnet. Trump once accused former German Chancellor Angela Merkel of “ruining” her country by allowing in so many refugees.

“I think this could be a watershed moment for Europe,” Orsina said of the upcoming election.

An election poster touts the far-right Alternative for Germany party, AfD, right, in Berlin in 2025. It reads “Now AfD.”

(Michael Sohn / Associated Press)

He said the election in 2022 of Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party, which traces its origins to Italy’s postwar neo-fascist movement, sparked fears across Europe that, in hindsight, may have been exaggerated. But Germany is a different story when it comes to the far right.

“Some said she is a neo-fascist and a danger to democracy, but most people in Italy didn’t believe that,” he said. “Italy isn’t a better democracy after four years of Meloni but it isn’t any worse either. But Germany isn’t Italy. And Germany’s relationship with its past is a lot different.”

David Bebnowski, an author who has written books on far-right populism and who is a history instructor at the Free University in Berlin, said there is another important connection among far-right voters across Europe that the AfD is tapping into — a yearning for change in countries where establishment parties have struggled to respond to voter frustration.

Trump’s success as a force for disruption, he said, has provided a powerful example.

“You can’t really trace a grand MAGA strategy adopted by the far right, but you can see that they are, in part, very much in line with the ‘spirit of Trumpism,’” Bebnowski said. “What aligns them is a sense of disruption and optimism that they will be able to change the way politics are done in a way the other parties can’t.”

Kirschbaum is a special correspondent.

Thousands of low-income patients, some seriously ill, are scrambling to find new doctors as they lose access to UCLA Health physicians after a longtime Medi-Cal contract was not renewed.

Under the contract that expired June 30, UCLA had been providing specialty care to 9,000 medically frail patients from Health Care LA, an association of nonprofit clinics that serve patients covered by Medi-Cal, the state program for the poor.

“Many of these patients have been waiting for months to be seen by UCLA specialty medicine providers and are now being told they cannot receive the care they desperately need,” Health Care LA said in a Thursday news release.

The patients had gone to UCLA for cancer and infectious-disease treatments, high-risk women’s services, major organ transplants and other specialty medicine care, the association said.

A Friday news conference that Health Care LA had scheduled to detail the problems patients faced in getting care was abruptly canceled when the two sides said they had reached a tentative agreement on how to transition the patients to other doctors over the next year.

“To help ensure a smooth transition for patients, both organizations have agreed that established UCLA Health patients, individuals with existing appointments, and patients requiring other agreed-upon services will continue to be cared for at UCLA Health facilities,” Phil Hampton, a university spokesman, said in a statement.

Although some patients will continue to be seen by UCLA doctors, he said, “accepting an unlimited number of new referrals presents challenges given existing capacity constraints and the need to preserve timely access for existing patients.”

Sabra Matovsky, chief executive of Health Care LA, said in an interview on Thursday that UCLA had declined to renegotiate the contract.

“They never even asked us for a raise,” she said, “They just want us out.”

She said that university officials had pointed to “capacity issues” at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, including in the emergency room and dozens of specialty clinics.

“To solve this by pushing out Medi-Cal patients while you continue to expand and market and take on other patients is not a solution,” Matovsky said.

Hampton said UCLA had offered to extend the contract, but Health Care LA rejected the offer.

The end of the Medi-Cal contract disappointed some UCLA medical professionals who have been urging the public university to provide care to more of L.A. County’s low-income residents.

“It feels like this is profits over patients,” said Dr. Patrick Samones, a fellow at UCLA Health, who trained at the university in family medicine.

“UCLA is one of L.A.’s most important healthcare institutions,” said Samones, who represents members of the Committee of Interns and Residents, which is part of Service Employees International Union. “We feel it has a duty to serve all Californians.”

In recent years, UCLA Health has been expanding fast and now has almost 300 locations throughout Southern California, including in wealthier places such as Montecito, Malibu and Westlake Village.

At the same time, it provides less care to Medi-Cal patients than its sister university health systems: UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco and UC Davis, according to university statistics.

Last year, about 15% of UCLA Health’s net patient service revenue came from Medi-Cal, according to the university health systems’ annual report. The four other UC health systems each received about 22% of that revenue from Medi-Cal.

About 40% of L.A. County residents are insured by Medi-Cal, according to a recent report by the California Health Care Foundation.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data from the annual report doesn’t capture UCLA’s “extensive contributions to caring for Medi-Cal patients” and isn’t “a fair basis for comparing academic health systems.”

He added that with the university’s expansion of clinics, “we are providing substantial specialty care to Medi-Cal and Medicare patients” throughout L.A. County.

“Unlike county-owned hospitals, UCLA Health relies almost exclusively on patient care revenue to fund operations, expand access, recruit clinicians and invest in facilities and technology,” he said.

Hampton said UCLA has other contracts to serve Medi-Cal patients, which will continue. The health system also provides more than $270 million in unreimbursed care for low-income patients each year, he said, as well as primary and urgent care for people experiencing homelessness.

In addition, UCLA is spending $500 million to create a new neuropsychiatric hospital in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, he said.

“We continue to fortify our region’s safety net despite growing access demands and challenges,” Hampton said.

In the most recent fiscal year, he said, Medi-Cal patients comprised 26% of 336,600 inpatient days and 34% of 156,000 emergency department visits.

“UCLA Health’s long-standing commitment to serving vulnerable populations in Southern California is well-established,” he said.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data doesn’t reflect the complexity of care delivered by UCLA and is affected by Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and payment policies, which vary by region and health plan.

“Over time, Medi-Cal reimbursement has not kept pace with the cost of providing care, and UCLA Health has experienced increasing payment denials and delays,” he said.

UCLA specialists had been caring for Health Care LA’s seriously ill patients under the contract since 2009.

“They were the provider that did all the complicated care,” Matovsky said. “UCLA was our go-to.”

The Victorians’ love of seaside resorts inspired a developer to try and build a ‘mega resort’ for the rich and powerful of the time, but many of the plans for this seaside town never came to fruition

Victorians loved the seaside. Time at the beach was the perfect antidote to the dirty, smoggy cities that were rapidly expanding, and the sea air was touted as a cure for everything from respiratory problems to exhaustion.

Another thing that was expanding at the time was Britain’s railway lines, and entrepreneurs were quick to build seaside resorts to accommodate Victorians’ love of beaches. One such visionary was Sir Robert Perks, a politician who looked at a stretch of Kent coast and decided it would make an incredible resort for the wealthiest in society at the time.

The spot was given the name Littlestone-on-Sea, named after a nearby headland called Little Stone, and initially it comprised of a home for Robert, accommodation called the Grand Hotel, a church, and some terraced houses. However, the Grand Hotel didn’t turn out nearly as grand as planned, and it was just the first project that didn’t quite live up to the vision.

Robert teamed up with a surveyor named Henry Tubbs to launch Littlestone Golf Course in 1888, which is still open to this day, and at one end there’s a distinctive local building the Littlestone water tower, which was supposed to supply fresh water to the golf course and the impressive seaside town that was envisioned.

Unfortunately, the water from the 120ft tall tower was too salty to use, and over time it was abandoned. However, in the Second World War, the structure found a new purpose. It became a lookout post that protected Kent’s shores, and the addition of platforms meant guards could keep lookout from many levels. Nowadays, it has been turned into a unique home.

Other plans for Littlestone included a large housing development, a lively promenade, and a favourite of Victorians – a pier. However, parts of the design for the pier were eventually used in Eastbourne, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.

Nowadays, Littlestone is far from the bustling resort that was imagined by the Victorian entrepeneurs, but it certainly has its own charm. Its vast shingle beach is lined with colourful beach huts, and the long flat promenade is popular for families and dog walkers.

From the shore you can spot the Mulberry Harbour Phoenix Caisson, a temporary breakwater that was built during the D-Day Normandy landings in World War 2. Few of these structures remain, making it a popular site for those interested in military history.

The town itself has a handful of shops, cafés, and restaurants. There’s a small selection of seaside hotels, as well as a caravan park that’s much loved by families looking for a peaceful break at the seaside.

So, while Littlestone may not have become a playground for the rich, it developed its own character over time and is still much-loved by visitors who want a more low-key seaside experience.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

WASHINGTON — The widow of an airman killed on a combat mission in the Middle East said it took a viral social media post to get resolution from the Pentagon on issues related to her husband’s benefits and basic pay months after his death.

Maj. Alex Klinner, 33, was one of six crew members of a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq in March while supporting operations against Iran. He’s one of 18 U.S. service members killed, along with 790 wounded, since the war began more than six months ago.

The Air Force reached out to his widow, Libby Klinner, this week to clarify that his final paycheck would include hazard pay and combat-related tax breaks. This occurred after she voiced frustration on social media at being told by a military officer assigned to support her after her husband’s death that he was ineligible for those benefits because “we were not at war.”

“My husband lost his life because we’re in a war, and then I was told that because it’s not technically a war, we lose out on something,” Klinner told the Associated Press. “It all comes down to principle.”

Trump administration is rejecting the ‘war’ label for current Iran operations

Her post, made over the weekend, gained national attention. Vice President JD Vance promised to look into her case after being asked about it during a White House briefing on Thursday.

“We want to be as helpful as we can and ensure she gets everything that she is entitled to,” Vance said. “My message to her would be, ‘We love ya, we’re grateful for the sacrifice and we very much take very seriously our commitment to get you what you need to get.’”

In response to a separate question, Vance rejected the use of the word “war” to characterize U.S. fighting in Iran, saying that “there is no active shooting.” The military has launched strikes against targets in Iran twice this week, and Iran has retaliated by firing on U.S. allies in the Gulf.

On Friday, President Trump called U.S. strikes “intermittent” and defended Vance’s comments.

“I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

In late July, the Trump administration created a new, separate category in the Pentagon’s casualty count system for those killed and wounded in renewed U.S.-Iran fighting. Pentagon officials said the change was necessary because “Operation Epic Fury,” the original name for combat operations against Tehran, had ended. Since July 7, all U.S. casualties in the Middle East have been tallied under “Overseas Operations.”

Widow says the Air Force has clarified the issues about her husband’s pay

Libby Klinner said Air Force officials contacted her this week to say they were initiating a review of her husband’s pay. The Air Force acknowledged to her Thursday that it had initially provided inaccurate information and clarified that she was receiving the full pay and benefits her husband was owed, she said.

She said she was told that her husband’s paycheck had already included but incorrectly itemized the combat-related hazard pay and tax breaks.

The pay incentives commonly known as “combat pay” are $225 per month and are conditioned not on a formal war declaration, but on the service member being in an area where there is “grave danger of physical injury” or of being “killed, injured, or wounded by a hostile fire event,” according to a military website.

Alex Klinner’s final paycheck would have included half that amount since troops are paid twice per month. It is difficult to calculate how much in federal tax breaks Klinner would have been receiving without more information.

Klinner declined to specify the amount of money she was initially told her husband, an eight-year Air Force veteran from Birmingham, Ala., would be ineligible to receive.

The Air Force says it’s committed to offering information and support

The Air Force said officials spoke with Klinner this week to “ensure all her questions are fully addressed” and confirmed that “all eligible combat theater benefits were included” in her husband’s pay.

“We remain committed to providing clear information and continued support to Mrs. Klinner, as well as all the families of the Airmen who died in the KC-135 crash,” the Air Force added.

Broadly, errors in pay in the military are very common because service members can often gain or lose eligibility for a variety of payments depending on their deployment status, duty location or even family factors. As a result, unlike their civilian counterparts, some troops can see their paychecks change many times a year, depending on many factors — something that also increases the likelihood of errors.

A GoFundMe for Libby Klinner and her three young children, launched in the days after her husband’s death, has raised more than $1.5 million.

Klinner said she hoped that by speaking out, she could ensure other grieving families receive clear information from the outset.

“I am very fortunate to have a significant support system around us and a platform to advocate for myself and for my kids. Other families may not have those resources,” she said. “If I can do anything to make this awful situation a little bit easier for someone else to navigate, then I am more than willing to do so.”

Brook and Toropin write for the Associated Press. Brook reported from New Orleans.

A federal judge again Friday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enacting President Trump’s sweeping new mail ballot rules for the November election, finding that the Postal Service lacks such authority over elections and that neither it nor states such as California are capable of implementing the changes without causing chaos and disenfranchising voters.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani noted that election officials from across the country told the court that it is “likely impossible” to comply with the rules, which “makes disenfranchisement more than likely, if not probable” if the Postal Service were to proceed with them.

Talwani’s order — her latest of several halting the plan since this summer — came after a Postal Service whistleblower alleged the agency’s new computer systems for the project are fundamentally flawed; a top Postal Service official acknowledged a key online portal was unfinished; and the Trump administration filed an emergency petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the plans to proceed anyway.

All this unfolded this week as some of the first mail ballots of the election cycle started going out.

The new rules — which Trump required in a March executive order — would require states to submit complete voter lists to the Postal Service and to adopt new ballot envelopes with individualized voter bar codes designed by the Postal Service, and empower the Postal Service to reject any mail ballots that don’t match those lists.

Trump’s executive order also required the Department of Homeland Security to develop its own lists of eligible citizen voters, ostensibly to be compared against the state lists.

Trump has said the changes are necessary to combat widespread voter fraud, including by non-citizens, though independent election experts say there is no evidence that such fraud exists in large numbers.

Leading Democrats and elections officials in California and other states say the new rules constitute an unlawful federal overreach into state-run elections and a thinly veiled effort by the Trump administration to suppress the vote in a midterm election the GOP is poised to lose.

Talwani, an appointee of President Obama, agreed, finding that the states and voting rights groups are likely to succeed in their claims that the U.S. Constitution reserves the right to regulate elections to the states and Congress — not the executive branch.

Talwani issued her order after holding a contentious hearing in federal court in Boston on Thursday, where she questioned the Postal Service and the dozen conservative-led states supporting it on their ability to implement the changes in time for the Nov. 3 elections. She also heard from California, other liberal-led states and voting rights groups that it would be impossible.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is helping lead the states’ challenge, hailed Talwani’s order as a crucial reprieve.

“We’ve now secured longer-term relief that will keep the USPS changes blocked while our case moves forward,” Bonta said in a statement to The Times. “We will continue to take all steps to stop the Trump Administration from trampling on voting rights and restricting mail voting.”

Bonta’s office also criticized Department of Justice attorneys for rushing to the Supreme Court before Talwani could issue her order or the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals could weigh in on an appeal the department had already filed on the matter.

Walter Garcia, a Bonta spokesman, said the Justice Department had “flouted standard procedural rules” by approaching the high court before the lower courts had weighed in, despite the fact that the Postal Service acknowledged Thursday that it was not ready to launch its new portal.

“It defies common sense that they would seek emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court when USPS is unprepared to implement the rule now,” Garcia said.

State law requires that all registered voters be sent a ballot in the mail, and more than 80% of California voters have used those ballots to vote in recent elections.

In its emergency petition to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argued that an earlier temporary restraining order by Talwani to halt the new rules from taking effect was “baseless” and would cause “serious irreparable harm” to the federal government, states and voting public.

“To forestall those harms and protect the public interest, this Court should grant an immediate stay, making clear to States that they should begin efforts to comply if they have not done so already,” wrote Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer.

The swirl of litigation has created uncertainty around the Nov. 3 election. It also reflects the Trump administration’s desperate race to get the lower court orders lifted and the new rules implemented in time for that election — the rushed nature of which was a prime focus of the whistleblower.

The unidentified Postal Service employee alleged in a statement released Tuesday by congressional Democrats and submitted in court by Bonta’s office that the agency has been rushing to implement the changes — in defiance of an earlier court order — using “an entirely new and untested set of IT systems” that could cause “catastrophic problems” and disenfranchise millions of voters nationwide.

The Postal Service in a statement Friday said that while its system was developed on an “accelerated schedule,” quality and security standards “were not compromised,” and the agency stands behind “both the rigor of our process and the resulting system.”

At Thursday’s hearing, Talwani appeared frustrated when a Justice Department attorney was unable to tell her the status of the portal.

In a subsequent declaration hours later, Steven W. Monteith, the Postal Service’s chief customer and marketing officer, said officials were still making “refinements” to the portal, but anticipated being able to make it available “for voluntary use by sometime next week.”

Talwani previously issued an order blocking the Postal Service changes from being implemented in California and more than 20 other suing states in June. The Trump administration appealed that decision to the 1st Circuit, which declined to lift it, and then on an emergency basis to the U.S. Supreme Court. In early August, Talwani issued a second ruling for the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, blocking the changes nationwide.

On Aug. 24, the Supreme Court set aside Talwani’s order in the states’ case, finding that the states’ challenge was essentially premature because the Postal Service had yet to formally initiate the changes or require state compliance. However, the court explicitly noted that it was not reaching any conclusions as to the legality of the pending rules themselves. “On that score, time will tell,” it said.

The states and voting rights groups promptly filed new lawsuits challenging the legality of the rules, which the Postal Service formally issued Aug. 21. And it is in those cases that Talwani issued her ruling Friday.

She wrote that the voting rights groups had standing to challenge the Postal Service rules nationwide in part because the “chaos” created by the rules’ stiff deadlines significantly interfered with their mission to provide voters with accurate and reliable information about how to vote — and whether to use mail ballots to do so.

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said in remarks prior to Talwani’s Friday order that he was “very, very confident” that the Postal Service changes will be blocked for the upcoming elections, and that “mail voting is going to go forward as conveniently and securely as it always has.”

That’s in part because election officials nationwide are “telling the courts that even if they wanted to, they could not implement it,” he said — including in a legal filing Becker helped nearly 100 local elections officials from red and blue states file in separate litigation challenging the rules.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday signed two executive orders aimed at strengthening the country’s ranching industry.

Trump has been facing criticism from beef producers since he waived tariffs on up to 300,000 metric tons of imported beef in an effort to ease rising costs as the nation heads into the midterm elections.

Trump’s first executive order directs the Interior Department to study removing gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act list, allowing ranchers to kill them on their properties. Gray wolves are a major threat to herds in the West.

The second executive order would allow ranchers to process their beef and sell directly to consumers, instead of going through USDA inspections.

“People have been asking for this change for decades, and we’re getting it done,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “This is the largest-ever government effort to change all federal rules and regulations necessary to support our ranchers and our farmers.”

Beef prices have risen this year due to drought and high feeding costs. The United States currently maintains the smallest herd since the 1950s.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said it was “disappointed” by Trump allowing more foreign beef to flow into an industry already under severe stress.

“While America’s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd,” the association previously said in a statement.

“Cattle markets have already turned sharply lower this morning, to the detriment of farmers and ranchers.”

Lawrence F. O’Brien, who while serving as Democratic National Committee chairman was the target of the Watergate break-in that spelled the downfall of then-President Richard M. Nixon, has died in New York City. He was 73.

O’Brien, who also was a key strategist for four presidential election campaigns, a former U.S. postmaster general and a commissioner of the National Basketball Assn., died Thursday night of cancer in New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

His office was the scene of the June 17, 1972, bungled break-in that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation and the imprisonment of several of his aides. O’Brien believed that the Republican Party, seeking Nixon’s reelection against Democratic contender George McGovern, authorized the burglary in search of information to discredit him and the Democrats.

Nixon’s White House papers released by the National Archives in 1987 revealed that in 1974, Nixon had asked the Internal Revenue Service to search for embarrassing information in the income tax files of McGovern and O’Brien. The IRS refused.

O’Brien called the break-in “an incredible act of political espionage” and urged citizens to reject the claim that the incident and other “tricks” ordered by Nixon were “politics as usual.”

O’Brien also expressed concerns that the Watergate scandal would turn the public against the political process. In 1974, he discussed the implications of Watergate in his critically acclaimed memoir, “No Final Victories: A Life in Politics from John F. Kennedy to Watergate.”

“I’ve been a politician for most of my life and I’ve never dreamed of bugging an opponent’s telephone or breaking into his office,” O’Brien wrote. “If a generation of Americans becomes convinced that burglary and wiretapping are ‘politics as usual,’ then there’s not much hope for our political system.”

Born July 7, 1917, in Springfield, Mass., O’Brien was brought up on politics by his Irish immigrant father. After Army service in World War II and completing night law school at Boston’s Northeastern University, O’Brien worked for Massachusetts Rep. Foster Furcolo, and then, in 1952, took over John F. Kennedy’s campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Lauded for his pragmatic ability to organize and compromise, O’Brien was put in charge of Kennedy’s successful 1960 presidential campaign and later headed the ill-fated campaign by the President’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy. O’Brien was with both Kennedys when they were slain.

“I remember standing in the hospital with Ken O’Donnell (another member of President Kennedy’s so-called ‘Kennedy Mafia’) for a half-hour, refusing to tell the world he was dead–because we couldn’t accept it,” O’Brien told the Los Angeles Times 20 years after the Dallas assassination of John F. Kennedy.

“But then, years later, I was with Bobby in Los Angeles when he, too, was shot,” O’Brien added. “My reaction was: ‘That’s it.’ At that moment, I became a fatalist.”

After President Kennedy was assassinated, O’Brien worked for Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and ran Johnson’s successful 1964 presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater.

Johnson named him postmaster general and, in that position, O’Brien prepared a report that moved the postal department from Cabinet status to a semi-public corporation.

After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, O’Brien headed the presidential campaign of Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, who lost to Nixon.

O’Brien served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1970 to 1972, when the party was in shambles because of anti-Vietnam debates. He left politics after McGovern was defeated by Nixon.

O’Brien became commissioner of the NBA in 1975 and served until 1984. He was credited with settling the so-called “Oscar Robertson suit” in 1976, providing free agency in the league, and with supervising a smooth merger between the NBA and the rival American Basketball Assn.

He also avoided a 1983 players’ strike by negotiating a landmark collective bargaining agreement for professional sports. The agreement, which stabilized the troubled league, provided an innovative cap on how much money teams could spend on salaries and benefits in return for giving players 53% of the league’s gross revenues.

Larry Fleisher, head of the Players Assn. and one of O’Brien’s chief adversaries, said O’Brien left the sport of basketball “better off by far” than he had found it.

O’Brien is survived by his wife, Elva Brassard O’Brien; a son, Lawrence F. O’Brien III; a sister, and two grandsons.

Funeral services are planned for Tuesday in Springfield, Mass.

RELATED STORY, C5

The Federal Communications Commission has asked a judge to toss out ABC’s 1st Amendment lawsuit, arguing that parent company Walt Disney Co. is wrongly attempting to short-circuit the agency’s review into whether the broadcaster has violated the law.

The commission, in court documents, maintains ABC’s lawsuit was premature because regulators simply were in the process of reviewing whether ABC has served the public interest in operating its eight television stations. No final determination has been reached, the FCC argued.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr made the rare move last spring to call for an early review of ABC’s licenses as part of his yearlong look at whether Disney’s diversity and inclusion programs violate anti-discrimination laws.

The Disney-owned station licenses were not set to expire for several years. For example, the license for KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles extends to 2030.

But the FCC launched the probe a day after President Trump complained about ABC late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel over a joke that upset First Lady Melania Trump.

ABC has taken an aggressive stance, arguing the FCC is wielding its enforcement powers to punish the network after Trump repeatedly agitated to have ABC’s licenses revoked. ABC maintains the FCC’s enforcement action is an attempt to quell the network’s free speech, in violation of the 1st Amendment. It asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunction to halt the FCC’s early station review.

ABC also is fighting an FCC review into whether its daytime talk show, “The View,” should be entitled to an exemption from the so-called equal-time rule for political candidates who appear as guests.

Disney’s lawsuit has enormous 1st Amendment implications.

ABC is the first major broadcaster to challenge the FCC’s enforcement actions since Trump returned to power, joining a small handful of news organizations, including the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, that have pushed back against the president’s efforts to bully outlets he dislikes.

In late December, Trump wrote on social media: “If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows are almost 100% negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say YES!”

ABC, which did not comment Friday, argued the FCC’s review is “extraordinarily early” and “that timing underscores the Commission’s true purpose: coercing and retaliating against a network that refuses to bow to the Administration’s demands.”

The FCC has scoffed at the broadcaster’s arguments.

“Disney filed a meritless lawsuit in an effort to stop the FCC’s ongoing investigation into allegations that Disney violated the law,” an FCC spokesperson said in a statement. “The FCC has developed a voluminous record, and it will continue to follow the facts and the law wherever they lead.”

The government filed its motion Thursday in Washington. The 46-page document was filed by U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro and signed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Dimitar P. Georgiev on behalf of the FCC.

Disney was “not content to let the Commission’s ordinary investigative processes (and, if needed, ordinary processes of judicial review) run their course. They instead ask this Court to halt the license renewal proceeding in its tracks by issuing a preliminary injunction,” the FCC said.

U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan has scheduled an Oct. 6 hearing.

Disney has argued the FCC has gone well beyond an examination of its internal hiring practices — the original purpose of the agency’s review.

But, in its motion, the FCC faulted Disney’s handling of the matter, saying “Disney’s responses to Commission information requests were deficient and nonresponsive,” prompting the agency to escalate the dispute.

In late April, Carr directed the FCC Media Bureau to force ABC to apply for renewal of their licenses early.

“The Commission’s Chairman has repeatedly emphasized that, although the allegations against Disney are serious, he and the agency remain ‘open-minded,’ have ‘not made a decision,’ and are ‘going to follow the facts and the law wherever they [lead],’ ” according to the motion.

The FCC also argued Disney picked the wrong court because Congress stipulated that any review of commission orders should be heard by an appeals court.

If ABC lost its licenses, it would hobble the network by forcing its largest stations off the air. Other ABC stations at risk include those in San Francisco, Fresno, Houston, Philadelphia and New York.

KABC-TV Channel 7 is owned by Disney in Glendale.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Trump on Sunday called for the FCC to “rebuke or punish” NBC’s “Meet the Press” anchor Kristen Welker after she pointed out that the president has had mixed success in endorsing political candidates in this election season.

The FCC also has an open investigation against NBC owner Comcast, also looking at the Philadelphia company’s diversity and hiring practices. The FCC has not ruled out calling NBC-owned station licenses in for an early review as well.

Sept. 4, 2026 1:04 PM PT

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle, a civilian leader in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as the acting Army secretary following the departure of Dan Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works. But he spent more than 20 years working for Republican senators as well as in the White House during Trump’s first term, serving as the president’s chief liaison to the Senate, according to an Army bio.

“He is a Great Patriot, who is respected by all,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Hegseth echoed that in his own post on X.

“Huge congrats to Adam. Strong and whip smart,” Hegseth wrote. “He is indeed a great Patriot — and will be an immediate asset to the @USArmy.”

Driscoll gave no explanation for his decision to quit this week as the Army’s top civilian official. His clashes with Hegseth have been widely reported, and some of Driscoll’s allies in the Army were ousted this year by Trump’s Pentagon chief.

Telle has been at the Army Office of Civil Works since August 2025, according to Legistorm, a website that tracks lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers. Before that, Telle worked as chief of staff for Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee from 2021-25.

Telle spent 18 months working in the White House during Trump’s first term and 10 years working for the late Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, according to Legistorm.

Telle also worked as the chief staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee, according to Hagerty’s remarks when Telle was nominated for the civil works job in May 2025.

In his most recent job, Telle focused on matters involving commercial navigation, flood damage reduction and permitting under the Clean Water Act. Telle issued a statement in August about the approval of a company’s plans to reroute an aging oil pipeline around a Wisconsin tribal reservation. In May, he was quoted in a story in the Forum, a newspaper in Fargo, N.D., about a $3.2-billion flood control project that will protect more than 200,000 people.

Telle will now be overseeing the nation’s largest fighting force at a time when the U.S. is still engaged in conflict with Iran and significant Army forces are stationed in the Middle East.

The war has significantly contributed to the U.S. military’s shortfall in critical weapons like the Patriot and THAAD defense missile interceptors systems, which are operated by the Army.

Driscoll, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, is a friend of Vice President JD Vance and had good relationships with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

His allies in the Army who were ousted by Hegseth included its top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George. Gen. Christopher LaNeve took over as the Army’s acting chief of staff and recently pulled the plug on a drone modernization program that Driscoll had championed.

Driscoll spoke with Trump on the current state of the Army before he submitted his resignation, the Associated Press has reported.

Driscoll did not allude to any problems in the only public statement on his departure, saying Tuesday that it has been “the honor of a lifetime” to serve as Army secretary under Trump and Hegseth.

Democrats and Republicans lamented Driscoll’s departure, with some blaming Hegseth directly.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is retiring and sometimes has clashed with Trump, said on social media that Hegseth “is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”

Cooper and Finley write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance rejected the use of the word “war” to describe the U.S. fighting with Iran as he steered clear of predicting that the six-month-old conflict would be over by November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in Congress.

“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance said Thursday after being asked during a White House press briefing about whether the fighting could end before voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 congressional elections. “Right now, there is no active shooting.”

Vance’s assertion came even as Iran fired at U.S. Gulf ally Kuwait on Thursday as it continued to retaliate for rounds of U.S. strikes on Iran earlier in the week.

The vice president said the U.S. had a “responsibility” to carry out this week’s strikes because Iran continued to target commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Vance’s attempt to minimize the intensity of the fighting illuminates the difficult task at hand for Trump and his administration as he tries to persuade American voters to keep Republicans in control of Congress, even as the unpopular conflict — one the White House said at its outset would last a matter of weeks — has driven up gas prices and left consumers grappling with higher inflation.

Vance said he didn’t want to set “artificial timelines.”

“But when you ask, ‘When will this end?’ You’re asking me a question like, ‘When will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?’” Vance said. “I think the reality is, I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.”

The administration in July faced scrutiny after it reclassified four fallen soldiers as well as dozens of wounded troops in its Defense Casualty Analysis System, which Pentagon officials have repeatedly pointed to as the definitive source on the numbers of dead and wounded from the conflict. Those killed or wounded in fighting after a brief ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran fell apart were classified in a new category called “Overseas Operations” after initially being tallied in the totals from the war.

White House insists more oil is getting out of Gulf, but prices remain high

Brent crude prices hovered above $95 per barrel Thursday. The international benchmark was around $72 per barrel the day before the conflict began.

Still, Trump and his aides have sought to push that the U.S. Navy is in control of the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20% of the world’s traded oil passed before the war. They insist a near prewar level of Gulf oil is now making its way out of the critical waterway.

Vance at Thursday’s press briefing said the U.S. escorted about 15 million barrels of oil on Wednesday. This was after Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Wednesday that 17 million barrels were carried through the strait on Monday with assistance from the U.S. Navy. About 20 million barrels of Gulf oil flowed through the strait prior to the start of the war.

But ship traffic through the strait remains well below prewar levels, according to independent firms that track marine traffic.

There were 102 transits last week and 126 the week before, according to shipping data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence, compared with 130 or more per day before the war.

Over the past 28 days, 5 million barrels a day have exited the strait on average, according to TankerTrackers.com. Other recent estimates have varied from 2 million barrels per day to 6 million barrels per day.

Trump has tried to soothe volatile markets

Over the course of the war, Trump has repeatedly reported progress in negotiations or called off threats of military action at the last moment when global markets have become jittery. And markets have reacted swiftly to his public signals of peace or hints of progress.

“The administration is still jawboning oil markets,” said Rosemary Kelanic, Middle East director at Defense Priorities, of the administration’s claims of dramatically increased flows of oil. “And they appear to be doing it again to keep prices from going too high, so that they can extend the timeline before there’s a worse price spike.”

With Iran’s refusal to back down in the face of the U.S. military campaign, Trump has settled on a dual-prong approach that combines economic pressure with threats of an escalation in force, if necessary.

Trump has consistently emphasized that the campaign launched by the U.S. and Israel has been devastating for Iran’s navy and air force. Iranian officials have said the country has suffered $270 billion in direct and indirect damage. Israeli military strikes in the first weeks of the war wiped out much of the theocratic government’s leadership structure, including its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Still, Iran has found leverage through its own strikes on the strait and Gulf allies of the United States. But the administration has sought to make the case that the waterway will become less important by the day, even as it asserts that more oil is getting through.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Fox Business interview this week that the Strait of Hormuz will become a “worthless piece of water” within two years as new land pipelines planned for the region bypass the energy chokepoint. Trump himself took to social media on Thursday to highlight a news report about Syria’s effort to transform the port of Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast into a westward route to international markets for Gulf exporters.

Meanwhile, Iran and Oman have recently discussed a phased approach to jointly managing ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump settles into holding pattern before midterms, analysts say

The administration maintains it’s making progress economically choking off Iranian hard-liners, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. At the moment, it would be a leap for Trump to agree to any plan that puts Iran in position to claim control of the strait, analysts say.

“I find it hard to believe the president would agree to anything that hands back any modicum of IRGC control over the strait that has been wrested away,” said Richard Goldberg, who served as a senior adviser on Iran policy in Trump’s first administration.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Iran does not appear ready to “let Trump out of the box” despite the massive pain being inflicted on its economy.

At the same time, Miller said, Trump seems to have settled into a holding pattern ahead of the midterms — one in which he avoids both a return to the full-throttle bombardment of Iran and making any accommodations to Tehran on the Strait of Hormuz.

“The White House doesn’t want a massive war, and they don’t want to be seen as offering massive concessions,” Miller said. “The tack they are taking avoids both of those things.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Josh Boak in Washington and David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton was forced to retreat Monday in the face of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole’s angry accusation that the White House had told “a $23-million lie” about a project in his state.

The White House said that Clinton “regrets” any misunderstandings caused by “hyperbole” in a barbed joke the President told that brought the house down Saturday at an annual black-tie dinner hosted by White House correspondents.

Clinton had said that the Republican lawmaker from Kansas was seeking $23 million from the federal government to convert a senior citizens’ center into a boathouse, at the same time that he was assailing Clinton for wasteful “pork barrel” spending.

Dole, who led the Republican battle that scuttled Clinton’s economic stimulus package, first challenged the accuracy of the statement in a television interview show Sunday but he seemed confused about the details. Monday, he flatly denied the claim and issued a belated blast.

“The White House lied,” Dole said, carefully avoiding a direct attack on the President himself. “There’s no $23-million boathouse, no deficit spending, no new money, no connection with the President’s deadbeat ‘stimulus’ bill and no truth coming from a White House staff that is ill-serving the President with these sophomoric attacks.”

Dole said that he had sought a federal waiver to clear the way for privately funded construction of a public boathouse in Wichita.

“If the White House wants to play hardball, I’m ready to suit up,” Dole concluded, sending an ominous signal that the issue could spill over into future relations with Senate Republicans.

George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director, issued a statement late Monday afternoon.

“The President regrets the misunderstanding that may have been caused by any hyperbole in his jokes at Saturday’s White House dinner,” he said.

“While Sen. Dole did make the case that the Wichita boathouse is a legitimate Community Development Block Grant project, the potential cost to the taxpayer is not as high as stated in the President’s joke,” the statement concluded.

While the war of words may be forgotten, the harshly worded statement by Dole signaled that the lack of harmony between the Senate GOP leader and the Clinton White House could affect the future of the President’s programs in Congress.

Dole is in a key position as commander of 43 Republicans and as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the defection from party ranks of a single Democratic senator could block Clinton’s proposed tax increases.

As Dole described the situation, Wichita received $500,000 from the federal government’s Community Development Block Grant program in 1980 to help the city buy a building for use as a senior citizen center.

The center, however, moved to a larger facility in 1992, and the building along the Arkansas River has been standing vacant since then.

Wichita officials, Dole continued, wanted to lease the building to a charitable foundation that intends to use private funds to transform it into a boathouse. To change the use of the building, however, the city was required to seek a waiver from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Dole and Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.), who represents the area in the House, supported the city’s request for a waiver in letters to a HUD regional official. HUD had planned to tear the building down.

The Wichita Eagle Monday quoted an official of the charity, the Arkansas River Foundation, as saying that the boathouse project would cost $850,000 and the funds would come from donations and not the federal government.

“The White House really missed the boat on this one,” Dole said.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — The U.S. Embassy in Havana issued a health alert Friday over a significant increase in diarrheal illnesses across Cuba, linking the rise to the continued deterioration of the island’s water and energy infrastructure.

The embassy said unreliable electricity and water supplies are affecting general hygiene as well as food refrigeration, storage and temperature control, accelerating spoilage.

Recent cases have shown a significant increase in pathogens including E. coli, norovirus and Shigella, as well as other gastrointestinal pathogens that can cause vomiting, fever and severe dehydration.

The embassy advised travelers and U.S. citizens in Cuba to take extra hygiene precautions and exercise caution with dairy products, meat, seafood, eggs and other perishable foods if they are uncertain about how the products were stored.

It also recommended avoiding tap water and considering bringing a personal supply of basic medications, including acetaminophen, ibuprofen, antibiotics and oral rehydration solutions, “given local medication shortages.”

The latest alert follows earlier reports of gastrointestinal illnesses on the island. In July, Periódico Cubano reported an increase in people experiencing vomiting and diarrhea in several parts of Havana as residents complained of water supply problems, garbage accumulation and prolonged power outages.

The health warning came days after the embassy issued a security alert Wednesday over a notable increase in thefts and vehicle-related crimes in Havana.

Incidents included items taken from vehicles, including parts such as side mirrors and windshield wipers, and attempts to steal entire vehicles amid worsening economic conditions and rising crime, Martí Noticias reported.

Sacramento — Year after year, owners of professional sports teams and developers of proposed skyscrapers have pleaded with California lawmakers to grant relief for their projects from the state’s environmental regulations. They’ve found a largely receptive audience.

“It’s a job creator,” Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) told his colleagues while successfully pressing earlier this month for approval of his bill that could speed up an expansion of Facebook’s headquarters and the construction of twin skyscrapers in Hollywood.

The passage of Santiago’s bill highlighted a continually messy debate at the state Capitol concerning which projects deserve breaks from strictly complying with the California Environmental Quality Act, the primary environmental law governing development. The law, known as CEQA, requires developers to disclose and reduce projects’ effects on the environment, often a time-consuming and costly process made longer by lawsuits that can last years.

Legislators have long talked about overhauling CEQA — Gov. Jerry Brown has called doing so “the Lord’s work” — but the rare measures that advance often only provide relief for deep-pocketed developers or have the backing of Sacramento’s most powerful interests.

Earlier this month, GOP Assemblyman Dante Acosta pushed to ease burdens under CEQA for all housing projects amid the state’s affordability crisis. But his effort was rebuffed in a legislative committee.

“A good project is a good project, whether it’s housing for middle-class Californians or a stadium for millionaire athletes and billionaire owners,” said Acosta, who represents Santa Clarita.

Since its enactment in 1970, CEQA has become a touchstone for environmentalists who credit it for preserving California’s coastline and natural beauty. Its rules are written so broadly that the law also has become a tool for neighborhood preservationists, business competitors, unions and others to oppose a wide-range of projects including some, like bike lanes, that might otherwise seem environmentally friendly.

Housing has become a particular flashpoint. In Acosta’s district, developers have proposed the 21,500-home Newhall Ranch project, which has been stymied by environmental lawsuits during the more than two decades it’s been under consideration. On Monday, some environmental groups reached an agreement to end their lawsuits against the project in exchange for $25 million for conservation efforts and other concessions from the developer.

Developers of low-income homes also struggle with litigation filed by neighborhood groups and others that use the law simply to oppose their projects, but not on environmental grounds, said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which represents such developers.

“CEQA is used as a weapon and the environment is lost in the shuffle,” Pearl said.

This year, bills that passed the Legislature had a common theme: the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California, which represents 400,000 construction workers, supported them.

Santiago’s bill updates an existing law allowing any project that costs more than $100 million to build and meets union-level wage and greenhouse gas reduction standards to aim for a final court decision in any CEQA lawsuit within nine months. The Golden State Warriors used this law for the team’s arena now under construction in San Francisco. Facebook has said it plans to use the law to speed up the expansion of its Menlo Park headquarters. So has Millennium Partners, a New York developer that wants to spend $1 billion to build 500 homes and a 200-room hotel and provide office and retail space around the Capitol Records building in Hollywood.

The housing legislation approved at the end of the legislative session also allows some developers to sidestep the environmental law in limited situations. One bill says cities must approve projects that comply with existing zoning rules without forcing developers through additional CEQA reviews. Two other bills provide cities financial incentives to complete environmental reviews of entire neighborhoods so developers won’t have to do them later for their projects. In all three cases, developers will only qualify if they reserve parts of their projects for low-income residents and abide by union-level pay and hiring rules.

Another bill, authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside), would block developers from pursuing local ballot initiatives to get their projects approved, a process that allows them to avoid CEQA entirely. That method allowed the Rams to secure approval for their Inglewood football stadium in just six weeks, something unheard of in California development politics.

Cesar Diaz, the building trades’ legislative director, said labor’s involvement in CEQA policy ensures that the profits from growth are shared more widely.

“When you look at environmental standards and look at creating benefits for the economy, the people who benefit shouldn’t just be the developer,” Diaz said. “It should be those building the project.”

How much the environmental law affects housing production is disputed. A recent report from a law firm that promotes overhauling CEQA contended that litigation from 2013 to 2015 challenged more 10,000 homes in Southern California neighborhoods planned for the most growth. A counter report from environmentalists found few projects were sued when compared with the rate of development.

Still, it’s clear the environmental law matters. Backers of a proposed Inglewood arena for the Clippers put forward a last-minute bill that would have given them CEQA relief beyond what many prior professional sports stadium and arena developers have received from the Legislature. The Clippers legislation would have shortened court-decision timelines and limited a judge’s ability to halt construction during any environmental lawsuit against the project, while offering a full CEQA exemption for a transit link between a light-rail stop and the arena.

The Clippers and opponents of the bill — chiefly the owners of the rival Forum arena in Inglewood — each hired an army of lobbyists. The team argued that if the bill didn’t pass, its competitors could drown the proposed arena in CEQA litigation.

The measure stalled in a legislative committee, leaving its author, state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), deeply frustrated. In a speech on the final night of the legislative session, Bradford argued that his colleagues have decided to prioritize CEQA relief for projects proposed in wealthier communities, not lower-income neighborhoods with predominantly black and Latino residents.

“There is clearly a double standard and this situation is not just wrong, it’s racist,” Bradford said. “The well-to-do areas of this state are given much more help, and economically disadvantaged areas around the state, such as the areas that I represent, do not receive the same support.”

Brown has pledged to sign the three CEQA-related housing bills as part of a larger package of legislation aimed at addressing the state’s housing problems. He has not commented on the Santiago or Medina bills, but has supported prior versions of the Santiago effort. The governor has until Oct. 15 to approve or veto the legislation.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

Twitter: @dillonliam

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The United States economy has added 162,000 jobs in August, with large gains in local government education and food services.

The unemployment rate remained unchanged, according to the monthly jobs report released by the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday.

The data was well above analysts’ expectations. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 56,000 gains, the Wall Street Journal forecast 53,000, and Bloomberg had forecast 55,000, following a loss of 23,000 in July.

Local government education, or public schools, accounted for nearly 42,000 of the jobs added as the 2026–27 school year begins across much of the US. Teachers typically fall off payrolls during the summer months when school is not in session.

Food service jobs also saw large increases, with the sector adding 59,000 jobs for the month of August compared with the month prior.

There were also gains in construction, which added 22,000 jobs, and healthcare, which added 12,000.

The information sector, which accounts for industries like data processing, web hosting, publishing, broadcasting and telecommunications, fell by 23,000, with notable layoffs at companies including Scripps TV and Zillow, which fall under the umbrella of these industries.

The financial activities sector, which accounts for industries like insurance, commercial banking and real estate, dropped by 12,000.

Mixed data

The data comes in sharp contrast to the ADP national employment report, which tracks private payrolls and found 38,000 jobs added across the US economy.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report released on Tuesday revealed job openings were slightly changed, with 7.3 million in July, up from 7.2 million the previous month, while total separations fell to 5.1 million in July from 5.3 million in June.

The move in job gains comes ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s policy meeting later this month, where the central bank will vote on interest rates. Amid the job gains, CME Group’s FedWatch, which tracks the likelihood of monetary policy decisions, had a 60 percent chance of a 25 basis point rate increase to 3.75–4.00 percent, up from 49 percent on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump was quick to comment on the jobs report and push for rate cuts.

“Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was a short time ago!” he said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

He also ramped up threats to cut off trade with nations that the US has a deficit with if the central bank does not cut rates.

Despite a strong jobs report, US markets are trending downwards. The Nasdaq is down 0.2 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.5 percent, and the S&P 500 is down 0.3 percent amid Trump’s comments.

Meanwhile, Canada released its jobs report amid the ongoing trade dispute with the US. The Canadian economy lost 41,700 jobs, according to Statistics Canada, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 6.4 percent.

“We expect the economy will continue struggling to create jobs in the near term as mounting headwinds from new US-Canada tariffs, greater uncertainty from a flare-up in the trade war, and the ongoing Iran conflict and a shrinking population weigh on hiring,” Tony Stillo, director of Canada Economics at Oxford Economics, said in a note provided to Al Jazeera.

Sept. 4, 2026 8:41 AM PT

MCALLEN, Texas — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer falsely told investigators he was being attacked with a broom and shovel before he shot and wounded a Venezuelan man during the Minnesota immigration crackdown last winter, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday.

Christian Castro is charged with six counts of making false statements to investigators in the first Justice Department prosecution of a federal officer for actions taken during this year’s massive Operation Metro Surge. The operation brought thousands of agents to the Twin Cities and led to sweeping protests, arrests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers.

The allegations in the federal indictment mirror those brought by Minnesota officials, who have separately charged Castro with assault and false reporting of a crime related to the nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in January.

Castro turned himself into federal authorities Thursday evening following his release from jail last week because Texas’ governor refused to immediately sign an extradition warrant to hand him over to Minnesota authorities.

According to the federal indictment, Castro told an FBI agent that a man grabbed a red broom off the front porch and began hitting him with it. Castro also claimed that another man hit him with a snow shovel. Castro said he opened fire while on the ground as the men ran away.

The indictment alleges that Castro had a short “physical interaction” with Sosa-Celis and another man, before the two ran into a home with a 1-year-old child inside. Castro then fired a shot through the front door while standing as the men began to close it, hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg, the indictment says.

“No person struck” Castro “with a broom as he described, and no persons wielded the broom and snow shovel as he described,” the indictment says.

No attorney is listed for Castro in the case brought by Minnesota and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer to speak on his behalf.

Federal prosecutors had initially charged Sosa-Celis and the other man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, with assault but dropped the charges after video evidence showed the officer may have lied about the encounter. Castro was suspended from ICE in February while authorities pursued an investigation.

The federal investigation into Castro created turmoil inside the Justice Department, with a prosecutor on the case accusing higher ups of blocking efforts to bring more serious civil rights charges.

In an email obtained by ProPublica, the prosecutor told lawyers for Sosa-Celis and others that Castro would be charged only with making false statements over his “strongest objections,” adding the decision was “being directed by the Main Justice and the US Attorney.”

A person familiar with the investigation, however, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the civil rights probe is ongoing and that additional charges could still be brought.

The prosecutor, Matthew Evans, has since been fired and the Justice Department is now investigating whether he broke any laws during his handling of the case, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not publicly authorized to discuss ongoing investigations.

An automatic email response from Evans’ Justice Department account said he was on leave, and other attempts to reach him were not immediately successful.

Sosa-Celis’ lawyer is pressing for Castro to face stiffer charges, saying in a statement on Thursday that Castro’s statements were made to “cover up the fact that he shot my client through the door of an occupied house without a self-defense justification.”

“Mr. Sosa Celis wants Mr. Castro to be held fully accountable for his crimes,” said the attorney, Robin Wolpert. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said Thursday that Sosa-Celis also plans to seek damages from the federal government.

Gonzalez and Richer write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — The Federal Communications Commission asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit from ABC claiming the commission was curbing its right to free speech.

The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiary ABC sued the FCC on Aug. 18 to block an early license renewal from the agency, claiming the Trump administration is attacking the company for content it doesn’t like.

The FCC argued in its motion that the lawsuit is premature because the agency hadn’t yet tried to remove the licenses from eight local stations that ABC owns. In April, the FCC called for an early review of the licenses, an unusual move. None of the licenses were up for renewal for several years.

The FCC claims it asked for the early review because of ABC’s response investigation into the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies. But the review came right after President Donald Trump told ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel after a joke about First Lady Melania Trump.

The eight stations with their licenses are in jeopardy cover New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Fresno, Calif. They renew their licenses every eight years and are almost never revoked. The FCC hasn’t filed an early-renewal order in decades.

“This [lawsuit] would only hobble the Commission’s efforts to investigate and resolve serious allegations that Disney has engaged in unlawful discrimination, and from otherwise ensuring that Disney’s stations are serving the public interest,” the FCC wrote in its filing. “Plaintiffs, in return, would only free themselves from the burdens of proving their case in administrative proceedings.”

“They have shown (at most) minimal and self-inflicted effects on speech, and no harms that could justify” blocking the agency’s moves, the FCC’s document said.

ABC had filed for an emergency stay of the FCC’s activity, arguing it was using the regulatory process to suppress its right to free speech.

ABC in its filing said that President Donald Trump is sending a “message to every media company in the country — that they should “tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government.”

“In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free,” ABC wrote. “The FCC Chairman [Brendan Carr] has left little doubt that this is his goal.”

Judge Loren L. AliKhan scheduled a hearing for the week of Oct. 5.