It’s more than an army that travels on its stomach. A presidential campaign is also carbohydrate-challenged as President Obama demonstrated in his Seattle stopover Thursday.
The president’s day began with Obama and entourage hitting a local coffee shop, the Top Pot Doughnuts.
“Hey guys,” Obama said, getting some cheers from the dozens of other customers. As Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” played in the background, Obama stepped up to the counter, according to media pool reports.
“Let’s see what we got here,” he said, counting the Top Pot Doughnut group that included top staffers and Washington Sen. Patty Murray. “Are we buying a dozen?”
“A couple dozen?” he said after apparently being urged to get more than one.
“I think we’ve gotta sample everything right? So why don’t you just give us a sample,” he said to the clerk behind the counter. “Whatever you recommend.”
The president later took out a bunch of $20 bills, peeled off a couple and handed them to the cashier. After putting his change in the tip jar, he said, “One of the benefits of being president.”
Like a trail of crumbs, the sweet theme continued at Obama’s visit to a Seattle home where he met with a small group to tout his economic program.
One of the questioners was Jody Hall, owner of Cupcake Royal, a local chain built with the help of a government loan, another theme as Obama pushed helping small businesses. Responding to Obama, Hall said she had brought samples but noted that the Secret Service was very thorough and had taken them away.
“I suspect Secret Service confiscated them and are now eating them as we speak,” Obama said.
Obama joined in with the laughter as the group considered the future of those confections.
“I’m really looking forward to trying your cupcakes,” Obama said later.
CLOVIS, Calif. — In the waning days before California’s primary election, the two top Republicans running for California governor delivered closing arguments in front of a friendly Central Valley audience Friday evening.
Hilton criticized Newsom’s new $20-million program to provide free diapers for families of newborn babies, referring to the outgoing governor as “the great loaded diaper of California himself.”
Earlier this year, Hilton and Bianco topped the governor’s race polls as a packed field of Democrats split many of the state’s liberal voters. Under California’s “jungle primary” system, where the top two candidates advance from the primary to the general election regardless of political affiliation, that led to fleeting hope among Republicans that the two candidates could shut Democratic candidates out of the November election.
“That idea was always a fantasy,” Hilton wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Post earlier this week in which he urged Bianco to drop out of the race “for the sake of the state we both love.”
“Steve, it is time for you to drop out,” Bianco retorted in a video posted to social media soon after. “In no world, no world does Steve Hilton beat a Democrat in November.”
After winning an endorsement from President Trump in early April, Hilton has steadily outpaced Bianco in polls. A poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party released last week showed Hilton leading the field with support from 22% of likely voters, followed by Democrat and former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra with 21%. Bianco was at 10%, down from 15% in a previous poll conducted two weeks prior.
Still, Bianco, the two-term sheriff of California’s fourth most populous county, is a favorite of many Republicans in the state and won more support from delegates during the party’s recent endorsing convention than Hilton, though neither reached the necessary 60% to win the party backing.
While the two candidates have needled each other with personal digs and insults throughout much of the campaign, they appeared to set that energy aside during the Clovis forum and even traded some compliments. Hilton praised “sheriffs like Chad who actually understand what public safety looks like” while Bianco acknowledged that his opponent “should be very proud” to have Trump’s endorsement.
State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who moderated the more than 90-minute event, praised their “extraordinary civility” before she pressured each to commit to backing whichever Republican makes it through the June 2 primary — or if they both advance, continue to focus on policy debates over attacks.
The forum was hosted by the Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated as part of a fundraiser and dinner honoring the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. About 450 attendees were served dishes inspired by presidential favorites including sirloin steak for Theodore Roosevelt, a chopped salad from Chasen’s, a favorite Los Angeles eatery for Ronald Reagan, and a chocolate pie with cherry vanilla ice cream for Trump.
The Central Valley stretches from Bakersfield to Redding and is home to some of the nation’s most lucrative farmland. It also includes the heart of California oil country in Kern County. Yet residents feel largely neglected by statewide politicians who are more drawn to the ample votes and wealthy donors in Southern California and the Bay Area.
“We are the breadbasket of the world but we’ve been overlooked for too long,” said Andrea Shabaglian, a vice president of the Fresno Republican women’s group. “When gubernatorial candidates come here to sit down and listen to our communities, they realize that a stronger Valley means a stronger California.”
Though he lost California handily to former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Trump dominated in the state’s midsection. Even in Fresno County, where the Republican forum was held, Trump beat Harris by a four percentage point margin despite Democratic voters slightly outnumbering Republicans.
“We need a Republican in office because California is a mess. I mean, anybody with common sense can see that,” said LuAnne Pinedo-Madden, a retiree living in the Sierra foothill community of Coarsegold who listed transgender girls being allowed to compete in girls’ sports and government corruption as her top concerns.
Pinedo-Madden said she was “pretty sure” she had decided which of the Republican candidates to vote for but declined to say whom. “I feel that if we don’t get a Republican in office, we’re looking at moving” to Utah, Idaho or Nevada, she said. “We can’t take this anymore.”
Bianco and Hilton spoke about their plans to improve public safety, small businesses, homeowner’s insurance and water management, a crucial issue for the conservative-leaning owners of vast swaths of California’s agricultural heartland.
Signs along the major highways that straddle California’s Central Valley proclaim that “Food grows where water flows” and criticize Newsom for allowing water to flow into the ocean instead of capturing and storing more of it for farming.
Both of the GOP candidates described their visions for the state, which include building new dams and raising existing ones to store more water.
“We don’t have the water problem. We have a water management problem,” Bianco said before falsely arguing that “we get more water every single year than any other state in the country” and that California has “never, ever, ever been in a drought.”
“The water will be flowing to our farmers, the oil will be flowing to our refineries, the forests will be managed, the timber will be harvested” and used to build new single-family homes, Hilton said. “We’ve got the best weather, we’ve got the best people, we’ve got the best farmers, we’ve got everything we need to make this place amazing, except a good governor. Very soon we’ll have that as well.”
Though a Republican governor would likely face a hostile Legislature intent on blocking many priorities, Bianco and Hilton both promised sweeping cuts and cutbacks of state agencies. Both pledged on Friday to replace every member of the state’s parole review board, which drew criticism in February when it granted elderly parole to a man convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation in 1999.
“California criminal justice is absolutely broken and it was forced upon us in the name of reform. What I’m going to do is make it a crime to hear the word reform again, because we lost track of what that word even means,” Bianco said.
He also pledged to eliminate laws and environmental regulators often blamed for slowing housing development: the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Commission and the state Air Resources Board.
Though his opponent has the coveted Trump endorsement, Bianco argued that it will hurt Hilton’s chances of winning the general election. The Republican president has never been popular in deep-blue California; just 25% of adults in the state approved of Trump’s performance according to a February survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
“Steve should rightfully be proud of being endorsed by President Trump [but] we have to actually realize, is that a good thing in California? It’s a good thing in this room,” Bianco said as the crowd cheered at the mention of the president’s name. “We have to realize strategically that President Trump ran three elections in this state, and he lost 60-40 in all three of them.”
The Riverside sheriff argued he is “the only person that can actually sway Democrats to vote for a Republican across party lines on a public safety platform.”
There is just over one week remaining before the June 2 primary for Los Angeles mayor, city attorney, city controller and eight of the 15 City Council seats.
As of Friday morning, 333,000 mail-in ballots had been cast in the race, up from 321,000 at the same time in 2022, according to the L.A. County Registrar/Recorder.
The Trump card
Spencer Pratt’s foes in the Los Angeles mayor’s race like to say that the former reality television star lacks the experience needed to run a big city.
But Pratt might have an even bigger liability — any sense that he may be aligned with President Trump.
Cygnal, a national polling group that has worked for Republican candidates, found that tying Pratt to Trump and the MAGA movement is a bigger turnoff to Democrats than his reality television past.
According to its poll of 500 likely Los Angeles voters, Pratt’s reality TV resume made 59% of overall Democrats less likely to vote for him. By comparison, tying Pratt to MAGA and Trump made 65% of Democrats less likely to vote for him, Cygnal said.
Pratt is a registered Republican and on Wednesday, Trump signaled support for Pratt in the mayoral race. On Thursday, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said the president didn’t formally endorse Pratt out of fears it would hurt Pratt’s chances in Democrat-dominant Los Angeles.
Spencer Pratt at a recent campaign block party in South Los Angeles.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Overall, including Democrats and Republicans, 24% of voters said tying Pratt to Trump made them more likely to vote for him while 50% of voters were less likely to vote for him because of it.
“Karen Bass is a fairly reserved individual, but you have to believe that backstage she was doing a happy dance after she heard Donald Trump’s comments,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of politics at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine University.
The strongest pro-Pratt argument is a public safety argument that Pratt will reject “defund the police” policies and hold repeat offenders accountable.
The poll showed Bass at 25% support, Pratt at 22% and Councilmember Nithya Raman at 18%.
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Big money for Blumenfield seat
It hasn’t had the same sizzle as the mayor’s race, or been as pricey as the acrimonious campaign for city controller. But the battle to replace City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield in the west San Fernando Valley is turning into yet another high-stakes, big-money contest.
In that three-way race, a handful of special interests have now put more than $1 million into various efforts to elect businessman Tim Gaspar.
The Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group, has spent the most so far, pouring more than $400,000 into mail pieces, web videos and other campaign expenses, according to Ethics Commission filings. Most of its money has been coming from Airbnb, which is looking to loosen the city’s rules on homesharing platforms, by allowing second homes to be used as short-term rentals in the run-up to the 2028 Olympic Games.
Political aide Barri Worth Girvan, who is running to replace Blumenfield, criticized Gaspar over the influx of money, saying the “West Valley is not for sale.”
“Airbnb has destroyed countless neighborhoods around Los Angeles, and they clearly believe that my opponent will allow them to do that in the San Fernando Valley,” said Worth Girvan, who works for county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “Let me be clear — I will not allow that in our neighborhoods.”
Gaspar, in a statement, said he’s proud of the coalition supporting him.
“Like so many Angelenos, they are ready for change and new ideas that will actually get something done. Barri is offering nothing but the same tired excuses, empty promises, and failed ideas,” he said.
Under the city’s campaign finance rules, donors cannot give more than $1,000 to the campaign of a council candidate. However, independent expenditure groups can spend unlimited amounts, as long as they do not coordinate with the campaigns of their favored candidate.
Some of the other Gaspar backers who are spending large sums include the California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses, which represents McDonald’s franchisees, the California Apartment Assn. and Working Californians, a committee sponsored by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 18, which represents employees of the Department of Water and Power.
That committee is also partly funded by Airbnb, according to the Ethics Commission website.
Ethical supes
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted this week to establish its first ethics commission.
The creation of the new body aimed at preventing and eliminating corruption in county government was mandated by Measure G, which voters approved about 18 months ago.
That measure overhauled the county charter to create an elected county executive position and increase the number of supervisors from five to nine.
It also stipulated the establishment of an ethics commission and an office of ethics compliance, helmed by an ethics compliance officer.
Polling shows the effort has broad public support, according to Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor at Pomona College who served on a task force that made recommendations to the supervisors.
But there was still controversy before the Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 Tuesday to support to approve the plan.
Supervisor Janice Hahn said the ethics commission was intended to be an independent body whose members were not directly selected and appointed by elected officials.
She proposed an amendment that would have made it so commissioners were chosen from a list of qualified and interested people via a lottery system.
Hahn lost that battle and the county approved the plan without the change. The county assessor, the chair of the Board of Supervisors and starting in 2028, the newly minted county executive, will each appoint one ethics commissioner.
Those three commissioners will then select the other four members of the commission, who are subject to the approval of the supervisors.
State of play
— “THE HILLS” ARE ALIVE: The Times dived deep on Spencer Pratt’s history as well as his campaign, showing how he rose from reality television villain on “The Hills” to become a leading contender for L.A. mayor.
— TRUMP BUMP?: President Trump signaled support for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt on Wednesday, wading into the local election less than two weeks before the primary.
— FRESH PRINCE: Spencer Pratt’s campaign for Los Angeles mayor has paid the Hotel Bel-Air more than $15,000 since April 7, according to Pratt’s latest campaign finance filings.
— PROGRESSIVE BLOCK: Three members of the L.A. City Council’s progressive bloc endorsed Mayor Bass for reelection, snubbing fellow progressive Nithya Raman in the June 2 primary. The endorsements from Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez underscore fractures on L.A.’s left. All three are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, as is Raman.
— HOLLYWOOD HOPEFULS: In campaign ads, interviews and the recent televised debate, the top three contenders: incumbent Mayor Bass, former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt and Raman, have made the ongoing production slump a pivotal topic, highlighting their plans to revitalize the industry while deploying the issue to undercut one another.
— WHITHER LATINOS?: Latinos make up nearly 37% of the L.A. electorate, making their votes crucial for anyone with mayoral ambitions. That has campaigns putting out ads and social media posts in Spanish, hitting the ground in Latino majority neighborhoods and rallying for key endorsements.
— HUNGRY FOR MORE: It’s the biggest slate of democratic socialists Los Angeles has ever seen. The L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America is looking to push City Hall further left by backing candidates for city attorney and four City Council seats in the June 2 primary.
— OH, AND A BUDGET: The Los Angeles City Council signed off on a $15-billion budget for 2026-27 on Thursday, preserving Mayor Karen Bass’ police hiring plan while socking away more money for potential emergencies.
— AIRPORT DELAYS?: A $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers will be delayed after Los Angeles elected officials persuaded a group of business leaders to drop a ballot measure that would have devastated the city budget.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program moved 69 people indoors near Chinatown this week in Jurado and Hernandez’s council districts.
On the docket next week: The City Council will vote to approve a formal letter to remove the gross tax repeal from the November ballot.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
You say you want to be mayor of Los Angeles, but do you really?
I know that being a candidate has rescued you from anonymity after your career in reality TV went off a cliff. You’ve got CEOs backing you, and fans raving, and you’ve managed to milk social media attention.
But at some point you might have to answer questions from the reporters you’ve been avoiding.
And if you win, you’re going to have to drive to City Hall five, six, seven days a week, and I don’t know if you saw my column a few weeks ago, but the fountain on the south lawn hasn’t worked in about 60 years. If you get elected, you better put a wrench in your lunch box, because nobody has figured out how to fix it.
So that’s the reality, pretty much. And the unions will want what they want, and the socialists on the City Council will be lying in wait, especially after President Trump blew you a cross-country air kiss and certified your MAGA credentials.
More than 30,000 people are waiting for their broken sidewalks to get fixed (I’m not exaggerating) but there’s no money, and if you hire several thousand more police officers as you’ve pledged, the city would be bankrupt for the next decade or so and you’d need to take out a loan to buy a doughnut.
So call me, like I say, because I think there’s still time to change your mind.
If you choose to proceed, and if you actually win, it might feel like you’re in a sequel to that reality show you did called “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here,” and you may end up praying the show gets canceled. The mayor’s hours are long, and everywhere you go, someone will want you to fix this problem or that, and as you wander the halls of power you’ll think back on your campaign pledges and hear the constant echo of a line from H.L. Mencken:
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Can I confess something?
I’m feeling guilty about all of this.
Not to sound presumptuous, but I feel partly responsible for the fact that you’re in contention for the job.
Like you, I’ve been calling out issues with the management of L.A., and I’ve been doing it for years. But I had the good sense not to run for mayor.
Why’s that?
Because unlike you, I know the fixes aren’t as easy as we’d like them to be.
When Karen Bass was running the first time, I had a long talk with her about her homelessness plan, among other things. At the end of the day, she asked for my input.
I reminded her that as much as people would like for the city’s top elected official to immediately clear the streets, a mayor is limited by shared power with the City Council.
By drug epidemics and untreated mental illness that are largely under county authority.
By uncertain funding from the nation’s capital.
By global forces that transformed the economy and created staggering levels of inequality that are made all the worse by the high cost of housing.
Bass was aware of all that, but said that having worked in Sacramento and D.C., and having built relationships with county supervisors, she’d be able to build better systems and get better outcomes.
So how has she done?
Not great. And then there’s the fire.
As I’ve said before, leaving the country despite forecasts of elevated wildfire risk was probably the worst mistake of her political career.
I don’t need to remind you of that. Having lost your house in the Palisades, you know that Bass badly underreacted, then stumbled on the rebuilding, and then had a hand in downplaying the Fire Department’s failure to adequately deploy and extinguish the fire that became an inferno.
To summarize, she’s left herself wide open to a challenge.
And she probably can’t believe how lucky she is that you might be her November competition, if the two of you bounce out Councilmember Nithya Raman and the other candidates in the June 2 primary.
I don’t hold it against you that you haven’t worked in government or politics before. These days, a lot of voters prefer outsiders. But it might have helped if you’d done something of purpose at some point in your life, like run a successful business or volunteer at a food bank. Were you junior high class president, or were you in the Boy Scouts? Anything could help.
Not that being the boyfriend and later the husband of someone on an MTV reality show called “The Hills,” which chronicled the work of a woman who went from “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County” to an internship at Teen Vogue, can’t prepare a young man for statesmanship.
In this culture, you could ride that all the way to the White House.
But the flimsy resume could explain, Spencer, why you’ve been taking so many social media-fueled potshots at Bass without offering anything of substance.
Let’s arrest drug zombies.
OK, then what?
I’d advise you to study the primer by my colleagues Doug Smith and Andrew Khouri on what you can and can’t do about homelessness as a mayor in L.A. Clearly, you’ve got a lot of boning up to do. In fact, I’m reminded of a line by a Philadelphia columnist years ago, when he said of a politician who wasn’t up to the job: He’s been standing in shallow water for so long, he doesn’t realize he can’t swim.
If I were you, I’d consider the fact that President Trump made the mistake of promising easy fixes. He was going to deliver a massive infrastructure program. He was going to deliver healthcare reform that was better and cheaper for everyone. He was going to lower consumer prices on Day One, and here we are, with millions of people wondering how they’re going to pay their bills while Trump rigs it so he doesn’t have to pay the IRS.
All that being said, I’m glad you decided to run, because elected officials need constant reminders that their jobs are not secure, even when the challengers are way in over their heads. I’d almost like to see you win, because that’s one reality show I’d be sure to watch.
And I say this despite the fact that you once told your talk show buddy Alex Jones — who insisted that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook massacre of 20 children was a hoax — that melting ice caps are overrated. Or, as you explained it to Jones, “we’ve all seen footage of the polar bears swimming to new pieces of ice.”
When the general election rolls around, and the ice begins to break, will you know how to swim?
WASHINGTON — Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of two acknowledged homosexuals in the House of Representatives, admitted Friday that he had employed a male prostitute as a personal aide, but he said that he fired him after learning that the congressman’s Capitol Hill apartment was being used as a house of prostitution.
Frank said he met the man, whom he identified as Steve Gobie, through an ad in a Washington gay newspaper in 1985 and paid to have sex with him. The Massachusetts congressman, who at the time had not made his public acknowledgement that he was gay, said he later hired Gobie as a chauffeur and housekeeper with the hope of reforming a troubled young man with a history of petty crime and prostitution.
‘I Was Victimized’
“I hired him out of a charitable impulse. I thought I was going to be a liberal who got involved directly with an individual who needed help,” Frank told reporters in Boston on Friday. “ . . . I was victimized. I misjudged his character.”
Frank was responding to a front page story Friday in the Washington Times headlined, “Sex Sold Out of Congressman’s House,” that included the young man’s description of his former relationship with Frank.
Frank said he paid Gobie about $20,000 a year in his own funds. According to the newspaper, the congressman wrote letters on Gobie’s behalf to Virginia probation authorities. Gobie was on probation after being convicted in 1982 of four felonies, including cocaine possession and production of obscene items involving juveniles.
In August, 1987, Frank said he fired Gobie and ended their relationship after his landlady alerted him to the prostitution business being run out of his basement apartment several blocks from the Capitol.
House Democratic leaders were quick to come to Frank’s defense.
Foley Offers Backing
“There is no more able, articulate and effective member of the House of Representatives than Barney Frank,” House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “He has provided outstanding service to his constituency and the nation, and I’m absolutely confident he will continue to do so long after this matter has been forgotten.”
Despite Foley’s statement of support, several politicians raised the possibility that the House Ethics Committee may choose to investigate Frank’s conduct as unbecoming of a House member.
Just last month, Frank was one of three House members to ask the Ethics Committee to investigate sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Gus Savage (D-Ill.). A Peace Corps worker has accused Savage of making sexual advances during an official trip to Zaire.
Frank said he intends to run for reelection next year and does not believe the Gobie incident would undermine his campaign. “I don’t believe it shows me as unethical,” he said. “I believe it shows me as gullible.”
Frank, who publicly acknowledged his homosexuality in 1987, has faced only token opposition in recent elections. Since 1980, he has represented a Massachusetts district that extends west from Boston’s Back Bay through the generally liberal, affluent suburbs of Brookline and Newton and then veers south to the blue collar, old textile towns such as Fall River.
In 1983, another Massachusetts Democratic congressman, Gerry E. Studds, admitted having sex with a male page employed by the House. His Cape Cod constituents also have continued to elect him overwhelmingly.
Dorothy Reichard, an aide to Frank in Boston, said the several dozen calls to his office have been overwhelmingly supportive. “I think people feel he’s an excellent congressman who’s done his job, even though he may have used poor judgment in this instance,” Reichard said.
The Los Angeles city attorney is often described as the most powerful elected official almost no one’s ever heard of.
The office prosecutes most misdemeanor crimes, defends the city against costly lawsuits and serves as the public’s chief lawyer at a time when L.A. faces frequent attacks from a hostile White House. Races for the office tend to be sleepy affairs, but this year’s contest has featured last-minute entrants, a whopping influx of cash and defections among the incumbent’s key supporters.
The race began to heat up last month after a data breach that saw a massive trove of LAPD records leaked onto the internet. That spurred the city’s police union to withdraw its endorsement of Feldstein Soto and tell its members to vote instead for John McKinney, a Los Angeles County prosecutor who has received a massive influx of corporate cash to support his campaign in recent weeks.
The progressive challenger is Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice. Roy, 34, has said she would run the office as a sprawling “public interest law firm” that sues to fight wage theft and renter harassment, champions a care-first approach to homelessness and stands as a legal bulwark against the Trump administration.
Roy Behr, a veteran political consultant in the city, said Roy and McKinney have clear brands and target audiences, whereas Feldstein Soto may now be a candidate without a constituency.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she didn’t make the runoff. What she’s facing are two people with pretty clear critiques from different directions,” he said of the incumbent. “All she’s left with is ‘I did an OK job in an office that people don’t really understand.’”
Feldstein Soto, 67, says she’s the steady hand the city needs as it faces a budget crisis and gears up to host the Olympics in two years. She scoffed at her opponents’ lack of experience in a recent interview, dismissing Roy’s campaign promises as “insane,” and noting that McKinney’s history as a felony trial prosecutor has little overlap with the city attorney’s job.
“This is not the time for on-the-job training,” she said.
A former corporate lawyer, Feldstein Soto squeaked through the primary before sailing to victory in her bid for the position in 2022. She has since taken heat for defending aggressive LAPD crowd control tactics, and also for her refusal to prosecute hundreds involved in 2024 campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Although Feldstein Soto has received endorsements from Mayor Karen Bass and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), critics say frequent personality clashes have alienated her from the city’s Democratic kingmakers. McKinney called her a “bully” in a recent interview and said her behavior has demoralized her staff.
Feldstein Soto pushed back on those criticisms, touting steps she has taken to modernize the office and enhance public safety. She argued many of the allegations against her stem from a 2024 lawsuit filed by a disgruntled employee, who claimed they were subjected to a “barrage of retaliatory actions” after reporting issues within the office, including mishandling of grant funds, discriminatory treatment of co-workers and “inappropriate alcohol consumption” in the workplace. The case remains pending. Feldstein Soto said the employee was fired for having improper outside employment.
Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto hosts a May 12 news conference to discuss the recent prosecution and conviction of a UCLA early childhood teacher charged with sexual abuse.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Explaining her decision to drop most charges in the campus protest cases, Feldstein Soto pointed out many lacked enough evidence for prosecution.
The city’s legal payouts have exploded under her watch — jumping from $64 million in the mid-2010s to $294 million in the last fiscal year. Feldstein Soto said the rising costs reflect an increase in “nuclear verdicts” in civil courts nationwide.
Feldstein Soto noted the city’s payouts were inflated by a “cascade of horrible” cases that were pending when she took office. She said she could only mitigate the damages, citing as examples cases that involved the city’s misuse of federal housing grants and a massive sewage spill.
“I’ve protected the city at every turn,” she said. “I’m the only candidate in my race who has the receipts to prove that I can do this.”
Roy said the biggest challenge may be convincing Angelenos to cast a vote at all in what has historically been a low-turnout, down-ballot contest.
“It’s where we always start, to be honest,” she said. “It is one of the most important, least understood positions.”
In a city where 60% of residents are renters and many feel under siege by the Trump administration, Roy has campaigned as a civil rights avenger ready to spar with landlords or the White House on behalf of working-class Angelenos.
She recently hit the streets sporting a crisp purple blazer, violet chrome manicure and a battered pair of black Rothy’s flats, evidence of the shoe-leather she and her army of volunteers have already invested in the race.
Roy typically starts her pitch by explaining what the city attorney actually does, then delivers her vision for the post.
“Of course it’s the lawyer for the city, but what people don’t realize is it’s also the lawyer for the people,” she said to one would-be voter in Silver Lake.
John McKinney, a county prosecutor running for L.A. city attorney, speaks at a May 5 news conference where he received endorsements from Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for rank-and-file LAPD officers.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
McKinney, 58, said he wants more “aggressive” prosecutions for misdemeanor gun crimes, and believes the city attorney has the power to “leverage” homeless people into mental health or addiction treatment after they’ve been arrested.
Despite having no experience as a civil litigator, the deputy L.A. County district attorney also thinks he can help drive down lawsuit costs for the city.
McKinney told The Times he envisions himself as “a protector, as the local prosecutor, and a defender, as the general counsel of the city.”
“I think public safety is the number one priority, or should be, of all elected officials,” he said.
While Feldstein Soto and Roy have raised considerable war chests, McKinney has received just $72,000 in direct contributions, according to campaign finance records. But independent expenditures supporting his bid have supercharged his finances in the last two weeks, pouring $1.7 million into the race.
The vast majority of those funds have come from a political action committee backed by Airbnb, which Feldstein Soto sued last year for violating price-gouging laws in the wake of the wildfires. The city attorney has aggressively prosecuted and sued those seeking to profit off wildfire victims, winning a $1.2-million settlement against another rental company in a price-gouging suit this week.
Feldstein Soto said both of her challengers are financially beholden to special interests, pointing to McKinney’s Airbnb windfall money Roy has taken from a political action committee bankrolled by an organization whose attorneys often sue the city.
“They’re not investing millions of dollars for fun and for free because they think these candidates are going to be great city attorneys … they are expecting a return on investment,” Feldstein Soto said.
McKinney said Airbnb simply believes in his campaign to clean up the city, which would improve tourism and the company’s profits in the city.
Roy said she has received broad support from across the legal profession and is committed to reducing lawsuit payouts that have “spiraled out of control.”
Dan Schnur, a USC professor and former advisor to Republican politicians in California, said Feldstein Soto’s biggest obstacle might not be her opponents, but voters themselves fed up with elected officials citywide.
“The challenges she faces are very similar to what Bass is going on in the mayor’s race,” he said. “This is a very impatient and angry electorate that wants change now.”
Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as US Director of National Intelligence, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Her departure comes after months of tensions inside President Trump’s administration over foreign policy and intelligence matters, including over the decision to strike Iran.
As a radio professional who grew up aspiring to work at CBS News Radio, anchor Steve Kathan understood the weight of the words he wrote and recorded Friday on the final broadcast of “World News Roundup.”
“America’s longest running newscast signs off for the last time,” Kathan said in the small dimly lighted studio in the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan’s West Side. “It all began on March 13, 1938,” he said, referring to the iconic news program.
Kathan played a recording of Edward R. Morrow, the legendary CBS News journalist who delivered his first report on the debut of the program, saying “the best in radio reporting is yet to be — good night and good luck.”
“And goodbye,” Kathan added, ending the run of around 23,000 editions of the 10-minute signature broadcast, delivered from CBS’ radio network . A final news update was scheduled to run later Friday night.
CBS News Radio and its 26 employees became a victim of budget cuts across parent-company Paramount’s news division announced in March.
“A shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service,” the company said.
Privately, longtime insiders at CBS News say the division has struggled for years to find ways to financially turn around its radio business.
The unit was operating at a loss with monthly revenues recently falling as low as $67,000, according to a network executive not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The service held on because it still had value in promoting CBS News and its journalism, reaching 20 million listeners a week.
Leadership over the years have put off the messy task of winding the radio business down due to its iconic status at the company. CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was reluctant to make the cuts as well, according to people inside the company familiar with her thinking. But with Paramount taking on substantial debt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, considerations of the division’s legacy are likely to matter less in ongoing efforts to reduce costs.
Kathan had heard rumblings about CBS getting out of radio going all the way back to its first ownership change in the 1980s when Larry Tisch acquired the company.
“Even though I’ve been here 39 years, the thought was someone’s going to decide to do it,” he said.
As television dominated the media landscape, CBS News Radio retained its role as what Kathan called “the background track of American history.”
As a child growing up in Connecticut, Kathan recalls watching Douglas Edwards, the “World News Roundup” evening anchor for two decades, doing TV news updates in between the soap operas his mother watched on CBS. After Kathan joined the network in 1987 as a writer and producer, he would see Edwards and other famous names from the division walking through the hallways of the broadcast center before doing his afternoon newscasts.
“Just the fact that you were working with them made you think and realize you had to up your game,” Kathan said. “You wanted the audience to trust you as much as it trusted them.”
“World News Roundup” rose to prominence during World War II, when Murrow and other CBS News correspondents delivered live reports from Europe.
Once TV supplanted radio as a source for scripted entertainment, news and information became the primary mission of CBS’ radio division that began in 1927. In 1967, the company converted its owned AM radio stations — including its Los Angeles outlet KNX — to an all-news format.
While the stations focused on local news, traffic, weather and sports, they also prominently featured CBS News Radio reports at the top of the hour and other features throughout the day.
Longtime listeners became familiar with Edwards, Dallas Townsend, Reid Collins, Richard C. Hottelet, Christopher Glenn and other CBS News veterans who brought national and world stories to listeners throughout the day, introduced by a five-note sounder that simulated a telegraph. Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite were heard daily with analysis.
The radio network developed a major star in Charles Osgood, who joined WCBS in New York as anchor. He went national in 1971 with a twice-daily segment called “The Osgood File.”
Osgood wrote two-minute reports in succinct prose delivered in his mellifluous tones. He occasionally offered commentary in verse, which earned him the title of poet-in-residence at CBS News.
Osgood’s popularity was rivaled only by ABC Radio personality Paul Harvey. CBS News even allowed him to read commercial copy to satisfy eager advertisers who wanted their product messages presented in his comforting voice. When Osgood became a host on the TV side in the 1990s on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” his sign-off remained “I’ll see you on the radio.” He filed his final “Osgood File” report in 2017.
Charles Osgood in the WCBS radio studio in New York on July 25, 1967.
(CBS Photo Archive/CBS)
CBS sold off its radio stations in 2017, but continued to produce and distribute its network programs as the business faced competition from digital media.
Dustin Gervais, technical operations manager for the network, said CBS News Radio struggled as more audio advertisers prefer digital content because of its effectiveness at targeting specific demographic groups. The shift is reflected in radio ad revenue, which dipped about 2% to $14.37 billion, according to media research firm Kagan. But the digital ad revenue portion of that pie continued to grow, topping $1.75 billion.
Charles Forelle, managing editor for CBS News, said the company plans to remain in the audio journalism business through podcasting and not straight newscasts.
“We have a whole bunch of different things in development that are less news reading and more other things,” he told The Times.
Not all of radio’s problems are related to digital.
Michael Socolow, a professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine, notes that the industry troubles began in 1996 when deregulation loosened the limit on the number of stations a single entity can own. Buying sprees of outlets led to owners who became highly leveraged and less able to invest in programming, which put the squeeze on suppliers such as CBS News Radio.
“Radio was hollowed out by the corporations, before its utility to the American citizen ended,” Socolow said. “You can trace it to the Telecom Act of 1996.”
Some of the 26 employees at CBS News Radio who were severed from the company have found work at Worldwide News Network, a service launched by John Catsimatidis, the owner of New York’s top-rated talk station WABC. The company said the service, which begins Saturday, will deliver “hard news, breaking headlines, and fact-driven reporting to affiliates across the country.”
NASHVILLE — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding that the Justice Department’s pursuit of criminal charges was designed to punish him for challenging his mistaken deportation to El Salvador last year.
The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes. The Trump administration touted the charges against Abrego Garcia last year at a press conference in which then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi declared, “This is what American justice looks like.”
“The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, in Nashville, said in his ruling granting Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.” Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution.”
Abrego Garcia’s deportation became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. In his motion to dismiss, Abrego Garcia claimed that the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department,” his criminal defense attorneys said in a statement after Friday’s ruling. “We are so pleased that he is a free man.”
The Justice Department vowed to appeal, calling the judge’s order “wrong and dangerous.”
Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely met standard that usually requires evidence like a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” — including the timing of the indictment, statements made by then-U.S. Deputy Aty. Gen. Todd Blanche, and the sustained oversight of the case by other top Justice Department officials — that the case against Abrego Garcia was thoroughly tainted.
The government’s own explanations weren’t convincing, Crenshaw wrote.
Abrego Garcia was charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors claiming that he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.
The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
In the Friday ruling, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the presumption of vindictiveness. Homeland Security had been aware of the traffic stop for two years and had closed the case against Abrego Garcia when it deported him. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he should be brought back to the U.S., they reopened the case. While the government bore the responsibility to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness, prosecutors did not call as a witness the person who reopened the case, to explain why. Instead they offered only “secondhand testimony.”
In a statement released by the group We are CASA, which has been supporting Abrego Garcia and his family, he thanked God for the dismissal of the criminal charges.
“Justice is a big word and an even bigger promise to fulfill; and I am grateful that today, justice has taken a step forward,” he said.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order granting him protection from deportation to his home country, after the judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. The 2019 order allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the U.S. They have vowed to deport him to a third country, most recently Liberia.
NEW YORK — Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after a federal appeals court on Friday declined to reconsider a decision that put the government a step closer to deporting him, the pro-Palestinian activist’s lawyers said.
Judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia voted 6-5 against having the court’s full complement of judges review the ruling. In January, a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel found that a federal judge in New Jersey who had sided with Khalil and ordered his release last year from immigration detention didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is involved in representing Khalil, said his lawyers will ask the 3rd Circuit for an order preventing the decision from taking effect — and barring Khalil from being detained or deported — while it asks the Supreme Court to take up the case.
An appeal to the high court is expected in the coming months, possibly in late summer.
“Today’s decision is not the final word, and we still strongly believe in our arguments going forward,” ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said in a statement.
In its January ruling, the 3rd Circuit found that Khalil’s lawsuit challenging his detention and U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz’s subsequent rulings in the case were premature because federal law requires that such challenges first move through the separate immigration court system. That system is part of the Justice Department, not the judicial branch.
The decision didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.
Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, who had voted for the 3rd Circuit to review the decision, wrote in a dissent that the court was “abdicating our duty to meaningfully review Khalil’s constitutional claims. The Judicial Branch, she wrote, cannot fulfill its role as a check on the other branches of government, “if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself.”
Khalil, 31, has also appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, where he was detained, after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld his removal order.
Through his lawyers, Khalil argued that the immigration judge who issued the order failed to consider relevant evidence and wrongly upheld a charge that he had misrepresented information on his application for legal permanent resident status. That charge, Khalil’s lawyers said, was brought in retaliation for his protest activity.
The immigration judge suggested Khalil could be deported to Algeria, where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family. Khalil’s lawyers have said he would face mortal danger if forced to return to either country.
An outspoken leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, Khalil was arrested in March 2025. He then spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his child.
Federal officials have accused Khalil of leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not presented evidence to support the claim and have not accused him of criminal conduct. They also accused Khalil of failing to disclose information on his green card application.
Khalil has dismissed the allegations as “baseless and ridiculous,” framing his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
The government justified the arrest under a seldom-used statute that allows for the expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. In June 2025, Farbiarz ruled that justification would likely be declared unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released.
President Trump’s administration appealed that ruling, arguing the deportation decision should fall to an immigration judge, rather than a federal court. The 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 in the administration’s favor.
Judge Emil Bove, who was involved in investigating student protesters while a top Justice Department official, did not participate in the 3rd Circuit vote on whether to review the decision. He later issued an order denying a request by Khalil’s lawyers that he step aside from the matter, calling it moot.
Sisak writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
May 22 (UPI) — Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., announced Friday she will run for a U.S. House seat to represent a newly drawn district, which now has majority Black or Latino voters.
The new map created four Republican-leaning congressional districts. She is running in the new 20th District, an all-Broward County district.
“I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be running for Congress for re-election in District 20,” she said in a telephone interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I just can’t wait to continue to fight on behalf of Broward County and our people. I know Broward County. I have represented Broward County my entire adult life. It’s the place I’ve raised my family. It is the place that I have served in public office, and the people of this county know me and I know them.”
But her decision has added to tensions with Black Democrats who are already frustrated with the Republican gerrymandering throughout the South.
Two Democratic districts held by Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., had been eliminated or mostly redrawn. In an interview with The New York Times, Wasserman Schultz said Republicans were taking a “cynical, disrespectful” approach to redistricting.
“We cannot let Trump destroy Broward County’s power,” Wasserman Schultz said in her video announcement. She is now serving in her 11th congressional term.
As of March 31, Wasserman Schultz had $2.5 million in her campaign account, which is more than all five other candidates combined, and she is well-known in Broward County, the Sun Sentinel reported.
“No one gets 100% in an election. So there are definitely going to be people that will support other candidates. There will be people that don’t think that I should run,” she said. “It’s my job to make sure that I can erase that doubt, that I can ease whatever concerns anyone might have.”
Republicans have said Wasserman Schultz is “abandoning her home district” because she would lose. She has long lived in Weston, Fla., which is in the new 22nd District.
“Instead of facing voters after years of backing Democrats’ failed agenda, Wasserman Schultz is running scared,” Maureen O’Toole, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.
Kevin Warsh takes the oath of office as he is sworn-in as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve by Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in the East Room of the White House on Friday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON — For much of President Trump’s second term, Republican senators have largely stayed in line, wary of the consequences of defying a president with a history of targeting those who cross him. This week, that dynamic noticeably shifted.
Senate Republicans blocked two of Trump’s legislative priorities, angered by the push to create a $1.8-billion federal fund to compensate people who claim to have been politically persecuted, including rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The revolt forced Republican leaders to pull a planned vote on legislation to fund the president’s immigration crackdown and security features for the president’s White House ballroom project.
In response, the president defended the fund and lashed out at its critics.
“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE”!
The president also called Republican senators who broke with him quitters who are “screwing the Republican Party.”
The friction, which has been building for weeks, is being watched as potential test to the limits of Trump’s grip on his party amid an already tense political environment heading into the midterm elections.
“This is kind of a perfect storm,” former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It may be that this time you can point to it and say this is when the great migration begins, away from some of the president’s policies and away from the fear that the president can target you.”
Whether this week marks the beginning of that moment — or simply another episode of political turbulence that fades — is the central question now handing over Trump’s second term.
Not the first break — but an escalation
This is not the first time Republicans have broken with the president. In November, Congress overwhelmingly voted to force the Justice Department to release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, an effort that Trump unsuccessfully tried to thwart for months.
The Epstein vote showed that on the right issue, under the right circumstances, Republicans could be moved to defy Trump. This week, the creation of the fund changed the circumstances again, and the number of Republican senators willing to act quickly grew.
This moment comes after months of rising costs during the war in Iran, efforts by the president to oust members of his own party and now a set of proposals that are proving hard to defend in an election year.
“What you have is basically a bunch of people who feel a bit under siege,” said Bob Olinksy, the senior vice president of Structural Reform and Governance at the Center for American Progress. “At the same time, they know that most of what the president is doing is unpopular, and they’re the ones who are going to be standing for reelection in November.”
Republicans push back
Senate Republicans leaders are now asking the Department of Justice to reconsider the terms of the fund, underscoring just how politically toxic the idea has become within the president’s own party.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters that the politically speaking, the fund is “unexplainable.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told the New York Times the fund should be in real trouble. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) called the fund “utterly stupid” and “morally wrong.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican whom Trump has singled out for going against him, was equally unsparing, saying he opposed “using billions of taxpayer dollars to compensate convicted felons and thugs who attacked police.” He also criticized the administration for pushing domestic and foreign policy issues that he says are bad for housing and the military.
“If opposing these things makes me a RINO [Republican In Name Only], then I gladly accept that nickname,” Tillis wrote on X. “We need Republicans to do well in November, but the stupid stuff is killing our chances!”
The Republican push back comes as the concern about self-dealing runs deep across the electorate.
A recent poll Economist/YouGov poll found that 59% of Americans believe Trump is using his office for personal gain, though that belief is sharply divided among partisan lines. A CNN poll found that 37% of Americans say Trump puts the good of the country above his personal gain, while 32% say he is in touch with the problems of ordinary Americans.
Asked if the political environment influenced the actions this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that there is a “political component to everything we do around here.”
Funds and tax immunity clauses
Senate Democrats are wondering if the fund will mark a watershed moment for Republicans.
“Have Republicans finally found a bridge too far?” Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters after Republicans left Washington without funding Trump’s priorities.
Democrats have called the fund an illegal abuse of power designed to line the pockets of Trump’s allies with taxpayer dollars. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called it a “pure theft of public funds.”
The fund was created as part of a settlement resolving a $10-billion lawsuit Trump personally brought against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Alongside it, the deal says the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing any tax claims against Trump and his businesses.
The fund, however, has been the target of most of the bipartisan ire. Mostly because Trump and administration officials have not ruled out that it could stand to benefit people who carried out violence during the Jan. 6 riot.
The public funds, if disbursed, would come from the federal judgment fund, which is a Congress-approved ongoing appropriation that allows the Justice Department to settle cases and make payouts. In the past, Republicans have taken issue with the fund. The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee characterized it an abuse in 2017.
Several of the president’s allies have already talked about tapping into the fund.
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and later pardoned by Trump, told CBS News he would seek a payout from the fund.
“I was targeted,” Tarrio said. “And I do believe that this fund does apply to me.”
May 22 (UPI) — The Federal Communications Commission on Friday opened public comment on a petition from the Disney-owned network ABC to declare its show The View as a “bona fide news interview program.”
Disney submitted the petition in early May on behalf of its television station KTRK-TV in Houston and its parent company ABC for the declaration in order to receive an exemption from laws requiring that non-news programming include equal time for representation of political candidates for office.
The equal time rule is part of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC and regulations for the use of wire and radio, and later television, communications.
The rule is meant to ensure equal access to broadcast station facilities for all candidates for office — essentially, the same amount of air time — to prevent broadcasters from using the public airwaves to push one political candidate or party over another.
Disney and ABC’s request for an exemption to the rule, which are generally granted for news broadcasts, stems from years-long squabbling between President Donald Trump and various people who have hosted The View, which is a news and pop culture analysis program hosted by a panel of women.
“Is The View a ‘bona fide news interview program?” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a post on X announcing the public comment period.
“Under FCC case law, tv shows do not qualify as ‘bona fide news’ if their decisions are based on partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy,” Carr said.
Disney compared the show to NBC’s Meet The Press and CBS’ Face The Nation, which feature interviews and roundtable analysis of political and news topics.
Carr, however, contends that The View does not meet the criteria of those shows as news programs, and so should be required to offer time to multiple candidates in a political race if they feature one of them.
In its May 7 petition to the FCC, Disney and ABC noted that the FCC’s actions could upend “settled law and practice,” as well as “chill critical protected speech both with respect to ‘The View’ and more broadly.”
The filing also notes that the show has “been broadcasting under a bona fide news exemption granted to it more than 20 years ago,” and that the exemption “remains valid.”
Kevin Warsh takes the oath of office as he is sworn-in as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve by Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in the East Room of the White House on Friday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
PHOENIX — As Sandra Ramirez watched footage of immigration officers cracking down on migrants over the past year, she knew her 2024 vote for Donald Trump was a mistake.
“There are a lot of people who are being harassed for the color of their skin, and that’s not right,” said Ramirez, who broke from her Democrat-voting family to cast a ballot for Trump.
“I’ll never go Republican again,” she said.
Trump made inroads with Latino voters like Ramirez during the 2024 elections, earning support that helped propel him to a second term in the White House.
As Republicans gear up for midterms this fall and look ahead to presidential elections in 2028, all eyes are on whether they can hold on to that key support or whether the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown and an economy beset by high prices may drive Latino voters away.
Support among Latino Trump voters shows signs of softening
Latino voters have historically been largely aligned with the Democratic Party but during the 2024 election, they shifted significantly toward Trump. A majority still supported Democrat Kamala Harris for president, but Trump made big gains: 43% of Latino voters nationally voted for him, compared with 35% in the 2020 presidential election, a change attributed in part to their concerns about the economy.
Trump returned to office pledging to crack down on immigration, a promise that prompted arrest sweeps, often against Latino migrants, in homes, workplaces and schools, among others. According to an AP-NORC poll, more than half of Latino adults report knowing someone impacted by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.
More than a year into Trump’s second term, polling suggests a significant drop in support for the president among Latinos who voted for him in 2024, although a majority still supports him.
According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in April, support for the president fell among non-Latino voters from 95% to 79% between February of last year and April of 2026. But among Latino voters who cast their ballot for Trump, the drop-off was more dramatic: 66% approved of his job performance in April compared with 93% at the beginning of his second term.
That national drop could prove crucial in a tight election in swing counties like Maricopa, the largest battleground county in the nation, which encompasses Phoenix and its suburbs. A third of Maricopa County residents are Latino, and one in four of them is an immigrant, according to the Latino Data Hub at UCLA.
Arizona, which also saw a slight increase in Latino support for Trump in 2024, has been a flashpoint in the immigration debate for years. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio conducted high-profile raids in Latino communities and, later, the state saw large influxes of migrants during the Biden administration.
In outh Phoenix, opinions on Trump reflect deep divisions
On a warm afternoon in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of south Phoenix, a vendor at a street fair sold shirts imprinted with phrases like “Lowriders Sunday” while car club members polished their Chevrolets. The parking lot of the nearby Catholic church was full of parishioners attending Spanish-language Sunday Mass.
Albert Rodriguez, a Phoenix tattoo artist, said he once supported Trump. But then he saw how the administration was carrying out enforcement operations in Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
He said the president promised to go after immigrants who were criminals, but instead Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been “hitting the paleta man,” referring to ordinary people trying to make a living from selling frozen treats.
“Big time, I regret it,” Rodriguez said of his 2024 vote for Trump.
Phoenix resident Ronnie Martinez, an Army veteran, backs Trump’s effort to stem crossings at the southern border.
“The border is only a hop, skip and a jump to our south. And I don’t want illegal alien criminals coming from Guatemala, Venezuela, Central America,” he said.
He didn’t like some of the images he’d seen of ICE arresting people in front of their children. But he was also sympathetic to ICE officers, who he said were doing the best they could in difficult situations, and he blamed Democratic officials who weren’t cooperating with immigration enforcement. He also cited economic initiatives as a reason for his continued support for the president, including the removal of taxes on tips and overtime.
Guadalupe Alaffa, another Phoenix resident, blamed President Biden’s policies for prompting Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“He left that damn border wide open,” said Alaffa.
Arizona battleground politics shaped by Latino voter influence
The growing influence of Latino voters is one of several factors that have eroded the GOP’s decades-long dominance in Arizona, putting the state at the center of congressional and presidential elections. Both of Arizona’s senators are now Democrats, along with the top three state officials.
Winning back some of the Latinos who shifted to Trump will be crucial to the reelection prospects of Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes, all Democrats first elected in 2022.
Democrats in Maricopa County have benefited from more than a decade of political organizing among Latinos mobilizing against hard-line immigration enforcement. The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2010 passed a state law known as SB1070, which required police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally.
Around the same time, Arpaio was building a national profile on the right with immigration sweeps in largely Latino neighborhoods.
Some activists see the nationwide crackdown on immigrants as an extension of what Latinos in Arizona endured under Arpaio.
“We were the lab where they implemented a lot of this with Sheriff Joe and now it’s all over the United States,” said Salvador Reza, a longtime activist in Phoenix who advocates for the rights of day laborers.
For more than two decades, Arpaio was repeatedly elected while his department faced accusations of racially profiling Latino drivers and conducting sweeps in Latino neighborhoods and day labor areas. Deputies often stopped residents for traffic violations and turned noncitizens over to ICE, according to rights groups.
In 2013, a federal judge ruled his office had illegally profiled and detained Latinos, and a 2011 Justice Department report found widespread discrimination. After losing reelection in 2016, Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt for defying court orders. He was later pardoned by Trump.
Rising prices and immigration enforcement erode Latino support
The GOP is at risk of losing some of the Latinos that Trump won over, said former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the controversial 2010 bill. She cited economic concerns as a possible reason for the drop in support.
“With the inflation and the cost of living and the gasoline and the wars, I don’t know if they can afford to be a Trump Republican,” Brewer said.
Earl Wilcox, a longtime activist and restaurant owner in Phoenix, said between affordability issues and immigration enforcement, he believes Latino support for Trump is waning. Wilcox’s restaurant hosted Biden in 2024 when he launched an initiative meant to rally Latino support for the Democratic ticket.
“I don’t think the Republican Party will have the support it did the second time around,” Wilcox said, “and I think it started with the raids.”
Santana writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Seeking to reassure U.S. allies, a bipartisan group of senators is departing for a tour of Arctic nations. And this time they’re leaving the men behind.
From the eight senators to their staff and military liaison officers, the all-female group will pay diplomatic visits to government officials in four Arctic nations, witness the challenges for militaries in the region and visit a Norwegian archipelago so remote they will need escorts to avoid run-ins with polar bears.
“I want them to experience, first of all, the awesomeness of the Arctic,” said Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is leading the trip alongside Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The trip was born out of both senators’ work to stabilize relations with U.S. allies in North America and northern Europe at a time when President Trump has taken an aggressive, go-it-alone stance in the region. Just this week, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. would pause participation on a joint board with Canada for continental defense that dates back to World War II.
Murkowski and Shaheen said that is the wrong approach in an Arctic region that has increasing strategic value and unique challenges.
“We will reassure our allies that we recognize and appreciate the importance of our allies and partners in the Arctic as in so many other areas,” Shaheen told the Associated Press, adding that she expected the group to discuss “what more we can do as members of Congress to support those relationships.”
The group is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, with Sens. Cindy Hyde Smith, Katie Britt and Cynthia Lummis making up the Republican side, and Sens. Maggie Hassan, Kirsten Gillibrand and Catherine Cortez Masto from the Democrats. Departing Friday, they will visit Arctic or sub-Arctic regions in Canada; Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark; Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that is one of the northernmost inhabited areas on Earth; and Iceland.
Understanding the Arctic
Murkowski and Shaheen said they want the group to come away with a deeper understanding and appreciation for Arctic communities that are experiencing the effects of climate change, as well as the unique challenges of conducting military operations in the region.
“It’s to understand what it means to go into a remote, isolated community that has no access by road,” Murkowski said, adding that the group would see how military sites need airplane hangars because aircraft cannot be kept outside overnight in the Arctic cold.
NATO has recently tried to foster cooperation in the High North through a series of joint military exercises, especially as nations like China and Russia increase their activities there.
As climate change thins the Arctic ice, it could potentially create a northwest passage for international trade as well as reignite competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources. The region is also host to a number of undersea cable projects that hold strategic value.
The group will also visit Indigenous communities that have lived in the region for generations and understand the environment. Murkowski said she hopes the senators come away from the trip “excited and intrigued and hopefully inspired.”
As Trump threatened to take Greenland earlier this year, Shaheen and Murkowski also teamed up to push for legislation that would prevent the U.S. from attacking any fellow NATO member. They are among the lawmakers pushing to include language in this year’s defense legislation that would prevent the Trump administration from withdrawing military commitments to NATO allies.
Shaheen said, “I also want to know if there are policy directives that we should be thinking about. And it will be great to have a strong bipartisan group there to discuss what we might want to do when we get back.”
How an all-female trip will be different
For some of the nations the group will be visiting, a high representation of women is nothing new. Iceland’s parliamentary body is comprised of roughly 46% women, one of the top ranking countries globally for female political representation.
Shaheen said that research suggests that “when women are the negotiating table, that agreements that are made have a much better chance of lasting for a longer period of time.”
She added that data show that representation of women in government leads to more stable societies, as well as investments back into their communities.
“There are very real reasons why we need to make sure that women are at the table,” she added.
May 22 (UPI) —Tulsi Gabbard resigned as director of national intelligence Friday to support her husband, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer.
Gabbard said in a resignation letter, which she posted on X, that after her husband Abraham Williams’ recent diagnosis she will “step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”
The principal deputy director of national intelligence, Aaron Lukas, will take over as acting DNI after Gabbard departs June 30, President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“I am deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half,” Gabbard said in her letter.
Gabbard, who told Trump that she is resigning during a meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, was a controversial nominee for the position.
Nearly all Republicans voted to confirm her on a party-line vote, but former Senate Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell voted against her because she had “failed to demonstrate” that she was ready for the position.
Before she was named DNI, Gabbard served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Hawaii House of Representatives dating to 2002.
The decision to resign, Gabbard said, is the balance of her husband’s dedication to her career, dating to her time in the military, and that she “cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.”
In his post, Trump said that Gabbard “has done an incredible job, and we will miss her.”
“She, rightfully, wants to be with [Abraham], bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough battle together,” Trump said. “I have no doubt he will soon be better than ever.”
Kevin Warsh takes the oath of office as he is sworn-in as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve by Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in the East Room of the White House on Friday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday oversaw the White House swearing-in of the new Federal Reserve chair and said he would like Kevin Warsh’s help in stimulating the economy even as he tried to emphasize that the nation’s central bank would remain independent.
Trump spent months criticizing Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, for being reluctant to cut interests rates, with the Republican president arguing that lower borrowing costs would provide an economic boost. By taking the unusual step of holding the ceremony in the East Room and not the Fed, Trump made clear his pleasure that Warsh is now in charge.
The war with Iran has caused gas prices to spike, unsettled financial markets and driven inflation concerns across the economy. Those developments have led to recent doubts about whether Warsh might heed Trump’s calls and push the Fed to lower rates.
Still, Trump said he had faith that Warsh would prioritize a strong economy.
“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, it is, that’s a good thing,” the president said. Trump said it was not necessary “to go crazy. Just let it go. We want it to boom.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office. Also on hand were House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Justice Brett Kavanaugh, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Cabinet members.
“I expect he will go down as one of the truly great chairmen of the Federal Reserve that we’ve ever had,” Trump said of Warsh.
Republican President Reagan swore in Alan Greenspan as Fed chair at the White House in 1987. Republican President George W. Bush attended the 2006 ceremony at central bank headquarters when Ben Bernanke became chair.
But having the event at the White House raises more questions about the Fed’s independence at a time when Trump has constantly sought to bend the independent central bank to his will.
Trump’s Department of Justice began an investigation into Powell and the Fed’s extensive building renovations. That drew backlash from lawmakers and the department scrapped the investigation. The Fed’s internal watchdog is now handling the matter. Powell’s term as chair ended last week, though he has opted to remain on the Fed board for now.
Trump made a point of saying during his remarks, “Honestly, I really mean this. This is not said in any other way: I want Kevin to be totally independent.”
“I want him to be independent and just do a great job,” Trump said. “Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing.”
In the next breath, however, Trump said that “in the eyes of many, the Fed has lost its way in recent years” under his predecessor, Democratic President Biden. Trump also suggested that Warsh is looking to lead policies that promote “positive economic growth” and that doing so did not have to mean higher inflation.
Trump also noted that the stock market had risen Friday. “That means they like you,” he said of Warsh.
Warsh once harshly criticized Fed’s policies, including its low interest rate policies coming out of the pandemic, which he says contributed to the largest U.S. inflation spike in four decades in 2021-22. More recently, he has sometimes echoed Trump’s demands for lower rates.
Warsh says productivity gains from artificial intelligence will help the economy grow more quickly without spurring inflation, enabling the Fed to reduce borrowing costs. Many Fed officials, however, disagree that AI’s development will support rate cuts, especially because the technology has also been blamed for large-scale layoffs in the computer sector and other parts of the economy.
On Friday, Warsh promised “to lead a reform oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and mistakes, both escaping static frameworks and models and upholding clear standards of integrity and performance.”
He told Trump that he believes “these years can bring unmatched prosperity that will raise living standards for Americans from all walks of life. And the Fed has something to do with it.”
Warsh further noted that the Fed’s mandate “is to promote price stability and maximum employment. When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve, inflation can be lower; growth, stronger; real take home pay, higher and America … more prosperous.”
As he left the ceremony, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced Trump’s message, predicting to reporters that Warsh will “do the right thing for inflation and growth.”
Weissert and Price write for the Associated Press.
Citizens from various sectors in at least five regional capitals across Bolivia took to the streets Thursday to demand an end to the roadblocks organized by peasant unions and groups aligned with former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who are calling for the resignation of the Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz. Photo by Jorge Abrego/EPA
May 22 (UPI) — Former Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the United States of backing the government of President Rodrigo Paz and attempting to criminalize the protests shaking Bolivia.
“The United States does not defend democracy or respect international law. It finances right-wing coups. It invades countries and steals their natural resources,” Morales wrote in a message Thursday on X.
Officials from the Bolivian identified Morales as the main instigator behind the wave of protests and road blockades demanding the president’s resignation.
The historic leader of the Movement Toward Socialism party, who is entrenched in the coca-growing Chapare region, was declared in contempt by a Bolivian court this month after failing to appear at a hearing linked to a human trafficking case.
The former president was responding to a message published by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on X in which Rubiol said the United States would not allow “criminals and drug traffickers” to overthrow democratically elected governments in the hemisphere.
Let there be no mistake: the United States stands squarely in support of Bolivia’s legitimate constitutional government.
We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 20, 2026
Morales called the remarks “a lie” and accused Washington of supporting the 2019 ouster to gain control of Bolivia’s lithium reserves.
“The United States supported the coup by the gringo against the Indigenous man in 2019 in order to seize our lithium,” he said.
El secretario de Estado de Trump, Marco Rubio, dice que los bolivianos que protestan contra el gobierno de Rodrigo Paz son “criminales y traficantes de drogas”. Esto, además de ser una mentira, es un tremendo cinismo.
Marco Rubio recibió y abrazó, en su oficina, al represor y… pic.twitter.com/pshqxDimct— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) May 21, 2026
In another message published on X, Morales also questioned Paz’s political legitimacy by claiming he was born in Spain, and he accused the president of “criminalizing” and “repressing” Indigenous people, farmers and students participating in the protests.
“Because he is a foreigner, he surely hates Bolivians. He criminalizes, persecutes and represses Indigenous people. He thinks and acts like an imperialist, neoliberal and neocolonial ruler,” Morales wrote.
In an interview this week with La Octava Radio Nacional, Morales called for early elections within 90 days to “pacify Bolivia,” arguing the country is facing a governance crisis.
Morales’ remarks came as Bolivia entered its third week of protests, road blockades and demonstrations led by unions, farming organizations and Indigenous groups rejecting the government’s economic reforms and denouncing fuel shortages, inflation and economic deterioration, according to reports by Bolivian media outlets La Razón and Los Tiempos.
The crisis has also begun to affect the healthcare system. Bolivia’s Health Ministry said at least four people died in recent days because they were unable to receive medical treatment or be transferred in time to healthcare centers due to road blockades and unrest in different parts of the country.
Among the victims was a 12-year-old boy, who died while being transported in an ambulance after the vehicle was unable to pass through blocked roads.
“We are calling for a humanitarian corridor,” the ministry said, according to reports by Infobae.
The Bolivian Highway Administration reported Friday that 51 road blockades were active across seven of the country’s nine departments, most of them concentrated in the highland region, including the departments of La Paz, Oruro and Cochabamba.
WASHINGTON — Tulsi Gabbard resigned as President Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday, saying she needed to step away as her husband battles cancer. She is the fourth Cabinet official to depart during Trump’s second term.
“Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” Gabbard wrote in her resignation letter, which she posted on X. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”
There had been rumblings that Gabbard would split with Trump after the president’s decision to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration. Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation in March, saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the war.
Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, built her political name on her opposition to foreign wars. This put her in an awkward position when the U.S. joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
During a congressional hearing in March, her measured comments were notable for their careful non-endorsement of Trump’s decision to strike Iran. She repeatedly dodged questions about whether the White House had been warned of potential fallout from the conflict, including Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Gabbard said in written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that there had been no effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability after U.S. attacks last year “obliterated” its nuclear program. That statement contradicted Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic.
This created several awkward exchanges with lawmakers who asked Gabbard for her opinion on the threat posed by Iran as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said it was Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she said.
Gabbard’s departure follows Trump having ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late March, in the midst of mounting criticism over her leadership of the department — including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.
The second Cabinet member to leave was Attorney General Pam Bondi, in response to growing frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April, after being the target of various misconduct investigations.
A surprising choice for the job
A veteran but without any intelligence experience, Gabbard was a surprising choice to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. She ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and her opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts.
Citing her military experience, she argued that U.S. wars in the Middle East had destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe and cost thousands of American lives. Gabbard later dropped out of the race and endorsed the ultimate winner, President Joe Biden.
Two years later she left the Democratic Party to become an independent, saying her old party was dominated by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues. She subsequently campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News.
She later endorsed Trump, who also was a strong critic of past U.S. wars in the Middle East and campaigned on a pledge to avoid unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas.
Iran caused early tensions
But friction with the president started soon after he began his second term and tapped Gabbard to lead ODNI, which was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to improve coordination between the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Shortly after taking on the job, Gabbard testified before lawmakers that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. After Trump launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June he said Gabbard was wrong and that he didn’t care what she said.
She appeared to be back in Trump’s good graces when she took a lead role in Trump’s effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss to Biden, whom Gabbard had endorsed. She appeared at an FBI search of election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, even though her office was created to focus on foreign espionage, not state elections.
Earlier this week, however, she testified to lawmakers during an annual threats hearing that last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites had “obliterated” their nuclear program and that there had been no subsequent effort to rebuild.
The statement seemed to complicate Trump’s repeated assertions that Iran posed an imminent threat and created several awkward exchanges with lawmakers who asked Gabbard for her opinion on Iran’s threat as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said that it was Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she said at one of this week’s hearings.
Gabbard wrought big changes in one year
Gabbard vowed to eliminate what she said was the politicization of intelligence by government insiders. But she quickly used her office to support some of Trump’s most partisan of arguments — that he won the 2020 election.
She also worked to undermine the results of earlier investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.
In her year on the job, Gabbard oversaw a sharp reduction in the intelligence workforce, as well as the creation of a new task force that she charged with considering big changes to the intelligence service.
Earlier this year an intelligence sector whistleblower filed a complaint that Gabbard was withholding intelligence for political reasons, a complaint that prompted calls from Democrats for Gabbard’s resignation.
Gabbard, 44, was born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She was first elected as a 21-year-old to Hawaii’s House of Representatives but had to leave after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.
As the first Hindu member of the House, Gabbard was sworn into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu devotional work. She was also the first American Samoan elected to Congress.
During her four House terms she became known for speaking out against her party’s leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ 2016 Democratic presidential primary run made her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally.
Kinnard, Weissert and Klepper write for the Associated Press.
Warsh will lead the central bank at a time when its independence has come under scrutiny amid political pressure.
Published On 22 May 202622 May 2026
Kevin Warsh has been sworn in as the new chair of the United States Federal Reserve Board of Governors, succeeding Jerome Powell, who has held the position since 2018.
Warsh took the oath of office on Friday, following a contentious nomination period, with the Senate voting along party lines on both his confirmation to the Board of Governors and as chairman. Only Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman broke with his Democratic colleagues to advance his nomination.
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Warsh, 56, will lead the central bank at a time when its independence has come under scrutiny amid political pressure on the historically non-partisan institution.
US President Donald Trump, aware of that critique, in his opening remarks said, “I want Kevin to be totally independent and do a great job. Don’t look at me and don’t look at anybody. Just do your own job”.
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, ahead of a vote by the full Senate, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Warsh of being a “sock puppet” for Trump. Warsh denied the allegations and said he would remain independent in his monetary policy decisions.
When Joe Biden was president, Warsh advocated against cutting interest rates, but changed his tune when Trump took office. In December 2025, Trump said that he would only appoint someone to lead the central bank who agreed with him on cutting rates.
Regardless, Warsh cannot unilaterally make policy decisions. He is one of 12 voting members.
The first policy meeting Warsh will lead will be on June 16-17.
Inflationary pressures
Pressure from the White House to cut rates comes amid rising inflation in the US economy.
Consumer prices increased 0.6 percent in April after a 0.9 percent rise in March, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index report released by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month.
On an annual basis, prices were also higher, rising 3.8 percent compared with the same month in 2025, marking the largest increase in three years. The largest surge has been in energy prices, which have risen 17.9 percent over the last year.
US consumers are feeling the strain at the pump. The average price for a gallon of petrol (3.78 litres) is $4.56, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks daily petrol prices. That is up from $2.98 per gallon on February 28, when the US and Israel first struck Iran.
After he was sworn in, Warsh said he was “not naive” about the challenges facing the US economy, and that inflation can be lower and growth strong.
Surging prices could put pressure on the central bank not to cut rates. Analysts from JPMorgan Chase forecasted last month that rates will likely remain unchanged until mid-2027 and anticipated then that rates could rise rather than be cut.
“With inflation having run significantly above 2 percent over the past five years, with further increases in inflation likely to occur as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and with emergent price pressures in a few categories that appeared unrelated to tariffs or energy prices, the staff viewed the possibility that inflation would be more persistent than anticipated as a salient risk,” the central bank said in the newly released minutes of its April policy meeting.
CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which tracks the likelihood of monetary policy decisions, says there is a 97 percent chance that rates will remain unchanged at the next policy meeting.
SAVANNAH, Ga. — An advocacy group has filed suit against the Trump administration over its decision to reinstate a near-ban on abortions for veterans and their family members who depend on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for healthcare.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday says the rule finalized by the VA on Dec. 31 takes away limited abortion access that was “crucial for the health, autonomy, and equality of veterans and their family members.”
Attorneys for the group Minority Veterans of America want the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to throw out the rule. They say the VA adopted the change without citing medical evidence or other justifications, violating the Administrative Procedures Act that governs federal rulemaking.
The VA did not include abortion in its coverage until 2022. President Biden’s administration added it months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and states’ abortion bans began taking effect.
Abortion access the VA provided under Biden was limited, applying only in cases when a pregnant woman’s life or health was at risk, or in cases of rape or incest.
The Biden change allowed the VA to provide abortion even in states where it was banned. And it brought the VA’s coverage into line with other federal healthcare plans — including Medicaid and TriCare coverage for active military members and their families — that allowed limited abortion access.
The VA announced its proposal to undo those changes last August, a few months after President Trump returned to the White House.
The VA had said it will still provide abortions in cases where a pregnant woman’s life is threatened. That’s something state laws allow, even in places where bans are in place.
However, the VA no longer allows exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest or to protect a pregnant woman’s health. Abortion counseling is also no longer allowed.
A VA spokesperson declined to comment, noting the agency typically doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Minority Veterans of America says it represents more than 3,600 members across the U.S.
“Our community includes veterans with complex medical histories, those who have experienced pregnancy complications, and survivors of sexual violence and trauma, all of whom need access to abortion care and counseling to protect their health,” Lindsay Church, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.
In publishing its final rule in December, the VA said it was restoring the agency’s longstanding position that abortions were not “needed” under federal law and that “this determination did not prohibit providing life-saving care to pregnant veterans.”
The lawsuit says one of Minority Veteran of America’s members is a military veteran who just learned she was pregnant in early May. She suffers from chronic pain that has been exacerbated by the pregnancy, placing her health “at substantial risk,” says the lawsuit, which withheld the woman’s name to protect her privacy.
The lawsuit says the VA won’t allow the unnamed veteran to receive an abortion “even if her health is at risk, unless a provider determines an abortion is necessary to save her life.”
US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, a surprise move that has deepened uncertainty about Washington’s military posture in Europe.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, Trump linked the decision directly to his relationship with Poland’s right-wing President Karol Nawrocki.
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“Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” Trump wrote.
But the move comes just days after the Pentagon cancelled the deployment of about 4,000 troops to Poland as part of a wider reduction of US forces in Europe.
The abrupt reversal has fuelled questions about what exactly Trump has ordered – and whether the deployment is driven by military strategy with Europe, or by the US president’s increasingly transactional approach to alliances.
US Army soldiers carry a simulated casualty into a MEDEVAC vehicle during NATO’s Sword 26 exercise, which tested new battlefield evacuation methods using drones and AI-assisted medical technology in Bemowo Piskie, Poland, on May 11, 2026 [Kuba Stezycki/Reuters]
What has Trump ordered and which troops are involved?
While Trump described the move as a new deployment, reports from US media suggest the announcement may actually amount to a reversal of an earlier Pentagon decision.
Last week, the Pentagon abruptly halted the deployment of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division – a Texas-based unit of more than 4,000 troops that had been preparing to rotate into Poland and Eastern Europe.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump later questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about why the deployment had been cancelled, telling him the US should not “treat Poland poorly” given its close ties to Washington.
Several reports said some parts of the brigade – known as the “Black Jack Brigade” – had already begun moving equipment and personnel when the deployment was stopped.
The Pentagon has not confirmed whether Trump’s newly announced 5,000 troops are the same soldiers whose deployment was cancelled earlier this month, or whether they will be redeployed from elsewhere in Europe, such as from Germany.
The White House and Pentagon have so far released few other details about this latest deployment.
Poland currently hosts about 10,000 US troops, largely on a rotational basis, according to the Polish government. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country has become one of Washington’s most important military partners on NATO’s eastern edge and a key hub for Western military aid to Kyiv.
In 2020, Poland and the US signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, expanding military cooperation and helping to formalise a longer-term American military presence in the country.
How has Poland responded?
Nawrocki welcomed Trump’s announcement, calling the Polish-American alliance “a vital pillar of security for every Polish home and for all of Europe”.
“Good alliances are those based on cooperation, mutual respect, and a commitment to our shared security,” he wrote on social media.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski also welcomed the news, saying the deployment would ensure that “the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels”.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also welcomed the move.
“It serves not only for Poland’s security, but for the security of the whole alliance and so also for us,” he told reporters. “So, this is absolutely in our interest.”
Why is Trump doing this?
The announcement appears to mark a sharp reversal from recent signals that the Trump administration was preparing to reduce the US military’s footprint in Europe.
Earlier this month, Washington announced plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany after a public row between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US-Israeli war on Iran. Trump later suggested the cuts could go even further.
At the same time, Trump has repeatedly accused European NATO allies of failing to spend enough on defence and of not doing enough to support US policy in the Middle East.
Analysts say the decision over Poland also reflects Trump’s increasingly transactional approach to alliances – punishing governments he sees as hostile or unhelpful while rewarding leaders and countries more closely aligned with his brand of right-wing politics.
Germany and Spain have both faced criticism from Trump administration officials in recent weeks over their positions on Iran and defence spending, while Poland’s nationalist government has cultivated close ties with Trump and the wider MAGA movement.
Before meeting NATO counterparts in Sweden, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “Like any alliance, it has to be good for everyone who’s involved. There has to be a clear understanding of what the expectations are.”
“The president’s views, frankly disappointment, at some of our NATO allies and their response to our operations in the Middle East – they’re well documented – that will have to be addressed,” Rubio added. “That won’t be solved or addressed today.”
Poland, by contrast, has emerged as one of NATO’s highest defence spenders, allocating about 4.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence. It has also remained one of Ukraine’s strongest backers and has consistently pushed for a larger US military presence on its territory.
The deployment, therefore, appears both strategic and political – reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank while rewarding one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe at a time when he is openly questioning relationships with other partners on the continent.
But the confusion surrounding the announcement has also highlighted a broader uncertainty hanging over Washington’s Europe policy, with allies still trying to determine whether the administration is reducing its commitment to NATO overall, or simply reshaping it around governments Trump sees as more loyal.
