politics

Andy Burnham has officially begun his tenure as Britain’s prime minister with something few of his recent predecessors enjoyed: breathing room. After replacing Keir Starmer as Labour leader and becoming the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in just a decade, Burnham inherits an economy burdened by weak growth, strained public services and persistent cost-of-living pressures. Yet, unlike the turbulent starts experienced by previous leaders, financial markets have greeted his arrival with surprising calm.

That early confidence may prove one of Burnham’s greatest assets—or one of his greatest tests.

A Different Kind of Labour Leader

Burnham enters Downing Street with a political identity distinct from his predecessor. During his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester, he cultivated an image as a champion of regional development and public investment, earning the nickname “King of the North.”

Unlike Starmer’s cautious approach to fiscal management, Burnham has promised to “rewire Britain” through greater devolution, investment in public services, re-industrialisation and stronger local government.

Such promises normally raise concerns among investors wary of higher public spending. Yet markets have remained remarkably composed.

British government bond yields have stayed close to 5%, while sterling has strengthened against the euro since Burnham emerged as Labour’s preferred successor. Investors appear reassured by his commitment to maintaining Britain’s existing fiscal rules rather than pursuing aggressive borrowing.

Why Markets Are Staying Calm

Several factors explain why investors have not reacted negatively.

First, Burnham has avoided announcing sweeping fiscal changes during his first days in office. Instead, he has focused on politically popular issues such as healthcare, homelessness, defence and regional economic development.

Second, his appointment of former Defence Secretary John Healey as Chancellor suggests continuity rather than confrontation with financial markets.

More importantly, many economists believe economic policy will remain closely directed by Downing Street rather than being driven independently by the Treasury, reducing uncertainty over Britain’s fiscal direction.

This perception matters because markets today are extremely sensitive to fiscal credibility.

The Shadow of Liz Truss

Any discussion of British economic policy inevitably returns to September 2022.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s unfunded tax-cutting budget triggered one of the worst government bond sell-offs in modern British history. Pension funds came under severe pressure, forcing the Bank of England to intervene to stabilise markets.

That episode fundamentally changed how investors assess UK fiscal policy.

The International Monetary Fund recently concluded that the crisis permanently increased the risk premium investors demand for holding British government debt. In other words, markets now react far more aggressively to any sign of fiscal irresponsibility.

Burnham understands this reality.

His repeated commitment to existing borrowing rules appears designed to reassure investors that Labour will not repeat past mistakes.

The Economic Tailwinds

Burnham also benefits from several favourable developments that could buy his government valuable time.

Inflation has moderated compared with previous years, reducing immediate pressure on the Bank of England to tighten monetary policy further.

Energy prices have also eased relative to their crisis peaks, while upcoming regulatory adjustments may further reduce household energy costs.

Another important advantage comes from the fiscal restraint maintained under former Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Her adherence to strict borrowing limits has substantially reduced planned government debt issuance this year, giving Burnham more flexibility to adjust spending priorities without immediately alarming financial markets.

In effect, Burnham inherits a stronger fiscal starting position than many expected.

The Difficult Choices Ahead

Those advantages, however, are unlikely to last indefinitely.

Britain still faces sluggish productivity, weak investment, deteriorating public infrastructure and mounting demands for higher defence spending.

Burnham has also hinted at broader reforms that could eventually test investor confidence, including:

• Greater public control over utilities.
• Property tax reform.
• Increased defence spending.
• Adjustments to frozen income tax thresholds.
• Possible changes to National Insurance contributions.
• Expanded regional investment programmes.

Each proposal carries fiscal implications.

Delivering meaningful improvements in living standards while maintaining market confidence will require careful balancing.

The Reform UK Factor

Politics may ultimately shape economic policy more than economics itself.

Although Labour has changed leaders, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK continues to perform strongly in opinion polls.

If Burnham adopts an overly cautious approach that fails to improve public services or living standards, Reform could continue gaining political momentum.

That creates a dilemma.

Markets generally favour fiscal discipline, but voters increasingly demand visible economic change.

Burnham must therefore find a middle ground: ambitious enough to convince voters Labour can improve daily life, yet disciplined enough to convince investors Britain’s finances remain under control.

Why It Matters

Burnham’s premiership begins at a pivotal moment for Britain.

Economic growth remains weak, public confidence in government is fragile, and geopolitical uncertainty—from rising defence commitments to global trade disruptions—continues to weigh on the outlook.

Unlike many of his predecessors, Burnham enjoys a brief window of goodwill from financial markets. Whether he can convert that goodwill into lasting economic reform without unsettling investors may determine not only Labour’s electoral fortunes but also Britain’s broader economic trajectory.

Analysis

The first major test will come with Burnham’s autumn budget.

Investors will closely examine whether his government maintains fiscal discipline while introducing the reforms needed to revive growth and address Britain’s long-standing structural problems.

Markets will also monitor whether Labour can improve economic conditions quickly enough to halt the rise of Reform UK. If opinion polls continue shifting toward Nigel Farage’s party, investors may begin pricing in greater political uncertainty, reviving memories of the volatility seen during the Liz Truss government.

For now, Burnham has been handed two valuable gifts: investor patience and fiscal breathing space. Whether those advantages become the foundation of a successful premiership or simply a temporary reprieve will depend on the difficult choices his government makes over the coming months.

With information from Reuters.

Police say a possible political motive is under investigation in the killing of the ex-minister.

Prosecutors in the United Kingdom have charged a 28-year-old man with the murder of Ann Widdecombe, a former government minister and member of the far-right Reform UK party.

Joshua Kerry was charged on Monday and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Tuesday, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home near Dartmoor National Park in southwest England on July 9, a day after she missed a television interview. Police said she had been deliberately targeted but did not disclose how she died, citing only “serious injuries”.

Kerry, who is from Rotherham in northern England, was arrested on July 11. He was initially held on suspicion of murder until evidence uncovered while he was in custody led to his additional arrest on “terror” charges.

National Counterterrorism Policing head Laurence Taylor said that the exact motive was still being established.

“Given [Widdecombe’s] profile and the targeted nature of the attack, determining the motivation, including any possible political motivation, remains an active avenue of investigation,” Taylor said.

Widdecombe served as a Conservative member of parliament from 1987 until 2010 and was known for her right-wing political stances.

She later joined the Brexit Party, winning a seat in the European Parliament, and moved to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after the UK left the European Union.

The incident adds to mounting concerns over political violence in the UK. The past decade has seen the murders of two sitting members of parliament. Labour’s Jo Cox, shot and stabbed in 2016 by a far-right nationalist, and Conservative David Amess, stabbed to death in 2021 by a man inspired by ISIL (ISIS).

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday she’s running for a full term to replace her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat.

“I’ve made a decision,” Graham told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, according to a clip released of an interview set to air Monday. “I’m in.”

The entrance of Graham — sworn in last week to fulfill the remaining months of her late brother’s term, which expires in January — into the Republican scramble to select a new Senate nominee further complicates an already rushed process after Lindsey Graham ‘s death this month.

A weeklong filing period opens Tuesday for the special Republican primary, which will be Aug. 11. On Friday, President Trump said that Darline Graham had his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to seek the nomination, adding, “RUN, DARLINE, RUN!”

Last week, Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham to serve the remainder of her brother’s term.

In his announcement, McMaster made no reference to Graham as a placeholder or symbolic appointment, although a person familiar with McMaster’s thinking but unauthorized to speak publicly said the governor had never contemplated that she would run for the seat herself.

Before the emergence of Graham — and their Oval Office meeting after she was sworn in — Trump had suggested he could back a potential candidacy from Republican Rep. Russell Fry, who said Monday he would officially enter the special primary.

Funeral services for Lindsey Graham are scheduled to be held next week in Washington and South Carolina.

The millions in Graham’s campaign account aren’t funds that Darline Graham could directly access in a run of her own, said Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Under federal rules, Lindsey Graham’s campaign would be limited to transferring just $2,000 to a potential Darline Graham candidacy.

However, Smith said there is no limit on how much it could transfer to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which could — thanks to a Supreme Court decision last month — “spend an unlimited amount in coordination with Darline’s campaign.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

Troy Jackson, a former Maine lawmaker and fifth-generation logger from the North Maine Woods, has emerged as the likely new replacement for the state’s Democratic Senate nominee after former candidate Graham Platner quit the high-stakes race less than two weeks ago.

Platner’s departure came after a sexual assault allegation that he denied but forced his exit anyway. It sparked a wave of potential candidates eager to prove to Mainers that they could take on longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

But by Sunday, the field had largely been cleared after Jackson supporters spent the weekend securing hundreds of delegates who promised to back him at the upcoming state convention.

Under a never-before-used system to replace Platner, delegates will vote Saturday in Bangor on a new Senate nominee. Out of the 601 delegates who will gather this weekend, Jackson’s campaign says it has 481 delegates committed to supporting him.

Top opponents — including Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah, former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention — have since dropped out, and Jackson announced Monday that he was focusing his attention on ousting Collins.

“I’m grateful to Democrats across Maine for putting their faith in me and in what we’re fighting for,” Jackson said in a statement.

“This didn’t happen because of one person,” he added. “It happened because hundreds of volunteers put in the hours, knocked on doors, made phone calls, and believed we could build something bigger than ourselves.”

Yet securing the nomination is only just the beginning of challenges facing Jackson. There’s little more than 100 days until the general election, meaning Jackson faces an uphill battle raising campaign funds when Collins already has millions. Jackson also must implement a statewide campaign network and woo over the state’s large independent base.

As former state Senate president, Jackson may be more politically vetted than Platner was running as a first-time candidate, but the logger’s backing of progressive policies will leave him open to plenty of attacks by Republicans, said Nicholas Jacobs, a political scientist at Colby College in Maine.

“The guy does have some pretty interesting positions,” Jacobs said. “Positions that are pretty far to the left of the median voter.”

Jackson supports ‘Medicare for All’ and eliminating ICE

Like Platner, Jackson has said he wants to “get rid of” Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has become top of mind for many Mainers after an ICE officer fatally shot a driver last week. Democrats have rushed to connect Collins to the embattled federal agency, while Jackson has reiterated his support of dissolving ICE altogether.

Jackson has also called for “Medicare for All,” which would replace job-based and individual private health insurance with a government-run plan that guarantees coverage for all with no premiums, no deductibles and only minimal copays for certain services.

Republicans were already criticizing Jackson as a “socialist” Monday.

“This entire process is just as bad as Kamala’s rigged coronation,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Kristen Cianci, nodding to former President Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race in July 2024, leaving Vice President Kamala Harris to head up the Democratic ticket and ultimately lose to Republican Donald Trump.

“Maine voters have had their voices stolen by party insiders,” Cianci added.

Jackson first ran for office as a Republican

However, unlike the scrutiny Platner faced from a series of controversies, Jackson’s background coming from “old Maine” and his decades of working in the logging industry will help him, Jacobs said.

“He’s the real deal,” Jacobs said.

In 1998, Jackson helped lead a weeklong blockade along the Quebec border in an effort to protest the hiring of Canadian loggers who were coming into Maine and driving down pay rates. The standoff ended with Jackson being escorted away by police, but resulted in Jackson fighting for better logger and wood hauler protections as a state lawmaker.

Jackson initially ran as a Republican in 2000 when he sought a seat inside Maine’s House of Representatives. He lost, but won two years later when he ran as an independent. He switched to the Democratic Party in 2004, and eventually became the Maine Senate president before leaving the statehouse in 2024.

He came in third while running for governor in this year’s Democratic primary election, but had the backing of Platner, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution, the political organization founded by Sanders.

Democrats must net four Senate seats to gain control of the 100-member chamber, and party leaders viewed Maine as a crucial piece of the puzzle, along with Alaska, Ohio and North Carolina.

Kruesi writes for the Associated Press.

Protesters threw eggs at lawmakers’ vehicles outside Albania’s parliament, demanding changes to laws allowing tourist resorts in protected areas.

Police used batons and tear gas to disperse protesters as tens of thousands of people joined the Cockroach Janta Party’s march on parliament in New Delhi. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following exam scandals that have triggered nationwide outrage.

Originally published in Spanish by Runrun.es

The mission of the Venezuelan Foundation for Seismological Research (Funvisis) is to guide life-saving actions during earthquakes. Its capacity to fulfill this purpose was severely diminished when, on June 24, the earth shook twice, devastating the country’s central coastline.

Multiple sources consulted separately for this report agree that the institution suffered a progressive dismantling following a pivotal change in command: the historical tradition of having scientists lead the agency was replaced by military leadership. Simultaneously, the entity was transferred from the Ministry of University Education, Science, and Technology to the Ministry of Internal Relations, Justice, and Peace, now under Diosdado Cabello.

Former employees look back at the institution with nostalgia. They speak of an era when budgets were always tight, but the sheer dedication to the job was enough to prioritize science, training, and prevention. Today, the landscape reveals a significantly reduced monitoring network, shuttered educational programs, and a lack of specialized personnel after they left the country in a state of heightened vulnerability.

Declining precision in seismological activity

Presently, the National Seismological Network represents a mere quarter of what it was a decade ago. A clear sign of this institutional weakness is that it took the Foundation 4 hours and 26 minutes to inform the public about the details of the dual earthquake. By comparison, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) maintains an average standard of 20 minutes to process and publish data for earthquakes outside its territory. For events within the state of California, where its seismic network is extensive, reports are issued within 2 to 5 minutes.

According to the institution itself, the National Seismological Network is responsible for recording Venezuela’s tremors in real-time using broadband stations “to reduce vulnerability across the country.”

André Singer, president of the institution between 1996 and 2000, noted that in 1999, the necessary funds were secured to acquire a modern seismological network. This network featured 35 broadband stations and began installation in the year 2000. That same year, Funvisis became an attached agency of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.

By 2014, Funvisis’s website stated that Venezuela had 40 stations distributed across areas of highest seismic activity. Regional networks complemented local data, such as the Seismological Network of the Venezuelan Andes (RedSAV) and the Seismology Center of the Universidad de Oriente (CSUDO).

The network in the Venezuelan Andes used to cover 25 seismological stations. Now, it is completely inoperative.

Curiously, in the 2015 annual report from the Ministry of University Education, Science, and Technology, Funvisis reported expanding the network to 38 stations. This was achieved after putting two satellite seismological stations into operation and building and installing two others.

“The network must currently have at least ten operational stations, in addition to several accelerometers and satellite GPS stations in service,” Singer explained in an interview with Runrun.es, adding that this was only possible due to a recent restoration effort.

During a forum on July 2, Dr. Raúl Estévez, founder of the Geophysics Laboratory at the Universidad de los Andes (ULA), asserted that this reduction in stations occurred due to “an absolute lack of budget and technical support.” He added that the western regional network, managed by ULA—which at one point operated 25 of its own stations—became completely inoperative due to a lack of resources.

In Sucre, the Venezuelan state with the highest seismic risk, the UDO Seismology Center is also inactive, its director, Janette Castillo, confirmed to Runrun.es. The institution previously managed a network of stations covering the northeastern region.

The specialist explained that they were severely affected following the pandemic by the dismantling of UDO’s Sucre campus and a dwindling university budget. However, she noted that efforts are currently underway to try and recover the institution. She emphasized that local networks are vital for enabling more detailed monitoring and study of seismic activity in each region of the country.

The closure of flagship public spaces

Following the 1967 Caracas earthquake—a magnitude 6.5 event that left approximately 283 dead and 2,000 injured—the need arose to create a specialized institution for the study and investigation of earthquakes. Thus, Funvisis was born in July 1972. Following the 1997 Cariaco earthquake, which claimed 73 lives, the entity modernized how earthquakes were recorded nationwide, transitioning from heat-sensitive paper to the digital-satellite screens still used today.

In 1998, one of the institution’s flagship programs was created: the Madeleilis Guzmán Seismic Classroom, named after the schoolteacher who died during the Cariaco earthquake after saving two of her students. It served as a laboratory to understand how different sectors of the population responded to tremors, allowing the institution to tailor training and prevention guidelines accordingly.

Through this program, seismic classrooms managed by local authorities were established across various corners of the country’s seismic geography, including Cariaco, Lagunillas de Mérida, El Tocuyo, and at the Cagigal Observatory, before the former Seismological Museum of Caracas ceased operations, Singer detailed.

The program was shut down in 2018 under the administration of Vice Admiral Roberto Antonio Betancourt Arocha, the man photographed above. The space where it operated was converted into an auditorium.

In 2018, former Interior Minister Néstor Reverol promised to strengthen Funvisis’ stations and guarantee their security. After the June quakes, Funvisis reported the theft of a vital seismological sensor.

A former employee with experience in the comprehensive management of socio-natural and technological disaster risks explained that under that administration, the goal was to commercialize training and charge for workshops. “That was the reason I resigned from Funvisis, because knowledge and learning are universal rights,” they told Runrun.es.

Despite five separate sources reporting the suspension of the program, Funvisis claimed in a press release on February 16 of this year that they were celebrating the 28th anniversary of its creation.

It was also under this military administration that the Seismological Museum of Caracas was closed. The museum operated out of the historic Juan Manuel Cagigal Observatory, where, among other equipment, a mid-20th-century Wiechert seismometer was preserved.

“That museum featured a seismic simulator so the public could experience the shaking of an earthquake, along with instructors, specialized technical personnel, and a library maintained by Funvisis. It fulfilled a major role in addressing the social demands of the communities most in need of seismic prevention, specifically the working-class areas surrounding the Cagigal Observatory and western Caracas,” Singer detailed. He added that some of the instruments and personnel from that museum were transferred to a room at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Bellas Artes.

According to the former worker who preferred to keep their name confidential, the free 0800-TEMBLOR telephone service was also suspended during the tenure of Vice Admiral Betancourt. Runrun.es called the number multiple times during the first week of July, but the calls went unanswered.

The dwindling financial lifeline

The former president of the institution during the 1990s explained that “Funvisis’s deficit-ridden budget situation has been a recurring ailment throughout its history.” He recounted facing these difficulties firsthand and avoiding the technical shutdown of the entity through a budget rectification and the support of lawmaker Walter Márquez across political factions in Congress. He added: “The institution was sustained by income generated from contracts for seismic hazard studies, which the oil industry continuously requested for over 20 years starting in 1980 to ensure the safety of its installations.”

“During the peak demand for contracted studies, that revenue source represented nearly half of Funvisis’s annual budget,” he said.

However, over the last 15 years, this funding stream dried up in tandem with the collapse of the oil industry. Consequently, Funvisis came to depend almost exclusively on the budgets of the ministries to which it was subordinated.

“There was very little qualified staff left [when Jiménez Villarruel took over last year] given that most had been made persona non grata by Vice Admiral Betancourt (…) to the point where he blocked visits from anyone wishing to use Funvisis’ public library.”

In 2015, while attached to the Ministry of University Education, Science, and Technology, the institution acknowledged among its obstacles that “delays in foreign currency liquidation have paralyzed the purchasing processes for technological equipment acquired abroad, leading to delays in the physical execution of projects, as well as hindering the proper tracking of national seismic activity by Funvisis.”

By decree of then-President Nicolás Maduro, Funvisis was transferred in 2018 to the Ministry of Internal Relations, Justice, and Peace, which was then headed by Néstor Reverol. The minister at the time indicated that the change aimed to strengthen the National Seismological Service with investments in various stations across the country and to guarantee their security.

Nonetheless, this security guarantee was far from absolute. Just days after the June 24 earthquakes, Funvisis geologist Franck Audemard reported the theft of a sensor installed to monitor tectonic movements along the Boconó fault, which is linked to the first of the earthquakes recorded last month. The equipment had been installed in 2013 in the La Chicharronera sector, between Morón and Barquisimeto, on a property owned by former Venezuelan Major League Baseball player Melvin Mora. “The data from this equipment is vital for what is happening seismically in the country,” Audemard said in a video shared on social media.

A critical shortage of specialists

One of the interviewed sources pointed out that in September 2025, the current president of Funvisis, Major General (G/D) Luis Alejandro Jiménez Villarruel, took command.

“He inherited the hardest part, because he took over a foundation already lacking supplies, equipment, tools, and logistical materials. Furthermore, there was very little qualified staff left, given that most had been made persona non grata by Vice Admiral Betancourt and the majority of his executive team—to the point where he blocked visits from anyone wishing to use the foundation’s public library,” the source expressed.

Estévez, from ULA, agreed that there is a severe shortage of experts in the field nationwide, attributing it to a brain drain caused by the financial asphyxiation of universities and research centers. “The next generations in this field have left. Only us retirees remain,” he lamented during a forum at the Mérida College of Engineers.

Days after the dual earthquake, geological engineer Luiraimar Salazar denounced via her X account that the deterioration of Funvisis directly aligns with the military management that took over in 2017. During this period, she alleged that experienced scientists were forced to retire, while other specialists were pushed out of the institution, and the personnel who remain working do so under precarious salaries and with increasingly limited resources.

The expert insisted that citizens have the right to question what decisions were or were not made, and how those actions impacted the country’s capacity to monitor and study seismic threats.

Runrun.es visited the Funvisis headquarters in Caracas to seek an official statement. The staff at the entrance indicated that no one was available to address the request. They stated they would contact the outlet to arrange an interview, but at the time of this publication, no such call had been received.

July 20 (UPI) — Cuban artist and dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara said he cannot return home after arriving in exile in the United States this weekend.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio renewed his call Monday for the Cuban government to release more than 700 political prisoners amid rising tensions between Washington and Havana.

Otero Alcántara, 38, arrived in Miami on Saturday after spending five years imprisoned in Cuba on charges of desecrating national symbols, contempt and public disorder.

His arrival was confirmed by Rubio, who said the artist had been imprisoned for challenging the Cuban government.

In his first public remarks since arriving in the United States, the founder of the San Isidro Movement said prison changed the way he sees people, but acknowledged that exile carries a high personal cost.

“Five years later, I am more human. Prison is a place where you can look into the eyes of people who, even after committing the worst crimes, are still human beings,” he said in videos published by Caraota Digital.

However, he said that being forced to leave Cuba does not represent true freedom.

“I have been expelled from Cuba. This is not right. … I can’t see my son. I can’t return to my home. It’s just not right,” he said.

Otero Alcántara gained international prominence via a collective of artists and intellectuals that called for greater freedom of expression in Cuba and that, according to Amnesty International, has been the target of constant persecution by Cuban authorities.

He was arrested while attempting to join the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, and was sentenced to five years in prison a year later.

After confirming Otero Alcántara’s arrival in the United States, Rubio said on X that the artist’s imprisonment was the result of challenging “the Marxist tyranny of the Cuban regime,” and he demanded the immediate release of “the more than 700 political prisoners unjustly detained” on the island.

Rubio said President Donald Trump‘s administration will continue to support those seeking greater political freedoms in Cuba.

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, announced the birth of their fourth child, the first born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years.

Born Sunday, Alec Neel Vance joins older siblings Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4.

Vance announced the birth Sunday on social media with a statement signed by him and his wife.

“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said.

They thanked doctors and staff at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and with the White House medical team.

The Republican vice president’s growing family is in keeping with his passionate advocacy for Americans to have more children. He has also suggested that the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was his friend, factored into the decision to have another child.

Vance, a former U.S. Marine, repeatedly expressed alarm about declining birth rates in America as he launched his political career in 2021 with a bid for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio. As vice president, he said in Washington at the 2025 March for Life anti-abortion rally, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”

The vice president, who’s 41, has been accompanied on overseas trips by Usha Vance, 40, and their children, with the kids often pajama-clad as they board Air Force Two for the overnight flights.

Usha Vance, the daughter of immigrants from India, had already been the subject of some public fascination because of her husband. Her pregnancy, which was announced in January, amplified that spotlight since it is rare for occupants of the United States’ highest public offices to add to their families while serving.

The last time a sitting vice president became a new father was in the 1800s.

Schuyler Colfax and his second wife, Ellen Wade, had a son, Schuyler Colfax III, in 1870 when Colfax was serving as vice president, according to the White House Historical Assn. Decades before that, John C. Calhoun and his wife, Floride Bonneau, had a son, William, in 1829 when Calhoun was vice president, the association said.

Usha Vance recently came under scrutiny after The New York Times’ fashion critic called attention to the stomach-hugging, coral maternity dress she wore for a Father’s Day episode of “Storytime with the Second Lady,” a video podcast she launched during the pregnancy.

The Times wrote that the attention that Vance, Miller and Leavitt had put on their pregnancies offered “an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement,” which encourages couples to have as many children as possible to counter declining birth rates.

The second lady responded on social media, writing, “Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks! In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and a good story with your kids on Storytime with the Second Lady.” She later shared the receipt for the dress, and her husband applauded her frugality.

“She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!” the vice president wrote on social media.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO —  Gov. Gavin Newsom will soon leave office without gaining the support of fellow Californians for his most ambitious climate project: the banning of new gas-burning car sales by 2035.

Newsom issued an executive order in 2020 taking new fossil-fueled passenger vehicles off the California market nine years from now.

But roughly two-thirds of Californians think that’s a lousy idea, according to a poll released last week by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Among likely voters, 65% oppose the termed-out governor’s edict and just 34% support it. The opposition among infrequent or nonvoters is even stronger.

Negative attitudes are especially stiff in inland California — particularly the Central Valley — and among middle-class people with incomes between $40,000 and $100,000, those over age 55 and Republicans.

Opposition to being denied new gas vehicles has grown substantially since 2021, when Californians were evenly divided over the issue.

But the state’s anticipated next governor, moderate Democrat Xavier Becerra, is more in line with Californians’ thinking on gas cars than is Newsom.

Becerra told me during his primary election campaign that Newsom’s 2035 goal is not realistic.

“We can’t make it by ‘35,” he said. “But we can make it.” Sometime in the future.

The fact is lots of people can’t afford electric vehicles because they tend to cost more than cars fueled by gas.

Besides, there’s an inconvenience of having to pull off the road for a 40-minute recharging stop on a long trip — if you can find a vacant recharger.

And “electricity is not cheap. It often depends on the time of day,” notes PPIC Polling Director Mark Baldassare, who owns an electric vehicle and says he likes it.

Newsom has been hawking electric vehicles since he came into office, like some slick TV pitchman — his goal being to greatly reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

The governor and the Legislature recently appropriated $135 million to motivate Californians to buy new or used electric vehicles.

First-time EV buyers will receive $3,500 rebates on vehicles with manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of $50,000 or less. Used car buyers will get $1,750 off if the sale price is $25,000 or less.

Automakers will pay for half the incentive costs — obstensibly, at least, if they don’t just secretly add their tab to the vehicle price.

This smacks of a huge taxpayer giveaway to manufacturers if the state isn’t careful. Is it really the state’s job to sell cars? Shouldn’t it be the automakers’ responsibility to offer competitive prices? Whatever.

Newsom’s plan partially replaces a $7,500 federal tax incentive for new EVs that President Trump and the Republican-led Congress allowed to expire last year.

California already leads the nation in EV ownership, with around 1.3 million vehicles registered. That’s more than five times the No. 2 state, Florida. And it’s not just because California’s population is much larger. We also lead in per capita ownership.

There’s plenty of contradiction and hypocrisy in the divided minds of Californians, as highlighted in the lengthy PPIC survey into their views on environmental policies.

People strongly favor fighting climate change — at least in concept — until it adversely affects them directly. That’s just human nature.

Asked what they consider the most important environmental issue facing California, those surveyed placed wildfires first, followed closely by global warming.

Baldassare says what struck him in the poll was “the disconnect between what people support in policies and what they’re prepared to do.”

“Two things are going on in California now,” the pollster continues. “People have their long-standing concerns about the environment. But they also have immediate concerns about affordability.

“When it comes to what people are willing to do, they’re worried about living costs and particularly the cost of energy. It’s something we’ve noticed even more this year. It affects the political and economic landscape.”

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed support Newsom’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero “as soon as possible, but no later than 2045.”

And there’s overwhelming support for taxing corporations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce.

Roughly 60% favor requiring all electricity to be generated with renewable energy — such as wind and solar — by 2045, although support for that state edict has dropped by 15 percentage points in the last six years.

Paradoxically, people aren’t willing to pay more for electricity produced by renewable sources. Roughly 60% reject that idea. Ten years ago, almost that many told PPIC pollsters they were willing to pay extra.

And today they’re not nearly ready to surrender their option of buying a new gas-fueled automobile.

For one thing, they’re not convinced there’ll be enough charging stations to handle a lot more EVs. Twice as many people are not confident of that as are confident, the poll found.

The California Energy Commission reported in January that there were more than 200,000 public and private EV charging stations in the state, plus 800,000 chargers in homes. The state is helping to add more along highways.

Becerra has pledged to take a fresh look at several controversial Newsom projects, including the pokey bullet train. There’s much uncertainty about the pending new governor.

But there’s one pretty good bet: In 2035, sales of new gas cars will still be getting a green light.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump escalates election attacks, threatens California over voter data
Bringing back competition: Too many congressional races are over before they start. Here’s a remedy
The L.A. Times Special: Trump’s voter fraud speech was bait. Stop biting

Until next week,
George Skelton

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KISUMU, Kenya — As U.S. antiabortion groups’ campaign to restrict abortion access at home and abroad has gained strength since President Trump returned to office, his administration is delivering new global momentum to the movement by exporting its view of “family values” to nations overseas.

At the annual March for Life demonstration in January in Washington, Vice President JD Vance announced sweeping new restrictions on U.S. funding for nongovernmental organizations, foreign governments and U.N. agencies that promote access to abortion, gender-affirming care and diversity initiatives overseas. “We’re going to start blocking every international NGO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of U.S. money,” he told the crowd.

That effort has been particularly active in Africa, where doctors and advocates now describe an environment of rising harassment, arbitrary detentions and deadly backstreet abortions, with often deadly results for women across the continent.

The expanded restrictions build on the antiabortion advocacy work carried out by conservative U.S. nonprofits abroad — especially in Africa, where healthcare is highly dependent on foreign aid. The region has the world’s highest estimated proportion of unsafe abortions and highest maternal mortality rates — including the highest number of maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions.

The new rules represent a radical expansion of earlier U.S. policy that cut assistance to overseas groups providing abortion-related services. Experts say at least $30 billion in U.S. aid could be affected, reshaping health policies worldwide.

“We’re seeing opportunity here to have a consistently pro-life ethic,” Nicole Hunt of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian evangelical group, told the Associated Press. “We’ve been influencing health policies for a long time with our foreign aid. This is just a new direction.”

In the crosshairs is an international convention signed by African countries two decades ago declaring safe abortion a human right. Known as the Maputo Protocol, it obliges signatory nations to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal malformation or risk to a woman’s health.

But implementation has been spotty, forcing women to seek illicit procedures. Every year, sub-Saharan Africa records over 6 million unsafe abortions, according to the African Institute for Development Policy.

Emboldened by Trump’s policies, U.S. antiabortion groups now aim to overturn even this limited access to safe abortion.

In Nairobi, Nardos Hagos of the International Planned Parenthood Federation said she is deeply worried for the future.

“We’ve now moved into a new era where we are the ones who are in opposition because the most powerful and influential supporters of reproductive health — the U.S. and a lot of Europe — are now more aligned with anti-rights groups,” she said.

“We’re gonna see more women dying from unsafe abortions.”

Africa is the focus

It’s difficult to track the full scope of the funding U.S. antiabortion charitable groups send to Africa.

Publicly available information from nonprofit tax filings of 17 such groups show money sent to Africa jumped 50% between 2019 and 2022, to over $16 million, according to an analysis by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, a research group.

And the funding kept growing: The organizations spent almost $9.4 million in Africa during 2023 and 2024, previously unreported data analyzed by the institute show.

That’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” said the institute’s Claire Provost.

“What we’re seeing here is just a fraction of what the real investment on the continent is,” Provost said, noting that unlike other tax-exempt charitable organizations, U.S.-based churches and some religious groups are not required to complete annual financial disclosures detailing revenue, contributions and expenses.

It’s not possible to see “even limited information” about how much money the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among others, funnel to Africa, she said.

Widely known as the Mormon church, the Salt Lake City-based church is ”increasingly active on the continent, including opposing sexual and reproductive rights issues,” Provost said. With over 1 million followers in Africa, it has held “Strengthening Families” conferences across Africa over the last eight years.

Sean E.R. Donnelly, the church’s communications manager for Africa, said in an AP interview that about a quarter of the $1.5 billion the church spent overseas last year was in Africa, for development projects “with the goal of helping people, especially families,” including in healthcare, education and emergency relief.

Asked about women’s reproductive rights and abortion, he said the church was “not really active” in those areas, but noted the issues may be discussed by its African partners during church-sponsored conferences.

“We have the deputy prime minister, we have the ministries of gender, we have all the ministers who are relevant to family, and we’re helping them … as they craft policy and strategy to make sure that we protect the family,” Donnelly said of the conferences.

Asked about the church’s position on abortion, he sent a statement outlining that it generally opposes elective abortion in most cases but allows exceptions for rape, incest or danger to a woman’s health in counseling its members. He said via email that the church conducts no activities related to abortion and reproductive rights.

Last year’s church-sponsored conference took place in Sierra Leone at a time when the country was close to decriminalizing abortion. But pressure from local religious lobbies stalled the process, local rights groups said.

Activists and rights groups have raised the alarm over the influence of local religious groups, whose strategies mirror those of some conservative U.S. Christian groups. In response to AP’s questions about the conference and any pressures around abortion and other reproductive rights issues, Donnelly said, “This is not how the church operates in Africa or globally.”

He also referred AP to the church’s Caring Report, which outlines its humanitarian work globally and does not mention the conference.

It’s tricky to determine how the U.S. money is spent once it reaches Africa because of loose requirements on disclosing financial data in African countries.

Focus on the Family spent $370,000 in Africa between 2019 and 2023, according to the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, which says that probably does not fully capture the scope of the group’s influence or work. Focus on the Family’s Hunt said its mission is “to change hearts and minds on abortion” globally, but she declined to provide details of activities in Africa.

Harassment of reproductive rights groups

Hannah Ruguru vowed to help women get abortions safely after losing her sister to a backstreet procedure. But her work at a reproductive health clinic in Kisumu in rural western Kenya has proved increasingly hazardous.

She’s been screamed at by protesters and encountered so much abuse on Facebook that she deleted her account, she said.

“Sometimes you can get scared,” Ruguru said. But “at the end of the day, I’m helping women.”

Marie Stopes International, which runs the clinic where Ruguru works, said in a 2024 report that staff in several African countries described online and legal attacks from U.S.-based groups and U.S.-funded local organizations. In Congo, it said, health workers have been detained for days for providing legally permissible services before being released without charge.

“The extent of the opposition has made abortion providers fearful of coming into work,” the report said.

In Ethiopia, the group said, the head of the local office of U.S.-based Family Watch International has “targeted and trolled members of our senior leadership team on social media,” and released YouTube videos promoting antiabortion misinformation.

In Kenya, the names and addresses of staff at reproductive rights organizations have been published online, accusing them of murder.

The owner of a private abortion clinic in Nairobi said staff members have been harassed by police and detained. Officials demand bribes, threatening charges if they don’t pay up, the owner said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

Musoba Kitui, regional director of Ipas Africa Alliance, which promotes reproductive rights and access to safe abortion care, said the changes in U.S. foreign aid policy combined with “this advancing American interest in ideology in Africa is really concerning.”

“We think the consequences are going to be dire,” Kitui said, especially for women and marginalized communities such as LGBTQ+ people.

‘It’s a culture war’

Last year, antiabortion Christian groups from the U.S., Europe and Africa and high-ranking Kenyan officials gathered in Nairobi for a conference on “Promoting and Protecting Family Values in Challenging Times.” Poland-based antiabortion group Ordo Iuris handed out a guide in four languages, including Swahili, with tips on lobbying international organizations, including the United Nations, European Union and African Union.

Travis Weber, vice president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based evangelical group active in antiabortion advocacy, said he traveled to Nairobi to “defend the family as God designed it.”

Charles Kanjama, vice chairman of African Christian Professionals Forum, the conference organizer, said that, previously, international aid often supported reproductive rights — but times have changed.

“We are hoping that … we can start attracting money from people who think like us,” said Kanjama, among Africa’s most prominent antiabortion figures. “It’s a culture war, really.”

Indeed, the antiabortion agenda is gaining momentum. In June, representatives of 20 African countries finalized a draft charter at a conference in Ghana that calls for rejecting sexual and reproductive health rights. It will be voted on by the African Union next year. Family Watch International’s co-founder, Sharon Slater, was among those fundraising for the charter’s passage at the European Parliament in Brussels this year.

Legal gray area

In Kenya, one of Africa’s richest countries, seven women die every day on average from complications of unsafe abortions, according to the African Population and Health Research Center.

The 2010 Kenyan Constitution permits abortion when a woman’s health or life is threatened. Subsequent court decisions have also allowed abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious threat to a woman’s mental health.

But there’s a major legal gray area. Kenya’s penal code, which dates to the colonial era, continues to criminalize abortion providers and women seeking the procedure, who can face up to 14 years in prison.

Most public hospitals don’t perform abortions, leaving women the option of pricey private clinic procedures or risky illicit methods, healthcare officials said.

In May, an appeals court in Kenya overturned a ruling that affirmed access to abortion as a fundamental right — a case led by Kanjama, who said the decision “restored constitutional balance.”

The Kenyan Health Ministry, Justice Ministry and the government spokesperson’s office did not reply to repeated AP requests for comment, including detailed questions sent via email.

The U.S. State Department, in response to an AP request for comment on the Trump administration’s new rules governing American aid overseas, said: “The American people expect their tax dollars to support programs that save lives … and reflect American values, not fund abortion-related activities, left-wing social agendas, or wasteful overseas bureaucracies.”

“U.S. assistance continues to support a wide range of maternal and child health services as part of the America First Global Health Strategy,” it said in a statement.

The toll of unsafe abortions

In Kenya, doctors are obligated to treat women suffering from post-abortion complications, often from underground procedures, including bleeding, infections and the loss of their wombs — and it’s those cases that often end up in public hospitals.

“By the time the women come, we are often dealing with a life-threatening situation,” said Dominic Omollo, the reproductive health coordinator in Bondo, western Kenya.

Even as the stated aim of U.S., international and Africa-based antiabortion groups is to protect life, activists and healthcare providers say that, in reality, the result is more unsafe abortions and more women dying.

In Karabok, a village in rural Kenya, two trees were planted at the site where Mary Olouch is buried, just feet from where the 25-year-old bled to death after an illicit abortion.

“She did not open up to anyone,” said Loice Ochieng, a community health volunteer in charge of family planning in the village.

Olouch already had a young child when she realized she was pregnant. She didn’t tell her husband. When he came home one evening, he found her bleeding and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late.

Olouch did not qualify for an abortion in a public hospital and couldn’t afford a private clinic on her meager income selling fish. Abortion carries enormous stigma in rural communities, and husbands often don’t allow women to use contraceptives, Ochieng said.

After Olouch’s death, women started to talk more openly about abortion in Karabok, where, for many, even uttering the word had been taboo, Ochieng said.

Now, she said, if women “have a problem, they come to me, they ask. Because they have seen that this thing can cause death.”

Pronczuk and Beaty write for the Associated Press and reported from Kisumu and New York, respectively. AP writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi and Caitlin Kelly in Freetown, Sierra Leone, contributed to this report.

July 20 (UPI) — Andy Burnham was set to become British Prime Minister on Monday after a private audience with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, at which he will ask the former Manchester Mayor to form a government.

Burnham is expected to head to the palace late morning after outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a farewell speech outside No. 10 Downing Street at around 11:15 a.m. local time and departs to make the 1-mile journey to meet with the king to officially tender his resignation.

Burnham will be the country’s seventh prime minister in 10 years and brings to five the number among those leaders installed in Downing Street by their respective parties and without initially winning a mandate from the electorate.

He takes over just two years after Starmer led the party to a landslide general election victory that returned Labour to power after 14 years in opposition.

On his arrival in Downing Street but before going inside, Burnham will make his first speech as prime minister in which he is expected to promise to give people “breathing space” from cost of living pressures.

Afterward, he will head inside for briefings on classified national security matters, including the launch codes for the country’s nuclear missile arsenal, before getting on with appointing his chancellor of the exchequer, foreign and home secretaries and the rest of his cabinet, as well as other ministers and departmental heads.

Burnham inherits a daunting in-tray of complex, deep-seated problems to tackle that Starmer was perceived as failing to get to grips with or failing to do so with sufficient pace, which led to his downfall.

Those issues include cutting spending on welfare, sickness and disability benefits which is projected to rise from its current $78 billion to $105 billion by 2030, finding $12.1 billion a year to fund the outgoing administration’s Defense Investment Plan, fixing the “social care” system that looks after the elderly in the community or in retirement homes, meeting a 300,000 a year house-building target, and getting over a million 16-24 year-olds into work.

What little specifics Burnham has set out include ditching a national digital ID scheme, easing a ban on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea by allowing existing fields to expand into adjacent untapped areas, some form of public control of water utilities, and cuts to taxes on local businesses funded by major multinational corporations which currently pay a lower rate.

Emma Burnell of the LabourList website told the BBC that while the mood within the party was upbeat, members of the Parliamentary Labour Party believed it was their last chance to get it right.

“It’s going to be a long, hard project. I don’t think he’s going to be able to do it overnight, he will need to show that there is real, tangible progress being made,” she said.

In a letter to Burnham posted on X on Sunday, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch accused Burnham of lacking “a clear plan on any of the issues facing our country” and avoiding legitimate questioning regarding his intentions.

“You have refused calls to come to Parliament for questions from MPs, and you have not submitted yourself to serious media scrutiny. This is not a promising start.”

She vowed the Conservatives would back any bid to slash benefits, saying the country was in danger of becoming “a welfare state with a country attached” and called on Burnham to rule out tax rises and to grant new licenses to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea.

“Where we support your agenda, I will say so. But I will always stand against the instincts of Labour MPs for higher taxes and more spending,” wrote Badenoch.

BEIRUT  — President Trump long railed against forever wars.

For years, whether as president or candidate, he flayed electoral opponents and previous presidents with his signature barbs, calling their entanglements a “complete waste of time” (Afghanistan), “the worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country” (Iraq) and “stupid” (Ukraine).

Yet he now appears to be stumbling into a forever war of his own.

From the first days of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, Trump and his officials insisted their adventure abroad would be the exception, that the conflict would end in a matter of weeks.

Now, 4½ months later, after a torturous, start-stop vacillation between truce and war, the U.S. is pressing on with a fight that has no end in sight — or even a clear definition of what an acceptable end would be.

In the last week, the ceasefire collapsed, with the U.S. and Iran trading daily waves of strikes, leading to the deaths of two American servicemen on Friday when Iranian ballistic missiles struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where U.S. assets and personnel are stationed.

On Sunday, as the U.S. and Iran launched more air assaults, the U.S. announced that a service member was killed Saturday in Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.

On March 9, the remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky., then the seventh U.S. service member to die in combat during the Iran war, are transferred at Dover Air Force Base, Del.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

The deaths in Jordan were the first combat fatalities since the U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire. One soldier remains missing, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command.

Including the most recent casualties, 17 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 430 wounded since the war began, the Pentagon says.

In Iran, at least 57 people have been killed and more than 517 injured in U.S. attacks in the last three weeks, according to Iranian health authorities. The death toll since the beginning of the war has surpassed 3,500, and more than 27,000 have been wounded.

The U.S. and Israeli militaries have — in the telling of Trump and various officials — decimated Iran’s navy and air defenses, eviscerated multiple layers of its leadership and bombed tens of thousands of targets across the country.

Despite that military pressure, and Trump’s insistence that members of Iran’s leadership “want to make a deal” (he’s said that an accord was on hand no less than 46 times since the start of the war), Tehran has refused to surrender its nuclear and missile arsenals and continues to support its regional militia allies.

Iran has also created a new pressure point to use against adversaries by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas flowed before the war. And it has widened the war’s footprint by targeting countries hosting American military assets.

Trump has vowed to expand bombings to include civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges in what he says is a bid to force Iran into negotiations once more.

He has also brought additional forces to the Middle East. According to Centcom, there are now 50,000 troops in the region, along with 20 naval warships and hundreds of warplanes.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, declined to comment on the deployments, though on Sunday the New York Times reported that the U.S. was sending to the region F-16 fighter jets from Germany and stealthy F-35 jets from Britain.

For observers, those moves signal that Trump is falling into an escalation trap.

“From Trump’s perspective, the easiest way to demonstrate resolve and power is by just bombing Iran and seeing what that brings about,” said Andreas Boehm, a Middle East expert and lecturer on international law at University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Although those strikes seem tactically impressive, they have not helped him strategically, he said.

“In reality, it doesn’t change the situation because the Iranians won’t budge. And if you confuse tactical and strategic success, then you’re not going anywhere in any kind of war,” Boehm said.

An escalation on Washington’s part is also certain to spark a similar reaction from Tehran, said Vali Nasr, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

“Iran gets a vote here,” Nasr said, adding Iran could up the ante by closing Bab al Mandab, the vital strait connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. It could also widen attacks on infrastructure in Persian Gulf countries — moves that would trigger an even bigger ripple effect across global markets.

“Trump thought wars in the Middle East would be like Venezuela: a big in-and-out without a prolonged war,” Nasr said, referring to the Trump administration’s strike that saw U.S. forces abduct Venezuelan leader Nicholás Maduro and force the remaining members of his government to submit to U.S. control.

“And the reality is that it’s backfired,” he said.

Trump is not the first American president to think a foreign engagement wouldn’t last long. Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, U.S. leaders dispatched troops on operations they thought would last weeks or months, dismissing warnings that they would be bogged down in years-long occupations.

Iran would be an especially sticky quagmire if Trump were to commit ground troops.

The country’s area — about 636,000 square miles — is more than double the size of Afghanistan, almost four times the size of Iraq, and five times the size of Vietnam — all nations where the U.S. struggled to prevail against adversaries not as well equipped and arguably less ideologically motivated than its adversaries in Iran.

Meanwhile, for a president whose central foreign policy campaign promise was no more wars, the growing number of casualties, along with the escalating damage inflicted by Iran on U.S. assets and allies, has exposed cracks in the support the Teflon-like Trump has enjoyed from his advocates.

Onetime MAGA acolytes, including flagship conservative figures such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, have already turned on the president over the war and other issues. And Republican figures who had tied their star to Trump fear a drubbing in the midterms so long as the war continues.

If negotiations were to resume, it’s unclear whether Trump and his coterie of negotiators have the stamina or the foreign service expertise to bring about an accord.

After all, the 2015 Obama-era deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear program took 600 days and hundreds of diplomats and technical experts to negotiate.

With Trump relying on unconventional fixers such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate investor Steve Witkoff, not to mention his evisceration of the diplomatic corps, an agreement of that scale appears unlikely.

“Everything is dependent on the mood of one man,” Nasr said.

“It’s not the system that’s making the decision; it’s not the country making the decision,” he said. “It’s one man, and it depends how he feels like at one particular point in time.”

Tehran too may be less amenable to negotiations with Trump, given his history: During his first term, he pulled out of the nuclear deal and ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, a leading Iranian general.

In his second term, he launched bombing campaigns on Iran during negotiations — twice. And Iran accused the U.S. of repeatedly violating the April ceasefire and the memorandum of understanding signed in June.

Asked on NewsNation on Sunday about Iran’s announcement that it would no longer abide by the memorandum, Trump said, “I couldn’t care less.”

Such factors, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, lead to a formula for prolonged conflict.

“It’s a forever war in the making, and the reason why is that Trump has proven he’s impossible to negotiate with,” Vaez said.

If an agreement as superficial as the memorandum of understanding — which deferred thornier issues for late negotiations — was derailed, then there’s little option other than repeated cycles of violence.

“Once you’ve proven that diplomacy doesn’t work,” he said, “then there’s only war.”

Wilfredo Engalla, a 51-year-old Filipino immigrant, alleged in a medical malpractice case that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before eventually informing him he had terminal lung cancer.

He died before his complaint could be heard by an arbitrator, which his Kaiser policy required. His case prompted a withering rebuke from the California Supreme Court, which said Kaiser’s system of arbitrating legal disputes was subject to long delays and unfair to its members. The year was 1997.

Nearly three decades after the landmark decision, the HMO giant — which made a series of sweeping reforms after the ruling — is once again facing questions over whether its arbitration system is stacked against the interests of its members.

Plaintiffs attorneys, legislators and patients say Kaiser’s private and confidential process for arbitrating legal disputes over medical care still has key flaws that favor Kaiser over patients bringing malpractice cases. The company insures about 25% of Californians, including some employees of the Los Angeles Times.

“Kaiser has really lost its way,” said Assemblyman Robert Garcia (D-Rancho Cucamonga). Garcia, who is a longtime Kaiser member, recently introduced a bill to require the California attorney general to oversee arbitrations mandated by any health plan.

Kaiser defended its arbitration system, saying in a statement that it was fair for both patients and the nonprofit.

Many companies and other organizations, including some hospitals, HMOs and physician groups, require their customers or patients to take their complaints to private arbitration rather than to court.

But unlike most other companies, which send claims to large arbitration firms, Kaiser created its own system back in 1971.

Under Kaiser’s system, once a neutral arbitrator is selected, either party can opt to disqualify that person without cause. There is no limit on the number of disqualifications.

Although the health plan designed the system to be fair, patients and their lawyers have alleged that in reality Kaiser’s greater knowledge of arbitrators’ past rulings and its ability to veto arbitrators give it an advantage to pick favorable judges.

Critics such as Arlan Cohen, a physician and attorney who has brought more than two dozen cases against the health plan, say the system also provides a financial incentive to arbitrators to rule in Kaiser’s favor in order to be selected for future cases.

While Kaiser has access to all the decisions made by arbitrators in its system, the patient’s family gets a more limited disclosure of an arbitrator’s history of cases, lawyers say, adding that it’s not easy to see which arbitrators have ruled frequently for Kaiser.

Kaiser said it disagreed that the system allowed it to select favored arbitrators.

“The appointment process is not influenced by whether the arbitrator has ruled for or against KP or has a record of ruling against Kaiser Permanente,” its statement said.

“As required by law, both parties receive information about potential arbitrators and can decline to move forward with any they are not comfortable,” the statement said.

One problem is what experts call the “repeat player effect,” in which a large company appearing repeatedly before the same panel of arbitrators allegedly gains an advantage over the individual bringing a single complaint.

David Allen Larson, past chair of the American Bar Assn.’s dispute resolution section, said the repeat player effect happens because the patient will likely be choosing an arbitrator on the health plan’s system just once, while “Kaiser is selecting them every single day.”

“They know the system. They know the rules,” Larson said of Kaiser. “The entire process gives them an advantage.”

Alan Kang, a lawyer, in a recent petition filed in L.A. County Superior Court, contends that the fees the arbitrators earn from hearing cases — as much as $2,000 an hour — give them an incentive to rule in Kaiser’s favor so they are chosen to hear more cases.

“When a judge’s future income is at stake, it is impossible to be impartial,” Kang wrote in the petition.

The petition seeks to void the December decision of an arbitrator who ruled against the family of Evangelina Aquino, a Kaiser employee who died of cancer at age 40.

Kang, the Aquino family and the medical experts they hired for the case say her cancer would have been treatable if Kaiser doctors had found it with a test they said her symptoms called for. Kaiser argued it was a different kind of cancer that was aggressive and untreatable. The arbitrator agreed with Kaiser in the December decision.

After the ruling, Kang began analyzing data from Kaiser’s system.

His review of dozens of cases in the last six years found that judges overseeing the most cases nearly always ruled for Kaiser.

“The message is clear: deliver wins for Kaiser and you will get additional business,” Kang wrote in his court petition.

The Oakland-based health plan declined to answer questions about its arbitration system and Kang’s claims, but said in a statement that its “arbitration process is designed to be fair, impartial, and accessible to all members. While some arbitrators may handle multiple Kaiser Permanente-related cases, they are not employed by Kaiser Permanente, and they are selected by both parties, in accordance with the law.”

“We recognize that arbitration cases often involve difficult and deeply personal experiences for patients and families,” the statement said, “and we take all concerns raised through these processes seriously.”

Kaiser’s unique arbitration system

Arbitration can have advantages over the court system, including allowing Kaiser to save on legal costs, which otherwise would raise the price of premiums it charges to families, employers and governments.

Kaiser offers to pay the arbitrators’ fees, which can save families tens of thousands of dollars.

Arbitration may also lead to faster outcomes, possibly avoiding years of litigation. Unlike civil litigation, arbitration decisions are especially difficult to appeal.

After the criticism by the state Supreme Court in 1997, Kaiser reformed the system by creating the Office of the Independent Administrator. The office is funded by a Kaiser trust and the $150 fee each patient filing a claim must pay, said Marcella Bell, who serves as the independent administrator.

Bell said the office works independently from Kaiser.

The office selected 195 retired judges and lawyers to serve on a panel that patients and Kaiser can choose from when selecting a neutral arbitrator to oversee and decide a malpractice case.

Rules written by the independent administrator, in consultation with the health plan and an advisory board, allow Kaiser and the family to cut an arbitrator they don’t like, at multiple steps in the process.

The administrator’s office randomly selects 12 members from its panel. Both sides can each remove any four of those arbitrators. The two sides then rank the remaining arbitrators in order of preference. The administrator selects the top-ranked arbitrator to hear the case.

The two parties then still have the ability to disqualify that selection without cause.

Members of the United Nurses Assns. of California and Union of Healthcare Professionals strike outside Kaiser Permanente in Oakland on Jan. 28.

(Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle)

Last year, Kaiser’s arbitration system closed 529 arbitration cases.

The arbitrators threw out 14% of the cases, ruling in favor of Kaiser’s motion for summary judgment, and dismissed an additional 5% of cases on technical or procedural grounds.

Only 23 cases, or 4% of the total, went to a hearing. Among those, the arbitrator decided for Kaiser in 17, with the patient winning the remaining six.

Patients and their families withdrew their claim in 20% of the cases. About half of those patients did not have a lawyer and had tried to represent themselves.

The parties settled for an undisclosed sum in 57% of the cases. The settlements are confidential.

Patient safety questions

Those who have studied the use of arbitration by Kaiser and other HMOs for medical malpractice claims say the secrecy of the settlements and the closed hearings could keep safety problems from coming to light.

“The secrecy of arbitration proceedings may prevent publicity that could reveal poor doctors,” the California Research Bureau warned in a report in 2000 that analyzed Kaiser’s system. That compares with public court cases that could deter “bad behavior” in the future, the researchers wrote.

In December 2023, 53-year-old Francisco Delgadillo arrived at the Kaiser ER in Vallejo with severe chest pain. After an initial assessment, he waited eight hours for care, according to state regulators.

He died in the lobby. A state and federal investigation found multiple violations, including that Kaiser failed to have a licensed nurse monitoring the dozens of patients in the ER’s waiting room.

The Delgadillo family filed an arbitration claim. Their lawyer Jeff Mitchell said the case settled for a confidential sum and he could not discuss it.

Mitchell agreed that the secrecy raised patient safety concerns.

“They love the system, otherwise they would not be so hellbent to keep it,” Mitchell said of Kaiser’s repeated efforts to dispel criticism. “They don’t want these cases to get in front of juries.”

A licensed practical nurse attends to a patient at a Kaiser Permanente in Culver City in September.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Calls for reform

Despite the changes Kaiser made after the 1997 court decision, patients and their families have continued to complain.

According to the administrator’s 2025 annual report, the “most common” complaint the office heard last year was about the neutral arbitrator.

“Most complained that the arbitrator was biased, partisan, unjust, and in Kaiser’s favor,” the report said.

Stephen Martinez, a retired aerospace engineer from Bellflower, is leading the effort to pass the state bill introduced by Garcia.

At an April hearing in the state Assembly, Martinez spoke about how his wife had found a lump in her breast and asked for an appointment with her longtime caregiver at Kaiser to examine it. Instead she was sent to a physician assistant, who dismissed it, he said.

“The PA prescribed warm compresses, a sports bra, and limited chocolate,” Martinez testified. “We would later find that Lindalee did have breast cancer that had already spread.”

Martinez and his wife said they spent $175,000 on lawyers and medical experts to bring that arbitration case. A chief breast surgeon at Kaiser and another surgeon who had retired from that job both testified that the Kaiser physician assistant failed to follow the health system’s guidelines.

Kaiser’s expert argued that the physician assistant did an appropriate exam and that his low suspicion of breast cancer was reasonable. The neutral arbitrator concurred and ruled against the couple.

After passing the Assembly, Assembly Bill 1770 is now in the state Senate for consideration. The bill lets the attorney general decide what actions they will take to ensure health plan arbitrations are handled fairly and transparently. If the bill passes, the state would add four deputy attorneys general, a legal analyst and three legal secretaries to do that work, according to a legislative analyst’s report.

Kaiser says it has concerns about the bill, including that it would “create overlapping state oversight and duplicative reporting requirements.”

Kaiser Permanente’s corporate offices in downtown Oakland in January 2025.

(Jane Tyska / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Questions of a missed diagnosis

When Janene Fowler was 22, her body seemed to turn against her. She grew weak, pain shot through her hands and feet, her heart raced. She soon required a wheelchair.

Fowler’s medical chart detailed what could have caused her disabling problems. A test eight years before had found a deficiency of vitamin B12, according to the chart. Over the years, Kaiser doctors noted problems such as depression, unexplained pain, shortness of breath, a sore tongue and an abnormal gait — all possible symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.

In February 2022, after her family complained about her not being able to see a neurologist, she got an appointment. The specialist noted her vitamin deficiency, telling the nurse to start her on a supplement at once. But the treatment did not begin because the paperwork was lost, her medical records show.

Two weeks later, Fowler left Kaiser to see a doctor at UCLA. A doctor there quickly started injections of B12.

Her symptoms gradually got better, but her new doctors say the years-long deficiency left permanent damage. She still can’t walk without help.

The arbitrator, a retired judge, sided with Kaiser’s doctors and experts, who questioned whether Fowler’s problems were caused by a deficiency of vitamin B12. While one test showed a deficiency, he noted that a second test failed to confirm it. He wrote that Fowler and her lawyers had failed to prove that Kaiser “breached its duty of care.”

Cohen, Fowler’s lawyer, asserted that the retired judge’s decision was contrary to UCLA medical records, which detail her deficiency and treatment.

Fowler now spends most of her time at home. She can’t drive. She often falls when she tries to get around with a cane. She loves to cook, but said she burns herself when she tries.

“My hands don’t really do what I tell them,” she said.

Kaiser declined to answer questions about her case, citing patients’ privacy rights.

Fowler said she’s angry about how the health plan’s doctors and its arbitration system treated her.

“I thought I was going to die, and no one at Kaiser seemed to care,” she said. “What justice can you have in a system that is run by those you are trying to sue?”

The People’s Action Party, which prides itself on ​a clean reputation, has been rocked by a series of scandals recently.

Singapore’s acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Faishal Ibrahim has resigned ⁠over his interactions with a woman, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said.

“Most of their interactions took place through online messages,” Wong said in a statement on Monday. “⁠They also met on the sidelines of public events.”

Both parties made allegations of harassment against each other, and the matter is being investigated by ⁠the police, he added.

The People’s Action Party, which prides itself on a “whiter than white” reputation, has been rocked by a series of political scandals in recent years.

In 2023, then Transport Minister Subramaniam Iswaran was put under investigation for corruption alongside Malaysian billionaire hotel tycoon Ong Beng Seng. A year later, Iswaran pleaded guilty to receiving more than 380,000 Singapore dollars ($294,000) worth of gifts from Ong, including tickets for West End shows and football matches, some of them in exchange for advancing Ong’s business interests.

Two senior members of Singapore’s largest opposition party also resigned in 2023 after they admitted to having an affair, while two ministers were investigated and cleared of wrongdoing over their rental of state-owned properties. This prompted former Prime Minister Lee ‌Hsien Loong to say that his party’s image was damaged by a series of scandals.

Wong said no criminal offence had been committed by either party in Faishal’s case, and no criminal action would be taken, but “there was a separate question of whether Associate Professor Faishal’s conduct met the standards expected of a political office holder and member of parliament”.

Faishal has been a member of ⁠parliament since 2006 and became the acting minister-in-charge of Muslim affairs in 2025. He has now resigned from the ⁠ruling People’s Action Party as well as his cabinet position.

In his resignation letter posted on the website of the prime minister’s office, Faishal said: “While there was no physical relationship between us, ⁠and I did not intend for the interactions to develop into one, there was a lapse of judgment on my part ⁠in the way I handled the interactions, and ⁠in failing to establish clearer boundaries at an earlier stage.”

Wong said he was saddened Faishal was leaving politics under such circumstances.

July 19 (UPI) — Jens Spahn, a member of Germany’s Bundestag, has resigned his post amid uproar over his use of a surrogate to have a baby.

The leader of the center-right Christian Democrats in parliament quit abruptly Saturday, The New York Times reported. The move came three days after he announced the birth of his child, Georg, with husband Daniel Funke.

“Georg is our greatest joy,” Spahn, 46, told the German newspaper Bild. “This feeling is almost impossible to put into words.”

The couple faced criticism for the decision to use surrogacy to have a baby because the practice is outlawed in Germany — a law Spahn and fellow Christian Democrats voted to keep in place in February. Spahn and Funke used a surrogate in the United States to welcome their son.

In 2015, Spahn wrote that “as a gay man and a Christian, I find it personally very hard to warm to the idea of a rented womb,” The Guardian reported.

In an appearance on a podcast, Spahn said he struggled with the decision to use surrogacy but ultimately put his family first, the Times reported.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, also a member of the Christian Democratic Union, called on Spahn to step down Saturday. Other regional members of the party also sought his ouster.

Two weeks after suspending his bid for Wisconsin governor, David Crowley has reentered the state’s Democratic primary, with the Milwaukee County executive securing a last-minute endorsement from outgoing Gov. Tony Evers.

The moves appears to be a Democratic effort to best position the party for success in November.

Evers had initially declined to endorse in the race, but threw his weight behind Crowley and resuscitated his bid to lead the swing state known for razor-thin election margins, where appealing to moderate and independent voters is crucial.

It was the latest turn in a chaotic Democratic primary that has jeopardized the party’s chances this fall and comes after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said she was abandoning her campaign for the state’s top office after a campaign finance scandal.

Democrats are looking to November to secure full control of Wisconsin state government for the first time since 2010, and hope it will send a signal about where the country’s politics are headed by shaping a key political battleground that helps decide presidential elections.

In an event in Milwaukee on Saturday relaunching his campaign, Crowley referenced the stakes, saying that “winning this election will require building the broadest possible coalition,” and touting his ability to forge relationships across partisan divides. And Evers’ endorsement, he added, “reflects his confidence that I have the experience” to lead and to win.

Evers was on a trade visit to Africa and not in attendance at Crowley’s Saturday event, but acknowledged in a social media post that he was now “all in” for Crowley, touting his executive leadership on issues including job creation and balancing budgets.

“He’s not just a candidate who can win in November, but he’s the kind of person who cares about doing the job right,” Evers wrote.

Crowley, 40, is reemerging into a competitive primary for Wisconsin’s open governor’s race that was turned on its head Friday with the departure of Rodriguez, who earlier in the week fired her campaign manager after discovering her campaign had hundreds of thousands of dollars less on hand than expected.

Now, as they approach Wisconsin’s primary election Aug. 11, Democrats are hoping to hold on to the governor’s office as they also eye flipping majority control of the state Legislature, which Republicans have held since 2011.

The primary also comes after democratic socialists’ earlier victories in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Washington and Denver. Francesca Hong, a single mother who has worked as a dishwasher and line cook, is trying to do the same with her campaign for Wisconsin governor, with her candidacy turning the Democratic contest into a test of party voters’ growing embrace of leftist candidates heading in the November midterms.

Crowley, who would be the state’s first Black governor if elected, had ended his own bid two weeks ago to back Rodriguez. Now, he’s returning to a contest against Hong, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, a former top aide to Evers. The Democratic nominee is expected to face Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas P. Tiffany, who faces only token opposition and has the support of President Trump and other GOP leaders.

In an interview Saturday afternoon, Crowley told the Associated Press that voters would see “a much more aggressive campaign” from him in the primary’s closing weeks, buoyed in part by Evers’ backing and “a renewed, energized, volunteer base.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten into this race if I didn’t believe a pathway was there,” Crowley said. “We can not only get over the hump in winning on the Aug. 11 primary, but then we’ll be able to really focus on how we can make sure that Tom Tiffany doesn’t bring an extreme MAGA agenda to the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley said.

In the first iteration of his campaign, Crowley leaned into his background, highlighting how his family was once homeless in Milwaukee but he rose to become a community organizer and was elected to the state Assembly in 2016 at age 30. He served until the middle of 2020, when he was elected as executive of Milwaukee County, the state’s largest county. He was the first Black person to hold that job and also the youngest, at 33.

In a statement to AP, Tiffany portrayed Crowley as “asleep at the wheel” in his role as county executive and described his reemergence as Democrats’ “only shot at stopping the socialist who wants to abolish the police and prisons.”

In an email statement, the Republican Governors Assn. said that “watching Wisconsin Democrats is like watching a clown car crash into a parked semitruck.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.

Andy Burnham, who becomes the United Kingdom’s next prime minister on Monday, faces a roster of challenges as the country’s seventh leader in a decade.

Burnham was overwhelmingly backed as Labour leader on Friday after current Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned last month.

It has been a whirlwind month for the former Greater Manchester mayor, with his vision for the country and his cabinet still unclear.

“This has gone faster than he thought. It’s only been four weeks since he won the by-election. I don’t think he knows all of the answers yet; he hasn’t had the thinking time,” Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, told Al Jazeera.

Experts say the incoming prime minister will inherit an economy that has barely grown in two decades and a challenging geopolitical environment. He also has to deal with a marked decrease in Labour’s popularity, with the party trailing the right-wing Reform UK in the polls for 18 months.

“Burnham has relatively little fiscal room for manoeuvre,” said Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe.

New spending will have to be raised via taxation rather than borrowing, though there may be scope for “hypothecated spending” tied to a clear purpose, such as defence bonds, Menon said.

“If you make it absolutely clear what these things are for, the markets will be more permissive. But the fiscal situation is tight,” he noted.

Manchester model

The government spent around 110 billion British pounds ($148bn) on debt interest in 2025-26 alone, about eight percent of all public spending. Borrowing has run higher than planned this year, and taxes are forecast to reach their highest share of the economy since World War II by the end of the decade.

Gareth Dale, associate head of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel University, points to Burnham’s record in Manchester, including the city’s fare-capped bus network, as proof that “meaningful reforms needn’t always come with a big price tag”.

Whether that scales up nationally will hinge on his willingness to confront the bond markets.

“What Burnham did in Manchester might be harder to do at a national level,” warned Menon. “He’s got to get the balance right between showing he’s aware of the fact that there’s a country outside of London and that isn’t just Manchester.”

Menon doubts fiscal manoeuvring alone will shift the public mood. He says that living standards have stagnated and services have eroded since 2008 so “people don’t just want to listen to what you’re saying, they want to see changes for the better in their lives”.

Burnham’s in-tray is complicated further by a diplomatic dispute that flared days before he is slated to take office. The government fully nationalised British Steel’s Scunthorpe works, a year after taking control of the loss-making plant when Chinese owner Jingye Group said it planned to close it.

Jingye has vowed to pursue “full compensation through legal means,” while China’s Ministry of Commerce accused London of undermining Chinese investor confidence.

It leaves Burnham managing a strained relationship with China from day one, after Starmer went to great efforts to reset relations between the two countries.

Beyond borders

Menon argues that much of what shapes a prime minister’s fortunes lies outside their control and outside Britain’s borders.

“Sometimes the drivers of political success and failure are utterly out of your hands,” he said. He cited the war in Ukraine, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic as reminders that a “medium-sized open economy” is exposed to forces it cannot direct.

That extends to Washington, where personal chemistry with US President Donald Trump will matter “at least for a while, until he goes off people”, Menon said.

Dependence on the US for defence and technology rules out any dramatic reconfiguring of British-US ties.

Menon expects European Union relations to get less attention than under Starmer, predicting Burnham to be “more avowedly domestic” focused.

This could still be tested by Gaza, where Burnham has apologised for the previous government’s stance. Menon cautions that turning words into policy “depends heavily on events”.

“He’s given some hints he’ll be less knee-jerkly supportive of Israel than Starmer was, but whether that carries over into power, we’ll have to wait and see,” explained Menon.

He also doubts whether Burnham would risk a rupture with Washington regarding US bases in Britain, which could be used, indirectly, in US-Israel war on Iran.

Defence first

Reports suggest that Burnham is likely to put defence above welfare spending, which will again rankle some in his party.

“He’ll probably prioritise arms spending over welfare… while dialling down the ‘net zero’ programme,” warns Dale, with Burnham expected to allow for new North Sea oil and gas drilling.

“And he voted to make the asylum system more brutal. If he does set policy in these directions, it’ll put wind in the sails of the far right, and probably accelerate the shift of voters from Labour to Green,” Dale said.

Burnham has moved from Labour’s Blairite wing to its soft left, but “commands widespread support among Labour MPs” and “gets on with various factions”, he noted.

But that unity masks deeper erosion: Labour’s vote fell from 12.9 million in 2017 to 9.7 million under Starmer.

The centre-left party’s support base is also “narrowing towards wealthier, less diverse parts of the electorate, with the Greens now drawing disillusioned voters on the left”, said Dale.

Political divides

That erosion is bound up with a wider polarisation in the country that Katwala says no government can avoid.

“I don’t think it’s enough to say we’d like to talk about jobs and devolving power and therefore we won’t talk about identity, immigration, race,” says Katwala.

He argues that fairness should be framed as universal rather than a concession to certain groups of society.

“Whether it’s tackling anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or racism generally, these are issues for everybody in society. It’s not for the minority group itself to work out how to challenge the prejudice it faces,” Katwala said.

“The people who are hostile to Muslims are the people who know the least Muslims and live furthest away. It’s the government’s job to get to that really tough end of attitudes and perceptions that are making people feel less safe.”

Menon sees a narrow opening on the right-wing narratives popularised by the Reform UK party.

Labour entered government in 2024 with 33 percent of the vote against Reform’s 14 percent, a gap that has since collapsed following the right-wing party’s links to George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster.

Recent polls put Reform around 24-26 percent and Labour close behind it, a marked turnaround from polling earlier this year.

By-election results also suggest a broad anti-Reform coalition and tactical voting exist, which should strengthen Labour.

“Even if 30 percent of people are willing to vote Reform, almost 70 percent are willing to do whatever it takes to stop them being elected,” Menon noted.

Whether that holds, he said, depends on how Burnham performs once the difficulties of government set in.

“It becomes a very different game when things are going badly, and if he ends up being a lucky general, then Reform self-destructs,” Menon said.

A section of Sunset Boulevard remained closed on Sunday because of last week’s destructive water main break, with officials saying they didn’t know when repairs to the 110-year-old pipe would be completed or the street reopened.

“While there is no set completion date yet, our crews remain dedicated to finishing the repairs as quickly and safely as possible,” the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said in a Sunday release.

Some West Hollywood residents remained displaced Sunday from apartments where underground garages were flooded by Thursday’s water main rupture. And some businesses near the scene remained indefinitely closed.

An aerial view of workers viewing a broken water main at Sunset Boulevard and Holloway Drive in West Hollywood that sent water gushing down many streets, closing several of them Thursday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Vanessa Lopez, an LADWP spokeswoman, said that two other water pipe ruptures on Saturday — one in Venice and another in Hollywood — had been repaired.

The city received a report of yet another break on an 8-inch water main at 1501 Lincoln Blvd. on Sunday morning, she said, which crews were still working to repair.

Lopez said those breaks were not related to each other or to Thursday’s fracture of the far bigger pipe in West Hollywood, which was constructed in 1916.

Officials said Sunday that Sunset Boulevard remains closed between Sherbourne Drive and San Vicente Boulevard, with limited local access on nearby streets including Cynthia and San Vicente.

City officials urged the public to avoid the area.

LADWP said tap water in West Hollywood remains safe to drink, but officials encouraged residents to conserve.

With the 36-inch water transmission line undergoing repairs, West Hollywood is currently being served by an 8-inch distribution pipe. Residents may notice low water pressure, especially those living in upper-floor apartments, officials said.

Book Soup, a popular bookstore on Sunset Blvd, was one of the shops and restaurants forced to close after streets were flooded.

“For the safety of staff and the community, we’re keeping the store closed for the time being,” an employee said in a recording on its answering machine Sunday.

“We want to reassure everyone that the store is completely fine and our books are safe and dry,” she added.

Thursday’s fracture was on a steel pipe that forms the major arteries for water delivery from reservoirs and tanks to smaller distribution lines across Los Angeles. That section of the Sunset Trunk Line had been slated for replacement in 2031, according to the utility.

In 2019, LADWP said roughly 29% of the city’s pipes were over 80 years old, nearing their typical 100-year lifespan.

When the trunk line ruptured early Thursday morning, millions of gallons of water gushed down Holloway Drive, inundating businesses and flooding underground parking garages.

Repairs to a water main on Sunset Boulevard Saturday in West Hollywood.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman estimated that between 150 and 200 cars were damaged or destroyed in the flood.

The leak was stopped after a few hours, leaving a giant sinkhole in the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

On Saturday, city crews replaced a 25-foot section of the line. Workers have refilled the pipe with water and are now working to repressurize it, officials said Sunday.

The workers must then disinfect the pipe with chlorine and test the water’s quality for safety. The hole in Sunset Blvd. will then be filled and the street repaired, officials said.

Residents and businesses who lost property and suffered damages can find information about filing claims at www.LADWP.com/Claims.

July 19 (UPI) — A majority of delegates have committed to voting for Troy Jackson to give him the Democratic nomination, replacing the beleaguered Graham Platner in Maine’s U.S. Senate race.

While Jackson’s nomination isn’t official — the Democratic Party is set to hold its U.S. Senate nominating convention Saturday — his name dominated county-level meetings this weekend, Politico reported. The swing in his favor led Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to drop out of the race Sunday.

The Washington Post reported that 600 delegates will vote on the nominee at Saturday’s convention in Bangor.

Maine Democrats have been scrambling to find a replacement for Platner after he dropped out of the race earlier this month under pressure from those who previously endorsed him. A former partner of his accused him of sexually assaulting her while he was drunk, an allegation he has denied.

Whoever gets the Democratic nomination will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. The Republican has won election to the U.S. Senate five times prior, and if a Democrat unseats her, it could put control of the upper chamber within Democrats’ reach.

Jackson, 58, ran earlier this year for the gubernatorial nomination, but lost out to Hannah Pingree. She will face Republican Bobby Charles and Independent Richard Bennett in the general election.

Jackson adjusted his gubernatorial campaign for the Senate race, facing Bellows and Nirav Shah, who also lost out in the gubernatorial primary.

In a video statement to supporters on Facebook, Jackson said he was surprised at his success in the Senate race.

“I’ve been getting text messages all day about, you know, what a great job I did, and I didn’t do a [expletive] thing,” he said. “All of you just smoked it.”

MIAMI — Cuban dissident and Grammy-winning musical artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on condition that he leave his country.

Alcántara, 38, was greeted at the airport by a crowd that was cheering, singing and holding their phones high in the air to get a photo of him. They draped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words “Patria y Vida” — Homeland and Life — the title of a song he shared a Grammy for that became an anthem for Cuba’s political opposition against repression.

The United States granted him parole into the country last week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism.

Alcántara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement, named for the neighborhood where Alcántara lived.

He was arrested July 11, 2021, during a public protest. In 2022, a court sentenced him to five years in prison for public disorder, contempt and disrespect toward national symbols.

His arrest and incarceration had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the U.S. government. Groups including Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, a designation the Cuban government rejected.

Alcántara was held in a maximum-security prison, he said, and was expected to be released earlier this month. But for days, advocates said they still could not contact him and did not know where he was.

The organization Cubalex, which legally advises dissidents and reports human rights violations from outside of the country, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf Monday.

Until he boarded a plane Saturday, his advocates were unsure of his location or whether he truly had been released.

His said his first stop on American soil would be at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami to make an offering.

Other political prisoners remained behind bars in Cuba, including his fellow artist Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez, his advocates said, and they hoped Alcántara’s release would lead to Pérez also being freed.

Alcántara brought from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin Mary, which he described as a symbol of hope and healing, a chance to put back together something from fragments.

A message attributed to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has promised “unforgettable lessons” to Washington during their escalating conflict. But it also homed in on another theme that tempered some of the fire of his warnings against the US, amid eight nights of renewed fighting between the two countries.

Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from since being made supreme leader in March, said Iranians must uphold “sacred unity” as a fundamental imperative, particularly against the United States.

His message also stated that it was a duty for the Iranian population and officials to refrain from “division, political disputes, and increases in social differences”. Iran’s enemies, he said, likely referring to the US and Israel, “must not detect any sign of weakness from us”.

The call for national unity comes against the backdrop of events in June, when another Khamenei statement stirred debate and controversy among some of the most hardline supporters of the Islamic Republic regarding the recently signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the US.

Khamenei said that although he “held a different view” about the agreement to pause four months of fighting, he approved it after President Masoud Pezeshkian, as chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, accepted responsibility for the deal.

This fired up unyielding supporters of the Islamic Republic who continue to take to city squares and streets at night with backing from armed security forces, angered about the deal.

Critics believe Khamenei was being forced into accepting a bad deal, and hardline clerical lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian even resorted to reading from classified material on live television in an apparent attempt to derail the arrangement. He was removed from the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee earlier this month.

Others went as far as accusing officials of treason, and the president and other officials linked to the deal were heckled during the funeral ceremonies for assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this month.

The MoU has been suspended by Tehran but was already effectively on the verge of collapse after Iran and the US traded fire over control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz over the past week.

Projection of military and political unity

Since Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement on Saturday, other officials have strived to present a united front between armed forces and the political and diplomatic apparatus, each with their own views on the MoU.

Ali Abdollahi, the head of Iran’s wartime joint command, vowed that the armed forces will heed Khamenei’s directive for “sacred unity and national cohesion”.

But he also warned the US, which he referred to as a “big Satan and criminal enemy”, that it will face a “decisive and destructive response” for its recent attacks on Iran, which has seen bridges, roads, and other civilian infrastructure destroyed.

President Pezeshkian thanked the supreme leader’s “wise” message and highlighted the part where he urged “trust” in the heads of government, parliament and judiciary.

“Adherence to the means of sacred unity and refraining from division and discord is the key to victory at this historic juncture,” he wrote on X.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker who has faced harsh criticism from hardliners as chief negotiator in talks with the Americans, said following Khamenei’s directive is critical to Iran’s success.

“We must regard obedience to this religious and national decree of the supreme leader of the revolution as an important part of our historical role in national resistance and governance of the country,” he also tweeted in Persian on Sunday.

These messages appeared aimed at foreign audiences, coming shortly after senior US officials, anonymously briefing media in Washington, tried to blame the Hormuz escalation on an “errant” hardline faction inside Iran seeking to obstruct negotiations.

The state-linked Khorasan newspaper published an editorial on Sunday saying that Khamenei’s latest statement carried the message that “criticism is accepted, but never accusations” against officials.

“To those who claim to be revolutionaries, the supreme leader’s message was an ultimatum for you: Stop telling lies about the authorities,” the article read.

Iran’s military and political officials did not directly address the claim earlier this month, but released more statements proclaiming a unified view on how to address the conflict and regarding control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking during an interview released on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi continued to back a negotiated end to the war, which has seen Iran’s civilian infrastructure systematically targeted in US air strikes over the past week.

“If we had reached the [April] ceasefire 10 days earlier, we still had Larijani, Khatib, Asaluyeh and Foolad Mobarakeh,” the chief diplomat said in reference to assassinated security chief Ali Larijani, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, and the country’s heavily bombed petrochemical facilities and steel plants.

But as tit-for-tat strikes continue between the two sides, there is no sign of both parties returning to the negotiating table.