president

Umaro Sissoco Embalo arrives in the Republic of Congo after first seeking refuge in Senegal following this week’s coup.

Guinea-Bissau’s former president, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, has travelled to the Republic of Congo, the AFP and Associated Press news agencies are reporting, days after he was deposed in a military coup.

Califa Soares Cassama, Embalo’s chief of staff, confirmed to AP that the former president was in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville.

Unnamed Congolese government sources also told AFP that Embalo was in Brazzaville.

Embalo had initially sought refuge in neighbouring Senegal after a group of military officers on Wednesday announced that they had taken “full control” of Guinea-Bissau ahead of the release of provisional presidential election results.

The true motives for the coup remain unclear, with speculation and conspiracy theories circulating, including that it was carried out with Embalo’s blessing.

The coup has sparked a wave of international condemnation, with regional leaders and the United Nations calling on Guinea-Bissau’s new military leaders to restore constitutional order and allow the electoral process to complete its work.

Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko condemned the events as a “sham” in remarks to lawmakers on Friday.

“We want the electoral process to continue,” Sonko said. “The [electoral] commission must be able to declare the winner.”

Many of Guinea-Bissau’s new military leaders are close to Embalo, including General Horta Inta-A, who was named as the transitional president earlier this week, and Ilidio Vieira Te, who was appointed prime minister.

Te had previously served as finance minister in Embalo’s government.

On Saturday, Inta-a appointed a 28-member government, most of whom are allies of the deposed president.

Separately, the country’s main opposition party, PAIGC, said in a statement that its headquarters had been “illegally invaded by heavily armed militia groups” in the capital, Bissau.

The party denounced the raid on Saturday as “an attack on stability, democracy and the rule of law” in Guinea-Bissau.

PAIGC had been barred from presenting a presidential candidate in last Sunday’s election, a move that drew criticism from civil rights groups who denounced an apparent crackdown on the opposition.

Both Embalo and his main challenger, Fernando Dias, had declared victory ahead of the release of the provisional vote results, which had been set for Thursday.

No results have been announced since the coup.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top aide resigned this week amid a growing corruption scandal.

Andriy Yermak had been due to lead key talks with the US on the war with Russia this weekend.

So, what does this mean for Ukraine?

Presenter: Bernard Smith

Guests:

Olena Tregub – Secretary-general of Ukraine’s Independent Anti-Corruption Commission

Leonid Ragozin – Independent journalist and political analyst

Donnacha O Beachain – Professor of politics at Dublin City University

If you run cross-country or play soccer at Cathedral High, you‘d better be extra polite and respectful around the head coaches. They also happen to be the school president and principal, respectively.

Martin Farfan and Arturo Lopez continue to hold dual roles, which probably makes Cathedral the only school in the state with such an arrangement.

Despite all the time and responsibilities required to coach and help run Cathedral, they seem to make it work. This past week, while school was closed for the holidays, both held practices Monday. Farfan took his usual jog around the neighborhood after practice and ended up on the field while Lopez held a soccer practice.

Both believe in the importance of academics and the lessons learned in sports to help prepare students for the future.

Their players, however, know with the school’s two big wigs also wearing coaching hats, they always need to be on their best behavior.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

The Trump administration is promising an even tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged this week in the shooting of two National Guard members, with new restrictions targeting the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the U.S. and those seeking to come, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war.

But those still waiting to come were already facing stricter measures as part of President Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal migration that began when he started his second term in January. And the Afghan immigrants living in the U.S. and now in the administration’s crosshairs were among the most extensively vetted, often undergoing years of security screening, experts and advocates say.

In its latest move, the Trump administration announced Friday that it will pause issuing visas for anyone traveling on an Afghan passport.

The suspected shooter, who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, “was vetted both before he landed, probably once he landed, once he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly vetted extensively and much more by the CIA.”

Haris Tarin, a former U.S. official who worked on the Biden-era program that resettled Afghans, predicted that “as the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of screening. This is a failure of us not being able to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our own veterans, over the past 25 years.”

The program, Operations Allies Welcome, initially brought about 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative was in place for around a year before shifting to a longer-term program called Operation Enduring Welcome. Almost 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under the programs.

Among those brought to the U.S. under the program was the suspected shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot, 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.

Those resettlements are now on hold. The State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas for all people traveling on Afghan passports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday on X.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric

Trump and his allies have seized on the shooting to criticize gaps in the U.S. vetting process and the speed of admissions, even though some Republicans spent the months and years after the 2021 withdrawal criticizing the Biden administration for not moving fast enough to approve some applications from Afghan allies.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal “should have never been allowed to come here.” Trump called lax migration policies “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation,” and Vice President JD Vance said Biden’s policy was “opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees.”

That rhetoric quickly turned into policy announcements, with Trump saying he would “permanently pause all migration” from a list of nearly 20 countries, “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” Many of these changes had already been set in motion through a series of executive orders over the last 10 months, including most recently in June.

“They are highlighting practices that were already going into place,” said Andrea Flores, a lawyer who was an immigration policy advisor in the Obama and Biden administrations.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his request was approved in April of this year — under the Trump administration — after undergoing a thorough vetting, according to #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the war.

Flores said the system has worked across administrations: “You may hear people say, ‘Well, he was granted asylum under Trump. This is Trump’s problem.’ That’s not how our immigration system works. It relies on the same bedding. No asylum laws have really been changed by Congress.”

Afghans in the U.S. fearful for their status

Trump and other U.S. officials have used the attack to demand a reexamination of everyone who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, a country he called “a hellhole on Earth” on Thursday.

“These policies were already creating widespread disruption and fear among lawfully admitted families. What’s new and deeply troubling is the attempt to retroactively tie all of this to one act of violence in a way that casts suspicion on entire nationalities, including Afghan allies who risked their lives to protect our troops,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday.

This has left the nearly 200,000 Afghans living across the U.S. in deep fear and shame over actions attributed to one person. Those in the U.S. are now worrying about their legal status being revoked, while others in the immigration pipeline here and abroad are waiting in limbo.

Nesar, a 22-year-old Afghan who arrived in the U.S. weeks after the fall of Kabul, said he had just begun to assimilate into life in the U.S. when the attack happened Wednesday. He agreed to speak to the Associated Press on condition that only his first name be used for fear of reprisals or targeting by immigration officials.

“Life was finally getting easier for me. I’ve learned to speak English. I found a better job,” he said. “But after this happened two days ago, I honestly went to the grocery store this morning, and I was feeling so uncomfortable among all of those people. I was like, maybe they’re now looking at me the same way as the shooter.”

Two days before the shooting, Nesar and his father, who worked for the Afghan president during the war, had received an interview date of Dec. 13 for their green card application, a moment he said they had been working toward for four years. He says it is now unclear if their application will move forward or whether their interview will take place.

Another Afghan national, who also spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said that after fearing for his life under Taliban rule, he felt a sense of peace and hope when he finally received a special immigrant visa to come to the U.S. two years ago.

He said he thought he could use his experience working as a defense attorney in Afghanistan to contribute to American society. But now, he said, he and other Afghans will once again face scrutiny because of the actions of an “extremist who, despite benefiting from the safety and livelihood provided by this country, ungratefully attacked two American soldiers.”

“It seems that whenever a terrorist commits a crime, its shadow falls upon me simply because I am from Afghanistan,” he added.

Cappelletti and Amiri write for the Associated Press. AP writer Renata Brito contributed to this report.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Barack Obama met with U.S. troops and received a military briefing on conditions in Afghanistan on Saturday during the opening leg of an overseas trip designed to showcase his appeal in foreign capitals and reassure American voters that he would make a reliable commander in chief.

Obama’s trip is scheduled to include a visit to Iraq, and his foreign policy judgment got an unexpected boost from that country’s leader, Nouri Maliki, who praised the Democratic presidential candidate’s plan for withdrawing U.S. troops over a 16-month period.

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Maliki embraced Obama’s plan, saying: “That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Maliki said he was not making an endorsement in the presidential race.

The presumed Republican nominee, John McCain, has said that conditions in Iraq could worsen if troops were removed at the pace his rival has advised.

Obama’s high-profile trip caps a week on the campaign trail during which he focused on national security and U.S. commitments abroad — areas that are considered special strengths of McCain.

Seizing on Maliki’s favorable comments, the Obama campaign put out a statement from his senior foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice: “Sen. Obama welcomes Prime Minister Maliki’s support for a 16-month timeline for the redeployment of U.S. combat brigades. This presents an important opportunity to transition to Iraqi responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan.”

In a speech last week, Obama said that troops should be drawn down in Iraq and two additional combat brigades deployed in Afghanistan, a war he said the U.S. couldn’t afford to lose.

His visit to Afghanistan comes at a time of sharply deteriorating security across the country. Suicide bombings are an everyday occurrence, and the number of foreign troops killed last month was the highest since the start of the war.

The presumptive Democratic nominee and senator from Illinois is part of an official congressional delegation that includes Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). The lawmakers made a brief visit to Jalalabad airfield in eastern Afghanistan, greeting American troops from their respective home states.

At Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Obama and the others met with senior military officials and got a briefing from the commander of American forces in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser. The decision to have the delegation meet with Schloesser probably reflected growing U.S. concern over infiltration of fighters from tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the frontier, which borders Afghanistan’s eastern provinces.

Although Afghanistan’s south is the traditional heartland of the insurgency, the eastern front, where U.S. forces are concentrated, has heated up dramatically in recent weeks. American troops suffered their worst single-incident loss in three years last Sunday, when about 200 insurgents staged a well-organized assault on a remote base near the Pakistani border manned by U.S. and Afghan troops; nine Americans were killed and 15 wounded.

On Saturday, a NATO soldier was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province. The soldier’s nationality was not released, but nearly all Western troops in that area are Canadian.

On the eve of his trip, Obama told reporters he wanted to make a firsthand evaluation of the Afghan and Iraqi war zones.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said Thursday. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense — both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad — of, you know, what . . . their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”

In the Afghan capital, where constant power disruptions limit people’s access to radio and television news reports, many residents were not aware of Obama’s arrival. He is to meet with President Hamid Karzai today.

Obama caused a stir this month with remarks about the struggles of the Karzai government.

“I think the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan and [the] government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence,” Obama told CNN.

Yet there is considerable enthusiasm here at the prospect of a change in the American administration. Many Afghans, while grateful for the U.S.-led invasion more than six years ago that drove the Taliban from power, are disappointed that the country still faces violence and poverty.

Obama “has good ideas about Afghanistan, and I hope he becomes the U.S. president,” said university student Hafeez Mohammad Sultani, 23. “He is young and full of energy.”

Others, however, were more skeptical.

“Bush couldn’t provide security in Afghanistan, so that will be difficult for Obama too,” said telecommunications worker Shams ul-Rahman, 38. “This is a very big challenge for America — maybe there will be some changes in the way Obama is thinking about Afghanistan.”

Obama’s companions on the trip are considered possible administration appointees should he win the presidency. Reed is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Hagel is a Vietnam veteran who, like Obama, has opposed the Iraq war.

Recent polls show that most Americans see McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as the more seasoned of the two candidates when it comes to foreign policy.

To close the gap, Obama has been trying to shore up his credentials. In speeches and opinion pieces, Obama has argued that invading Iraq was a mistake, that Iraqi officials also favor a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, and that Afghanistan is the real front in the war on terrorism.

In that respect, Maliki’s remarks gave Obama a boost and left McCain in an awkward spot.

The Arizona senator has said that U.S. troops should leave Iraq when the Maliki government and U.S. commanders on the ground deem the country secure. But McCain has dismissed Obama’s 16-month timeline as politically motivated and said it was an invitation for more chaos in Iraq.

McCain’s senior foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, said in a statement Saturday: “The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground.

“Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama.

“The fundamental truth remains that Sen. McCain was right about the [U.S. troop] surge and Sen. Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Sen. Obama’s views had prevailed.”

The Republican candidate also has ridiculed Obama for making pronouncements on Iraq and Afghanistan in advance of his visit.

In a radio address Saturday, McCain said: “My opponent . . . announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.”

Obama is scheduled to visit the Middle East and Europe in what will probably become a media spectacle, with television news anchors covering each stop as though Obama were a head of state.

Images of adoring crowds greeting Obama in Germany and elsewhere feed into a campaign strategy to demonstrate that as president he would improve the United States’ beleaguered reputation in Europe.

Before landing in Afghanistan, the delegation stopped in Kuwait.

Obama relaxed there with U.S. troops, taking to the basketball court for a game of H-O-R-S-E.

—

[email protected]

Times staff writer Nicholas reported from Washington and special correspondent Faiez from Kabul. Times staff writers Laura King in Istanbul, Turkey, Michael Muskal in Los Angeles and Nicholas Riccardi in New York contributed to this report.

—

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

What Maliki said

Here is a part of Iraqi leader Nouri Maliki’s interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he supported Barack Obama’s timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq:

Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the U.S. troops will finally leave Iraq?

As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

Is this an endorsement for the U.S. presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business. But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that’s where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

Source: Der Spiegel

Donald Trump has said that he will pardon the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking charges in a US court last year.

The US president said Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly” in a social media post announcing the move on Friday.

Hernández was found guilty in March 2024 of conspiring to import cocaine into the US, and of possessing machine guns. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Trump also threw his support behind conservative presidential candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura in the Central American nation’s general election, due to be held on Sunday.

Hernández, a member of the National Party, who served as Honduras’s president from 2014 to 2022, was extradited to the US in April 2022 to stand trial for running a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US.

He was convicted by a New York jury two years later.

Polls indicate the Honduran election remains a toss-up between three candidates including Asfura, the former mayor of Tegucigalpa and leader of the conservative National Party.

Also in the running is Rixi Moncada, a former defence minister standing for the ruling left-wing Libre Party, and Salvador Nasralla, a television host with the centrist Liberal Party.

Trump criticised Moncada and Nasralla on Friday, writing that the latter was “a boderline Communist” who was only running to split the vote between Moncada and Asfura.

He characterised Asfura as “standing up for democracy” and praised him for campaigning against Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, with whom Trump has engaged in a war of words in recent months.

Nasralla has pledged to cut ties with Venezuela if he wins.

The Trump administration has accused the left-wing Maduro – whose re-election last year was dismissed as illegitimate by many countries – of being the leader of a drugs cartel.

It used countering drug trafficking as a justification for a military build-up in the Caribbean and has conducted strikes on vessels it says have been used for smuggling – though some analysts have described these moves as a means of pressuring Latin American leaders.

Honduras has been governed since 2022 by President Xiomara Castro, who has forged close ties with Cuba and Venezuela.

But Castro has maintained a co-operative relationship with the US, agreeing to preserve a long-running extradition treaty with it. Her country also hosts a US military base involved in targeting transnational organised crime in the region.

More than 80 people have been killed in the US strikes on vessels suspected of being involved in the transport of narcotics since they began in August.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said the aim of “Operation Southern Spear” was to eliminate “narcoterrorists”.

But legal experts have questioned the legality of the strikes, pointing out that the US has provided no evidence that the boats it has targeted were carrying drugs.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.  — President Trump said Friday that he will be pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who in 2024 was convicted for cocaine trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in U.S. prison.

Trump, explaining his decision on social media, wrote that “according to many people that I greatly respect,” Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”

The pardoning of a convicted drug trafficker comes as the Trump administration is carrying out deadly military strikes in the Caribbean that it describes as an anti-narcotics effort.

A jury in U.S. federal court in New York last year found that Hernandez had conspired with drug traffickers and used his military and national police force to enable tons of cocaine to make it unhindered into the United States. In handing down the 45-year sentence, the judge in the case had called Hernandez a “two-faced politician hungry for power” who protected a select group of traffickers.

Trial witnesses included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernandez was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life prison term in the U.S.

Hernandez, who had served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of about 10 million people, had been appealing his conviction and serving time at the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton, in West Virginia.

Shortly after Trump’s pardon announcement, Hernández’s wife and children gathered on the steps of their home in Tegucigalpa and kneeled in prayer, grateful that Hernández would return to their family after almost four years apart.

It was the same home that Honduran authorities hauled him out of in 2022 just months after leaving office. He was extradited to the United States to stand trial.

García said they had just been able to speak with Hernández and tell him the news.

“He still didn’t know of this news, and believe me, when we shared it his voice broke with emotion,” she said.

García thanked Trump, saying that the president had corrected an injustice, maintaining that Hernández’s prosecution was a coordinated plot by drug traffickers and the “radical left” to seek revenge against the former president.

She said they had not been told exactly when Hernández would return, but said that “we hope … in the coming days.”

A lawyer for Hernandez, Renato C. Stabile, expressed gratitude for Trump’s actions. “A great injustice has been righted, and we are so hopeful for the future partnership of the United States and Honduras,” Stabile said.

U.S. prosecutors had said that Hernandez worked with drug traffickers dating back to 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.

Hernandez acknowledged in trial testimony that drug money was paid to virtually all political parties in Honduras, but he denied accepting bribes himself. Hernandez had insisted during his trial that he was being persecuted by politicians and drug traffickers.

Trump’s post Friday was part of a broader message backing Nasry “Tito” Asfura for Honduras’ presidency, with Trump saying the U.S. would be supportive of the country only if he wins. If Asfura loses the election Sunday, Trump threatened in his post, “the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is.”

Asfura, 67, is making his second run for president for the conservative National Party. He was mayor of Tegucigalpa and has pledged to solve Honduras’ infrastructure needs. He has previously been accused of embezzling public funds, allegations that he denies.

In addition to Asfura, there are two other likely contenders for Honduras’ presidency: Rixi Moncada, who served as the finance secretary and later defense secretary before running for president for the incumbent democratic socialist Libre party; and Salvador Nasralla, a former television personality who is making his fourth bid for the presidency, this time as the candidate for the Liberal Party.

Trump has framed Honduras’ election as a trial for democracy, suggesting in a separate Truth Social post that if Asfura loses, the country could go the way of Venezuela and fall under the influence of that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has sought to apply pressure on Maduro, ordering a series of strikes against boats the U.S. suspects of carrying drugs, building up the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean with warships including the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.

The U.S. president has not ruled out taking military action or covert action by the CIA against Venezuela, though he has also floated that he was open to speaking with Maduro.

Outgoing Honduran President Xiomara Castro has governed as a leftist, but she has maintained a pragmatic and even cooperative position in dealing with the Republican U.S. administration. She has received visits from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, when she was head of U.S. Southern Command. Trump has even backed off his threats to end Honduras’ extradition treaty and military cooperation with the U.S.

Under Castro, Honduras has also received its citizens deported from the U.S. and acted as a bridge for deported Venezuelans who were then picked up by Venezuela in Honduras.

Argentine President Javier Milei, a staunch ally of Trump, also gave his support to Asfura in this weekend’s election.

“I fully support Tito Asfura, who is the candidate who best represents the opposition to the leftist tyrants who have destroyed Honduras,” Milei said Friday on his X account.

Boak and Sherman write for the Associated Press and reported from West Palm Beach and Tegucigalpa, respectively. AP writer Mike Sisak in Lancaster, Pa., contributed to this report.

Nov. 28 (UPI) — President Donald Trump posted that he plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court of trafficking drugs to the United States.

“I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” he posted on Truth Social Friday.

Trump also said in the post that he is supporting a conservative Honduran candidate as the Central American country prepares for election. He endorsed Tito Asfura, who is from the same party that Hernandez once led, the National Party.

In March 2024, Hernandez was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States. He served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022. He was extradited to the United States in April 2022.

He was sentenced by a U.S. judge to 45 years in prison for running a “narco-state” that helped send South American cocaine to the United States.

U.S. prosecutors said he built his political career on millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in Honduras and Mexico. They also said he helped move at least 400 tons of cocaine to the United States and protected traffickers from extradition and prosecution, the Washington Post reported.

The post by Trump said, “If Tito Asfura wins for President of Honduras, because the United States has so much confidence in him, his Policies, and what he will do for the Great People of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is. Tito will be a Great President, and the United States will work closely with him in order to ensure the success, with all of its potential, of Honduras! Additionally, I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success. VOTE FOR TITO ASFURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!”

On Wednesday, Trump endorsed Asfura, called the opposition in Honduras “Narcoterrorists,” and compared them to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

“Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras,” Trump said.

The decision follows Castillo’s failed 2022 bid to dissolve Congress and avoid a third impeachment attempt.

A court in Peru has sentenced former President Pedro Castillo to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for seeking to dissolve Congress.

The decision on Thursday came nearly three years after Castillo sought to disband the legislature on December 7, 2022, as he faced a third set of impeachment hearings.

The first two attempts to impeach Castillo had been unsuccessful. But after he appeared on television to impose a state of emergency and suspend the legislature for eroding the rule of law, Congress swiftly voted for his removal. He was arrested the same day.

Castillo, a former teacher and union leader, was charged with rebellion and conspiracy against the state for his alleged power grab, which some have described as a “self-coup”.

A left-leaning, socially conservative politician from Peru’s rural north, Castillo had faced up to 34 years in prison at his sentencing.

Prosecutors in the case argued that Castillo aimed to undermine Peru’s Constitution with his actions. But at trial last week, Castillo denied the charges against him. Addressing his televised 2022 speech, he said he merely read out “a document without consequence”.

Castillo is part of a series of presidents in recent decades to face investigations and criminal charges in Peru. The country has had eight presidents within the last 10 years alone.

After his surprise victory in the 2021 presidential election, Castillo, now 56, was dubbed the country’s first “president of the poor“, given his working-class roots in the northern city of Puna. He had never previously held elected office.

His brief tenure, which lasted only around 16 months, was defined by frequent shake-ups among his top ministers and clashes with the opposition-led Congress.

Castillo’s arrest in 2022 sparked pushback from Indigenous residents and his rural base, members of which blocked roads, particularly in Peru’s south.

The unrest fuelled widespread, years-long protests across the country. His successor, former Vice President Dina Boluarte, oversaw a brutal crackdown of those demonstrations that left at least 50 people dead.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has accused the government of using “disproportionate, indiscriminate and lethal use of force” in its response to the protests.

Boluarte, the country’s first female president, was subsequently impeached in October, amid concerns about rising crime and investigations into her behaviour. She has been replaced by the right-wing politician Jose Jeri, who previously was the head of Peru’s Congress.

Thursday’s sentencing caps a nine-month trial punctuated by a diplomatic rift.

During the court proceedings, the Mexican embassy granted asylum to Castillo’s former prime minister, Betssy Chavel, who was also facing charges related to the former president’s effort to consolidate power.

Peru’s government subsequently labelled Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, a vocal supporter of Castillo, “persona non grata”.

Castillo has been denied the possibility of serving his sentence under house arrest. Instead, he is slated to join several other former presidents at Barbadillo Prison in the capital Lima. The prison, situated at a police academy, was set up to hold convicted leaders who might face safety hazards in other detention facilities.

Detainees at Barbadillo include Ollanta Humala, who served as president from 2011 to 2016 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison this year for money laundering.

Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for taking bribes. He too is at the prison.

And Martin Vizcarra, who was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 years in prison for bribery, was transferred there this week.

Senegal’s Foreign Ministry says Umaro Sissoco Embalo arrived in the country a day after he was deposed in a military coup.

Guinea-Bissau’s deposed president, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, has arrived in Senegal, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed, a day after a group of military officers in Guinea-Bissau seized power in a coup.

Senegal’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday night that Embalo had arrived in Senegal after authorities engaged with actors in Guinea-Bissau to try to secure his release.

Embalo reached Senegal on board an aircraft chartered by the Senegalese government, it said.

“The government of the Republic of Senegal reaffirms its readiness to work alongside ECOWAS, the African Union and all relevant partners, with a view to supporting dialogue, stability and the rapid restoration of constitutional order and democratic legitimacy in this brotherly nation,” the statement said.

Embalo was deposed on Wednesday after military officers announced they had seized “total control” of Guinea-Bissau ahead of the expected release of presidential election results in the West African nation.

Embalo had been vying for re-election against his main challenger, Fernando Dias. Both had declared victory ahead of the release of the provisional results.

But the main opposition PAIGC party was barred from presenting a presidential candidate, raising criticism from civil society groups, which said the election was illegitimate.

Dubbing themselves the “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order”, the military officers read out a statement on television on Wednesday, declaring that they had ordered the immediate suspension of the electoral process “until further notice”.

They also ordered the closure of Guinea-Bissau’s borders and an overnight curfew.

On Thursday, General Horta Inta-A was sworn in as the country’s transitional president, defending the military takeover by saying that there had been “sufficient [evidence] to justify the operation”.

But the coup – one of several to hit Guinea-Bissau since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1974 – has spurred widespread concern, including from regional bodies.

The chairperson of the African Union Commission condemned the situation earlier on Thursday, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Embalo and all other detained officials.

Mahmoud Ali Youssouf also urged “all parties to exercise the utmost restraint in order to prevent any further deterioration of the situation”.

Keller, who led the consortium that bought Strasbourg for one euro in 2012, has helped revive a club that were playing in the amateur fourth tier after financial collapse.

They returned to the Ligue 1 within five years, and are now competing on the European stage – two years after entering into the partnership with Chelsea.

“Discussions with Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly have been about how to create a smart multi-club model from the beginning, while using more financial power,” said Keller.

“We improved every year and were in a strong financial position before the takeover, but with new partners we can dream a little bigger and think about getting into the top six or seven to qualify for Europe every year.”

At the Stade de la Meinau, BlueCo’s investment is evident, with cranes finishing the stadium’s expansion from 26,000 to 32,000 seats – the final touches of a £157m redevelopment.

Walking around the modernised stadium, there is incredible attention to detail, including monuments to every male and female player to wear the blue jersey.

“The good balance is ambition but with tradition,” Keller said.

“We are investing a lot to set up an organisation around the team to help the players go higher. That’s in staff, data, physio, player care and scouting networks.”

Sporting director David Weir was hired last month, after leaving Brighton.

But, just as at Chelsea, Strasbourg’s squad had already been transformed by BlueCo – with £112m spent on building the youngest squad – averaging just 21.5 years of age – in the big five leagues. Chelsea are fourth – behind their partner club, plus Paris St-Germain and Parma.

Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos was the first to benefit from a move between the clubs – spending 18 months on loan at Strasbourg – and says he still watches their matches and texts manager Liam Rosenior.

“We try to work well with the technical team of Chelsea to have good players for Strasbourg,” says Keller. “It would have been impossible for us to have Mike Penders, Andrey Santos or Dorde Petrovic in the past, so that’s positive.

“Strasbourg and France is a good step for the young players to develop, and this BlueCo project is about building quality.

“We are investing a lot in a young generation. It can happen that one player per year is good enough for Chelsea. But our project is to have other players around top clubs in Europe, not just Chelsea. It’s not correct to say they are coming to go to Chelsea.

“They are coming to Strasbourg because of the ambition.”

Strasbourg sold £74m of players in the summer – including Dilane Bakwa to Nottingham Forest and former captain Habib Diarra to Sunderland, both for about £30m.

Reporting from Palm Desert — It was a cool and rainy day when elders of the Republican tribe recently gathered to honor one of their own.

The honoree, Stuart K. Spencer, was unmistakable in his white duck pants and a lime-green sport coat so bright it almost hurt to see. A reformed chain-smoker, he snapped merrily away on a wad of chewing gum.

The event marked Spencer’s 90th birthday, but the mood beneath the surface conviviality was unsettled and gray, like the clouds fringing the mountains outside.

If the occasion was intended as a personal celebration, it also had the feel of a wake for a time in politics long passed.

Spencer — savvy, irreverent, profane — spent decades as one of the most successful and admired consultants in the campaign business. The hundreds, both Democrat and Republican, who paid homage at a desert country club included the alumni of several past GOP administrations, in both Washington and Sacramento.

Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and former California Gov. Pete Wilson, veterans of the Reagan years turned out in force. It was Spencer, more than anyone, who took a political long shot and washed-up B-movie actor and helped transform him into the Reagan of legend.

“This is the gang that could actually shoot straight,” said one longtime GOP operative, peering at the largely silver-haired assembly.

Inevitably, private conversation turned to the current occupant of the White House, a member, nominally, of the same political party as those Republicans present.

Feelings ranged from horror to perplexity. Not from jealousy; most of those in attendance had long ago held the reins of power and were comfortably settled in their memories. Rather, it was the startling dysfunction of the fledgling Trump administration.

Yes, said one veteran of the Reagan White House, there was infighting and jockeying early on then too, but not the public knife-fighting of competing Trump factions.

“We weren’t going on the Sunday TV shows to grandstand,” he said, requesting anonymity, still finding it uncomfortable to criticize a fellow Republican on the record. “We were nose to the grindstone, focused on policy” — which grew out of Ronald Reagan’s deep-seated philosophy, not the whims of a blustery, seemingly improvisational president.

When the time came for testimonials, there was plenty of impertinent humor and fond reminiscing: about midnight phone calls from Nancy Reagan, drinking North Carolina moonshine, and the time Spencer dropped an F-bomb in the Oval Office to advise President Ford to stick to the Rose Garden and not try to out-campaign Jimmy Carter.

“Stu called them as he saw them,” said former Gov. Wilson, dryly.

Jerry Lewis, not the comedian but a former congressman from the Inland Empire, offered one of several elegies.

Once among the most powerful members of Congress, he was known during 30-plus years representing Riverside and San Bernardino counties for a willingness to work across the partisan aisle, a facility — along with a desire to legislate and not just obstruct — that now seems almost quaint.

“I’d love to see us return to a time when people actually talked to each other,” Lewis said, to a ripple of applause.

Taking his turn at the microphone, Spencer was funny and poignant.

The thing he really likes about living a long life, he said, is that all of his enemies are now dead. Then he saluted some of them: liberals like Jesse Unruh, the legendary Assembly speaker, and Phillip Burton, the formidable San Francisco congressman, who fiercely battled Reagan and his policies. They were men of honor and principle, Spencer said, and he misses them.

His brand of Republicanism — support for legal abortion, certain gun controls and, most urgently, a need to reach out to voters who are not white or conservative — has grown largely out of fashion in the political party to which he devoted his life. He spent 70 years laboring on behalf of the GOP only to be called a RINO, or Republican In Name Only, Spencer said with wonder.

Among the behaviors he models is discretion — Spencer is one of the few insiders who didn’t cash in on his Reagan years — and an abiding respect for the political process and its practitioners. Though no fan of President Trump, he was measured in his critique.

“Today, half of America is holding its breath,” he said. “I’m one of them.”

He warned against lashing out in anger, or turning disappointment into hatred, even as he challenged some of Trump’s more preposterous claims, including the falsehood that he was victimized by millions of illegal votes cast for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“You need to win with class and lose with class,” Spencer said.

He took particular umbrage at those wrapping Trump — another political amateur who improbably made his way to the White House — in the Reagan mantle. The late president “had class and a totally different belief system,” Spencer said.

He wished Trump well. But, he said, “he is President Trump, not President Reagan.”

There was no audible dissent.

The program ended with a Sinatra impersonator singing a customized version of “My Way.” Then the guest of honor quietly slipped out the sliding glass doors, riding past Gerald Ford Drive as he made his way home.

[email protected]

@markzbarabak on Twitter

ALSO

Love or hate President Trump? It may all be in your head

Republicans think they’ve found the ideal candidate for governor. So why isn’t Kevin Faulconer interested?

A Californian for president in 2020? It could happen

Claire Rothman, a trailblazing sports and entertainment industry executive indelibly tied to the Los Angeles Lakers during their 1980s heyday, has died.

Family members confirmed her death, on Saturday, was due to complications from a fall. She was 97.

As the president and general manager of the “Fabulous Forum,” Rothman was pivotal in bringing big-name musicians to the Inglewood venue and had deep ties to the Lakers when it was the team’s home during the “Showtime” era, when the Lakers won five championships in a decade.

Jeanie Buss, the daughter of former Lakers owner Jerry Buss — who after the recent sale of the team acts as its governor in NBA meetings — lamented the loss of Rothman, a woman she said shaped her career.

“Claire paved the way for women working in live entertainment. She was tenacious, creative and indomitable. My father always described her as the MVP who championed the Fabulous Forum as the West Coast concert rival to the legendary Madison Square Garden,” Buss said Sunday evening.

“For me personally, she was a mentor and a guide, helping me learn and navigate an industry that had never been very open to women in leadership,” Buss said. “I learned an incredible amount from her as an executive and consider her one of the major influences in my life.”

Rothman, hired in 1975 by Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke, became the vivacious president and general manager of the Forum during a pivotal moment in the Lakers’ history. She was frequently seen around town wearing the many championship rings that the team won during her tenure. Rothman was a prominent character in the HBO series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” played by actor Gaby Hoffmann.

“Claire Rothman is a f— legend,” Rebecca Bertuch, a writer for the show, told The Times in 2022. “I mean, she broke barriers that people didn’t think would ever be broken and she kicked ass and was notorious and well-known in her line of work for being that girl.”

Rothman has been recognized for her role in professional sports at a time when women were not commonplace or were treated poorly.

“I’m not exactly quiet,” Rothman is quoted as saying during a speech in a 1985 profile in The Times. “I am the only woman in the United States who runs a major sports arena. I have a variety of duties. I book the building. I schedule the sports. The box office answers to me, all the staffing answers to me, and at night I get to play hostess.”

She brought big-name acts such as Prince to the Forum and developed relationships with entertainers including Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond and Lionel Richie.

“Many building managers will not meet artists in their entire lives,” Larry Vallon, then-vice president of the Universal Amphitheatre, told The Times in 1985. “In Claire’s case, artists go out of their way to meet her. She has an incredible reputation in the industry.”

It was a remarkable position for a woman whose family had humble beginnings in this country.

Rothman’s family fled Romanian pogroms against Jewish people at the turn of the 20th century, immigrating to Philadelphia, according to Magda Peck, a cousin of Rothman’s mother.

“What I remember about Claire was how important family was to her and how close she was with my mother and the other cousins,” Peck said. “There was something about modeling how women support each other, how cousins are there for each other across generations.”

Peck, a public health expert, last saw Rothman a couple of weeks ago.

“She said, ‘Promise me that you’ll stay close to the cousins,’” Peck said. “Before she’s famous, before she’s the mother of the Lakers family, [she prioritized] the value of extended family.”

Rothman died in Las Vegas, where she had moved after leaving Southern California. She is survived by a son and a daughter, and multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Today we discuss Texas, overreaction and the voluminous field of candidates for California governor.

Is there anyone who is not running for governor?

I’m not. And neither are my two cats. At least they weren’t as of this morning, when we discussed the race before breakfast.

That leaves us somewhat short of the 135 candidates who ran in California’s 2003 recall gubernatorial election. But not by much.

I count nearly a dozen serious candidates, with possibly more to come. Why so many?

Opportunity.

This is the most wide-open race for California governor in decades. By comparison, you’d have to go back to at least 1998, when Lt. Gov. Gray Davis surged past a pair of moneybag candidates, Al Checchi and Rep. Jane Harman, in the Democratic primary, then stomped Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren in November to win the general election.

Now, as then, there is no one who even remotely resembles a prohibitive front-runner.

Polling in the governor’s race has shown former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter and Chad Bianco, Riverside County’s Republican sheriff, narrowly leading the field. But with support for both in the middling 13%-to-21% range, we’re not talking about a pair of world-beaters.

Like nature, political ambition abhors a vacuum.

Speaking of moneybags…

Tom Steyer!

Yes.

After making a bundle as a hedge fund manager, the San Francisco billionaire and environmental activist has been panting after public office for years. Running for president didn’t work out in 2020, even after Steyer spent more than $345 million on his effort. (That’s close to what the Dodgers spent on their 2025 payroll.)

So now Steyer is running for governor, a move he appeared to telegraph by airing nearly $13 million in self-promotional ads that, oh yes, supported passage of Proposition 50, the Democratic gerrymander initiative.

What are his chances?

Longtime readers of this column — both of you! — will know I make no predictions.

But California voters have never looked favorably upon rich candidates trying to make the leap from political civilian to the governorship or U.S. Senate. In fact, over the last 50-plus years, a gilded gallery of the well-to-do have tried and spectacularly failed.

Perhaps Steyer will display the policy chops or the razzle and dazzle they all lacked. But his launch video certainly didn’t shatter any molds. Rather, it presented a stereotypical grab bag of redwood trees, potshots at Sacramento, multicultural images of hard-working-everyday-folk, a promise to fight, a pledge to build more housing and, of course, a dash of profanity because, gosh darn it, nothing says “unbridled authenticity” like a political candidate swearing!

Maybe his fellow billionaire, Rick Caruso, will show more creativity and imagination if he gets into the governor’s race.

At least Democrats have been showing signs of life.

Indeed. Dare I say, the party’s mood swing from near-suicidal to euphoric has been quite something.

Winning gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia — not by a little, but a lot — and prevailing in down-ballot contests in Pennsylvania and Georgia had a remarkably transformative effect. (Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in sky-blue New York City was no big surprise once the democratic socialist prevailed in the primary.)

Literally overnight, Democrats seized the momentum heading into the 2026 midterm election, while Republicans have begun scrambling to reposition their party and recraft its messaging.

All that being said, even before their buoyant off-year performance those widespread reports of Democrats’ demise were greatly … well, we’ll leave that Mark Twain chestnut alone. As analyst Charlie Cook points out, 2024 was a deeply disappointing year for the party. But it wasn’t a disaster.

Democrats gained two House seats. There was no net change in any of the 11 gubernatorial races and legislative contests across 44 states ended in something close to a wash. The party lost four Senate seats — and control of the chamber — but three of those losses came in the red states of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.

“This is not to argue that Democrats had a great night in November 2024, but it certainly wasn’t a massacre or a party-wide repudiation,” Cook wrote in a recent posting. “If voters had intended to take it out on the party as a whole, the results would have looked quite different.”

Rather than a wholesale takedown of Democrats, the result seemed very much a rejection of President Biden and, by extension, his hasty replacement on the ballot, Vice President Kamala Harris.

What does that mean going forth?

If you’re asking whether Democrats will win control of the House or Senate…

Yes?!?

…I haven’t a clue.

Democrats need to gain three seats to take control of the House and both history and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially as pertains to the economy — augur well for their chances. The president’s party has lost House seats in 20 of the last 22 midterm elections and, according to Inside Elections, the fewest number of seats that flipped was four.

That’s why I thought Proposition 50, which sets out to all but decapitate California Republicans in Congress, was a bad and unnecessary move, effectively disenfranchising millions of non-Democratic voters.

An appeals court last week tossed out a Republican gerrymander in Texas, putting Democrats in an even stronger position, though the legal wrangling is far from over. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the decision, pending review. And still to come is a high court ruling that could gut the Voting Rights Act and yield Republicans a dozen or more House seats nationwide.

So the fight for control is far from decided.

As for the Senate, Republicans stand a much better chance of keeping control, given how the seats contested in 2026 are located on largely favorable GOP terrain.

But until the votes are counted, nobody knows what will happen. That’s the thing about elections: they help keep wiseacres like me honest.

The right-wing leader has sought to appeal his 27-year sentence for allegedly fomenting a coup after his 2022 defeat.

Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to allow him to serve his 27-year sentence under house arrest, citing health concerns.

According to a document reviewed by the Reuters news agency on Friday, Bolsonaro’s lawyers said the 70-year-old former president’s recurring intestinal issues would make imprisonment life-threatening.

He had been stabbed in the stomach while campaigning in the state of Minas Gerais in 2018.

“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said. It asked for house arrest on humanitarian grounds.

In September, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison by a five-judge panel from Brazil’s Supreme Court. He was convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The former right-wing leader has already been under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in a separate case, in which he allegedly courted United States interference to halt the criminal proceedings against him.

Court sources said Bolsonaro’s arrest appeared imminent after the Supreme Court panel earlier this month unanimously rejected an appeal filed by the former president’s legal team.

His lawyers said they would file a new appeal, but they argued that, if it is also rejected, Bolsonaro should begin serving his sentence under house arrest once all appeals are exhausted.

They noted that, earlier this year, the top court let 76-year-old former President Fernando Collor de Mello serve house arrest due to his age and health issues, including Parkinson’s disease, after he was sentenced to almost nine years in prison on corruption and money laundering charges.

Recent medical tests on Bolsonaro show that “a serious or sudden illness is not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’,” his legal team said.

One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Carlos, said on Friday that the former president was facing severe hiccups and vomiting constantly. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022, was convicted of five crimes, including participating in an armed criminal organisation, attempting to violently abolish democracy and organising a coup.

On Friday, the former president made a brief appearance in the doorway of his house while receiving a visit from federal lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira.

LA28, the committee behind the Olympic Games coming to Los Angeles, quietly added to its roster of directors some high-profile Republicans with ties to President Trump.

The 35-member volunteer board of directors now includes notable Republican political figures Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, and Reince Priebus, who was Trump’s chief of staff during his first term. Before his role in the White House, Priebus served as the longtime chair of the Republican National Committee.

Diane Hendricks, a major GOP donor who has given millions to Trump’s campaigns, and Patrick Dumont, who owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the son-in-law of another major Trump donor, were also added to the board. Ken Moelis, an investment banker who worked with Trump in the 1990s and predicted the businessman would win the presidency in 2016, is also listed as a board member.

The Trump-adjacent inflow to the board of directors, first reported by Politico, is the latest sign of the president’s involvement in the major Los Angeles event.

It is not clear why the decision was made to expand the board of directors and how the individuals were selected. A spokesperson for LA28 did not immediately respond to The Times’ questions Thursday about the move.

Kevin McCarthy

(Associated Press)

Los Angeles business consultant Denita Willoughby and philanthropist Maria Hummer-Tuttle are also newly listed as board members.

“We are thrilled to welcome this accomplished group to the LA28 Board who will help create an unforgettable Games for athletes and fans alike,” Casey Wasserman, the chair of the 2028 L.A. Olympics organizing committee, wrote in a statement.

Wasserman could not immediately be reached by The Times for further comment.

Although past presidents have taken a largely ceremonial role in Olympics that have been held on U.S. soil, there are signs that Trump is seeking a more active role in the Games, which will occur in his final year as president.

In August, he signed an executive order naming him chair of a White House task force on the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The president views the Games as “a premier opportunity to showcase American exceptionalism,” according to a White House statement. Trump, the administration said, “is taking every opportunity to showcase American greatness on the world stage.”

Trump at the time noted that he’d be willing to send the military back to Los Angeles to protect the Games. In June, he sent the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city amid escalating immigration enforcement actions, prompting pushback from Mayor Karen Bass.

Wasserman attended the signing at the White House in August and thanked Trump for “leaning in” to planning for the Olympics, which he said is akin to hosting seven Super Bowls a day for 30 days.

“You’ve been supportive and helpful every step of the way,” Wasserman told the president at the time. “With the creation of this task force, we’ve unlocked the opportunity to level up our planning and deliver the largest and, yes, greatest Games for our nation, ever.”

It’s sheer coincidence that I’m writing here on the same subject as my Los Angeles Times colleague Jonah Goldberg’s most recent column: The crying need to amend the Constitution to do something about the much-abused presidential pardon power, the only unchecked power that a president has.

The fact that both Goldberg, a right-of-center commentator, and I, center-left, would near-simultaneously choose to vent on this topic — to call, in effect, for a national uprising against this presidential prerogative despite the evident difficulty of amending the Constitution — is telling: It’s a reflection of Americans’ across-the-spectrum disgust with how modern presidents have perverted it for personal and political benefit, usually on their way out the door. (Goldberg makes the case to get rid of the pardon power altogether. I would give Congress a veto, so presidents still can right actual wrongs of the justice system, as the founders intended.)

Yes, “both sides” are culpable. And yet, Goldberg and I agree, one president has surpassed all others in the shamelessness of his pardons: Donald Trump. In just 10 months he’s built a track record sorrier than that of his first term, which is saying something, and elevated clemency reform to an imperative.

We can’t stop Trump before he pardons again. Nor, probably, would an amendment campaign succeed before (if?) he leaves office in January 2029. But Americans of all political stripes can at least join in getting the process rolling, if only to protect against future presidents’ abuses.

From his first day in office, when Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 rioters who beat cops and stormed the Capitol to overturn his 2020 defeat, already 20 times this year he’s either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of additional scores of undeserving hacks, fellow election deniers, war criminals, donors, investors in Trump businesses and career criminals who just happen to support him. (Recidivism among Trump’s beneficiaries is proving a problem; among the new charges: child sex abuse.)

The clemency actions have come so fast and furious that they hardly register as the scandals that they are, especially as the news about them vies for attention with the many other outrages of Trump’s presidency.

“No MAGA left behind,” Trump pardon attorney “Eagle Ed” Martin brazenly posted in May and again this month in announcing preemptory pardons for former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and more than 75 other Republicans who were part of the fake-elector schemes to reverse Trump’s 2020 losses in battleground states, as well as other efforts after the 2020 election to keep him in power.

Those grants were followed last weekend by mercy for two more MAGA militants: Suzanne Kaye, a Florida woman sentenced to prison for threatening in video posts to “shoot their [expletive] a–” if FBI agents tried to question her about her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Daniel Edwin Wilson of Kentucky, who was among those pardoned for his crimes on Jan. 6 but later sentenced by a Trump-appointed district judge on gun charges related to an illegal cache of weaponry that agents found at his home.

To Trump, absolving his supporters as victims of a supposedly weaponized justice system in effect absolves him as well, and furthers his false narrative — his big lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him. As Martin, the White House pardon attorney, wrote in this month’s passel of pardons: “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election.” The opposite is true.

Lo, Trump’s mercy knows no bounds — of propriety, that is. The president won’t even rule out a pardon for convicted child-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime procurer for, and participant with, Jeffrey Epstein in the sexploitation of young girls.

Even if Trump’s abuse of the pardon power isn’t unprecedented, its scale and shamelessness is. His Day One mass pardons for Jan. 6 participants set the tone. That action kept his 2024 campaign promise to “free the J-6 hostages,” but it broke an earlier, videotaped vow he’d made on Jan. 7, 2021, when anger at the Capitol attack was near-universal: “To those who broke the law, you will pay.” Hundreds did pay, convicted by juries and judges of both parties and sentenced to up to 22 years in prison. Until Trump got back in power.

Need evidence of how Trump’s pardons corrode the rule of law? Last December, weeks before he returned to the White House, yet another Jan. 6 participant, Philip Sean Grillo, was sentenced. The Reagan-appointed federal judge in the case, Royce Lamberth, admonished: “Nobody is being held hostage. … Every rioter is in the situation he or she is in because he or she broke the law, and for no other reason.” Grillo shouted back, as U.S. marshals led him off: “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways.” He was right, of course.

Then there’s this: In September, after a Republican former Tennessee House speaker and his aide were sentenced in a fraud case, the government’s announcement quoted a senior FBI agent in Nashville calling the punishment “a wake-up call to other public officials who believe there are no consequences for betraying the public trust.” On Nov. 7, Trump pardoned both men.

Trump’s promiscuous use of his power has even spawned a niche business of Trump-connected lawyers peddling their influence to pardon-seekers willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to get out of jail not-so-free.

Consider the case of Changpeng Zhao, billionaire founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who served time in 2023 for facilitating money laundering, including for terrorist groups. Zhao didn’t just hire Trump-friendly lawyers. His company helped secure a $2-billion investment in the Trump family’s crypto startup. Last month, Trump pardoned Zhao. “I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” he nonchalantly told CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”

Zhao’s success alone should be scandal enough to fuel a campaign to repeal or reform the pardon power. But there is so much more. And we surely haven’t seen the last.

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