reluctant

When Davies was asked about that block before Wales met Slovakia again three years later, he simply remarked: “It’s a good memory, but hopefully I won’t have to do it again this time around.”

Those moments are all well and good, Davies thought, but he would prefer a straightforward victory, a clean sheet and, frankly, less of a fuss.

By this time, however, he had already joined Tottenham, with whom he would play in one of the most extraordinary ties in Champions League history.

Just 24 hours after Liverpool had overturned a 3-0 first-leg deficit to stun Barcelona at Anfield, Spurs mounted another comeback for the ages against Ajax.

Trailing 3-0 on aggregate with 35 minutes left to play in Amsterdam, two Lucas Moura goals had dragged Spurs back into contention.

Then in the sixth minute of added time, Davies intercepted an Ajax clearance to launch the counter-attack which culminated in Moura’s hat-trick and sealed the most dumbfounding of triumphs on away goals.

At the final whistle, it was telling that then-Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino, overcome with emotion, ran on to the pitch and leapt into Davies’ arms.

The Welshman had been Pochettino’s first signing following his appointment in 2014 and, five years later, Davies was the first person with whom the Argentine shared his greatest moment as Spurs boss.

“He is still young, but his mentality, his maturity – he is so professional – he is helping the team every season,” said Pochettino.

“He’s fantastic, not only today but from the day he arrived. He’s a great professional, a great player and a great man.”

Davies is now Tottenham’s longest-serving current player, with more than 300 appearances to his name.

Son Heung-min, who left Spurs during the summer of 2025, was one Davies’ best friends at the north London club.

“Ben is one of my closest friends,” Son said in 2023. “He helped me settle in London very well.”

Davies and Son caught a train from London to Cardiff together before Wales played South Korea in a friendly in September 2023.

True to form and even with one of the world’s most globally renowned footballers for company, Davies managed to navigate the journey without much attention, gave Son a hug goodbye on the platform at Cardiff Central and set off to rejoin the Wales squad.

The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Trump’s erratic economic policies.

Uncertain about where things are headed, companies have grown increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized job seekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending has been the engine behind the world’s biggest economy since the COVID-19 disruptions of 2020.

The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 that economists had expected.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest since 2021.

“U.S. labor market deterioration intensified in August,’’ Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Market, wrote in a commentary, noting that hiring was “slumping dangerously close to stall speed. This raises the risk of a harder landing for consumer spending and the economy in the months ahead.’’

Alexa Mamoulides, 27, was laid off in the spring from a job at a research publishing company and has been hunting for work ever since. She uses a spreadsheet to track her progress and said she’s applied for 111 positions and had 14 interviews — but hasn’t landed a job yet.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs,” Mamoulides said. “At the beginning I wasn’t too stressed, but now that September is here, I’ve been wondering how much longer it will take. It’s validating that the numbers bear out my experience, but also discouraging.’’

The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023.

But the hiring slump also reflects Trump’s policies, including his sweeping and ever-changing tariffs on imports from almost every country, his crackdown on immigration and purges of the federal workforce.

Also contributing to the job market’s doldrums are an aging population and the threat that artificial intelligence poses to young, entry-level workers.

After revisions shaved 21,000 jobs off June and July payrolls, the U.S. economy is creating fewer than 75,000 jobs a month so far this year, less than half the 2024 average of 168,000 and not even a quarter of the 400,000 jobs added monthly in the hiring boom of 2021-2023.

When the Labor Department put out a disappointing jobs report a month ago, an enraged Trump responded by firing the economist in charge of compiling the numbers and nominating a loyalist to replace her.

“The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,” Olu Sonola, head of U.S economic research at Fitch Rates, wrote in a commentary. “It’s hard to argue that tariff uncertainty isn’t a key driver of this weakness.”

Trump contends that his protectionist policies are meant to help American manufacturers. But factories shed 12,000 workers last month and 38,000 so far this year. Many manufacturers are hurt, not helped, by Trump’s tariffs on steel, aluminum and other imported raw materials and components.

Construction companies, which rely on immigrant workers vulnerable to stepped-up immigration raids under Trump, cut 7,000 jobs in August, the third straight drop. The sweeping tax-and-spending bill that Trump signed into law July 4 delivered more money for immigration officers, making threats of massive deportations more plausible.

The federal government, its workforce targeted by Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency team, cut 15,000 jobs last month. Diane Swonk, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm KPMG, said the job market “will hit a cliff in October, when 151,000 federal workers who took buyouts will come off the payrolls.’’

And any job gains made last month were remarkably narrow: Healthcare and social assistance companies — a broad category including hospitals and day-care centers — added nearly 47,000 jobs in August and now account for 87% of the private sector jobs created in 2025.

Democrats were quick to pounce on the report, arguing it is evidence that Trump’s policies were damaging the economy and hurting ordinary Americans.

“Americans cannot afford any more of Trump’s disastrous economy. Hiring is frozen, jobless claims are rising, and the unemployment rate is now higher than it has been in years,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “The president is squeezing every wallet as he chases an illegal tariff agenda that is hiking costs, spooking investment and stunting domestic manufacturing.″

Trump’s sweeping import taxes — tariffs — are taking a toll on businesses that rely on foreign suppliers.

Trick or Treat Studios in Santa Cruz, for instance, gets 50% of its supplies from Mexico, 40% from China and the rest from Thailand. The company, which makes ghoulish replica masks of such horror icons as Chucky the doll from the “Child’s Play” movies as well as costumes, props, action figures and games, has seen its tariff bill rise to $389,000 this year, said co-founder Christopher Zephro. He was forced to raise prices across the board by 15%.

In May, Zephro had to cut 15 employees, or 25% of his workforce. That marked the first time he’s had to lay off staff since he started the company in 2009. ″That’s a lot money that could have been used to hire more people, bring in more product, develop more products,” he said. “We had to do layoffs because of tariffs. It was one of the worst days of my life.”

Josh Hirt, senior economist at the financial services firm Vanguard, said that the tumbling payroll numbers also reflect a reduced supply of workers — the consequence of an aging U.S. population and a reduction in immigration. “We should get more comfortable seeing numbers below 75,000 and below 50,000’’ new jobs a month, he said. “The likelihood of seeing negative [jobs] numbers is higher,’’ he said.

Economists are also beginning to worry that artificial intelligence is taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to young or entry-level workers. In a report last month, researchers at Stanford University found “substantial declines in employment for early-career workers” — ages 22-25 — in fields most exposed to AI. The unemployment rate for those ages 16 to 24 rose last month to 10.5%, the Labor Department reported Friday, the highest since April 2021.

Job seeker Mamoulides is sure that competition from AI is one of the reasons she’s having trouble finding work.

“I know at my previous company, they were really embracing AI and trying to integrate it as much as they could into people’s workflow,” she said. “They were getting lots of [Microsoft] ‘Copilot’ licenses for people to use. From that experience, I do think companies may be relying on AI more for entry-level roles.”

Some relief may be coming.

The weak August numbers make it all but certain that the Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting, Sept. 16-17. Under Chair Jerome Powell, the Fed has been reluctant to cut rates until it sees what effect Trump’s import taxes have on inflation. Lower borrowing costs could — eventually, anyway — encourage consumers and businesses to spend and invest.

Vanguard’s Hirt expects the Fed to reduce its benchmark rate — now a range of 4.25% to 4.5% — by a full percentage point over the next year and says it might cut rates at each of its next three meetings.

Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates and has sought to fire one Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook denies the allegations, which she contends are a pretext for the president to gain control over the central bank.

Trump blamed Powell again for slowing jobs numbers Friday in a social media post, saying that “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he’s ‘Too Late!’”

The July 4 budget bill also “included a big wallop of front-loaded spending on defense and border security, as well as tax cuts that will quickly flow through to household and business after-tax incomes,” Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a commentary.

But the damage that has already occurred may be difficult to repair.

James Knightley, an economist at ING, noted that the University of Michigan’s consumer surveys show that 62% of Americans expect unemployment to rise over the next year. Only 13% expect it to fall. Only four times in the last 50 years of surveys has the employment outlook been so bleak.

“People see and feel changes in the jobs market before they show up in the official data — they know if their company has a hiring freeze or the odd person here or there is being laid off,” Knightley wrote. “This suggests the real threat of outright falls in employment later this year.”

Wiseman, D’Innocenzio and Lewis write for the Associated Press. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

With Los Angeles reeling from immigration sweeps and unsettled by nightly clashes between protesters and police, Mayor Karen Bass was asked by a reporter: What she did she have to say to President Trump?

Bass, standing before a bank of news cameras, did not hold back.

“I want to tell him to stop the raids,” she said. “I want to tell him that this is a city of immigrants. I want to tell him that if you want to devastate the economy of the city of Los Angeles, then attack the immigrant population.”

After taking office in 2022, L.A.’s 43rd mayor carefully avoided public disputes with other elected officials, instead highlighting her well-known penchant for collaboration and coalition-building.

The high-profile Democrat, who spent a dozen years in Congress, largely steered clear of direct confrontation with Trump, responding diplomatically even as he attacked her over her handling of the Palisades fire earlier this year.

Those days of tiptoeing around Trump, and avoiding head-to-head conflict, are over.

Bass is now sparring with the president and his administration at a perilous moment for her city and possibly for democracy.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers point non-lethal weapons at protesters.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

At the same time, the tumultuous events of the past week have given her a crucial opportunity for a reset after the Palisades fire, recalibrating her public image while leading her city through another historic crisis.

“Having two moments of crisis during the first six months of this year has really tested her mettle as mayor,” said GOP political strategist Mike Madrid, a long-standing Trump critic. “I think it’s fair to say she did not perform to expectations during the fires. I think she’s considerably improved during the current situation.”

Since agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal authorities fanned out across the region, searching for undocumented immigrants at courthouses, car washes and Home Depot parking lots, Bass has accused Trump of creating a “terrible sense of fear” in her city.

Bass said Trump is on track to waste more than $100 million on troops who were neither requested nor needed. On multiple occasions, she said Trump wrongly gave credit to the National Guard for bringing calm to downtown L.A. on Saturday, when those troops had not even arrived yet.

In many ways, Trump has emerged as the ideal foil for a mayor who, for much of the past six months, had been on her back feet.

In the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire, which erupted when she was out of the country, Bass struggled to show a command of the details and was savaged by critics over what they viewed as her lack of leadership. Months later, she released a budget that called for the layoffs of 1,600 workers, drawing an outcry from labor leaders, youth advocates and many others.

Bass has been quicker to respond this time around, announcing a nightly curfew for downtown, warning of consequences for those who vandalize or commit violence and spelling out the real-world impacts of the ICE arrests on her constituents.

The pushback reached a crescendo on Thursday, when — with just a few hours notice — Bass assembled more than 100 people from religious, community, business and civic groups to denounce the raids. It made for a potent tableau: a multi-ethnic, multiracial crowd of Angelenos cheering on the mayor as she declared that “peace begins with ICE leaving Los Angeles.”

An ICE agent during a news conference in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

Bass said she had received reports of ICE agents entering hospitals, workers not showing up to their jobs, parents afraid to attend their own children’s graduations. An immigrant rights advocate said Trump had brought cruelty and chaos to Los Angeles. A church pastor from Boyle Heights said his parishioners “feel hunted.”

Trump and his administration have disparaged Bass and her city since the raids began. Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, accused Bass on X of using “the language of the insurrectionist mob” while discussing her city. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called L.A. “a city of criminals” whose law breakers have been protected by Bass.

Republicans have begun threatening reprisals against outspoken Democrats, including Bass, with some hinting at criminal prosecution.

Asked about Bass’ comments over the past week, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said ICE agents would not be “deterred from carrying out their mission.”

“We will not apologize for enforcing immigration law and carrying out the mandate the American people gave President Trump in November: Deport illegal aliens,” she said.

Fernando Guerra, who heads the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said Angelenos fully expect their mayor to confront the president head on. Democrat Kamala Harris secured more than 70% of the vote in L.A. during last year’s presidential election, while Trump received less than 27%.

“I’m not surprised by what she’s doing,” Guerra said. “I would even suggest she push a little more. I don’t think there’s a cost to her politically, or even socially, to taking on Trump.”

Mayor Karen Bass speaks to the media at City Hall.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

The mayor is regularly calling in to TV and radio stations, as well as securing prime-time hits on national cable shows. In appearance after appearance, she has warned that L.A. is becoming “a grand experiment” — a testing ground for Trump to see if he can usurp the authority of Democratic mayors or governors in other states.

On Tuesday, while addressing troops at Fort Bragg, Trump described L.A. as “a trash heap,” with entire neighborhoods being controlled by “transnational gangs and criminal networks.” Hours later, Bass clapped back on MSNBC, saying: “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

Bass has spoken repeatedly about traumatized Angelenos who could not locate loved ones caught up in the ICE raids.

“For the most part, the people that have been detained have been denied access to legal representation,” Bass said during an appearance at the city’s Emergency Operations Center. “This is unprecedented.”

The raids, and their impact on families and children, are deeply personal for a mayor who cut her teeth organizing with immigrant rights activists decades ago.

Bass’ own family reflects the multiethnic nature of her city. Her late ex-husband was the son of immigrants from Chihuahua, Mexico. Her extended family includes immigrants from Korea, Japan and the Philippines. Immigration agents were recently seen making arrests outside her grandson’s Los Angeles school, she said.

The arrival of ICE, then the National Guard, then the U.S. Marines has caused not just Bass but several other Democrats to step out in ways they might have previously avoided.

Sen. Alex Padilla is removed from a news conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the Wilshire Federal Building.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a soft-spoken political figure for decades, was handcuffed and forcibly removed from a news conference in Westwood on Thursday after interrupting Noem’s remarks.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently accused Trump of a “brazen abuse of power,” calling him “unhinged” and filing a lawsuit to block the deployment of the National Guard — not a huge departure for Newsom, who relishes both confrontation and the spotlight.

Head-to-head accusations are much more out of character for Bass, who spent her first two years at City Hall boasting of her success in “locking arms” with her fellow elected officials on homelessness and other issues. In recent months, the mayor has praised Trump for the speedy arrival of federal resources as the city began cleaning up and rebuilding from the Palisades fire.

Long before winning city office, Bass prided herself on her ability to work with other politicians, regardless of party affiliation, from her early days as a co-founder of the South L.A.-based Community Coalition to her years in Congress.

Bass’ strategy of avoiding public spats with Trump during the first few months of his administration was no accident, according to someone with knowledge of her thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly. The mayor, that person said, viewed an extended tit-for-tat as an impediment to securing federal funding for wildfire relief and other urgent needs.

“That’s more her brand — to get things done with whoever she needs to get them done with,” said Ange-Marie Hancock, who leads Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Mike Bonin, who heads the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said he thinks that Bass’ career of building multiracial, multiethnic coalitions makes her uniquely suited to the moment.

Now that Trump has “all but declared war on Los Angeles,” Bass has no choice but to punch back, said Bonin, who served on the City Council for nearly a decade.

“I don’t see that she had any political or moral alternative,” he said.