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“Suffs,” Shaina Taub’s musical about how women finally secured the right to vote in America, won Tony Awards for its book and score. It lost the best musical race to “The Outsiders,” but the respect it earned when it opened last spring on Broadway made it an unequivocal winner.

The show is having its Los Angeles premiere at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in a touring production that is smooth and smart. Taub’s work deserves nothing less than an A. The cast is excellent, the staging is graceful and the political message could not be more timely.

The show might not have the crackling vitality of “Hamilton” or the bluesy poignancy of “The Scottsboro Boys.” It’s a good deal more earnest than either of these history-laden musicals. There’s an educational imperative at the heart of “Suffs,” which deals with a subject that has been marginalized in schools and in the collective consciousness.

The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920, a little more than a century ago. The history isn’t so distant yet I’m sure I wasn’t the only one at Wednesday’s opening who was learning about the forceful tactics that helped Alice Paul and her fellow suffragists push their movement over the finish line.

“Suffs,” a musical for the public square, is as informative as it is uplifting. It is above all a moving testament to the power of sisterhood. The struggle for equality continues to face crushing setbacks today, but Taub wants us to remember what can happen when people stand united for a just cause.

Alice (a winning Maya Keleher) doesn’t seem like a rabble-rouser. A bright, well-educated woman with a polite demeanor, she looks like a future teacher of the year more than a radical organizer. But she has an activist’s most essential quality: She won’t take no for an answer. (Keleher lends alluring warmth to the role Taub made her Broadway debut in.)

Marya Grandy and the company of the national tour of “Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

She’s rebuffed by Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy), the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Assn., whose motto (“Let your all-American mother vote”) is the basis for the show’s opening number, “Let Mother Vote” — a distillation of the old-guard approach that has yet to yield women the vote.

Alice wants to organize a march in Washington, D.C., to force the president’s reluctant hand, but Carrie prefers a more genteel strategy. “Miss Paul, if my late great mentor Susan B. Anthony taught me anything, it’s that men are only willing to consider our cause if we present it in a lady-like fashion.

“State by state, slow and steady, until the country’s ready” is, after all, NAWSA’s fundamental creed. But Alice points out that if they continue at this glacial pace they’ll be dead before they can ever cast a vote.

Swinging into action, Alice teams up with her friend Lucy Burns (Gwynne Wood), who worries that they haven’t the experience to take on such a momentous mission. “We’ve never planned a national action before,” she objects at the start of their duet “Find a Way.” But undaunted Alice has the bold idea of recruiting Inez Milholland (played at the opening night performance by Amanda K. Lopez), and a way forward miraculously materializes.

Inez has just the right glamorous public image that Alice thinks will give their march the publicity boost it needs. Studying for the bar exam, Inez is initially reluctant but agrees if she can lead the march on horseback.

This image of Inez on a steed becomes central both to the movement and to director Leigh Silverman’s production, which finds simple yet striking ways of bringing revolutionary change to life. A chorus line of activists wearing suffragist white (kudos to the luminous tact of costume designer Paul Tazewell) eloquently communicates what solidarity can pull off.

Brandi Porter, left, and Jenny Ashman as President Woodrow Wilson in “Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

An all-female and nonbinary cast dramatizes this inspiring American story. Taub takes some fictional license with the characters but largely sticks to the record.

Notable allies in Alice’s organization include Ruza Wenclawska (Joyce Meimei Zheng) a Polish-born trade union organizer with a no-nonsense grassroots style, and Doris Stevens (Livvy Marcus), a shy yet undeterred student from Nebraska who becomes the group’s secret weapon secretary.

Ida B. Wells (Danyel Fulton), an early leader in the civil rights movement, takes part in the march but resists being used as a prop in what she calls NAWSA’s “white women convention.” Mary Church Terrell (Trisha Jeffrey), a fellow Black activist, by contrast believes that it’s only through participation that representation can move forward.

President Woodrow Wilson (Jenny Ashman), who makes promises to the suffragists he is hesitant to keep, is a crucial target of Alice’s pressure campaign. Her group’s access to him is aided by Dudley Malone (Brandi Porter), Wilson’s right-hand man, who becomes smitten with Doris.

The score marches ahead in a manner that makes progress seem, if not inevitable, relentless in its pursuit of justice. The songs combine the patriotic exuberance of John Philip Sousa and the American breadth of Broadway composer Stephen Flaherty (“Ragtime”). The note of pop accessibility in Taub’s music and the satiric humor of her lyrics add to the buoyancy. You won’t leave humming a tune, but the overall effect (while ephemeral) is pleasing in the theater.

With the history already determined, the book can’t help resembling at times a civics exhibition. Dramatic tension is hard to come by. Alice and her cohorts suffer grave disappointments and indignities (including a harrowing stint in prison), but the eventual outcome of their struggles is known.

“Suffs” sometimes feels like a history lesson neatly compartmentalized into Important Episodes. There’s a whiff of PBS to the way the musical unfolds. This is cultural programming that’s good for you.

But the teamwork of the performers honors the messy yet undeniably effective cooperation of Alice and her freedom fighters — women who changed the world by not staying silent in their prescribed place.

Intuit is the first new founding partner of the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics to take advantage of venue naming opportunities available for the L.A. Games as the financial technology company and LA28 announced a sponsorship deal Friday.

Per the partnership, Intuit will retain its name on Intuit Dome for Olympic basketball competitions and work with LA28 to assist small businesses in the city, provide select U.S. athletes with free tax preparation and expand financial education for students in the L.A. community.

Previously, the International Olympic Committee required “clean venues,” which necessitated scrubbing all mention of corporate sponsorship. It has required LA28 organizers to use generic names such as Exposition Park Stadium for BMO Stadium or 2028 Stadium for SoFi Stadium.

But after the IOC and LA28 announced an agreement in August that opened potential venue naming rights, Honda Center (volleyball), Peacock Theater (weightlifting and boxing) and the Comcast Squash Center at Universal Studios became the first venues to have corporate sponsorship. Honda and Comcast had already previously announced deals to become founding partners with LA28.

John Slusher, chief executive of LA28’s commercial operation, believed Intuit, which is in a 23-year partnership with the Clippers, would have been a potential Olympic partner no matter what, he said the pace of conversations picked up after naming rights became available. The Intuit Dome will host men’s and women’s basketball competitions that are among the most popular Olympic events and basketball is one of the few sports that competes for the duration of the Games, giving the arena a prime position in the Olympic spotlight.

“It wasn’t just any building. It was an incredibly important and state-of-the-art building,” Slusher said in an interview with The Times. “And it obviously ties so well with their investment in Los Angeles and what they do with the dome right now.”

Intuit Dome opened in 2024 for the Clippers. Hailed for its innovative use of technology, massive halo board and large fan section dubbed “The Wall,” the project from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has already secured hosting rights for the NBA All-Star Game in February.

“Intuit is incredibly proud to be a founding partner of the LA28 Games,” Intuit chief marketing officer Thomas Ranese said in a statement. “Our commitment to powering prosperity aligns perfectly with the spirit of the movement: celebrating determination, optimism, and the belief in what’s possible. Just as athletes strive for gold, we empower consumers and businesses to outdo their financial goals with confidence.”

Conversations with partners regarding naming rights for temporary venues have started, Slusher said, beginning with companies already involved in The Olympic Partner (TOP) program. While no deals have closed for temporary venues yet, the initial feedback from partners “seems incredibly excited,” Slusher said.

The venue naming rights opened a never-before-tapped revenue stream for the 2028 Games, which are expected to cost about $7.1 billion. Organizers are hoping to cover at least $2.5 billion with domestic sponsorship. The financial terms of Friday’s contract were not disclosed, but founding-level partnerships are reported to start at roughly $200 million, according to Sports Business Journal.

The organizing committee had lofty marketing expectations heading into 2025. Hoping to capitalize on the successful 2024 Paris Games, the group aimed to bring in $800 million to $1 billion in deals this year and reach $2 billion total by the beginning of 2026. After announcing three founding-level partnerships this year between Intuit, Honda and Starbucks, Slusher says he believes the team is on track to meet its goals.

“We feel very confident that what we said back then will be true,” Slusher said. “So we’re feeling great about the progress. I think we saw an incredible momentum in the first quarter, and now what we’re seeing is that same momentum. … We are super excited about it and more to come.”

Every last deal matters approaching the July 14, 2028, opening ceremony. Any debt incurred from Games operation by LA28 will fall to L.A. The city is on the hook for the first $270 million in overrun costs, with California picking up the next $270 million and the rest falling back to L.A.

SANTIAGO, Chile — A hard-right former lawmaker and admirer of President Trump held the upper hand as Chile headed to a polarizing presidential runoff against a member of Chile’s Communist Party representing the incumbent government.

José Antonio Kast, an ultraconservative lawyer opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, appears to be in pole position after nearly 70% of votes went to right-wing candidates in Sunday’s first round. Many Chileans worry about organized crime, illegal immigration and unemployment in one of Latin America’s safest and most prosperous nations.

The father of nine, who pushed his traditional Catholic beliefs and nostalgia for aspects of Chile’s brutal dictatorship into the political mainstream after founding his own Republican Party in 2019, came in second with nearly 24% of the vote. He campaigned on plans to crack down on gang violence, build a giant border wall and deport tens of thousands of immigrants.

Jeannette Jara, a former labor minister in President Gabriel Boric’s left-wing government, eked out a narrower-than-expected lead with 27% of the vote. She wants to expand Chile’s social safety net and tackle money laundering and drug trafficking to stem organized crime.

Neither contender received more than 50% of the overall vote count, sending the poll to a second round of voting on Dec. 14.

‘Voters are upset’

The mood was ebullient at Kast’s campaign headquarters early Monday, where young Chileans wrapped in national flags drank beer and rolled cigarettes as workers took down the stage where Kast had pledged a radical transformation in the country’s security.

“We needed a safe candidate, someone with a firm hand to bring economic growth, attract investment, create jobs, strengthen the police and give them support,” said Ignacio Rojas, 20. “Chile isn’t safe anymore, and he’ll change that.”

The results seemed set to extend a growing regional shift across Latin America, as popular discontent with the economy simmers and right-wing challengers take over from leftist politicians who shot to power in the wake of the pandemic but largely failed to deliver on their lofty promises of social change and more equitable distribution of wealth.

“Economies are not growing, there are no new jobs, and people remember that 10 years ago they used to pay lower prices for almost everything,” said Patricio Navia, a Chilean analyst and professor at New York University.

“Voters are upset with governments all over the region,” he added.

Conservatives led the pack in Chile’s eight-candidate field, with populist businessman and celebrity economist Franco Parisi surprising pundits by securing 20% of the votes and third place, reflecting the power of his anti-establishment message.

He also ran a tough law and order campaign, vowing to plant land mines along Chile’s porous northern border to prevent people from crossing.

Another 14% of the votes went to Johannes Kaiser, a libertarian congressman and a former YouTube provocateur who campaigned as an even more radical alternative to Kast.

Chile’s traditional center-right coalition landed in fifth place, with establishment candidate Evelyn Matthei winning 12.5% of the vote.

Conservative runners-up endorse Kast

Not all of the divided right is guaranteed to go to Kast, whose conservative moral values have previously alienated voters concerned about the rollback of hard-won rights for women and LGBTQ+ community. His promise to cut up to $6 billion in public spending within his first 18 months has also been criticized by traditional conservative politicians as unrealistic. He has lost two presidential races before.

But it’s also unlikely that many voters who supported Kaiser’s plans to deport migrants who entered the country illegally to prison in El Salvador, or Matthei’s plans to consider bringing back the death penalty, would vote for a lifelong member of Chile’s hard-line Communist Party, which supports autocratic governments in Venezuela and Cuba.

There were no other left-wing front-runners, as all six parties in Chile’s governing coalition threw their weight behind Jara.

After learning of the election results late Sunday, Matthei rushed to Kast’s party headquarters to profess her support for her right-wing rival. “Chile needs a sharp change of direction,” she said.

Kaiser also promised to back Kast, saying his libertarian party would “ensure that a sound doctrine and defense of freedom are not abandoned.”

Parisi was coy after the results came out, saying, “We don’t give anyone a blank check.”

“The burden of proof lies with both candidates,” said the political outsider, whose voters eschew elites on the left and right. “They have to win people over.”

The region is trending right

Economic travails and fervent anti-incumbent sentiment appear to have fueled a gradual pendulum swing away from the left-wing leaders who were ascendant across the region just a few years ago.

In Argentina, radical libertarian President Javier Milei, elected in late 2023 on a vow to break with years of left-leaning populism, has doubled down on his close bond with Trump and reshaped Argentina’s foreign policy in line with the U.S.

Elections during the last year in Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama have kept right-wing leaders in office, while in Bolivia, restive voters outraged over a currency crisis punished the Movement Toward Socialism party and elected a conservative opposition candidate for the first time in nearly 20 years last month.

Gains for the right could buoy the U.S. as it competes for regional influence with China, some analysts say, with a new crop of leaders keen for American investment. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and home to vast reserves of other minerals key to the global energy transition.

Like many hopeful leftists four years ago, Boric, a young former student activist elected on the heels of Chile’s 2019 mass protests over widening inequality, saw his ambitions to raise taxes on the rich and adopt one of the world’s most progressive constitutions run into major legislative opposition.

Analysts warned that Kast could face the same fate if he caved to his most radical allies or pushed morally conservative measures. Although early legislative election results indicated that right-wing parties would hold a majority in the 155-member lower house of Congress, left-wing parties appeared to hold a slight edge in the Senate on Monday.

“There is a path forward for Kast,” Navia said. But “if he tries to govern as a radical right-winger, he will hit a wall, just like outgoing President Gabriel Boric did.”

Debre writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a Trump administration appeal that argues migrants have no right to seek asylum at the southern border.

Rather, the government says border agents may block asylum seekers from stepping on to U.S. soil and turn away their claims without a hearing.

The new case seeks to clarify the immigration laws and resolve an issue that has divided past administrations and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under federal law, migrants who faces persecution in their home countries may apply for asylum and receive a screening hearing if they are “physically present in the United States” or if such a person “arrives in the United States.”

Since 2016, however, the Obama, Biden and Trump administrations responded to surges at the border by adopting temporary rules which required migrants to wait on the Mexican side before they could apply for asylum.

But in May, a divided 9th Circuit Court ruled those restrictions were illegal if they prevented migrants from applying for asylum.

“To ‘arrive’ means ‘to reach a destination,’” wrote Judge Michelle Friedland, citing a dictionary definition. “A person who presents herself to an official at the border has ‘arrived.’”

She said this interpretation “does not radically expand the right to asylum.” By contrast, the “government’s reading would reflect a radical reconstruction of the right to apply for asylum because it would give the executive branch vast discretion to prevent people from applying by blocking them at the border.”

“We therefore conclude that a non-citizen stopped by U.S. officials at the border is eligible to apply for asylum,” she wrote.

The 2-1 decision upheld a federal judge in San Diego who ruled for migrants who had filed a class-action suit and said they were wrongly denied an asylum hearing.

But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appellate ruling, noting 15 judges of the 9th Circuit joined dissents that called the decision “radical” and “clearly wrong.”

In football, a “running back does not ‘arrive in’ the end zone when he is stopped at the one-yard line,” Sauer wrote.

He said federal immigration law “does not grant aliens throughout the world a right to enter the United States so that they can seek asylum.” From abroad, they may “seek admission as refugees,” he said, but the government may enforce its laws by “blocking illegal immigrants from stepping on U.S. soil.”

Immigrants rights lawyers advised the court to turn away the appeal because the government is no longer using the “metering” system that required migrants to wait for a hearing.

Since June 2024, they said the government has restricted inspections and processing of these non-citizens under a different provision of law that authorizes the president to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of alien” if he believes they would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

The government also routinely sends back migrants who illegally cross the border.

But the solicitor general said the asylum provision should be clarified.

The justices voted to hear the case of Noem vs. Al Otro Lado early next year and decide “whether an alien who is stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border ‘arrives in the United States’ within the meaning” of federal immigration law.

Annie Leibovitz strides onto the Wiltern stage to the thunderous cheers of 1,500 mostly female fans. She takes her place at the podium, a small, casually dressed figure on a big stage. On the screen behind her are images of the matching covers of her new two-book set, “Annie Leibovitz: Women.” Volume 1 is her 1999 collection. Volume 2 has 100 new photos captured in the 25 years since. Taken together, the slipcased set zooms in on the past quarter century of American womankind, rendered in 250 images of dancers, actors, astronauts, artists, politicians, farmers, writers, CEOs, philanthropists, soldiers, musicians, athletes, socialites and scientists.

“The book was Susan’s idea,” Leibovitz says on Tuesday, referring to writer Susan Sontag, her partner until Sontag’s death in 2004. “I thought doing a photo book about women was a bad idea, like going out and photographing the ocean. But then I heard what Hillary Clinton said at the U.N. Conference on Women in 1995 — ‘Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights’ — and I reconsidered.” Applause shakes the Wiltern rafters.

An image from Volume 2 appears, featuring a somber-looking Sontag. “This is the last formal portrait of Susan,” Leibovitz says. “You could think she’s projecting a sense of strength, but really, she was mad at me for making her go outside to take the picture.” The crowd roars with laughter.

Think of Leibovitz, and some legendary photographs spring to mind. Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a milk-filled bathtub on the cover of Vanity Fair, July 1984. Also on VF covers: Michael Jackson, fittingly clothed and shot in black-and-white, in 1989. Demi Moore, fully pregnant and fully naked, two years later. But the photo that remains Leibovitz’s most iconic to date is the January 1981 cover of Rolling Stone featuring a nude, fetal John Lennon wrapped around Yoko Ono. “John showed up naked,” Leibovitz tells the audience. “Yoko wanted to wear clothes, so she’s fully dressed.” Leibovitz took the Polaroid on Dec. 8, 1980 — a few steps away from, and a few hours before, Lennon was shot and killed by former fan Mark David Chapman.

Joan Baez in Woodside, Calif., in 2007, from “Annie Leibovitz: Women.”

(Annie Leibovitz)

In Volume 2, we find a barefoot Joan Baez sitting in a tree strumming her guitar; a pregnant Rihanna draped in jewels and fur; Billie Eilish dreaming over a journal with pencil in hand; Shonda Rhimes with her feet up on a desk as massive as her oeuvre; and an uninhibited Michelle Obama as we’ve never seen her before: chin raised, eyes closed, hair tossed back, T-shirt and jeans parted to reveal her midriff. “I was in shock,” Leibovitz says. “But the first lady’s assistant was standing next to me, shouting, ‘That’s my first lady!’”

Familiar faces dominate, but woven between them are portraits of “regular” American women. A botanist precedes Oprah Winfrey, a philanthropist and a rabbi surround the founder of a Skid Row nonprofit, the reproductive rights activists of Moms Demand Action share space with a nude Lady Gaga. “I told her to bring a slip,” Leibovitz comments. “I’d rather people keep their clothes on at this point in my life.”

Volume 2 includes one essay each from activist Gloria Steinem, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Leibovitz herself. Steinem writes, “This book will help us to discover our adventurous true selves. … We are atoms whirling in place, affected by and affecting those near and far from where we are.”

Adichie agrees. “Taken as a whole,” she writes, “these photographs create a deeply moving experience, they refute the singular lens, they revel in plurality’s power, and because of — or perhaps in spite of — their wide range, they are infused with a spirit that is communal, collective, even unifying — and ultimately hopeful.”

Leibovitz concludes the second book. “For this volume I thought about issues that are important today,” she writes. In 2016, when she was beginning work on Volume 2, the notoriously cloistered Leibovitz told a New York Times reporter about the nationwide “talking circles” she and Steinem had organized, in which women shared their experiences with issues including sexual violence, technology and human rights. “Talking in groups like that, it brings me to tears,” Leibovitz told the reporter, adding that the new work she was making for Volume 2 was more “democratic.” Volume 2 is indeed more diverse, possibly in response to a widely discussed critique of Leibovitz’s photographs of Black women.

No celebrity survives fame without acquiring a layer or two of tarnish. In the decades between Volumes 1 and 2, Leibovitz’s representations of Black women painted Leibovitz with hers. A 2022 Guardian story was headlined, “Annie Leibovitz proves yet again: she can’t photograph Black women.”

“Leibovitz’s photographs are what happens when Blackness is seen through a white gaze incapable of capturing its true beauty,” contributor Tayo Bero wrote, referring to a list of Leibovitz subjects including Simone Biles, Viola Davis, Serena Williams and Rihanna. Bero wrote, “In all cases, she manages to make her subjects look dull, ashy, pained and sad, a far cry from the lively and graceful people that they usually are.”

Bero and others particularly criticized an image Leibovitz made for Vogue, depicting Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at the Lincoln Memorial. In the photo, the snow-white marble statue takes center stage, overlooking Brown Jackson on the lower left. At the Wiltern, when that image appears, Leibovitz speaks of her own experience shooting it, not the controversy surrounding its publication. “I was skeptical about that idea,” Leibovitz says. “But she walked into the rotunda and she started reading Lincoln’s words that are engraved into the wall. It was such a moving moment.”

Two years later, the controversy was reawakened by Leibovitz’s depictions of Zendaya, also in Vogue. An April 2024 piece on the website Screenshot Media reiterated the photos’ failure to accurately reflect “the beauty of melanated skin tones, with poor lighting that often results in lackluster portrayals.”

In her introductory essay to Volume 2, Adichie, on the other hand, praises Leibovitz’s sensitivity. “The first time Annie photographed me, more than ten years ago at my home, she sensed my discomfort right away and knew it was not merely about my general awkwardness with being photographed. It was specifically about my belly, which was newly postpartum, although I would probably still have worried even if it wasn’t. … Annie’s sanguine reaction was a relief. There was no divisiveness, no judgment.”

Rihanna at the Ritz Hotel, Paris, in 2022, from “Annie Leibovitz: Women.”

(Annie Leibovitz)

Leibovitz, her representatives and her publisher, Phaidon Press, declined to comment on the critique. In an email interview with Phaidon Vice President Deborah Aaronson, who worked on four Leibovitz titles, Aaronson said, “‘Women’ reaffirms Annie Leibovitz’s place in the photographic canon. In the ‘Women’ series, she captures a breadth of experience and people who live and work in different spheres that’s unparallelled. I believe the series makes her the most important chronicler of women over the past 50 years.”

Annie Leibovitz entered the San Francisco Art Institute at 22, intending to be a painter. But a night photography class she took on a whim changed her medium, and her life. While still a student, manifesting the confidence that would characterize her career, Leibovitz pitched a Lennon shoot to Rolling Stone. Three years later, rendered immortal as the final photographer of Lennon and Ono, Leibovitz became Rolling Stone’s chief photographer.

In 1983, Leibovitz joined the staff of Vanity Fair, where her field of exploration, and her social sphere, expanded to include actors, athletes and politicians. In 1991, she became the first woman to have a solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was designated a Library of Congress Living Legend in 2000.

In 2001, at age 52, Leibovitz gave birth to her first daughter, Sarah Cameron Leibovitz. Sontag was at her bedside. In May 2005, via surrogate, Leibovitz became the mother of twin daughters, Susan (named for her beloved painter sister) and Samuelle. In 2009, Leibovitz was commissioned to make the official portrait of the first family — President Barack Obama; his wife, Michelle; and their daughters, Sasha and Malia — continuing the relationship that began in 2004 when she photographed Obama in his run for the U.S. Senate.

“I want to photograph the White House,” Leibovitz says, “but I don’t think there will be much of it left when I get to it.” The evening ended as it began: with the enthusiastic applause of her audience.

The longest U.S. government shutdown in history is over, but the fallout will continue to hit two groups particularly hard for months to come: federally funded defense lawyers and the people they represent.

Thousands of court-appointed lawyers, known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, along with paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses and interpreters, haven’t been paid since June after federal funding for the Defender Services program fell $130 million short of what the judiciary requested and ran out July 3. They had been told they would receive deferred payment once Congress passed a new budget, but as the government shutdown dragged on, many couldn’t move forward with trials or take on new clients.

Nationally, CJA lawyers handle about 40% of cases in which the defendant cannot afford an attorney. As many cases have ground to a halt, defendants’ lives have been put on hold as they wait for their day in court. Meanwhile, the federal government has continued to arrest and charge people.

“The system’s about to break,” Michael Chernis, a CJA panel attorney in Southern California, said during the shutdown. He hasn’t taken new cases since August and had to take out a loan to make payroll for his law firm.

Unpaid defense team members in several states said they had to dip into their retirement savings or turn to gig work, such as driving for Uber, to support their families.

Panel attorneys should begin receiving payment as early as next week. Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in a Thursday memo that the resolution Congress passed to fund the government through Jan. 30 provided an extra $114 million for the Defender Services program “to address the backlog of panel attorney payments.”

But the crisis isn’t over. Conrad said a spending bill pending for the 2026 fiscal year is still $196 million short and funding is likely to run out to pay CJA panel attorneys next June.

The problem is particularly severe in the Central District of California, the largest and one of the most complex federal trial courts in the United States. Out of the approximately 100 such lawyers for the district, about 80 have stopped taking on new cases.

Chernis has a client who lives in Sacramento, but neither Chernis nor a court-appointed investigator have been able to cover the cost of travel to meet with him to discuss the case. The expert they need for the trial will also not agree to travel to Los Angeles to work on the case without payment, Chernis said.

In New Mexico, one judge halted a death penalty case, which is costly and labor-intensive to prepare, and at least 40 lawyers have resolved not to take on new cases even after the shutdown ended if the overall funding shortfall is not resolved.

California’s Central District Chief Judge Dolly Gee wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Sen. Adam Schiff that the situation had become “dire.”

“These attorneys have sought delays in cases when they cannot find investigators and experts who are willing to work without pay, which has added to the court’s backlog of cases, and left defendants languishing in already overcrowded local prison,” Gee said. “Without additional funding, we will soon be unable to appoint counsel for all defendants who are constitutionally entitled to representation.”

She said judges may have to face the prospect of having to dismiss cases for defendants who can’t retain a lawyer.

Just hours before the government shutdown ended, Judge John A. Mendez in the Eastern District of California did, tossing out a criminal case against a man indicted on a charge of distribution of methamphetamine.

“The right to effective assistance of counsel is a bedrock principle of this country and is indisputably necessary for the operation of a fair criminal justice system,” Mendez wrote.

Everyone in the United States has the right to due process — including the right to legal counsel and a fair and speedy trial, guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments.

Critics of the Trump administration have argued that it is chipping away at that right. Immigrant advocacy groups have made the allegation in multiple lawsuits. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born man who was living with his family in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at a notorious prison. He has since returned to the U.S., but he continues to face the threat of deportation as his case moves through the courts.

President Trump has been circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.

The funding upheaval has delayed Christian Cerna-Camacho’s trial by at least three months. His lawyer said in court filings that one investigator, who has spent hours poring over body-camera recordings, news reports and social media content, was unable to do more work until he is paid.

Cerna-Camacho was arrested in June and is accused of punching a federal officer during a June 7 protest in Paramount against Trump’s immigration raids. He is out on bond but cannot find a construction job while he wears an ankle monitor because it poses a safety risk at the site, his attorney Scott Tenley wrote in a recent court filing.

David Kaloynides, a CJA panel attorney in Los Angeles, couldn’t even communicate with some of his clients during the shutdown because they speak only Spanish, and interpreters were not being paid. His caseload is full to the point where he’s scheduling trials in 2027, while many clients wait in jail, he said.

“We don’t do this appointed work because of the money; we do it because we’re dedicated,” Kaloynides said. “But we also can’t do it for free.”

Ding writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s justices, citing the right to bear arms in the 2nd Amendment, sounded ready Wednesday to strike down laws in New York and California that deny most gun owners permits to carry concealed guns in public.

Most of the justices said people who live in “high-crime areas” and fear for their safety should be allowed to carry a gun for self-defense. And they said this applies equally to people who live in cities as well as in rural areas.

“Think about people who work late at night in Manhattan,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It might be somebody who cleans offices. It might be a doorman at an apartment. It might be a nurse or an orderly [or] somebody who washes dishes” who is “scared to death” to head home. “How is it consistent with the core right to self-defense” to deny that person the right to have a gun with them? he asked.

In defense of New York’s law, state Solicitor General Barbara Underwood argued for limiting the number of guns in densely populated areas. Too many guns in too many hands would increase the danger of gun violence, she said.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh disputed that view and said people there may have a greater need to protect themselves with a gun.

“How many muggings take place in the forest?” Roberts asked her.

Kavanaugh said the 2nd Amendment protects a right to have a gun for self-defense, which suggests the decision to be armed should rest with the gun owner, not a state or local licensing official.

“Why isn’t it good enough to say I live in a violent area and I want to be able to defend myself?” he asked.

During their comments and questions, the court’s six conservative justices made clear they are highly skeptical of laws that authorize state or local officials to deny gun permits to law-abiding residents.

Only the court’s three liberal justices spoke in defense of these laws and said there has been a long history of regulating guns in public.

Still, a gun rights ruling in the New York case could be limited. The justices, both conservative and liberal, said cities and local governments would not be prevented from enforcing bans on guns in “sensitive places,” and that could include subways, football stadiums and university campuses.

“Can’t we just say Times Square on New Year’s Eve is a sensitive place?” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Washington attorney Paul Clement, who was representing the gun owners, avoided a clear answer on where guns could be excluded, but he agreed the city would retain that authority to restrict guns in certain places.

At issue on Wednesday in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen were the laws in New York as well as similar measures in California and six other states that limit who may obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.

Typically gun owners are required to show they have a “special need” or “good cause” to be armed, not simply a general fear for their safety. In New York City and Los Angeles, these permits are rarely granted.

UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, who has written widely on the 2nd Amendment, said the outcome could force local officials to shift their focus to declaring certain places off-limits to guns.

“New York may be forced to allow more people to carry but can still broadly define sensitive places to make it hard practically to carry in New York City,” he said.

The ruling will also have a direct effect in California as well. “If New York’s law is struck down, the precedent will lead to overturning California’s carry laws too,” he said.

Gun control advocates heard little to cheer from the argument.

“We are on high alert about the dangerous consequences of a potential ruling in favor of gun extremists,” said Hannah Shearer, litigation director for the Giffords Law Center. “But the court still has an opportunity to reject the unprecedented and historically inaccurate view that the 2nd Amendment precludes meaningful gun safety regulations in public.”

But Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, pointed to the justices’ comments about restricting guns in sensitive places.

“Even the court’s most conservative justices have hesitations about granting the gun lobby its ultimate goal in this case — the unrestricted right to carry guns in all public places,” he said.

The case heard Wednesday and the likely outcome highlight the change in the makeup of the court.

In the last decade, the justices had turned down several challenges to the gun-permitting laws, including in California. But with the arrival of Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, the court appears to have a new majority to bolster individual rights under the 2nd Amendment.

The case began when Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, who live near Albany, N.Y., applied for general concealed-carry permits but were turned down by a county judge because they did not “face any special or unique danger.” They were, however, licensed to carry guns for hunting or target shooting.

They sued along with the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., alleging the restrictions violated their rights under the 2nd Amendment to bear arms for self-defense.

BALTIMORE — U.S. Catholic bishops elected Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley as their new president on Tuesday, choosing a conservative culture warrior to lead during President Trump’s second term.

The vote serves as a barometer for the bishops’ priorities. In choosing Coakley, they are doubling down on their conservative bent, even as they push for more humane immigration policies from the Trump administration.

Coakley was seen as a strong contender for the top post, having already been elected in 2022 to serve as secretary, the No. 3 conference official. In three rounds of voting, he beat out centrist candidate Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, who was subsequently elected vice president.

Coakley serves as advisor to the Napa Institute, an association for conservative Catholic powerbrokers. In 2018, he publicly supported an ardent critic of Pope Francis, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was later excommunicated for stances that were deemed divisive.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has often been at odds with the Vatican and the inclusive, modernizing approach of the late Pope Francis. His U.S.-born successor, Pope Leo XIV, is continuing a similar pastoral emphasis on marginalized people, poverty and the environment.

The choice of Coakley may fuel tensions with Pope Leo, said Steven Millies, professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

“In the long conflict between many U.S. bishops and Francis that Leo inherits, this is not a de-escalating step,” he said.

Half the 10 candidates on the ballot came from the conservative wing of the conference. The difference is more in style than substance. Most U.S. Catholic bishops are reliably conservative on social issues, but some — like Coakley — place more emphasis on opposing abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

The candidates were nominated by their fellow bishops, and Coakley succeeds the outgoing leader, Military Services Archbishop Timothy Broglio, for a three-year term. The current vice president, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, was too close to the mandatory retirement age of 75 to assume the top spot.

Coakley edged out a well-known conservative on the ballot, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota’s Winona-Rochester diocese, whose popular Word on Fire ministry has made him a Catholic media star.

In defeating Flores, Coakley won over another strong contender, who some Catholic insiders thought could help unify U.S. bishops and work well with the Vatican. Flores has been the U.S. bishops’ leader in the Vatican’s synod process to modernize the church. As a Latino leading a diocese along the U.S.-Mexico border, he supports traditional Catholic doctrine on abortion and LGBTQ issues and is outspoken in his defense of migrants.

Flores will be eligible for the top post in three years. His election as vice president indicates that the U.S. conference “may eventually, cautiously open itself to the church’s new horizons,” said David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture.

The bishops are crafting a statement on immigration during the annual fall meeting. On many issues, they appear as divided and polarized as their country, but on immigration, even the most conservative Catholic leaders stand on the side of migrants.

The question is how strongly the whole body plans to speak about the Trump administration’s harsh immigration tactics.

Fear of immigration enforcement has suppressed Mass attendance at some parishes. Local clerics are fighting to administer sacraments to detained immigrants. U.S. Catholic bishops shuttered their longstanding refugee resettlement program after the Trump administration halted federal funding for resettlement aid.

“On the political front, you know for decades the U.S. bishops have been advocating for comprehensive immigration reform,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades, of Indiana’s Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese, said during a news conference.

Rhoades serves on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, and he leads the bishops’ committee on religious liberty. He said bishops are very concerned about detained migrants receiving pastoral care and the sacraments.

“That’s an issue of the right to worship,” he said. “One doesn’t lose that right when one is detained, whether one is documented or undocumented.”

The bishops sent a letter to Pope Leo from their meeting, saying they “will continue to stand with migrants and defend everyone’s right to worship free from intimidation.”

The letter continued, “We support secure and orderly borders and law enforcement actions in response to dangerous criminal activity, but we cannot remain silent in this challenging hour while the right to worship and the right to due process are undermined.”

Pope Leo recently called for “deep reflection” in the United States about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that “many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now.”

Stanley writes for the Associated Press.