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A high-ranking Russian lawmaker claims his government recently sent Venezuela air defense systems and could provide ballistic and cruise missiles in the future. The comments, to an official Russian media outlet, are a response to the ongoing buildup of U.S. forces in the region aimed at narco-traffickers and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is now in the Atlantic, heading for the Caribbean, which you can read more about later in this story. You can catch up with our latest coverage of the Caribbean situation in our story here.

“Russian Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E systems were just recently delivered to Caracas by Il-76 transport aircraft,” Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, told Gazeta.Ru earlier this week.

“Russia is actually one of Venezuela’s key military-technical partners; we supply the country with virtually the entire range of weapons, from small arms to aircraft,” Zhuravlev added. “Russian Su-30MK2 fighters are the backbone of the Venezuelan Air Force, making it one of the most powerful air powers in the region. The delivery of several S-300VM (Antey-2500) battalions has significantly strengthened the country’s ability to protect important installations from air attacks.”

The delivery of Pantsir-S1 systems would appear to be a new development; however, without visual proof, we cannot independently verify Zhuravlev’s claim. An Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter, owned by the Russian Aviacon Zitotrans air transport company, did arrive in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on Oct. 26 after a circuitous route from Naberezhnye Chelny in Russia, according to FlightRadar24. It is not publicly known what, if any, cargo was delivered. Defense News was the first to report the flight. It’s unclear is other flights have occurred, as well.

Russia has previously provided Venezuela with Buks and S-300VMs. It has also received 21 Su-30MK2 Flanker fighters that are capable of air defense missions, but they can also sling supersonic anti-ship missiles, as well as flying other types of missions.

Just how Maduro’s air defenses could affect any U.S. military strike on Venezuela is something we examined in our deep dive on the topic.

“Venezuela has an unusually varied collection of air defense assets, including smaller numbers of more capable systems. However, even most of the older surface-to-air missile systems have been upgraded and, as stated earlier, are generally highly mobile, meaning they can appear virtually anywhere, disrupting carefully laid mission plans. They could still pose a threat that would have to be taken seriously during any kind of offensive U.S. air operation directed against Venezuela.”

In addition to military aid already given to Venezuela, Zhuravlev suggested that Moscow, which recently ratified a mutual aid agreement with Caracas, could also provide long-range strike weapons.

“Information about the volumes and exact types of what is being imported from Russia is classified, so the Americans could be in for some surprises,” the Russian parliamentarian proferred. “I also see no obstacles to supplying a friendly country with new developments like the Oreshnik or, say, the proven Kalibr missiles; at least, no international obligations restrict Russia from doing so.”

The Oreshnik, a large, intermediate-range ballistic missile system, has been used against Ukraine by Russia. In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that production had started on the Oreshniks and reaffirmed his plans to deploy them to ally Belarus later this year. The Kalibr cruise missile, which can be launched from surface combatants and submarines, has been frequently used by Russia in its full-on war against Ukraine. 

With a reported maximum range of about 3,400 miles and a minimum effective range of about 400 miles, the Oreshnik could theoretically threaten much of the continental United States as well as Puerto Rico, which is being used as a staging base for the Caribbean operations. The Kalibr is thought to have a range of between 930 and 1,550 miles, which could possibly threaten the southern continental U.S., as well as facilities throughout the Caribbean.

Whether Russia can actually deliver any meaningful supply of these weapons remains unclear. The country is facing a shortage of air defenses after waves of attacks by Ukraine. Meanwhile, though Russia is still making them, it is unknown how many Kalibrs it still has after nearly four years of hitting Ukrainian targets. International sanctions have stymied advanced standoff weapon production in Russia. The rate at which new Kalibrs are being delivered isn’t known. Regardless, these standoff weapons are far more precious than they once were. The Oreshnik is an experimental weapon in very limited supply. That could change if Russia can produce them in meaningful quantities, but they are also larger and more complex to deploy. They would also be far more threatening to the United States than cruise missiles if they were perched in Venezuela, but that seems more like a questionable possibility in the future, not today.

While the exact extent of Moscow’s supply of new arms to Venezuela is also unknown, Putin has threatened in the past that Russia could provide standoff weapons to America’s enemies. As debate swirled last year about whether Ukraine’s allies would deliver long-range weapons to Kyiv, Putin said Russia could supply similar “regions” around the world where they could be used for strikes against Western targets. Venezuela came up as a possibility for where these weapons could go at the time.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Caribbean buildup could give Putin a pretext to carry out his threat, and in America’s backyard. Trump has also been mulling giving Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missiles (TLAMs) to Ukraine, which would also fit into a potential narrative from Moscow to justify standoff weapons transfers. Clearly, some would draw direct parallels to the Cuban Missile Crisis just on the thought of such a notion. While there are clear similarities to that historic series of events, there are major differences too. It’s also possible Russia could give lower-end, but still long-range ‘deterrence’ weapons to Venezuela in the form of Shahed-136 one-way attack drones, which it has an increasingly large supply of.

We reached out to the White House and Pentagon for further context about the Russian lawmaker’s claims and will update this story with any pertinent details shared. The Pentagon referred us to the White House, which did not directly answer our questions.

Meanwhile, the Ford and one of its escorts, Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, have passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and are now in the North Atlantic, a Navy official confirmed to The War Zone Tuesday morning. As we have previously reported, the Ford has been dispatched by Trump to take part in the ongoing operations in the Caribbean.

The rest of the carrier strike group’s Arleigh Burke class ships, however, are not with the Ford, according to the Navy. 

The USS Winston S. Churchill is the closest to the carrier, currently in the North Atlantic above Morocco, the Navy official told us. The USS Forrest Sherman and USS Mitscher are in the Red Sea while the USS Mahan is in Rota, Spain.

In addition, the San Antonio class amphibious transport dock ship USS Fort Lauderdale is now north of Cuba, the Navy official added. A U.S. official told us the ship is headed south to the Caribbean to rejoin the rest of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG)/22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) operating as part of the enhanced counter-narcotics operation. There are now eight surface warships, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, and the MV Ocean Trader – a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship modified to carry special operators and their gear – assembled in the region. There is also an array of aviation assets, among them F-35B stealth fighters, AC-130 gunships, airlifters and MQ-9 Reaper drones, deployed for this operation.

Amid all this signaling by the U.S. and Russia, the Trump administration has “developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, including direct attacks on military units that protect Maduro and moves to seize control of the country’s oil fields,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing multiple U.S. officials.

Trump “has yet to make a decision about how or even whether to proceed,” the newspaper noted. “Officials said he was reluctant to approve operations that may place American troops at risk or could turn into an embarrassing failure. But many of his senior advisers are pressing for one of the most aggressive options: ousting Mr. Maduro from power.”

The president’s aides “have asked the Justice Department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis for any military action beyond the current campaign of striking boats that the administration says are trafficking narcotics, without providing evidence,” the publication added. “Such guidance could include a legal rationale for targeting Mr. Maduro without creating the need for congressional authorization for the use of military force, much less a declaration of war.”

Trump is also directing staff to brief more members of Congress on the aggressive anti-narcotics tactics in the Caribbean and Pacific, Axios reported on Tuesday.

“The unprecedented military maneuvers off Venezuela and the continual extra-judicial killings of unarmed suspects —at least 64 of whom have died in 15 boat sinkings— have sparked bipartisan calls for more intel on the White House’s decision making,” the news outlet posited.

While the U.S. is blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, it is also seizing them in the Pacific.

“MORE WINNING,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday. “U.S. military captures another drug speedboat and seizes over 5,000 lbs of drugs and apprehends nearly 60 narco terrorists as part of its Operation Pacific Viper.”

In addition to operations against Venezuela’s drug trafficking organizations, NBC News on Monday reported that the U.S. was planning kinetic actions against cartels in Mexico. On Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pushed back on that possibility.

“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”

It remains unknown at the moment if or when Trump will order an attack on Venezuela. He has previously suggested strikes on ports and other facilities associated with narcotraffickers. However, he has also delivered mixed messages, saying he doubts there will be an attack but that Maduro must go.

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President Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture had planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. It costs about $8 billion per month nationally.

It’s not clear how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly beneficiaries will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. The process of loading the SNAP cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the nation’s largest food program, said last month that benefits for November wouldn’t be paid out due to the federal government shutdown. That set off a scramble by food banks, state governments and the nearly 42 million Americans who receive the aid to find ways to ensure access to groceries.

Most states have boosted aid to food banks, and some are setting up systems to reload benefit cards with state taxpayer dollars.

It also spurred lawsuits.

Federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled separately but similarly Friday, telling the government that it was required to use one fund with about $5 billion to pay for the program, at least in part. The benefits and administration cost over $8 billion per month.

The judges gave the government the option to use additional money to fully fund the program and a deadline of Monday to decide.

Judge John J. McConnell Jr., in Providence, Rhode Island, said if the government chose full funding, it would need to make payments Monday. With a partial version, which would require recalculating benefits, the payment deadline is Wednesday.

Trump said on social media Friday that he does “NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT.” He said he was telling government lawyers to prepare SNAP payments as soon as possible.

Benefits will be delayed in November because many beneficiaries have their cards recharged early in the month and the process of loading cards can take weeks in many states.

Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the program, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions. Cities and nonprofits also filed a lawsuit.

The USDA has a $5 billion contingency fund for the program, but the Trump administration reversed an earlier plan to use that money to keep SNAP running. Democratic officials argue that the administration could also use a separate fund of about $23 billion.

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, said SNAP must be funded using at least contingency funds, and he asked for an update on progress by Monday.

In an additional order Saturday, McConnell said if the government makes full payments, it must do so by the end of the day Monday. If it chooses partial ones — which involve recalculating how much recipients get — those would need to be issued by Wednesday.

That does not mean people would necessarily see the payments that quickly, because the process of loading cards can take up to two weeks in some circumstances.

McConnell also ruled that all previous work requirement waivers must continue to be honored. During the shutdown, the USDA has terminated existing waivers that exempted work requirements for older adults, veterans and others.

In Boston, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled the suspension was unlawful and said USDA has to pay for SNAP. Talwani ordered the federal government to advise by Monday whether they will use emergency reserve funds to provide reduced SNAP benefits for November or fully fund the program using both contingency funds and additional available funds.

Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills. The majority of states have announced more or expedited funding for food banks or novel ways to load at least some benefits onto the SNAP debit cards.

Rhode Island officials said Monday that under their program, SNAP beneficiaries who also receive benefits from another federal program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, received payments Saturday equal to one-fourth of what they typically get from SNAP. Officials in Delaware are telling recipients that benefits there won’t be available until at least Nov. 7.

To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a household’s net income after certain expenses can’t exceed the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that’s about $32,000 per year. Last year, SNAP assisted nearly 42 million people, about two-thirds of whom were families with children.

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.

Two federal judges told the U.S. Department of Agriculture in separate rulings Friday that it must begin using billions of dollars in contingency funding to provide federal food assistance to poor American families despite the federal shutdown, but gave the agency until Monday to decide how to do so.

Both Obama-appointed judges rejected Trump administration arguments that more than $5 billion in USDA contingency funds could not legally be tapped to continue Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for nearly 42 million Americans while the federal government remains closed. But both also left unclear how exactly the relief should be provided, or when it will arrive for millions of families set to lose benefits starting Saturday.

The two rulings came almost simultaneously Friday.

In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stopped short of granting California and a coalition of 24 other Democrat-led states a temporary restraining order they had requested. But she ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their arguments that the USDA’s total shutoff of SNAP benefits — despite having billions in emergency contingency funds on hand — was unlawful.

Talwani gave USDA until Monday to tell her whether they would authorize “only reduced SNAP benefits” using the contingency funding — which would not cover the total $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed for all November benefits, according to the USDA — or would authorize “full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”

Separately, in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order requested by nonprofit organizations, ruling from the bench that SNAP must be funded with at least the contingency funds, and requesting an update on progress by Monday.

The White House referred questions about the ruling to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if the administration would appeal the rulings.

The Massachusetts order was a win for California and the other Democrat-led states, which sued over the interruption to SNAP benefits — which were previously known as food stamps — as Republicans and Democrats continue to squabble over reopening the government in Washington.

However, it will not mean that all of the nation’s SNAP recipients — including 5.5 million Californians — will be spared a lapse in their food aid, state officials stressed, as state and local food banks continued scrambling to prepare for a deluge of need starting Saturday.

Asked Thursday if a ruling in the states’ favor would mean SNAP funds would be immediately loaded onto CalFresh and other benefits cards, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office helped bring the states’ lawsuit — said “the answer is no, unfortunately.”

“Our best estimates are that [SNAP benefit] cards could be loaded and used in about a week,” he said, calling that lag “problematic.”

“There could be about a week where people are hungry and need food,” he said. For new applicants to the program, he said, it could take even longer.

The rulings came as the now monthlong shutdown continued Friday with no immediate end in sight. The Senate adjourned Thursday with no plans to meet again until Monday.

It also came after President Trump called Thursday for the Senate to end the shutdown by first ending the filibuster, a longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections to legislation. The rule has traditionally been favored by lawmakers as a means of blocking particularly partisan measures, and is currently being used by Democrats to resist the will of the current 53-seat Republican majority.

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank Chief Executive Michael Flood, standing alongside Bonta as members of the California National Guard worked behind them stuffing food boxes, said his organization was preparing for massive lines come Saturday, the first of the month.

He said he expected long lines of families in need of food appearing outside food distribution locations throughout the region, just as they did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster type of situation for us here in Los Angeles County, throughout the state of California and throughout the country,” Flood said.

“5.5 million Californians, 1.5 million children and adults in L.A. County alone, will be left high and dry — illegally so, unnecessarily so, in a way that is morally bankrupt,” Bonta said.

Bonta blamed the shutdown on Trump and his administration, and said the USDA has billions of dollars in contingency funds designed to ensure SNAP benefits continue during emergencies and broke the law by not tapping those funds in the current situation.

Bonta said SNAP benefits have never been disrupted during previous federal government shutdowns, and should never have been disrupted during this shutdown, either.

“That was avoidable,” he said. “Trump created this problem.”

The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and the looming disruption to SNAP benefits entirely on Democrats in Congress, who have blocked short-term spending measures to restart the government and fund SNAP. Democrats are holding out to pressure Republicans into rescinding massive cuts to subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health insurance.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, previously told The Times that Democrats should be the ones getting asked “when the shutdown will end,” because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

“Americans are suffering because of Democrats,” Jackson said.

In their opposition to the states’ request for a temporary restraining order requiring the disbursement of funds, attorneys for the USDA argued that using emergency funds to cover November SNAP benefits would deplete funds meant to provide “critical support in the event of natural disasters and other uncontrollable catastrophes,” and could actually cause more disruption to benefits down the line.

They wrote that SNAP requires between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month, and the USDA’s contingency fund has only about $5.25 billion, meaning it could not fully fund November benefits even if it did release contingency funding. Meanwhile, “a partial payment has never been made — and for good reason,” because it would force every state to recalculate benefits for recipients and then recalibrate their systems to provide the new amounts, they wrote.

That “would take weeks, if it can be done at all,” and would then have to be undone in order to issue December benefits at normal levels, assuming the shutdown would have lifted by then, they wrote. “The disruption this would entail, with each State required to repeatedly reprogram its systems, would lead to chaos and uncertainty for the following months, even after a lapse concludes,” they wrote.

Simply pausing the benefits to immediately be reissued whenever the shutdown ends is the smarter and less disruptive course of action, they argued.

During a Thursday hearing in the states’ case, Talwani had suggested that existing rules required action by the government to prevent the sort of suffering that a total disruption to food assistance would cause, regardless of whatever political showdown is occurring between the parties in Washington.

“If you don’t have money, you tighten your belt,” she said in court. “You are not going to make everyone drop dead because it’s a political game someplace.”

In addition to suing the administration, California and its leaders have been rushing to ensure that hungry families have something to eat in coming days. Gov. Gavin Newsom directed $80 million to food banks to stock up on provisions, and activated the National Guard to help package food for those who need it.

Counties have also been working to offset the need, including by directing additional funding to food banks and other resource centers and asking partners in the private sector to assist.

Dozens of organizations in California have written to Newsom calling on him to use state funds to fully cover the missing federal benefits, in order to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude,” but Newsom has suggested that is not possible given the scale of funding withheld.

According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. Of the 5.5 million Californian recipients, children and older people account for more than 63%.

This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.

A federal judge Tuesday ruled that Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli is not lawfully serving in that role, but declined to dismiss criminal indictments that were challenged by defense attorneys.

Senior Judge J. Michael Seabright from the District of Hawaii was brought in to oversee the case after federal judges in Los Angeles recused themselves. In his ruling, Seabright said Essayli “unlawfully assumed the role of Acting United States Attorney” but can remain in charge under a different title.

Seabright said Essayli “remains the First Assistant United States Attorney” and can “perform the functions and duties of that office.”

Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed as the region’s interim top federal prosecutor by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April.

The top prosecutors in charge of U.S. Attorney’s offices are supposed to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges, but the Trump administration has circumvented the normal process in order to allow Essayli and others to remain on the job without facing a vote.

Essayli’s temporary appointment was set to expire in late July, but the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term for an additional nine months.

Challenges to Essayli’s appointment have been brought in at least three criminal cases, with defense lawyers arguing that charges brought under his watch are invalid. The federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles asked the judge to disqualify Essayli from participating in and supervising criminal prosecutions in the district.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Seabright’s ruling comes amid similar challenges across the country to the Trump administration’s tactics for installing loyalists who wield the power to bring criminal charges and sue on the government’s behalf.

A federal judge in August determined Alina Habba has been illegally occupying the U.S. attorney post in New Jersey, although that order was put on hold pending appeal. Last month a federal judge disqualified Nevada’s top federal prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, from several cases, concluding she “is not validly serving as acting U.S. attorney.” Chattah’s disqualification also is paused while the Department of Justice appeals the decision.

James Comey, the former FBI director charged with lying to Congress, cited the Nevada and New Jersey cases in a recent filing and is now challenging the legality of Trump’s appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan was appointed after his predecessor, also a Trump appointee, refused to seek charges against Comey.

Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued President Trump’s agenda, championing hard-line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often using the president’s language at news conferences. Essayli’s tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of career DOJ prosecutors quitting.

The judge’s ruling Tuesday conceded arguments from the Justice Department that Essayli would continue leading the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. regardless of how the judged decided on the challenge to his status.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander P. Robbins said that because Essayli also has been designated as first assistant U.S. attorney, he would retain his authority even if stripped of the “acting” title.

Bondi in July also appointed him as a “special attorney.” Robbins told the judge that “there’s no developed challenge to Mr. Essayli’s appointment as a special attorney or his designation as a first assistant.”

The prosecutor told the judge the government believes Essayli’s term will end Feb. 24 and that afterward the role of acting U.S. attorney will remain vacant.

Robbins argued in a court filing that the court shouldn’t order Essayli “to remove the prosecutorial and supervisory hats that many others in this Office wear, sowing chaos and confusion into the internal workings of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the largest district in the country.”

When asked by a Times reporter last month about the motion to disqualify him, Essayli said “the president won the election.”

“The American people provided him a mandate to run the executive branch, including the U.S. attorney’s office, and I look forward to serving at the pleasure of the president,” he said during a news conference.

Three of the country’s most powerful judges met in Pasadena on Wednesday for a rare conclave that could rewrite the legal framework for President Trump’s expansive deployment of troops to cities across the United States.

The move to flood Los Angeles with thousands of federalized soldiers over the objection of state and local leaders shocked the country back in June. Five months later, such military interventions have become almost routine.

But whether the deployments can expand — and how long they can continue — relies on a novel reading of an obscure subsection of the U.S. code that determines the president’s ability to dispatch the National Guard and federal service members. That code has been under heated debate in courts across the country.

Virtually all of those cases have turned on the 9th Circuit’s decision in June. The judges found that the law in question requires “a great level of deference” to the president to decide when protest flashes into rebellion, and whether boots on the ground are warranted in response.

On Wednesday, the same three judge panel — Jennifer Sung of Portland, Eric D. Miller of Seattle and Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu — took the rare move of reviewing it, signaling a willingness to dramatically rewrite the terms of engagement that have underpinned Trump’s deployments.

“I guess the question is, why is a couple of hundred people engaging in disorderly conduct and throwing things at a building over the course of two days of comparable severity to a rebellion?” said Miller, who was appointed to the bench in Trump’s first term. “Violence is used to thwart the enforcement of federal law all the time. This happens every day.”

The question he posed has riven the judicial system, splitting district judges from appellate panels and the Pacific Coast from the Midwest. Some of Trump’s judicial appointees have broken sharply with their colleagues on the matter, including on the 9th Circuit. Miller and Bennett appear at odds with Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade, who expanded on the court’s June ruling in a decision Monday that allowed federalized troops to deploy in Oregon.

Most agreethat the statute itself is esoteric, vague and untested. Unlike the Insurrection Act, which generations of presidents have used to quell spasms of violent domestic unrest, the law Trump invoked has almost no historical footprint, and little precedent to define it.

“It’s only been used once in the history of our country since it was enacted 122 years ago,” California Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt told the court Wednesday.

Attorneys from both sides have turned to legal dictionaries to define the word “rebellion” in their favor, because the statute itself offers no clues.

“Defendants have not put forward a credible understanding of the term ‘rebellion’ in this litigation,” Harbourt told the panel Wednesday. “We’re continuing to see defendants rely on this interpretation across the country and we’re concerned that the breadth of the definition the government has relied on … includes any form of resistance.”

The wiggle room has left courts to lock horns over the most basic facts before them — including whether what the president claims must be provably true.

In the Oregon case, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland, another Trump appointee, called the president’s assertions about a rebellion there “untethered to the facts.”

But a separate 9th Circuit panel overruled her, finding the law “does not limit the facts and circumstances that the President may consider” when deciding whether to use soldiers domestically.

“The President has the authority to identify and weigh the relevant facts,” the court wrote in its Monday decision.

Nelson went further, calling the president’s decision “absolute.”

Upon further review, Sung signaled a shift to the opposite interpretation.

“The court says when the statute gives a discretionary power, that is based on certain facts,” she said. “I don’t see the court saying that the underlying decision of whether the factual basis exists is inherently discretionary.”

That sounded much more like the Midwest’s 7th Circuit decision in the Chicago case, which found that nothing in the statute “makes the President the sole judge of whether these preconditions exist.”

“Political opposition is not rebellion,” the 7th Circuit judges wrote. “A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows.”

The Trump administration’s appeal of that decision is currently before the Supreme Court on the emergency docket.

But experts said even a high court ruling in that case may not dictate what can happen in California — or in New York, for that matter. Even if the justices ruled against the administration, Trump could choose to invoke the Insurrection Act or another law to justify his next moves, an option that he and other officials have repeatedly floated in recent weeks.

The administration has signaled its desire to expand on the power it already enjoys, telling the court Wednesday there was no limit to where troops could be deployed or how long they could remain in the president’s service once he had taken control of them.

“Would it be your view that no matter how much conditions on the ground changed, there would be no ability of the district court or review — in a month, six months, a year, five years — to review whether the conditions still support [deployment]?” Bennett asked.

“Yes,” Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Eric McArthur said.

Bennett pressed the point, asking whether under the current law the militia George Washington federalized to put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 could “stay called up forever” — a position the government again affirmed.

“There’s not a word in the statute that talks about how long they can remain in federal service,” McArthur said. “The president’s determination of whether the exigency has arisen, that decision is vested in his sole and exclusive discretion.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to uphold his deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.

His lawyers filed an emergency appeal urging the court to set aside rulings of judges in Chicago and hold that National Guard troops are needed to protect U.S. immigration agents from hostile protesters.

The case escalates the clash between Trump and Democratic state officials over immigration enforcement and raises again the question of using military-style force in American cities. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly gone to the Supreme Court and won quick rulings when lower-court judges have blocked his actions.

Federal law authorizes the president to call into service the National Guard if he cannot “execute the laws of the United States” or faces “a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority” of the U.S. government.

“Both conditions are satisfied here,” Trump’s lawyer said.

Judges in Chicago came to the opposite conclusion. U.S. District Judge April Perry saw no “danger of rebellion” and said the laws were being enforced. She accused Trump’s lawyers of exaggerating claims of violence and equating “protests with riots.”

She handed down a restraining order on Oct. 9, and the 7th Circuit Court agreed to keep it in force.

But Trump’s lawyers insisted that protesters and demonstrators were targeting U.S. immigration agents and preventing them from doing their work.

“Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law, the President lawfully determines that he is unable to enforce the laws of the United States with the regular forces and calls up the National Guard to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in a 40-page appeal.

He argued that historically the president has had the full authority to decide on whether to call up the militia. Judges may not second-guess the president’s decision, he said.

“Any such review [by judges] must be highly deferential, as the 9th Circuit has concluded in the Newsom litigation,” referring to the ruling that upheld Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles.

Trump’s lawyer said the troop deployment to Los Angeles had succeeded in reducing violence.

“Notwithstanding the Governor of California’s claim that deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles would ‘escalat[e]’ the ongoing violence that California itself had failed to prevent … the President’s action had the opposite, intended effect. In the face of federal military force, violence in Los Angeles decreased and the situation substantially improved,” he told the court.

But in recent weeks, “Chicago has been the site of organized and often violent protests directed at ICE officers and other federal personnel engaged in the execution of federal immigration laws,” he wrote. “On multiple occasions, federal officers have also been hit and punched by protesters. … Rioters have targeted federal officers with fireworks and have thrown bottles, rocks, and tear gas at them.”

“More than 30 [DHS] officers have been injured during the assaults on federal law enforcement” at the Broadview facility alone, resulting in multiple hospitalizations, he wrote.

Officials in Illinois blamed aggressive enforcement actions of ICE agents for triggering the protests.

Sauer also urged the court to hand down an immediate order that would freeze Perry’s rulings.

The court asked for a response from Illinois officials by Monday.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un vowed to turn the country into a ‘socialist paradise’ during a huge ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

A judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from requiring recipients of federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with the president’s orders aimed at curtailing “radical indoctrination” and “gender ideology.”

The ruling is a victory for three Planned Parenthood affiliates — in California, Iowa and New York — that sued to try to block enforcement of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policy document issued in July that they contend contradicts the requirements of the grants as established by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed to the bench by former President Obama, blasted the administration’s policy change in her written ruling, saying it was “motivated solely by political concerns, devoid of any considered process or analysis, and ignorant of the statutory emphasis on evidence-based programming.”

The policy requiring changes to the pregnancy prevention program was part of the fallout from a series of executive orders Trump signed starting in his first day back in the White House aimed at rolling back recognition of LGBTQ+ people and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

In the policy, the administration objected to teaching that promotes same-sex marriage and that “normalizes, or promotes sexual activity for minors.”

The Planned Parenthood affiliates argued that the new directives were at odds with the requirements of the program — and that they were so vague it wasn’t clear what needed to be done to follow them.

Howell agreed.

The decision applies not only to the handful of Planned Parenthood groups among the dozens of recipients of the funding, but also to nonprofit groups, city and county health departments, Native American tribes and universities that received grants.

The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the program, declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling. It previously said the guidance for the program “ensures that taxpayer dollars no longer support content that undermines parental rights, promotes radical gender ideology, or exposes children to sexually explicit material under the banner of public health.”

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

It was late Sunday evening when President Trump got thumped with a court loss — again — by California.

No, a federal judge ruled, Trump cannot command the California National Guard to invade Portland, Ore. At the request of California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and others, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut broadened a temporary restraining order that had blocked Oregon’s National Guard from being used by the federal government. It now includes not just California’s troops but troops from any state. At least for the next two weeks.

It’s the kind of legal loss Trump should be used to it by now, especially when it comes to the Golden State. Since Trump 2.0 hit the White House this year with Project 2025 folded up in his back pocket, the state of California has sued the administration 42 times, literally about once a week.

While many of those cases are still pending, California is racking up a series of wins that restored more than $160 billion in funding and at least slowed down (and in some cases stopped) the steamrolling of civil rights on issues including birthright citizenship and immigration policy.

“We have won in 80% of the cases,” Bonta told me. “Whether it be a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order, and more and more now permanent final injunctions after the whole trial court case is done.”

I’ll take it. We all need some positive news. I don’t often write just about the good, but in these strange days, it’s helpful to have a reminder that the fight is always worth having when it comes to protecting our rights. And, despite the partisan Supreme Court, the reason that we are still holding on to democracy is because the system still works, albeit like a ’78 Chevy with the doors rusting off.

While Gov. Gavin Newsom has made himself the face of California’s fights against Trump, taking on a pugnacious and audacious attitude especially on social media, the day-in, day-out slugging in those battles is often done by Bonta and his team in courtrooms across the country.

It’s hard to recall, but months ago, Newsom called a special session of the Legislature to give Bonta a $25-million allowance to defend not just California but democracy. And in a moment when many of us fear that checks and balances promised in the Constitution have turned out to be little more than happy delusions, Bonta has a message: The courts are (mostly) holding and California’s lawyers aren’t just fighting, they’re winning.

“We can do things that governors can’t do,” Bonta said. “No role and no moment has been more important than this one.”

Bonta told me that he often hears that Trump is disregarding the courts, so “what’s the point of litigation at all? What’s the point of a court order at all? He’s just going to ignore them.”

But, he said, the administration has been following judges’ rulings — so far. While there have been instances, especially around deportations, that knock on the door of lawlessness, at least for California, Trump is “following all of our court orders,” Bonta said.

“We’re making a difference,” he said.

A few days ago, the U.S. Department of Education was forced to send out a final chunk of funds it had attempted to withhold from schools. Bonta, in a multistate lawsuit, successfully protected that money, which schools need this year to help migrant children and English learners, train teachers, buy new technology and pay for before- and after-school programs, among other uses.

That’s a permanent, final ruling — no appeals.

Another recent win saw California land a permanent injunction against the feds when it comes to stopping their payments for costs associated with state energy projects. That a win both for the climate and consumers, who benefit when we make energy more efficiently.

Last week, Bonta won another permanent injunction, blocking the Trump administration’s effort to tie grants related to homeland security to compliance with his immigration policies. Safety shouldn’t be tied to deportations, especially in California, where our immigrants are overwhelmingly law-abiding community members.

Those are just a few of Bonta’s victories. Of course, Trump and his minions aren’t happy about them. Stephen Miller, the shame of Santa Monica, seems to have especially lost his marbles over the National Guard ruling. On social media, Miller seems to be attacking the justice system, and attorneys general such as Bonta.

“There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country,” Miller wrote. “It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”

Never mind that the Oregon judge who issued the National Guard ruling is a Trump appointee.

“Their goal, I think, is to chill and pause and worry judges; to chill and pause and worry the press; to chill and pause and worry attorneys general who stand up for the rule of law and for democracy, who go to court and fight for what’s right and fight for the law,” Bonta said.

Bonta expects the administration, far from learning any lessons or harboring self-reflection during this mad dash toward autocracy, to continue full speed ahead.

“We’re going to see more, and we’re going to see it fast, and we’re going to see it escalate,” he said. “None of that is good, including putting military in American cities or, you know, Trump treating them like his royal guard instead of the National Guard.”

Even when the Trump administration loses, “they always have this like second move and maybe a third, where they are always trying to advance their agenda, even when they’ve been blocked by a court, even when they’ve been told that they’re acting unlawfully or unconstitutionally,” he said.

On Monday, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to circumvent the court’s ruling on the National Guard, a massive escalation of his effort to militarize American cities.

But California remains on a winning streak, much to Trump’s dismay.

It’s my bet that as long as our judges continue to honor the rule of law, that streak will hold.

Oct. 5 (UPI) — The Justice Department has appealed a ruling by a lower court judge blocking the mobilization of 200 National Guard troops to Portland.

A judge on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to stop its mobilization of the soldiers to protect the ICE building and officers in the city. There have been nightly protests since the troops were ordered to patrol.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will rule on the case.

Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsome called the Trump administration’s move to send National Guard troops to Portland an abuse of law and power.

“The Trump administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words – ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.

Hundreds of protestors marched at the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office Saturday, the latest in a series of demonstrations in the city since the Trump administration announced it would deploy the troops.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized President Donald Trump in a social media post referring to the court’s order to block the deployment that said Trump’s “determination is simply untethered from the facts.”

A White House spokesperson said that Trump “exercised his authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”

Sept. 27 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to rule on the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision following adverse rulings in lower courts.

President Donald Trump on the first day of his second term in office signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for anyone who does not have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, but lower courts have blocked the order’s implementation, according to NBC News.

“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” the DOJ said in its appeal to the Supreme Court, as reported by USA Today.

“Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people,” the appeal said.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in July ruled in favor of a challenge filed by officials for Washington state and three others.

In a separate case, U.S. District Court of New Hampshire Judge Joseph Laplante granted class action status to a case filed by individuals, which enabled that court’s ruling against the president’s executive order to have national impact.

President George W. Bush appointed Laplante to the federal court in 2007.

The DOJ wants the Supreme Court to review the New Hampshire case and Laplante’s ruling despite the matter being appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The federal appellate court has not ruled on that case.

A COUNTY Championship match between Somerset and Hampshire was postponed due to a bizarre weather ruling on Monday.

Several games in the competition had been rained off elsewhere in the country, but it was the wind which was eventually deemed unplayable in sunny Taunton.

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Rain had passed through the ground overnight and into the morning and prompted a lunch-time pitch inspection of the field, but soon the rain had blown over to sunny skies.

However, it was reportedly another weather phenomena that put the final nail in the coffin of the day’s cricket action, before a single ball was bowled.

High winds in the area had reportedly made removing the covers a hazardous prospect for groundstaff at County Ground.

There is a precedent for such injuries, with groundsman Matt Page of the Western Australian Cricket Association being struck and concussed by one of his own coverings during an Ashes test in Perth in 2017.

The Times reports that umpires Ben Debenham and David Millns made an inspection of the scene as fans waited for play to finally begin.

But they were waiting in vain, with the game later being abandoned, in line with England and Wales Cricket Board health and safety guidelines.

Those in attendance were initially left in the dark as to the reason for the delay, with the eventual decision being announced after tea

The cricket world was evidently unimpressed by the situation, with several fans of the sport slamming the ECB in reply to The Times’ report.

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One fan said: “And they wonder why the County game is not in rude health? This was simply ridiculous.”

Another fan was just as harsh, saying: “This is a complete disgrace. Why is the ECB not in hot water over this ridiculous rule?

Some fans found the funny side of the ridiculous situation, with a third fan adding: “I’m surprised they allow the ball to land in the crowd…”

And a fourth fan sarcastically chimed in: “How are they allowed to play with that very hard ball?”

Like most of Monday’s postponed matches, the contest eventually got underway on Tuesday, with Somerset choosing to start off with bat in hand.

Middlesex and Lancashire however were subject to a further rain delay as they met at Old Trafford Cricket Ground.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The football jock from Wyoming. The prom king–an observant Jew. The silver-spoon legacy kid. Could one Ivy League institution have hosted three more different men?

As students, about all Richard Cheney, Joseph I. Lieberman and George W. Bush had in common was Yale University, where all three studied in the 1960s. Now the trio and their boola-boola background dominate the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets–thought to be the first time three candidates have come from any single institution of higher learning.

Presidents Taft and Bush went to Yale, and the school also likes to lay claim to Presidents Ford and Clinton, both graduates of Yale Law School. Six U.S. presidents, meanwhile, may have gone to Harvard College, but in this election, Harvard alum Al Gore is the academic oddball.

Whether weird, unprecedented coincidence or, as Yale president Richard Levin quipped, “the natural and expected course of events,” the phenomenon reflects a sense present for almost 300 years at this Gothic-towered campus that a Yale diploma is a passport to stewardship. The rhetoric of leadership flows through the air and water here. Its flip side is a powerful streak of entitlement, and no small measure of elitism, despite an increasingly heterogeneous student population. If Yalies past and present have been leaders, they’ll tell you it’s because they were meant to be.

Levin himself calls the institution “a laboratory for future leaders.” Before the school went coed in 1969, one of Levin’s recent predecessors, the late Kingman Brewster, made a habit of reminding his flock that his job was to create “1,000 male leaders.”

Over the centuries, Yale students have learned to think big. Senior Eliza Park, 21, said she knows six people on campus who plan to be president of the United States, and one who expects a seat on the Supreme Court. Park herself intends to become surgeon general.

“People here have a feeling that they can run the world with their Yale degree,” agreed sophomore Molly Lindsay, 19. “I feel like you get told that when you come to school here, like you’re going to be a kingpin of power.”

Much the same mandate was at work in 1959, when Natrona County High School football star Richard Cheney packed up his scholarship and headed to Yale. New Haven and Yale were worlds away from Casper, Wyo., and by all accounts he was miserably homesick and pined for his girlfriend.

The school won’t release Cheney’s academic records, and Levin purports to know nothing more about the Republican vice presidential candidate’s tenure at Yale than “what I’ve read in the papers.” Levin presumably is referring to media accounts that Cheney was out of his academic league, that he left Yale once, then returned, then withdrew a second, final time in 1960.

Cheney ultimately finished at the University of Wyoming. But cheering briefly for the Bulldogs is apparently almost as good as graduating, and even without a diploma, Cheney has been known to show up at Yale alumni functions.

Lieberman, by contrast, arrived from a large public high school in nearby Stamford, Conn., in 1960, when Yale still enforced a quota on Jewish students. A big man at his own big-city high school, Lieberman unpacked his bags at a university where about half the student body came from prep schools, already a badge of elitism. Students wore coats and ties to class, and the school was so blindingly WASP, said Boston public radio host Christopher Lydon (Yale ‘62) that although there were no quotas for his creed, as a Catholic, he felt like a token, too.

Yale had a definite ladder of class distinctions, Lydon said. “The top of the Yale class system was all tied up in the word ‘Shoe,’ ” he said. “It was code for white shoe. We’d say, That’s a really Shoe guy, a really Shoe way to dress, a Shoe way to carry yourself. More than we wanted to admit, there was the ideal of being Shoe.”

Shoe or not, Lieberman swept into prominence, earning what was then Yale’s most coveted elected position, chair–or editor–of the daily newspaper. He wrote editorials railing against boxing as barbaric on the one hand, and favoring the admission of women to the all-male university, on another. His political aspirations were so unconcealed that one friend, Al Sharp, took to calling him “Senator.”

One day, Lieberman approached him, said Sharp, who now lives in Chicago. “You’re not wrong,” Lieberman told Sharp. “But not so loud.”

After distinguishing himself as head cheerleader at the exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., George W. Bush entered the college of his forefathers in 1964, where he was well-known as a prankster and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Reborn now as a man of the people, Bush seldom dwells publicly on his days at this elite institution. Yet Yale classmates number among his closest friends.

In his book, “First Son,” Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio quotes Bush speaking of his time at Yale years after graduation: “What angered me was the way such people at Yale felt so intellectually superior and so righteous. They thought they had all the answers. They thought they could create a government that could solve all our problems for us. These are the ones who felt so guilty that they had been given so many blessings in life.”

In 1964, the late Mario Savio stood on a police car in Sproul Plaza to launch the free speech movement at UC Berkeley. Soon protests over civil rights, free speech and Vietnam were rattling many other universities. With sit-ins and love-ins, it was a turbulent time at many campuses. But at the Yale of George W. Bush, the ‘60s barely showed up before he graduated in 1968. The cultural revolution of the mid-’60s, Levin observed, “didn’t really hit Yale.”

William Sloane Coffin was Yale’s chaplain from 1958 through 1976. At Coffin’s urging, Lieberman organized a small group of Yale students who traveled to Mississippi to do civil rights work. But as the decade wore on, Coffin expressed despair over a sense of complacency on campus.

“The social concerns of the minority were very great in the ‘60s,” Coffin recalled. “Lieberman was in the minority. George W. Bush was in the majority.”

Insulated and Isolated

An hour and a half’s train ride from New York, Yale nonetheless seemed both insulated and isolated at that time, graduates say. As it is today, New Haven was a gritty city, and Yale an island of privilege within it. The school was so white that when Sharp, Lieberman’s successor as chair of the Yale Daily News, sent his staff out to do a story on “Negroes at Yale,” he could decree, “Go out and interview all six of them.” Such a comment seems ridiculous today on a campus where 30% of the students identify themselves as belonging to a minority.

Clearly, said Boston pediatrician Eli Newberger, Yale ‘62, “It was a very narrow band of citizens. It was a place where the elite sent their sons, ultimately for positions in the leadership class.”

Amid the stone towers and courtyards, between the seminars and the master’s teas, Yale also was fond of a good party. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll may have taken awhile to hit the campus, but fraternities and other campus clubs did their best to make up for the loss.

Several years before Bush proudly assumed the post, John Adams was president of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the national fraternity known as Deke. “We had our wild and crazy parties–yes, we did,” said Adams, now a businessman in Raleigh, N.C.

Of course, the most important organizations of all at Yale always have been the secret senior societies, clubs that rely on tradition to “tap” their members. Lieberman joined Elihu, not the most famous, but a club then considered the thinking man’s secret society. Bush followed his father, grandfather, uncle and cousins by joining Skull and Bones, the most mythic of them all.

Though it inspired the movie “Skulls,” the organization is known to cognoscenti as “Bones.” It occupies a dark, dingy “tomb” dead in the center of campus. When tapped, Bones members receive secret names. Usually they are assigned, but Bush was allowed to choose his own. Until he could come up with one, he was known as Temporary. He never bothered to change it, so Temporary is what Bonesmen call him still.

The New Millennium

Imagine more than 200 years of male-only tradition at Yale. Bonesmen of generations past must be spinning in their own tombs to think of new-millennium members such as 20-year-old Sarah Maserati of Palo Alto. Fiercely conservative, Maserati is an active debater with Yale’s feisty political union, the only organization of its kind at any Ivy League school. A top student, Maserati arrived at Yale with plans to become Secretary of State.

Maserati makes a firm distinction between today’s campus and the old Yale, “a bunch of men, a bunch of WASP men, who got there because they were rich.” When they visit today’s more diverse, more meritocratic campus, she said, old Yalies say, “Wow, you guys do so much work!”

They also do their share of political analysis. At the Yale Daily News, former editorials editor Milan Milenkovic said the presence of three presidential and vice presidential candidates from his alma mater was a subject of great pride.

“The men of Yale such as Joe Lieberman and George W. Bush were the kind of men Yale strived to produce to lead and better this country,” said Milenkovic, a senior majoring in political science. “In our time we will see Yale and other Ivy League schools produce a new breed of leaders to head corporations, the U.S. Congress and perhaps the White House.”

Yale, said Maserati, retains mystique. “Everyone knows that intellectually, Harvard is the best,” she said. “But there is a kind of cachet about Yale. Yale is where the cool people go.”

Gaddis Smith, a Yale history professor emeritus who is at work on a history of the school, said a further distinction between Harvard and Yale is that “for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the emphasis at Yale was on working together in groups. There was the ideal of an undefeated football team, a charity drive, the junior prom committee–a huge emphasis on leadership in groups. Harvard’s spirit was much more conducive to the individual intellectual achievement. You could be a hermit and hide in the library.”

Smith said that the changing demography of the last 30 years has brought less unity to the campus. With so many organizations, “today you have people identifying themselves in groups, and each group has an agenda,” Smith said.

With tuition, room and board now costing nearly $33,000 per year, and 40% of students receiving some financial aid, Smith said he also sees rising careerism among Yalies. Before he retired in July, Smith said he received more and more complaints about grades. “It wasn’t complaints about Cs,” he said. “It was about A-minuses that weren’t A’s.”

But Alexandra Robbins (Yale, 1998) found that many young Yalies are still thinking about politics when she wrote two major magazine articles about her school, in the Atlantic and the New Yorker. One talked about George W. Bush’s mediocre academic record, and one was about Skull and Bones.

Robbins, who works in the New Yorker magazine’s Washington office, was deluged with letters, e-mails and calls from Yalies. “What they said was, ‘When I run for office, I hope no one digs into my past like you did.’ They didn’t say if, they said when.” Robbins said.

The reaction, she said, reflects the aura of entitlement that penetrates the environment at Yale. “It’s in the air,” Robbins said. “You feel it in your interactions with other students, you hear it in class and you see it in the grandiose plans of the organizations. It just permeates the atmosphere.”

One of the 5,000 students inhaling that atmosphere this fall is Barbara Bush of Austin, Tex. Yale has 12 residential colleges, and as a freshman, the Republican presidential candidate’s daughter has taken up residence in Davenport, her father’s college. Along with Ms. Bush came two male security guards, disguised to look like college boys. Normally, fellow Davenporters say, she introduces herself only as “Barbara.”

But by no means is she Yale’s resident celebrity. At the Yale Women’s Center, a chorus supplied that name:

“CLAIRE DANES!!!”

Google parent Alphabet (GOOG 0.27%) (GOOGL 0.22%) faced a frightening challenge after its search engine business was declared an illegal monopoly last August. Since then, investor concern over the potential consequences dampened Alphabet stock’s performance.

That changed on Sept. 2, when a federal judge finally delivered the legal penalties, and they largely favored Alphabet. The news sent the company’s stock to a record high.

Even so, Alphabet didn’t escape unscathed. While the penalties pose no immediate threat, over the long run, the possibility exists for damage to its critical artificial intelligence (AI) business. Digging into the court ruling’s implications can reveal if the tech titan’s AI aspirations face long-term risk.

Image source: Getty Images.

How the court’s decision affects Alphabet’s AI ambitions

The Sept. 2 legal ruling bars Alphabet from signing exclusive contracts with partners such as Apple. Deals are still allowed, as long as exclusivity isn’t a component, so no immediate revenue impact is involved here.

But another legal stipulation mandates sharing some of Google’s search data with competitors. This is where AI comes in.

Artificial intelligence relies on massive troves of data to perform tasks accurately. The court’s decision arms Alphabet’s rivals with ammunition to improve their AI models.

That competition includes Microsoft, which battles Alphabet on several fronts, including search, digital advertising, cloud computing, and of course, AI. The court’s requirement would deliver Google’s data insights to Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and feed across all the areas where the two corporations compete. But where it can really provide value is in AI.

Microsoft incorporates AI models developed by ChatGPT creator OpenAI into its offerings, since it has a stake in the company. ChatGPT’s introduction of generative AI to the world is one of the key drivers that kicked off the current artificial intelligence frenzy. Adding Google data to the mix could strengthen both Microsoft and OpenAI’s tech.

In fact, the judge who delivered the Sept. 2 ruling, Amit Mehta, noted, “The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case.”

Is Alphabet’s AI position at risk?

Alphabet has the option to appeal the court’s penalties, but even if it doesn’t, the tech conglomerate’s impressive use of AI to date could be enough to prevent erosion of its businesses.

For instance, new AI features introduced to its Google search engine boosted usage. This enabled Google search revenue to hit $54.2 billion in the second quarter, up 12% from 2024’s $48.5 billion.

Alphabet’s AI advancements helped Google maintain a search market share of 90% in August, compared to next-closest competitor Bing’s 4%. Even if Google’s data helps Bing gain share, the gap between the rivals is so huge, Bing is unlikely to make a meaningful dent in Google’s lead anytime soon.

AI contributed to growth in Alphabet’s cloud computing segment, Google Cloud, as well. The division is bringing AI-powered shopping capabilities to PayPal. Such customer adoption of AI drove Google Cloud’s Q2 sales to $13.6 billion, a whopping 32% year-over-year increase.

Should cloud competitors improve their AI with Google data, the difference would have to be significant to get Alphabet’s customers to switch. Google Cloud integrations aren’t easily unfurled, leading to high switching costs.

Beyond search and cloud computing, Alphabet has injected AI into YouTube, its Waymo robotaxi service, Gmail, and more.

Alphabet isn’t out of the woods yet

Overall, Alphabet dodged a bullet in the Google search antitrust case. The legal penalties could have been as far-ranging as a forced divestiture of its popular Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system.

Considering these worst-case scenarios, Alphabet got off pretty light, and the ruling’s impact to its business over the long term looks minimal. The conglomerate’s widespread use of AI across its operations gives it a solid lead against competitors who may benefit from access to Google data.

But the legal dangers aren’t over yet. Earlier this year, Alphabet lost a separate antitrust case directed against its advertising empire. The penalties in that case are yet to be determined. However, Google was slapped with a $3.5 billion antitrust fine by the European Union on Sept. 5 for violating rules designed to protect a competitive advertising marketplace.

Compared to the Google search case, this separate antitrust lawsuit poses a lower risk. That’s because it involves advertising tech related to the company’s Google network, which produced $7.35 billion in Q2 sales, a drop from the $7.44 billion generated in the previous year. By comparison, Google search accounted for $54.2 billion of Alphabet’s $96.4 billion in Q2 revenue.

So while Alphabet isn’t out of legal trouble yet, the biggest long-term risk to its business is behind it, as long as the conglomerate can continue pushing AI innovation across its operations.

The request comes after a federal court earlier this week blocked Lisa Cook’s firing while her lawsuit challenging her dismissal moves forward.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates.

The request on Thursday represents an extraordinary effort by the White House to shape the board before the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee meets next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the same time, Senate Republicans are pushing to confirm Stephen Miran, Trump’s nominee to an open spot on the Fed’s board, which could happen as soon as Monday.

In a court filing on Thursday, the Department of Justice asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to pause US District Judge Jia Cobb’s Tuesday ruling temporarily blocking Cook’s removal, pending the administration’s appeal.

Trump moved to fire Cook in late August. Cook, who denies any wrongdoing, filed a lawsuit saying Trump’s claim that she engaged in mortgage fraud before she joined the central bank did not give him legal authority to remove her, and was a pretext to fire her for her monetary policy stance.

Cobb’s ruling prevents the Fed from following through on Cook’s firing while her lawsuit moves forward.

In their emergency appeal, Trump’s lawyers argued that even if the conduct occurred before her time as governor, her alleged action “indisputably calls into question Cook’s trustworthiness and whether she can be a responsible steward of the interest rates and economy”.

The administration asked an appeals court to issue an emergency decision reversing the lower court by Monday. If their appeal is successful, Cook would be removed from the Fed’s board until her case is ultimately resolved in the courts, and she would miss next week’s meeting.

If the appeals court rules in Cook’s favour, the administration could seek an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court.

The case, which will likely end up before the US Supreme Court, has ramifications for the Fed’s ability to set interest rates without regard to politicians’ wishes, widely seen as critical to any central bank’s ability to keep inflation under control.

The Supreme Court and lower appeals courts, including the DC Circuit, have temporarily lifted several other rulings that briefly blocked Trump from firing officials at agencies that have historically been independent from the White House.

On Wednesday, however, the DC Circuit blocked Trump from firing US Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter while she appeals a lower court’s refusal to reinstate her to the post.

Trump has demanded that the Fed cut rates immediately and aggressively, repeatedly berating Fed Chair Jerome Powell for his stewardship over monetary policy. Cook has voted with the Fed’s majority on every rate decision since she started in 2022, including on both rate hikes and rate cuts.

Fed’s independence

The law that created the Fed says governors may be removed only “for cause”, but does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal. No president has ever removed a Fed governor, and the law has never been tested in court.

Cobb on Tuesday said the public’s interest in the Fed’s independence from political coercion weighed in favour of keeping Cook at the Fed while the case continues.

She said that the best reading of the law is that a Fed governor may only be removed for misconduct while in office. The mortgage fraud claims against Cook all relate to actions she took prior to her US Senate confirmation in 2022.

Trump and William Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director appointed by the president, say Cook inaccurately described three separate properties on mortgage applications, which could have allowed her to obtain lower interest rates and tax credits.

The Justice Department has also launched a criminal mortgage fraud probe into Cook and has issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan, according to documents seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Wednesday appealed a ruling blocking him from firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board.

The notice of appeal came hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House has insisted Trump, a Republican, has the right to fire Cook over over allegations raised by one of his appointees that she committed mortgage fraud related to two properties she bought before she joined the Fed.

The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority has allowed Trump to fire several board members of other independent agencies but has suggested that power has limitations at the Federal Reserve.

Cook’s lawyers have argued that firing her was unlawful because presidents can only fire Fed governors for cause, which has typically meant poor job performance or misconduct. The judge found the president’s removal power is limited to actions taken during a governor’s time in office.

Cook is accused of saying that both her properties, in Michigan and Georgia, were primary residences, which could have resulted in lower down payments and mortgage rates. Her lawsuit denied the allegations without providing details. Her attorneys said she should have gotten a chance to respond to them before getting fired.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the short-term interest rate the Fed controls more quickly. If Trump can replace Cook, he may be able to gain a 4-3 majority on the Fed’s governing board.

No president has sought to fire a Fed governor before. Economists prefer independent central banks because they can do unpopular things like lifting interest rates to combat inflation more easily than elected officials can.

Cook is set to participate in a Fed meeting next week. The meeting is expected to reduce its key short-term rate by a quarter-point to between 4% and 4.25%.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

SIMI VALLEY — Jadyn Winsett twisted her new engagement ring around her finger, scanning the sea of navy sport coats, sailor stripes and string pearls at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for a glimpse of a Supreme Court justice.

Across the room stood Amy Coney Barrett, the high court’s youngest member, who could hardly have picked a more dramatic moment to turn up.

A day earlier, Barrett joined the conservative majority in a decision that cleared federal immigration agents to detain people in Southern California simply because they have brown skin or speak Spanish.

The response across much of Los Angeles was outrage and concern that the 4th Amendment has been trampled.

But at the Reagan Library, the mood was triumphant.

Winsett, 23, and her fiance were among the admirers who gathered to hear Barrett speak about her new memoir, “Listening to the Law.” For the supporters who turned up, Barrett evokes values cherished by President Trump’s faith-driven acolytes: beatific motherhood, Southern charm, Christian piety and steadfast constitutional originalism.

A Texas native, Winsett’s partner had popped the question two days before at Yosemite National Park. She said the proposal was the highlight of the couple’s California holiday. But the chance to meet Barrett at Reagan’s final resting place was a close second.

“I sent [my fiance] so many text messages in the span of a couple minutes just being excited that this event was going on, and we had to come,” Winsett said. “I’m a really big fan of Justice Scalia … so knowing [Barrett’s] book is supposed to bit of an expansion on Justice Scalia’s ‘Reading Law,’ that’s gonna be really cool. “

Jadyn Winsett, left, and Reese Johnson, a newly engaged couple from Texas, planned their trip to attend the justice’s book launch.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Barrett said almost nothing about her controversial rise to the court or the jurisprudence behind her most contested decisions during Tuesday’s event, instead dishing out details about Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s race with the Nationals’ foam-headed Lincoln and Roosevelt mascots and how she’d brought Starbucks coffee to the Supreme Court cafeteria.

But the previous day’s immigration raid ruling still hovered in the air.

When asked to explain the court’s “shadow docket”, she ad-libbed a hypothetical all but identical to Monday’s real decision.

“Let’s say that some policy of the administration has been enjoined,” Barrett said. “The administration might say, ‘While we are litigating this case, having this injunction in place is irreparably harming us in a way we can’t recover from, so in the interim, please stay this injunction.’”

A packed room listens and watches monitors as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett takes questions at the launch of her new book.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Later, when asked about constitutional interpretation, she opined about the slippery text of the 4th Amendment, the same amendment implicated in Monday’s unsigned order.

“[Look at] the protection against unreasonable search and seizures,” she invited the audience.

“When you have a word like that, ‘unreasonable,’ there’ll be a range where everybody will say, outside of this, we all agree this is unreasonable,” Barrett explained. “Then, there’s a range right here where we all say this is reasonable. But then there’s going to be a band where there’s room for disagreement. One of the great things about the Constitution is that it leaves some of that play in the joints.”

People line up to get their book signed at the Reagan Library.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Earlier in the evening, Barrett and her husband, Jesse, had paid their respects at the Reagan Memorial and briefly admired the chunk of Berlin Wall, flanked by a coterie of federal agents while protests raged outside.

Many in the crowd said they, like the Catholic justice, were devout Christian believers and credited her with casting the decisive vote to end abortion as a constitutional right in the United States.

“I’m a born-again Christian and I believe it was the hand of God that put her on the court … to be able to overturn Roe vs. Wade,” said Glovioell Dixon of Pasadena, who’d arrived hours before the program to beat the crowds.

Others were taken with Barrett’s command of the law — several mentioned the fact she’d barely used notes at her confirmation hearing — and her poise under pressure.

“She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever observed,” said Elizabeth Pierce of Newbury Park, the lone red baseball cap in a field of cognac loafers and Chanel-inspired skirt suits. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”

A few even credited the justice for realizing their American dream.

Sean Chen, 52, of East Los Angeles said he’d just attended his daughter’s medical school white coat ceremony and praised Barrett’s 2023 ruling to strike down race-based affirmative action in the case Fair Admissions vs. Harvard.

“That’s directly related to the future of my kids,” Chen said. “Without the work from the Supreme Court [overturning affirmative action], maybe I wouldn’t even have that chance.”

A Chinese immigrant, Chen called the opportunity to learn from one of the nation’s nine law-givers part of his journey to becoming “spiritually American.”

Barrett divulged little Tuesday about her memoir, for which she was paid $425,000 in 2021, the first tranche of a reported $2-million advance, according to financial disclosures.

“We’re gonna pray we’re gonna get our books signed!” an event coordinator encouraged those near the back of the line as the sun set over the golden hills.

Die-hard fans were reminded not to try to snap selfies, though keepsake photos would be taken and could be purchased after the event.

Julia Quiroz, 23, left, and her mom, Gaby Quiroz, in line waiting to get their book signed by the Supreme Court justice.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Julia Quiroz, 23, waited with her mother to have her book signed.

“I see her as exemplary in her vocation as a mother,” Quiroz said of Barrett.

Her mom, Gaby, agreed — mostly.

As a Catholic, Quiroz said she agrees with Barrett’s rulings on abortion, but despaired of realizing the family’s dream of ending the procedure from coast to coast.

“She’s going to do the right thing for the country and the law,” Gaby Quiroz said. “I don’t know that her decisions will always align with ours.”

Other attendees said they were in lockstep with Barrett and her rulings in support of the president’s agenda — whatever its impact on their neighbors.

“I’m very happy,” said Kevin Rivero of Palmdale. “She is ensuring the president has the power to do what the executive branch is empowered to do. As an L.A. citizen, I’m for it.”

Dixon, the Pasadena Christian, said she agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling on immigration raids even though her ex-husband was once an undocumented immigrant, who could have faced deportation had they not gotten married.

“America’s for everyone. We’re a welcoming country, you know?” Dixon said. “Bring us your poor — what was that saying on the Statue of Liberty? That line? I’m all for that. But do it in a way that honors our country.”

WASHINGTON — Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that U.S. Border Patrol agents violated the Constitution when they stopped a car on a freeway near San Clemente because its occupants appeared to be “of Mexican ancestry.”

The 4th Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches, the justices said then, and a motorist’s “Mexican appearance” does not justify stopping them to ask about their immigration status.

But the court sounded a decidedly different note on Monday when it ruled for the Trump administration and cleared the way for stopping and questioning Latinos who may be here illegally. By a 6-3 vote, the justices set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.

“Apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “However, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors.”

Critics of the ruling said it had opened the door for authorizing racial and ethnic bias.

UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham called it “shocking and appalling. I don’t know of any recent decision like this that authorized racial discrimination.”

Arulanantham noted that Kavanaugh’s writings speak for the justice alone, and that the full court did not explain its ruling on a case that came through its emergency docket.

By contrast, he and others pointed out that the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prohibited the use of race or ethnicity as a factor in college admissions.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority in 2023. That decision struck down the affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

“Today, the Supreme Court took a step in a badly wrong direction,” Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor, wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “It makes no sense to conclude that racial and ethnic discrimination is generally unconstitutional, yet also that its use is ‘reasonable’ under the 4th Amendment.”

Reports had already emerged before the decision of ICE agents confronting U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents before they have been able to prove their status, compelling many to begin carrying documentation around at all times.

In New York on Monday, one man outside a federal court was pushed by ICE agents before being able to show them his identification. He was let go.

Asked by The Times to respond to increasing concern among U.S. citizens they could be swept up in expanded ICE raids as a result of the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that individuals should not be worried.

She added that immigration agents conduct targeted operations with the use of law enforcement intelligence.

“The Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s right to stop individuals in Los Angeles to briefly question them regarding their legal status, because the law allows this, and this has been the practice of the federal government for decades,” Leavitt said. “The Immigration and Nationality Act states that immigration officers can briefly stop an individual to question them about their immigration status, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. And reasonable suspicion is not just based on race — it’s based on a totality of the circumstances.”

On X, the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats responded to Leavitt’s comments, writing: “ICE has jailed U.S. citizens. The Trump Admin is defending racial profiling. Nobody is safe when ‘looking Hispanic’ is treated as probable cause.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent pointed out that nearly half of the residents of Greater Los Angeles are Latino and can speak Spanish.

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed because of their looks, their accents, and the fact that they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”

At issue in the case was the meaning of “reasonable suspicion.”

For decades, the court has said police and federal agents may stop and question someone if they see something specific that suggests they may be violating the law.

But the two sides disagreed over whether agents may stop people because they appear to be Latinos and work as day laborers, at car washes or other low-wage jobs.

President Trump’s lawyers as well as Kavanaugh said agents may make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” and that may include where people work as well as their ethnicity. They also pointed to the data that suggests about 10% of the people in the Los Angeles area are illegally in the United States.

Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, said that the legal standard of reasonable suspicion “has a group of factors you must take into consideration,” adding, “racial profiling is not happening at all.”

It is a “false narrative being pushed,” Homan told MSNBC in an interview, praising the Supreme Court decision. “We don’t arrest somebody or detain somebody without reasonable suspicion.”

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily kept in place the Trump administration’s decision to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid.

Roberts acted on the administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. President Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

The high court order is temporary, though it suggests the justices will reverse a lower court ruling that withholding the funding was probably illegal. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled last week that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a letter Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

He used what’s known as a pocket rescission. That’s when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of a current budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent.

The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings relative to the deficit and the possible damage to America’s reputation abroad as foreign populations lose access to food supplies and development programs. The administration turned to the high court after a panel of federal appellate judges declined to block Ali’s ruling.

Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that an additional $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

The case has been winding its way through the courts for months, and Ali said he understood that his ruling would not be the last word on the matter.

“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally appropriated funds,” he wrote.

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out an earlier injunction Ali had issued to require that the money be spent. But the three-judge panel did not shut down the lawsuit.

After Trump issued his rescission notice, the plaintiffs returned to Ali’s court and the judge issued the order that’s now being challenged.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

California’s top law enforcement official has weighed in on Monday‘s controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immigration enforcement.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta condemned the decision, which clears the way for immigration agents to stop and question people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally based solely on information such as their perceived race or place of employment.

Speaking at a news conference Monday in downtown L.A., Bonta said he agreed with claims the ACLU made in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. He called indiscriminate tactics used to make immigration arrests a violation of the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Bonta said he thinks it is unconstitutional “for ICE agents, federal immigration officers, to use race, the inability to speak English, location or perceived occupation to … stop and detain, search, seize Californians.”

He also decried what he described as the Supreme Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket, which he said often obscures the justices’ decision-making.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “And the emergency docket has been used more and more. You often don’t know who has voted and how. There’s no argument. There’s no written opinion.”

Bonta called Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s opinion “very disturbing.”

The Trump-appointed justice argued that because many people who do day labor in fields such as construction or farming, engagement in such work could be useful in helping immigrant agents determine which people to stop.

Bonta said the practice enables “the use of race to potentially discriminate,” saying “it is disturbing and it is troubling.”