“I feel like this is going to be so powerful for all of the United States because there shouldn’t be disasters that are preventable,” Pratt, who lost his home during the fire, told reporters.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said the main goal of the investigation is to figure out why the fire happened, why the state and local governments were unable to prevent it and how officials are helping the victims recover.
“We are going to get answers,” Scott said. “We are going to do everything we can to help the victim and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
The congressional investigation, which launched on Monday, is focused only on the Palisades fire, but Scott said the probe could expand to other destructive fires that have taken place in Los Angeles County.
“We are going to start with this,” Scott said. “We’ll just let the facts take us where they are.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has welcomed the congressional investigation. At the news conference, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin warned that if officials fail to cooperate, the panel is ready to issue subpoenas to compel them to do so.
“We don’t want to use it and we hope we don’t have to,” Johnson said. “It is a good sign Gov. Newsom is willing to do so, and that’s the best way of doing it. But if they don’t, you’ve always got that backstop of compelling testimony, compelling documents, and that’s what we’ll do if we have to.”
“But I don’t think we will have to, quite honestly,” he added.
Two Tribes was the well-backed winner of the Stewards’ Cup at Glorious Goodwood as he claimed his second victory in a week.
The 11-2 chance, ridden by David Egan for trainer Richard Spencer, had been as big as 18-1 on Friday.
Named after the Frankie Goes to Hollywood 1980s hit by owner Phil Cunningham, Two Tribes had won the International Handicap at Ascot seven days earlier.
Drawn 25 of the 27 runners at Goodwood, he swept clear to triumph by two and a half lengths from Strike Red, with Jakajaro in third.
“He actually did it easier there than he did in the International. Not many horses can do a quick double like that,” said Egan, who punched the air after crossing the finishing line.
Spencer also had the fourth and fifth-placed finishers – Run Boy Run and Twilight Calls.
Earlier, Callum Rodriguez rode the Owen Burrows-trained filly Waardah to victory in the Lillie Langtry Stakes.
It was a good end to the five-day meeting for Rodriguez, who was one of five jockeys to miss rides on Thursday after a private plane taking them to Goodwood had to make an emergency landing.
“It was a messy start to the week, but we made sure that we were on four wheels today,” said Rodriguez.
Oisin Murphy was the five-day meeting’s leading jockey with six wins.
Spencer joined Bath in 2020 after nine years with Saracens where he won seven major trophies – including four Premiership titles – through the London club’s era of dominance.
The 32-year-old was made captain in 2022-23 as head of rugby Johann van Graan’s tenure at Bath began, just months after the club had finished bottom of the league the season before.
“The amount of hard work this has taken to turn the ship around… we were bottom three years ago,” added Spencer.
“I can’t credit [Van Graan] enough, he’s been absolutely brilliant. If we [understand] there’s always an opportunity to get better then I’m really excited for the next couple of years.”
Bath narrowly lost to Northampton in the Twickenham showpiece last June but were overwhelming favourites this time around.
They ended the regular league campaign 11 points clear at the top of the table and wrapped up top spot and a home semi-final in the play-offs with three rounds of games still to play.
Scrum-half Spencer said he mainly felt “relief” at the final whistle because of the prolonged build-up.
“To get the mindset right when you qualify early as we did is quite tough,” he said.
“I played that semi-final in my head hundreds of times. Day in, day out it was, ‘who are we going to get?’ It’s a hard place to be mentally.
“It’s relief for me, the players, staff and fans.”
PALM DESERT — They came to the baking desert to honor one of their own, a political professional, a legend and a throwback to a time when gatherings like this one — a companionable assembly of Republicans, Democrats and the odd newspaper columnist — weren’t such a rare and noteworthy thing.
They came to Palm Desert on a 98-degree spring day to do the things that political pros do when they gather: drink and laugh and swap stories of campaigns and elections past.
And they showed, with their affection and goodwill and mutual regard, how much the world, and the world of politics, have changed.
“This is how politics used to be,” Democrat Harvey Englander said after sidling up to Republican Joel Fox. The two met through their work with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a spawn of the Proposition 13 taxpayer revolt, circa 1978.
“We had different views of how government should work,” Englander said as Fox nodded his assent. “But we agreed government should work.”
Spencer was a campaign strategist and master tactician who helped usher into office generations of GOP leaders, foremost among them Ronald Reagan. The former president and California governor was a Hollywood has-been until Spencer came along and turned him into something compelling and new, something they called a “citizen-politician.”
Hanging, inevitably, over the weekend’s celebration was the current occupant of the Oval Office, a boiling black cloud compared to the radiant and sunshiny Reagan. Spencer was no fan of Donald Trump, and he let it be known.
“A demagogue and opportunist,” he called him, chafing, in particular, at Trump’s comparisons of himself to Reagan.
“He would be sick,” Spencer said, guessing the recoil the nation’s 40th president would have had if he’d witnessed the crass and corrupt behavior of the 45th and 47th one.
Many of those at the weekend event are similarly out of step with today’s Republican Party and, especially, Trump’s bomb-the-opposition-to-rubble approach to politics. But most preferred not to express those sentiments for the record.
George Steffes, who served as Reagan’s legislative director in Sacramento, allowed as how the loudly and proudly uncouth Trump was “180 degrees” from the politely mannered Reagan. In five years, Steffes said, he never once heard the governor raise his voice, belittle a person or “treat a human being with anything but respect.”
Fox, with a seeming touch of wounded pride, suggested Trump could use “some pushback from some of the ‘old thinking’ of the Stu Spencer/Ronald Reagan era.”
A flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in Spencer’s honor was displayed at his memorial celebration, along with White House schedules from the 1984 campaign.
(H.D. Palmer)
Behind them, playing on a big-screen TV, were images from Spencer’s filled-to-the-bursting life.
Old black-and-white snapshots — an apple-cheeked Navy sailor, a little boy — alternated with photographs of Spencer smiling alongside Reagan and President Ford, standing with Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush, appearing next to Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Wilson, a spry 91, was among the 150 or so who turned out to remember Spencer. He was given a place of honor, seated with his wife, Gayle, directly in front of the podium.)
In a brief presentation, Spencer’s son, Steve, remembered his father as someone who emphasized caring and compassion, as well as hard work and the importance of holding fast to one’s principles. “Pop’s word,” he said, “was gold.”
Spencer’s grandson, Sam, a Republican political consultant in Washington, choked up as he recounted how “Papa Stu” not only helped make history but never stinted on his family, driving four hours to attend Sam’s 45-minute soccer games and staying up well past bedtime to get after-action reports on his grandson’s campaigns.
Stu Spencer, he said, was a voracious reader and owned “one of the greatest political minds in history.”
Outside the golf resort, a stiff wind kicked up, ruffling the palm trees and sending small waves across a water hazard on the 18th green — an obvious metaphor for these blustery and unsettled times.
Fred Karger first met Spencer in 1976 when his partner, Bill Roberts, hired Karger to work on an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign. (In 2012, Karger made history as the first out gay major-party candidate to run for president.)
He no longer recognizes the political party he dedicated his life to. “It’s the Trump-publican Party,” Karger said. “It’s no longer the Republican Party.”
But politics are cyclical, he went on, and surely Trump and his MAGA movement will run their course and the GOP will return to the days when Reagan’s optimism and Spencer’s less-hateful campaign style return to fashion.
His gripped his white wine like a potion, delivering hope. “Don’t you think?”
An MP has been charged with two counts of sexual assault that allegedly took place at London’s Groucho Club, the Metropolitan Police have said.
Central Suffolk and North Ipswich Conservative MP Patrick Spencer is accused of the attacks in August 2023 – before he was elected.
The 37-year-old will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 June.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had authorised charges relating to “two alleged incidents involving two separate women” at the private members’ club.
“On 13 March 2025, a man attended a voluntary interview at a London police station,” the Met Police said.
“Patrick Spencer has since been charged with two counts of sexual assault and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 16 June.”
‘Evidence review’
On his website, Spencer says he lives in Suffolk with his family.
He was not an MP at the time of the alleged attacks, having been elected to parliament in July 2024.
Frank Ferguson, head of the special crime and counter terrorism division at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “Following a review of the evidence provided by the Metropolitan Police Service, we have authorised two counts of sexual assault against Patrick Spencer MP.
“The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two separate women at the Groucho Club in central London in August 2023.”
A Conservative Party spokesman confirmed that Spencer had been suspended.
He said in a statement that the party “believes in integrity and high standards”.
“We have taken immediate action,” the spokesman said.
“Patrick Spencer MP has been suspended from the Conservative Party, and the whip withdrawn, with immediate effect.
“The Conservative Party cannot comment further on an ongoing legal case.”
It is understood that Spencer was asked not to attend the parliamentary estate by the Tories’ chief whip while police carried out their investigation.
‘Moral probity’
Spencer was elected as the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich in July 2024 with a majority of 4,290.
Before he entered the Commons, he worked in finance for the private equity firm IPGL, a company chaired by his father, former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer.
He later took a job at the Centre for Social Justice think tank and then became a senior adviser at the Department for Education.
Spencer made his maiden speech in July during a debate on the MPs’ code of conduct relating to second jobs.
He said then that the “most important thing to the people across my constituency” was “restoring a sense of moral probity and public spiritedness to our political system”.
