tanks

Israeli tanks and heavy combat vehicles were filmed in Gaza on Friday, reportedly withdrawing from parts of the enclave as phase one of the ceasefire plan is set to take effect.

Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Tuesday as they pounded Gaza from the air and ground, as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York demanded an end to the two-year war.

Residential buildings continue to be flattened as Israel presses ahead with its plan to seize the enclave’s largest city.

Satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera shows Israeli army vehicles tightening a stranglehold around Gaza City, surrounding it from several directions. Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows tanks pushing into the Nassr neighbourhood, barely a kilometre from al-Shifa Hospital.

This destruction forms part of a pattern that a UN commission says amounts to genocide.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday warned that Israel’s military actions are “inflicting terror on the Palestinian population of Gaza City and forcing tens of thousands to flee”.

The suffering of Palestinians has drawn the attention of the global leaders, who have used the UNGA platform to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Addressing the UNGA, US President Donald Trump said that the Gaza war should stop “immediately” but dismissed the recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western countries, calling it a “reward” for Hamas.

The US president met leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on the sidelines of the UNGA. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the meeting was “very fruitful,” adding that a joint declaration from the meeting would be published.

‘Stuck under the rubble’

Israeli strikes have hit civilians across Gaza. One man was killed and others wounded in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, while another strike hit Palestinians queueing for water in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, sources told Al Jazeera.

Medical infrastructure is also being dismantled. Israeli shelling destroyed the main medical centre in Gaza City, injuring at least two medical workers, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

The charity said that troops prevented the evacuation of equipment and supplies, even as the facility served the wounded, cancer patients and blood donors. Other clinics in Tal al-Hawa and the Shati refugee camp have also been destroyed or besieged.

Hind Khoudary, reporting for Al Jazeera from az-Zawayda, described the devastation: “The situation continues to deteriorate, especially in the heart of Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been using artillery shelling and quadcopters to push more Palestinians to evacuate to the south and central areas.

“There have been endless appeals from Palestinian families saying their relatives are stuck under the rubble, but no one can reach them.”

No safe zones

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Gaza City have ended up in the central and southern areas of the enclave, which are under constant bombardment. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” of al-Mawasi has itself been attacked repeatedly, with health officials warning that it lacks the basic necessities of life, including water, food [and] health services, while disease spreads through overcrowded camps.

Experts say the forced movement is itself part of the machinery of genocide: driving families into displacement under fire and stripping them of shelter, food and dignity.

At Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, doctors report that three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces near the supposed safe zone further south. Three children died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, according to hospital sources.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that famine was under way in northern Gaza and would spread south. Gaza’s Ministry of Health warns that hospitals are now “entering an extremely dangerous phase” due to fuel shortages.

This collapse of health services and the deliberate obstruction of food and fuel deliveries has led to UN experts accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

West Bank under attack

While global attention remains fixed on the destruction in Gaza, events in the occupied West Bank may carry even deeper implications for the future of the conflict.

Israel has threatened to accelerate annexation plans in the West Bank in the wake of recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries, including France and the United Kingdom.

On the ground, violence has intensified. Armed settlers shot dead Saeed Murad al-Nasan in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Israeli forces raided multiple towns around Nablus and ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, the only gateway for goods and people between the West Bank and Jordan.

The tightening of settlements, killings and closure of borders are not isolated incidents. Together, they form part of what a UN report on Tuesday described as a systematic effort to secure permanent Israeli control over Gaza and entrench a Jewish majority in the West Bank.

It comes after a UN commission concluded last week that Israel’s policies – forced displacement, denial of return, destruction of infrastructure and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon – meet the legal definition of genocide.

A Ukrainian assault regiment said on Thursday that it is now using donated M-1 Abrams tanks. This would be the second Ukrainian unit to have received the tanks since they first started arriving in the country two years ago.

The 425th Assault Regiment Skala announced the arrival of the tanks on its Facebook page. Until now, the 47th Mechanized Brigade Magura was the only Ukrainian unit operating these tanks. Skala, deployed to the Pokrovsk region of eastern Ukraine, is fighting some of the toughest battles of the war.

All indications are that Skala is operating Abrams tanks donated by Australia, the first batch of which arrived in Ukraine in July. Of the 31 M1s donated by the U.S., at least 22 have been lost, according to the Oryx open source tracking group. The Abrams losses are likely even be higher, because Oryx only accounts for instances where there is visual proof.

As we reported last October, Australia announced it would provide Ukraine with 49 M1s, a significant boost for Kyiv’s armored units, as they continue to face down Russia’s full-scale invasion. Because the tanks were originally sold to Australia by the United States, Washington had to approve the transfer to Ukraine.

The Australian Army was able to give up its M1A1 fleet because it is receiving 75 new M1A2 Abrams, in the highly capable SEPv3 variant. You can read more about Australia’s $2.5-billion M1A2 acquisition here.

The Australian variants provided to Ukraine “slightly differ from the baseline vehicles,” the Ukrainian Militarnyi media outlet reported.

“They have been upgraded to the M1A1 AIM SA version and received a number of regional modifications to meet customer requirements,” the outlet noted. “These vehicles have a new armor package without depleted uranium. The AIM SA electronics package includes a digital fire control system, thermal imaging and communications equipment better than that of the basic M1A1, as well as a satellite navigation system.”

DU armor is classified and tightly export controlled. Export variants are not equipped with it. The U.S.-supplied Abrams had to be reworked to remove the classified DU armor. Australia’s M1s are export configuration without it by default. You can read read more about DU armor in one of our stories here.

In addition, “the gas turbine engines of the Australian tanks have been reconfigured to use diesel fuel instead of JP-8 aviation kerosene,” which is standard for tanks provided by the U.S., Miltarnyi added. “This should simplify logistics for the Ukrainian army, whose armored vehicles are also standardized for diesel.”

It is unknown yet if these tanks have actually made it to the battlefield. Skala’s video announcing the Abrams’ arrival uses archival video from the 47th Brigade, Militarnyi noted.

The utility of tanks on the drone-saturated battlefields of Ukraine has been questionable, given how vulnerable those on both sides of the fight have been, especially to the highly maneuverable first-person view drones. There were even unconfirmed reports that Ukraine temporarily withdrew its Abrams from the fight after losing so many.  You can see one such encounter in the video below.

Still, they have been playing a role in the fight for Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistics hub and part of a defensive belt of towns in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. That’s where Russia has expended large amounts of personnel and equipment to capture small segments of territory.

“Since late last year, [Ukrainian troops] have been receiving deliveries of refurbished German-made Leopard 1A5 tanks,” Radio Free Liberty reported in February. “Soldiers on the front lines say the updated vehicles are highly maneuverable and give them an edge on the battlefield.”

Leopard variants are still in the fight for Pokrovsk.

“A powerful Russian force numbering 100,000 troops is determined to capture Pokrovsk,” Euromaidan Press reported earlier this month. “But the town is heavily defended by drones, artillery, infantry and even a few Leopard 2A4 tanks belonging to the bad-luck 155th Mechanized Brigade.”

Last week, a video emerged on social media of one of those tanks obliterating a building where a Russian sabotage group was holding out.

It is unclear just how many Abrams Skala has received or how far along its troops are in the training process. However, given the tough fight in Pokrovsk, chances are we will soon see video emerging of these hulking armored weapons entering the fray.

Contact the author: [email protected]

At least 49 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, medical sources say, as the Israeli military has sent tanks into areas of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since Israel began its assault on the besieged territory in October 2023.

Israel on Monday launched the ground offensive on southern and eastern areas of the city that is packed with displaced Palestinians, a day after its military issued a forced displacement order for residents in the areas, forcing thousands of people to flee west towards the Mediterranean coast and south to Khan Younis.

Tank shelling in the area hit houses and mosques, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding several, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting local medics.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said gunfire was audible as Israeli tanks rolled into the area on Monday morning.

“We can see that the entire city is under Israeli attack,” he said. “We did not manage to sleep last night.”

“There has been an ongoing Israeli bombardment. Israeli jets, tanks and naval gunboats continue to strike multiple residential areas. Three more squares were destroyed in the city, and then residential houses were flattened.”

He said many Deir el-Balah residents fled using donkey carts and other modes of transport.

Israel intensifies attacks

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, an Israeli air strike killed at least five people, including a husband and wife and their two children, in a tent, medics said.

Among those reported killed since dawn on Monday were four aid seekers waiting for food near a distribution centre operated by the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Five other Palestinians were killed in a separate Israeli bombardment in Jabalia al-Balad in the north.

Earlier, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that its teams had recovered the body of one person and evacuated three wounded after an Israeli artillery strike on the nearby Jabalia al-Nazla area.

Drone strikes were reported in Gaza City, resulting in casualties, a source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

The previous day, at least 134 people were killed and 1,155 injured by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. At least 59,029 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began.

On Sunday, Gaza health authorities reported at least 19 people had starved to death in one day, highlighting the desperate situation under the Israeli aid blockade.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, the World Food Programme’s Palestine representative, Antoine Renard, said the United Nations agency has warned for “weeks” that Palestinians in Gaza are facing starvation.

“You have a level of despair that people are ready to risk their lives just to reach any of the assistance actually coming into Gaza,” Renard said from occupied East Jerusalem.

“[There’s a] soaring number of people facing malnutrition, and we can really see that the situation is really getting to levels that we’ve never seen ever before.”

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said it is receiving “desperate messages of starvation” from inside Gaza, including from its staff, as humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.

“The suffering in Gaza is manmade and must be stopped. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” UNRWA said in a statement posted on X.

Amjad Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Monday that 900,000 children are experiencing varying degrees of malnutrition in Gaza.

Twenty-five countries, including the United Kingdom, France and other European nations, issued a joint statement saying the war in Gaza “must end now” and Israel must comply with international law.

The foreign ministers of the 25 countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan, said “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”, and they condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the statement said.

“The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” it said.

July 14 (UPI) — France on Monday celebrated Bastille Day with the nation’s biggest holiday in the air and on the ground.

The parade in Paris included 7,000 people on horseback and tanks, axe-carrying French Legion troops, 102 warplanes and helicopters.

French President Emmanual Macron reviewed the French Army, Navy and Air Force along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysses and re-lit the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe. For the first time, there was included a prison dog, a Belgian Malinois shepherd, Gun, who specializes in weapons and ammunition detection.

At night, fireworks were lit at the Eiffel Tower at an expense of $817,000.

On July 14, 1789, nationals stormed the Bastille fortress and prison, which ignited the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy.

This year’s event returned to Champs-Elsees from Avenue Foch because of the Summer Olympics.

Gisele Pelicot, 72, was given France’s highest award of Bastille Day celebrations. Pelicot, who has fought against sexual violence, was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor. She was drugged and raped for nearly a decade by her husband, who was sentenced to prison in 2024 along with 50 other defendants.

Also, nearly 600 people were given a civic award, including musician Pharrell Williams.

The guest of honor was Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subitanto, who represents the world’s biggest Muslim country with more than 240 million, or 87% of the total population. Indonesia had 451 soldiers march in the parade, including a drum band of 189 musicians.

It marked 85 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Also, Finnish troops serving in the United Nations force in Lebanon, as well as those from Belgium and Luxembourg serving in the NATO force in Roman, participated.

Another special guest was Fousseynou Samba Cisse, who rescued six people, including two babies, from a burning apartment on the sixth floor earlier this month.

One day before Bastille Day, Macron announced $7.6 billion in additional military spending over two years amid new threats, including from Russia.

“Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,” Macron said. “We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.”

President Donald Trump was so impressed with Bastille Day in 2017 that he decided to conduct his own military celebration in Washington, D.C., this year on June 14.

June 9 (UPI) — Preparations are still underway for a military parade Saturday in Washington, D.C., celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary.

The event is projected to cost $45 million and possibly higher because of possible road damage that could happen because of heavy military equipment.

Construction workers this week have been erecting a stage along Constitution Avenue near the White House. Steel plates have been embedded in the asphalt to protect damage from 140,000-pound Abrams tanks.

Saturday also is Flag Day and President Donald Trump‘s 79th birthday.

The parade will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., followed by the Army Golden Knights’ parachute demonstration and a concert at the Ellipse. A fireworks show will occur at 9:45 p.m., the U.S. Army said.

All of the activities are free. Registration for the festival and parade is available through America250’s event registration portal.

The parade will include 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles and 50 aircraft going from the Pentagon to the Washington Monument. Around 200,000 spectators are expected to watch the parade, including Army personnel wearing uniforms representing every U.S. conflict dating back to the Revolutionary War.

About 1,800 Soldiers from III Armored Corps in Fort Cavazos will participate.

This week, vehicles have been arriving by train from Texas.

“The Army’s 250th birthday is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Col. Kamil Sztalkoper, a spokesperson for the III Armored Corps, said earlier this week as one of the trains left Fort Cavazos, Texas. “This is a chance to see our soldiers, our leaders and the world-class force on full display in our nation’s capital. We look forward to being a part of history.”

A list and photos of military equipment is available on the Army website.

The parade starts at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue North and travels down Constitution Avenue along the National Mall, ending at 15th Street and Constitution Avenue Northwest, the U.S. Army said.

WTOP reported there will be several road closures.

D.C. officials have expressed concern about potential road damage from the vehicles, including 60-ton tanks.

Army has installed thick steel plates at key turns but straightaway on Constitution Avenue remain unprotected.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said potential damage could cost millions but the Army has pledged to cover the costs.

During his first presidency, President Trump asked the Pentagon to organize a military parade in the capital after he watched the French Bastille Day military parade in France in 2017. But Pentagon personnel convinced him then not to move forward with plans.

Instead in 2019, he celebrated Independence Day with a speech at the Lincoln Memorial with military planes’ flyovers. Two Bradley fighting vehicles also were at the Lincoln Memorial.

“I think it’s time for us to celebrate a little bit,” Trump said Monday. “You know we’ve had a lot of victories.”

The White House estimates the parade will cost between $25 million and $45 million.

Besides the parade, concert and fireworks, there will be a fitness competition at 9:30 a.m. and a festival beginning at 11 a.m. that includes an NFL kids zone and military demonstrations, along with other activities.

Flights to and from Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., will be suspended for 90 minutes during the military parade.

June 7 (UPI) — The U.S. Army celebrates its 250th birthday on June 14th in the nation’s capital, which coincides with President Donald Trump‘s 79th birthday, and will be marked by a parade that may include tanks, rocket launchers and more than 100 military vehicles.

With the two birthdays occurring on the same day, the previously scheduled parade that was intended as a relatively small event at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., has grown in size and cost.

Up to 300 soldiers and civilians, the U.S. Army Band and four cannons were initially slated to honor the Army’s 250th birthday, with seating available for 120 attendees, The Washington Post reported.

U.S. Army leaders last year sought a permit for the event, but Trump’s election victory has changed its scope, while doubling as an unofficial celebration of the president’s birthday.

Axios reported the parade will live up to Trump’s request for a showcase the U.S. miliatary’s might, with dozens of tanks, rocket launchers, missiles and more than 100 other military aircraft and vehicles participating.

About 6,600 Army troops will participate, and the Army is paying to house them in area hotels.

The parade route has been moved to the northwest portion of Constitution Avenue and will include a flyover of F-22 fighter jets, World War II planes and Vietnam-era aircraft.

The event is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. EDT at 23rd Street and continue along Constitution Avenue N.W. to 15th Street. Trump will review the parade on the Ellipse.

The event has an estimated cost of nearly $45 million, including more than $10 million for road repairs after the heavy military equipment passes over.

The parade’s estimated cost has Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., skeptical about its benefits.

“I would have recommended against the parade,” Wicker told an interviewer on Thursday, but the Department of Defense wants to use it as a recruiting tool.

“On the other hand, [Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth] feels that it will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for thousands of young Americans to see what a great opportunity it is to participate in a great military force,” Wicker said. “So, we’ll see.”

THIS is the shocking moment a massive explosion shook a chemical plant in eastern China’s Shandong province.

Terrifying footage shows the moment of the eruption at the Gaomi Youdao Chemical plant in the city of Weifang at around midday local time.

3

3

Images show the roaring inferno followed by billows of black smoke rising high into the sky.

Emergency Services sent more than 230 firefighters and 55 vehicles to the scene to try and bring the blaze caused by the explosion under control.

The explosion killed at least five people while 19 are reportedly injured, according to local emergency management authorities.

A further six people are currently missing.

A local resident told the The Associated Press news agency that his home – located than 7km (4.3 miles) from the plant – shook from the impact of the explosion.

The plant manufactures pesticides as well as chemicals for medical use, and has more than 500 employees, according to corporate registration records.

Local fire officials sent more than 230 personnel to the scene, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.

Workplace safety has improved over the years in China but remains a stubborn problem.

The National Ministry of Emergency Management recorded 21,800 incidents and 19,600 deaths in 2024.

A recent spate of such accidents has prompted calls from President Xi Jinping for “deep reflection” and greater efforts to stop them.

Last month, at least 15 people were killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in the eastern city of Nanjing.

In January, dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the “illegal” use of fire by workers in the store’s basement.

That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory.

Domestic media reports suggested the fire was caused by an electric heating device.

Meanwhile, a deadly explosion ripped through a fried chicken shop in northern China, killing two people and injuring 26 more last year.

Shops, homes, and cars were completely destroyed in the horror blast, which is believed to have been caused by a gas leak, according to state reported at the time.

3

SACRAMENTO — Few Californians have played a bigger role in turning the state Legislature to the right than two Orange County millionaires–conservative Christian Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. and his ally in politics, Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt.

Democrats denounce their millions in campaign donations. Advocates of campaign spending limits decry the sway their money has on elections.

But far more quietly, away from the headlines that large political contributions attract, the two millionaires have taken a parallel track, spreading their influence still further by spending millions on conservative think tanks and tax-exempt lobby groups that advance their goals.

Increasingly, these organizations incubate and shape Republican thought in Sacramento and frame public debate on issues from taxes and environmental law to gay rights, abortion, school vouchers and affirmative action.

Republican lawmakers, many of whom won office with help from Hurtt’s and Ahmanson’s money, often look to these groups for recommendations about positions to take, even what legislation to carry. Lawmakers tap the groups for staff and advisors, and, in revolving door fashion, the think tanks provide jobs for former legislative staffers and out-of-work politicians.

“They’re developing the ideas, and we’re trying to put bills through [the Legislature] based on those ideas,” Hurtt, of Garden Grove, said in an interview.

In the 1990s, Hurtt and Ahmanson have spent a combined $7.1 million on state campaigns, making them among the largest donors in state politics. Their money has helped elect 26 of 41 Assembly Republicans and seven of 16 Senate Republicans.

Unlike campaign spending, which by law must be publicly disclosed, there is no requirement that donations to private groups be reported. That’s why Ahmanson’s and Hurtt’s spending on policy institutes has gone largely unnoticed.

But since entering the political arena less than a decade ago, Ahmanson has spent more than $3.1 million and Hurtt at least $1.3 million on think tanks and conservative lobbying groups, interviews and tax records of the groups show.

“Hurtt’s money and Ahmanson’s play an agenda-setting role,” said author Sara Diamond, a Berkeley sociologist who writes extensively about conservative Christians. “This is really the genius of the New Right. You don’t wait for an election to come around. A better way to influence policy is to finance think tanks. They create interest and a demand” in issues.

*

Some think tanks that receive money from Ahmanson and, to a lesser extent, Hurtt, have a libertarian bent and advocate free-market prescriptions for society’s ills. Others are Bible-based and battle for “traditional family values.” For the most part, they produce writings light on statistical proof and heavy on opinion, which makes some people question the legitimacy of their credentials as researchers.

“Many of these organizations are adversarial in nature, explicitly so,” said Jess Cook of the research-oriented Rand Corp. of Santa Monica, which receives no money from Ahmanson or Hurtt. “That’s the growth sector in the think tank industry in recent years. They’re not doing fact-based research. They’re advocating a certain point of view.”

One of the biggest beneficiaries of Hurtt’s and Ahmanson’s largess is the Christian-based Capitol Resource Institute, which they founded in 1987 to organize abortion foes in Sacramento. Some of its newest goals: pushing a measure to deny recognition of same-sex marriage and junking the state’s no-fault divorce law, making it harder to dissolve a marriage.

These policy institutes try to be at the fore of the hottest issues in state politics–attacking welfare, affirmative action, public schools, public employee unions, taxes, environmental law. Opposition to abortion and gay rights are recurrent themes.

“I would not propose we have policemen battering down people’s doors to see what they’re doing in the bedroom,” said Larry Arnn, president of the Claremont Institute, which received $185,000 from Ahmanson last year and lesser sums from Hurtt. “But I wouldn’t have [gay] rights recognized, because I don’t think they are rights. They fit into a different class than protections for blacks and women. We think it’s wrong. It’s a violation of natural law.”

The groups funded by Hurtt and Ahmanson are nonprofit and exempt from income taxes. In exchange for tax breaks, they must limit their lobbying. But through their position papers, guest columns in newspapers, radio broadcasts and newsletters, their reach extends from the grass-roots to the governor’s office.

“We have to make the constituency aware of what’s going on on a timely basis. The key there is timely,” Hurtt said. “It’s a total education. If people want to get involved, they let them know, ‘Here’s how you can do it.’ ”

One of the Legislature’s biggest boosters of think tanks is state Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside). A leading abortion opponent, Haynes won an Assembly seat in 1992 and a Senate seat in 1994 with $512,000 from Hurtt and a political action committee Hurtt and Ahmanson helped found. As a legislator, Haynes has carried bills sponsored by think tanks, and hired an aide from Capitol Resource.

“You know what your principles are. You know which way you want to go. But sometimes you get lost. These think tanks keep your compass straight,” Haynes said.

Haynes sits on the board of directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Funded by conservative foundations, pro-gun groups and corporations, including pharmaceutical manufacturers and tobacco companies, the council distributes volumes of “model” legislation to lawmakers around the country.

In California last year, legislators introduced 40 of the group’s bills. Topics ranged from limits on gun control and litigation to restrictions on unions, welfare and obscenity. Some bills cleared the Assembly, where the GOP has a majority. One, a bill to increase prison terms, cleared the Democrat-controlled Senate and was signed into law.

When he became active in the council, Haynes concluded that its education and welfare proposals were outdated. So earlier this year, he asked Ahmanson to fund research in the areas. Ahmanson responded by giving the group $80,000.

Hurtt, Ahmanson and Ahmanson’s wife, Roberta Green Ahmanson, have said in past public statements that their political involvement is driven by their moral concerns. Ahmanson is a Calvinist, following the teachings and stern moral code of the 16th Century theologian John Calvin. He funds his philanthropy from the fortune left him by his father, Howard F. Ahmanson Sr., founder of Home Savings & Loan. Hurtt, an evangelical Christian, has accumulated his wealth since taking over his family’s Garden Grove manufacturing plant, Container Supply Co.

The Ahmansons refused to be interviewed about their political activities. But they did write to The Times to say their political involvement constitutes a “very small part of the total that we do, and it exists only to protect our private charitable efforts.”

The Ahmansons fund many nonpolitical causes, from a USC professor’s research into oppression of Armenians to international efforts to protect Christians from religious persecution. Ahmanson has given the Orange County Rescue Mission more than $1 million.

“Our primary motive is to serve God by doing what we can to make life better for as many as we can,” the Ahmansons wrote.

*

Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) contends that when Democrats controlled the Assembly, lower-house staff researchers amounted to a Democratic think tank. As a result, Pringle says, conservatives turned to outside groups for policy ideas.

Since becoming speaker in January, Pringle has tapped three groups that receive Ahmanson’s money–Reason Foundation of Santa Monica, Pacific Research Institute of San Francisco and Claremont Institute–for appointees to state advisory commissions on transportation, education and the California Constitution.

Claremont is among the most influential California think tanks. Its staff includes former television commentator Bruce Herschensohn, hired after his failed run for U.S. Senate in 1992. Its major donors include Los Angeles industrialist Henry Salvatori, who was part of President Reagan’s kitchen cabinet, conservative foundations and corporations such as Philip Morris and Union Petroleum.

Ahmanson became one of the largest donors to Claremont in the 1990s, giving $721,000. He and his wife are on Claremont’s board, along with others, including Orange County GOP Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes; Tom Silver, chief of staff to Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich; and television personality Pat Sajak.

Ahmanson’s money helps pay for Claremont’s Sacramento office. Located across from the Capitol, Claremont’s Golden State Center’s staff includes former Assembly Republican Tom McClintock. He joined Claremont after he lost his 1994 run for controller; he currently is running for a San Fernando Valley Assembly seat, and has received campaign money from Ahmanson’s political action committee.

McClintock envisions Claremont one day having as much influence in Sacramento as the Heritage Foundation has in Washington. It’s already a player. Republican lawmakers cite McClintock’s papers calling for dramatic cuts in the state budget. Claremont helped organize parts of Gov. Pete Wilson’s recent conference on welfare and the importance of fathers.

In his first appointments after becoming speaker, Pringle named Claremont’s Arnn and a second Claremont fellow to the California Constitutional Revision Commission, which is drafting changes to the state Constitution.

In making the appointment, Pringle cited Arnn’s academic background, which includes a focus on the founding principles of the United States. Arnn also makes forays into politics. With funding from Ahmanson, Hurtt and their allies, Arnn ran for Congress in 1992, but lost the primary to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside). Currently, Arnn is a co-chairman of the November initiative to end affirmative action in government.

Through position papers and books, Claremont advocates applying the nation’s founding principles to current problems. Claremont papers conclude the state would be better off with free-market economics, fewer government restrictions on business and lower taxes. Its tracts also oppose gay rights, pornography and abortion.

Hurtt, who gives Claremont $1,000 a month and hired a Claremont researcher to be one of his state budget analysts, predicts that if the GOP gains control of the Senate, as it has in the Assembly, Claremont’s many writings “will give us the ammo” for legislation.

While corporations fund free-market think tanks, they rarely give to Bible-based groups. Not so Hurtt and Ahmanson. They have helped several Christian groups. One is Capitol Resource Institute. Ahmanson has given $490,000, though he no longer is a donor. Hurtt has given the group $920,000 and hired his chief of staff and press secretary from the group.

These days, some Capitol Resource projects are about as controversial as apple pie, such as 30-second public service television spots airing statewide that champion the role of fathers. But it also is behind one of the most emotional bills of the year, a measure to deny recognition of same-sex marriages sanctioned by other states.

Capitol Resource Director Michael Bowman, a former aide to Sen. Haynes, said he believes gay advocates’ efforts to win approval of same-sex marriage is “a way for homosexuals to attack the church.”

Next year, the group hopes to start what Bowman calls “a cultural debate on divorce” by sponsoring legislation to make divorce harder to obtain and ending the “no-fault” divorce system.

*

On his own, Ahmanson is the major financial backer of one of the Christian right’s most controversial theologians, Rousas John Rushdoony, giving Rushdoony’s think tank, Chalcedon, $733,000 in the past decade.

Rushdoony is an 80-year-old Calvinist who has a small parish and Christian school outside Angel’s Camp in the Sierra foothills. For several years, Ahmanson was a trustee of Chalcedon. From 1975 to 1983, Ahmanson frequently visited Rushdoony and leased a home nearby, Rushdoony said.

“He was essentially relying on me [spiritually],” Rushdoony said.

A prolific author, Rushdoony contends Christianity should apply to all aspects of life and that government’s role should be minor. Individuals, charities and churches should take over most–if not all–responsibility for welfare, for example, and Rushdoony long has been a proponent of home- and church-schooling.

Rushdoony is a soft-spoken man whose living room is filled with stacks of religious, political and popular books. Many of his views seem extreme.

In Rushdoony’s magnum opus, “The Institutes of Biblical Law,” he contends the Holocaust death toll of 6 million Jews is vastly inflated and that experts who cite that figure commit the biblical sin of bearing false witness.

“The evils [of the Nazis] were all too real: Even greater is the evil of bearing false witness concerning them, because that false witness will produce an even more vicious reality in the next upheaval,” Rushdoony writes. The Anti-Defamation League called Rushdoony’s comments “a striking addition to the canons of Nazi apology.”

In his tome, Rushdoony also contends that God, through the Bible, authorizes the death penalty for 18 sins. On the list is murder, rape of a betrothed virgin, adultery, promiscuity by unwed women, homosexuality, sodomy, striking or cursing a parent, habitual criminality, blasphemy and bearing false witness.

“The hostility to the death penalty is humanism’s hostility to God’s law,” Rushdoony writes. “But God’s government prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them.”

Rushdoony says he does not seek to impose biblical law, at least not until the majority of people adhere to biblical law. Rather, he is a commentator on what the Bible requires, and a “Christian libertarian.”

“It’s my duty to set forth God’s requirements,” Rushdoony said. “Then each man is going to bear the responsibility for the stand he takes.”

Rushdoony has gotten involved in secular pursuits, helping, for example, political consultant Wayne Johnson get his start in the early 1980s by recommending that a friend, then-state Sen. H.L. Richardson (R-Arcadia), hire Johnson. Johnson, a Chalcedon trustee, has run campaigns for several Republicans in Congress and the Legislature, including ones funded by Ahmanson and Hurtt.

Despite his profession, Johnson, like Rushdoony, has little faith that politicians can change society. Rather, he seeks to assist candidates who “won’t padlock the churches.” Said Johnson: “The state should get out of the way and let the church do its work.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Influence and the Issues

Since 1987, Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. has contributed at least $3.1 million to various conservative think tanks and tax-exempt lobby groups. Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove has given $1.3 million. Here are some of the groups:

FREE MARKET ADVOCATES

* Reason Foundation, Santa Monica, and Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco: Ahmanson agrees with these groups that public schools are failing. He donated $400,000 to promote passage of the 1993 school voucher initiative and was attracted to these groups because they advocate tax-funded vouchers for private school tuition. Most recently, Ahmanson gave $97,000 to the Reason Foundation to fund reports that were critical of teachers unions and that contended private schools can do a better job of educating children with physical and emotional problems. Gov. Pete Wilson has used the groups’ research for his proposals to turn some government functions over to private enterprise. He and Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) have appointed researchers from both groups to advisory commissions. Ahmanson has donated $138,000 to Reason and $30,000 to Pacific Research.

BIBLE-BASED GROUPS

* Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, Colo.: A leader in the traditional family values movement. Hurtt says Focus’ founder, psychologist James C. Dobson, inspired him to get involved in politics. In the late 1980s, Ahmanson gave Focus $279,212 and Hurtt gave $250,305. Hurtt says he continues to give.

* Capitol Resource Institute, Sacramento: One of 32 “family policy councils” affiliated with Focus on the Family; founded by Hurtt and Ahmanson in 1987 as a gathering place for antiabortion forces. Ahmanson has donated $490,000, though he no longer contributes. Hurtt, who has given more than $920,000, says he is scaling back contributions to $5,500 per month.

* Traditional Values Coalition, Anaheim: Run by the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, a vocal opponent of abortion, gay rights and other issues in Sacramento and Washington. Hurtt and Ahmanson each started giving $10,000 to $20,000 per year in the mid-1980s. In 1990 and 1992, Ahmanson gave $35,000 to help mail voter guides to 8,000 churches statewide. But Hurtt and Ahmanson have not donated in recent years. Sheldon’s mailing list stands at roughly 100,000 potential donors and raises money with regular appeals.

THE LAW

* Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom, Sacramento: Formerly based in Capitol Resource Institute office; provided legal defense for Operation Rescue’s antiabortion protesters. Ahmanson gave $56,500. Hurtt gave $10,000 to fund a suit by former Los Angeles Assistant Police Chief Robert Vernon, who said he was a victim of discrimination by the city of Los Angeles because of his Christian beliefs. Founder David Llewellyn, dean of Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Anaheim, describes Ahmanson as a “substantial” donor. School’s brochure describes its goal as “building a new generation of Christian lawyers.”

NATIONAL GROUPS

* Free Congress Foundation, Virginia: To compete with liberal think tanks in Washington, conservative strategist Paul Weyrich in the 1970s helped found Heritage Foundation–one of the most influential think tanks in Washington–American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Free Congress Foundation, which he still operates. Ahmanson gives about $30,000 a year to Free Congress for Weyrich’s National Empowerment Television, a cable network offering conservative and religious perspectives on current events. “No one could possibly understand my politics without understanding my spiritual point of view,” Weyrich said. “Separation of church and state is artificial.”

* National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, Cincinnati: Formerly known as the National Coalition Against Pornography, the group battles obscenity and child pornography, and helps lobby against adult businesses. It has received substantial funding from Focus on the Family. Ahmanson’s wife, Roberta Green Ahmanson, served on its board. Ahmanson has given $1.2 million; Hurtt, $22,500.

Sources: Tax records of the various groups, Times reports; researched by DAN MORAIN/Los Angeles Times