term

Diving into the stock market can be an excellent way to build lasting wealth. One type of stock that you may find appealing is dividend stocks. A study conducted by Hartford Funds found that, over a 50-year period, dividend stocks consistently outperformed non-dividend payers with lower volatility.

Dividend Kings are companies that have consistently increased their dividends for 50 years or longer. These stalwarts have earned the trust of their shareholders and consistently demonstrated a proven ability to grow payouts year after year, regardless of the economic conditions.

If you’re looking to boost your portfolio with a passive income component and seek steady returns, here are three dividend stocks that could make excellent additions today.

Image source: Getty Images.

Federal Realty Investment Trust

Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT -0.59%) operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT). It specializes in high-quality retail-based properties, which include shopping centers and mixed-use properties. As a REIT, Federal Realty is required to distribute 90% of its taxable income to shareholders, making it a popular choice among dividend investors.

Federal Realty holds the distinction of being the only REIT to earn Dividend King status, having raised its payout for 57 consecutive years. This impressive streak is a testament to its diversified holdings and strong balance sheet in what can be a volatile real estate market.

The REIT primarily invests in real estate regions characterized by high population density and affluent populations. This approach helps insulate it from changing economic conditions, as more affluent households can be resilient in the face of recessions or inflation in the economy. With a strong business and robust development pipeline supported by steady funds from operations growth, Federal Realty is a quality dividend stock to consider buying today.

Cincinnati Financial

Cincinnati Financial (CINF 0.06%) provides property and casualty (P&C) insurance to corporate and individual customers. It’s one of the top 25 largest P&C insurers in the United States.

In the insurance industry, underwriting profitable policies is the name of the game. Insurers like Cincinnati Financial operate in a highly competitive environment, so accurately assessing risk and pricing policies is crucial.

Over the past five years, Cincinnati Financial’s combined ratio has averaged a solid 94.6%. This means that for every $100 in premiums it writes, it has generated roughly $5 in profit. In the highly competitive insurance industry, the combined ratio tends to average around 100%, so consistently generating an underwriting profit is key to sustainable, long-term growth.

Cincinnati Financial boasts an impressive history of raising its annual cash dividend over the past 65 years. Only seven companies can boast a longer streak. Its long track record is a testament to its sound underwriting and stellar capital management. With a conservative dividend payout ratio of 29%, Cincinnati Financial is well-positioned to keep rewarding investors with a growing dividend.

S&P Global

S&P Global (SPGI -0.03%) provides credit ratings to entities that issue debt worldwide and serves an important role in financial markets. As a credit rating agency, it provides opinions about credit risk and the ability and willingness of entities to meet their financial obligations. Investors rely on these opinions on credit quality to help manage risk.

The company also owns the S&P 500 index (in a joint venture with CME Group), along with a variety of other index benchmarks used by professional investors. Finally, it provides data and analytics, such as through its Capital IQ Pro platform, which offers another stream of cash flow that’s uncorrelated with credit ratings.

S&P Global enjoys a robust 50% share of the credit ratings market, giving it a strong competitive advantage, especially considering the importance of credit ratings for the global economy. With its stable and diverse business model and strong balance sheet, S&P Global has grown its dividend payout for 52 consecutive years and has a solid platform to keep this streak going.

One of the hottest stocks this year has been Opendoor (OPEN 4.30%), which is up more than 500% year to date as of this writing. The stock recently shot up nearly 80% in one day after the company announced both a new CEO and that its co-founders were returning to take seats on its board of directors.

However, the stock’s meteoric rise this year is not because of the strength of its business or signs of a turnaround. In fact, the stock saw its share price actually cut in half earlier this year before hedge fund manager Eric Jackson of EMJ Capital started hyping the stock on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in July, saying it had the potential to be a 100-bagger. Others then piled in, with influential newsletter writer and podcaster Anthony Pompliano also promoting the stock. Essentially, it’s become a meme stock.

With a high short interest and retail investors jumping in, the stock skyrocketed despite poor results.

A struggling business

Opendoor is essentially a company that flips houses. It uses a proprietary algorithm to act as an instant buyer of homes, making all-cash offers to sellers. While the company typically offers somewhat lower amounts than what a home is worth, the allure for sellers is that it’s a quick sale, and they can avoid the hassle of things like house showings and open houses.

The company makes money in two primary ways. The first revenue stream is through flipping the house, where it makes repairs and then sells it at a higher price. It charges a service fee, which it says is akin to a realtor’s commission. It’s also been working to expand its business into a more comprehensive platform, offering services such as mortgage services and title insurance.

The biggest issue with Opendoor’s business model is that the company takes on significant inventory risk. Once it buys a home, it owns the home. These things aren’t cheap. This process exposes Opendoor to losses if a house sits too long, since it has to pay real estate taxes and other costs like utilities. Meanwhile, home prices can also fall. The model can work in a rising price environment, but in a tough real estate environment, it can be challenging.

Profits have been tough to come by for the company, although last quarter it was able to squeeze out its first quarter of EBITDA profitability in three years. Its revenue climbed 4% to $1.6 billion, as it sold 4,299 homes, up 5%.

This is a low-gross-margin business, and gross margins slipped by 30 basis points to 8.2%. It recorded a net loss of $29 million in the quarter, but positive adjusted EBITDA of $23 million.

However, the company offered up a cautious outlook going forward due to what it called a deteriorating housing market. It said consistently high mortgage rates are leading to less buyer demand, resulting in both fewer acquisitions and lower resale volumes. The company only purchased 1,757 homes in the second quarter, which was down 63% versus a year ago.

As a result, it guided for third-quarter revenue of between $800 million to $875 million, and an adjusted EBITDA loss of between $28 million and $21 million. That compares to revenue of $1.4 billion in Q3 last year and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $28 million.

The company has started to lean more into working with real estate agents for business. It’s also introduced a cash plus hybrid product where a seller gets cash upfront, but can receive additional proceeds after the sale.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why the stock is unlikely to be a long-term winner

While Opendoor has had a great run, it’s unlikely to be a long-term winner. It has a capital-intensive business model with slim gross margins. The ability to really scale this business over the long run is difficult, and the company carries significant inventory risk.

After its latest surge, its market cap jumped to $7.7 billion. The company only generated $433 million in gross profits last year and $227 million through the first six months of this year, while projecting a slowdown in the second half.

The company would be smart to use its elevated stock price to issue stock and start stockpiling cash. However, even with that, it is hard to justify its current valuation for a business model that, as currently constructed, just isn’t that attractive.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over the business world during the past couple of years. The stock market has followed as investors rush to take advantage of the new growth opportunities the technology has presented. At this point, it seems impossible to avoid a tech company that isn’t dealing with AI in some form or fashion.

Not all companies dealing with AI are created equal, though. Many may use the technology but lack the long-term appeal. If you have $3,000 available to invest, the following three AI stocks are worth buying and holding for the long term. They have proven business models and stand to gain a lot from the emerging technology.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

On the outskirts, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 4.58%) — also known as TSMC — may not seem like an AI company, but it’s just as important to advancing the technology as virtually any other participant. TSMC is a semiconductor (chip) foundry that manufactures chips for a wide range of applications, including smartphones, electric vehicles, game consoles, TVs, and graphics processing units (GPUs). The latter is why it’s important to AI.

TSMC’s AI role comes down to manufacturing the critical chips that go inside the data centers that train AI models. It has around a 70% market share in the global foundry industry, but when it comes to the advanced AI chips, it’s virtually a monopoly. This new demand is largely why its high-performance computing (HPC) segment accounted for 60% of its total revenue in the second quarter.

TSMC is the start of the AI pipeline. Without it, companies like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices wouldn’t be able to ship their AI chips at their current scale. TSMC expects AI-related revenue to double this year.

TSM Revenue (Quarterly) data by YCharts.

AI aside, TSMC’s role in the tech ecosystem has made it indispensable. It’s not as if there aren’t other semiconductor foundries; they just don’t compare to TSMC’s effectiveness and scale. This position makes it a company that should be successful for quite some time.

2. Alphabet

Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOG 0.41%) (GOOGL 0.34%) is also a key piece to the AI ecosystem, especially when it comes to research. It’s responsible for key breakthroughs that have advanced the technology to where it is today.

Alphabet’s Google Cloud also continues to grow impressively. In the second quarter, its revenue increased 32% year over year to $13.6 billion, leading all of Alphabet’s segments. Having a strong in-house cloud platform allows the company to power and scale its own AI models.

It’s not just for in-house use, either. It’s a service that many companies can rely on, including Meta Platforms, which just signed a six-year, $10 billion deal to make Google Cloud its main AI infrastructure provider. The co-signing by Meta shows that even Alphabet’s big-name peers (and competitors) trust its capabilities.

It also helps that Alphabet’s stock seems to be valued cheaply right now. It’s trading around 23.4 times expected earnings over the next 12 months, which is the lowest of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks, by far. If you’re buying and holding onto the stock for the long term, this will likely work out well in your favor.

TSLA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.

3. Microsoft

Some tech companies excel at one thing, while others do a few things pretty well. Microsoft (MSFT 0.74%) is one of the handful that does a lot of things extremely well. It has its hands in many industries and is a top player in virtually all of them.

Similar to Alphabet, Microsoft has a cloud platform (Azure) that allows it to be a key piece of AI infrastructure. It also has a long-term partnership with ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI, which gives it direct and early access to industry-leading AI technology.

This is a key advantage for Microsoft because it allows it to integrate the technology into its ecosystem of products and services. Microsoft has Office software (Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, etc.), Windows operating systems, GitHub, and many other platforms, and all of these stand to gain from AI integration.

Microsoft already has a stronghold on enterprise software, which should only increase its value proposition as these products and services become more efficient. If you’re going to be in the tech world for the long term, it helps to have corporate customers because they spend more, tend to have longer contracts, and are less likely to cut back on services whenever the economy isn’t ideal.

Microsoft is a staple in the business world that thousands of companies rely on for their daily operations. If I had to pick one Magnificent Seven stock to hold onto for life, it would be Microsoft.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, once a casino owner and always a man in search of his next deal, is fond of a poker analogy when sizing up partners and adversaries.

“We have much bigger and better cards than they do,” he said of China last month. Compared with Canada, he said in June, “we have all the cards. We have every single one.” And most famously, he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their Oval Office confrontation earlier this year: “You don’t have the cards.”

The phrase offers a window into the worldview of Trump, who has spent his second stint in the White House amassing cards to deploy in pursuit of his interests.

Seven months into his second term, he’s accumulated presidential power that he’s used against universities, media companies, law firms and individuals he dislikes. A man who ran for president as an angry victim of a weaponized “deep state” is, in many ways, supercharging government power and training it on his opponents.

And the supporters who responded to his complaints about overzealous Democrats aren’t recoiling. They’re egging him on.

“Weaponizing the state to win the culture war has been essential to their agenda,” said David N. Smith, a University of Kansas sociologist who has extensively researched the motivations of Trump voters. “They didn’t like it when the state was mobilized to restrain Trump, but they’re happy to see the state acting to fight the culture war on their behalf.”

How Trump has weaponized the government

Trump began putting the federal government to work for him within hours of taking office in January, and he’s been collecting and using power in novel ways ever since. It’s a high-velocity push to carry out his political agendas and grudges.

This past month, hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops fanned out across Washington after Trump drew on a never-used law that allows him to take control of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. He’s threatened similar deployments in other cities run by Democrats, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. He has also moved to fire a Federal Reserve governor, pointing to unproven claims of mortgage fraud that she denies.

Trump, his aides and allies throughout the executive branch have trained the government, or threatened to, on a dizzying array of targets:

—He threatened to block a stadium plan for the Washington Commanders football team unless it readopted the racial slur it used as its team name until 2020.

—He revoked security clearances and tried to block access to government facilities for attorneys at law firms he disfavors.

—He revoked billions of dollars in federal research funds and sought to block international students from elite universities. Under pressure, Columbia University agreed to a $220-million settlement, the University of Pennsylvania revoked records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and presidents resigned from the University of Virginia and Northwestern University.

—He has fired or reassigned federal employees targeted for their work, including prosecutors who worked on cases involving him.

—He dropped corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams to gain cooperation in his crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally.

—He secured multimillion-dollar settlements against media organizations in lawsuits that were widely regarded as weak cases.

—Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is pursuing a grand jury review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and appointed a special prosecutor to scrutinize New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

That’s not weaponizing government, says White House spokesperson Harrison Fields; it’s wielding power.

“What the nation is witnessing today is the execution of the most consequential administration in American history,” Fields said, “one that is embracing common sense, putting America first, and fulfilling the mandate of the American people.”

Use of power

There’s a push and a pull to power. It is both given and taken. And through executive orders, personnel moves, the bully pulpit and sheer brazenness, Trump has claimed powers that none of his modern predecessors came close to claiming.

He has also been handed power by many around him. By a fiercely loyal base that rides with him through thick and thin. By a Congress and Supreme Court that so far have ceded power to the executive branch. By universities, law firms, media organizations and other institutions that have negotiated or settled with him.

The U.S. government is powerful, but it’s not inherently omnipotent. As Trump learned to his frustration in his first term, presidential powers are limited by the Constitution, laws, court rulings, bureaucracy, traditions and norms. Yet in his second term, Trump has managed to eliminate, steamroll, ignore or otherwise neutralize many of those guardrails.

Leaders can exert their will through fear and intimidation, by determining the topics that are getting discussed and by shaping people’s preferences, Steven Lukes argued in a seminal 1974 book, “Power: A Radical View.” Lukes, a professor emeritus at New York University, said Trump exemplifies all three dimensions of power. Trump’s innovation, Lukes said, is “epistemic liberation” — a willingness to make up facts without evidence.

“This idea that you can just say things that aren’t true, and then it doesn’t matter to your followers and to a lot of other people … that seems to me a new thing,” at least in liberal democracies, Lukes said. Trump uses memes and jokes more than argument and advocacy to signal his preferences, he said.

Trump ran against ‘weaponization’

Central to Trump’s 2024 campaign was his contention that he was the victim of a “vicious persecution ” perpetrated by “the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice.”

Facing four felony criminal cases in New York, Washington and Florida, Trump said in 2023 that he yearned not to end the government weaponization, but to harness it. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 4, 2023.

“If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them,’” he said in a Univision interview on Nov. 9, 2023. And given a chance by a friendly Fox News interviewer to assure Americans that he would use power responsibly, he responded in December that year that he would not be a dictator “except on Day One.”

He largely backed off those threats as the election got closer, even as he continued to campaign against government weaponization. When he won, he declared an end to it.

His victory essentially ended the felony criminal indictments against him, including his role in the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which led to his second impeachment. Long-standing Justice Department policy says that sitting presidents may not be charged with crimes.

He still entered the White House in January as the only felon to ever occupy the office, after his conviction last year on fraud charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star just before his first election, in 2016.

One of Trump’s first acts of his new term in January was to issue pardons or commutations for more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6, including sedition and attacks on police officers.

“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about,” Trump said in his second inaugural address.

A month later: “I ended Joe Biden’s weaponization soon as I got in,” Trump said in a Feb. 22 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. And 10 days after that: “We’ve ended weaponized government, where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent, like me.”

Two days later, on March 6, Trump signed a sweeping order targeting a prominent law firm that represents Democrats. And on April 9, he issued presidential memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.

With that, the weaponization has come full circle. Trump is no longer surrounded by tradition-bound lawyers and government officials, and his instinct to play his hand aggressively faces few restraints.

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

Centre-left 45-year-old politician gets new mandate to manage the South American nation’s newfound oil wealth.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has been re-elected for a second term, according to the country’s electoral body, after a vote that gave his party a mandate to manage the South American nation’s newfound oil riches amid a territorial dispute with Venezuela.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) said in a statement released late on Sunday night that Ali’s People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had won the general election, held on September 1, securing 55 percent of the 65-seat parliament.

Ali’s re-election comes after the country of 800,000 people reaped a $7.5bn windfall from oil sales and royalties since ExxonMobil started pumping offshore oil in late 2019, making Guyana one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Ali’s government, which took power in 2020, has funnelled oil revenue into building roads, schools and hospitals, and made studying at the state university free. But he now faces a diplomatic challenge as he navigates the country’s territorial dispute with Venezuela.

Ali had already claimed victory in the elections on Wednesday.

Among the first world leaders who congratulated Ali for his victory was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wrote on X that he is looking forward to strengthening India-Guyana ties.

In remarks on Saturday, Ali replied on X that he also looks forward to working with Modi and India “to further build our already strong and cordial relations”.

In a statement on X, the British Embassy also congratulated Ali and Guyana “for a successful and peaceful election”.

Ali, a 45-year-old centre-left leader, also faces the challenge of ensuring that the benefits of Guyana’s vast oil wealth reach his constituents, more than half of whom still live in poverty despite the nation’s soaring gross domestic product (GDP).

Ali’s main rival, multi-millionaire populist Azruddin Mohamed, nicknamed the “Guyanese Trump”, and his newly formed We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party finished second with 24.8 percent of the vote.

The opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which represents much of the country’s Afro-Guyanese population, came third with 17.7 percent.

Ali, whose party draws much of its support from the Indo-Guyanese community, will assume a second five-year term at a time of rising tensions with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who claims sovereignty over the oil-rich Essequibo region and appointed authorities for that area in controversial elections held in May.

Ali has the support of the United States, which is also fomenting escalating tensions with Venezuela following the deployment of warships in the Caribbean for anti-drug operations.

Maduro has recently said the US military build-up in the Caribbean is aimed at overthrowing his government, and he was ready to “declare a republic in arms” if attacked by US forces.

The dispute over the Essequibo region is centuries old, but it intensified in 2015 after the discovery of enormous oil resources.

Guyana currently has the largest oil reserves per capita in the world, expected to reach production of one million barrels per day by 2030, compared with the current 650,000.

The oil wealth has allowed the state budget to quadruple in five years to $6.7bn in 2025, with a world-beating economic growth of 43.6 percent in 2024.

Guyana appealed to the International Court of Justice in 2018 to ratify an 1899 award that established its current borders, but Venezuela rejects the court’s jurisdiction and asserts the 1966 Geneva Agreement, which establishes the basis for a negotiated settlement.

Aug. 29 (UPI) — Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, will not seek re-election when her term ends next year, people familiar with her decision have said.

Multiple sources have confirmed the decision to NBC News, CBS News and Politico.

Democrats’ hopes for a win in the state could be lifted, though they haven’t won a Senate race in Iowa since 2008.

Ernst, 55, won re-election by more than six points in 2020, and President Donald Trump won the state by 13 points in 2024. But the state elected President Barack Obama twice.

Democrats already have joined the race for Senate, including state Rep. Josh Turek, state Sen. Zach Wahls, Des Moines School Board Chair Jackie Norris and Marine and Army veteran Nathan Sage.

Senate Republicans and their leadership already were worried about her planning to retire and have been lobbying for her to run again, Politico reported. Rep. Ashley Hinson also has expressed interest in running if Ernst retires. She will announce her bid by the end of September, another anonymous source told Politico.

NATO Ambassador Matt Whitaker may also run for the seat, according to NBC News.

Ernst has faced political setbacks, including backlash from MAGA allies over her hesitation to confirm Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. In May she made headlines when she said, “We all are going to die,” when a town hall participant said the cutbacks to Medicaid in the “Big Beautiful Bill” would cause people to die.

Ernst, a former Army Reserve and National Guard officer, first ran for Senate in 2014 to replace retiring Democrat Tom Harkin. She won the office and had promised to only serve for two terms.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris will receive protection from the California Highway Patrol after President Donald Trump revoked her Secret Service protection, law enforcement sources said Friday.

California officials put in place a plan to provide Harris with dignitary protection after President Trump ended an arrangement that gave his opponent in last year’s election extended Secret Service security coverage.

Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday ending Harris’s protection as of Monday, according to sources not authorized to discuss the security matter.

Former vice presidents usually get Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, while ex-presidents get protection for life. But before his term ended, then-President Joe Biden signed an order to extend Harris’s protection beyond six months to July 2026. Aides to Harris had asked Biden for the extension. Without it, her security detail would have ended last month, according to sources.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would need to sign off on such CHP protection, would not confirm the arrangement. “Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” said Izzy Gordon, a spokeswoman for Newsom. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”

The decision came after Newsom’s office and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were in discussions Thursday evening on how best to address the situation. Harris resides in the western portion of Los Angeles.

Bass in a statement, said “This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more. This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”

The Secret Service, CHP and LAPD don’t discuss details of dignity protection in terms of deployment, numbers, and travel teams. CNN first reported the removal of Harris’s protection detail. Sources familiar with Harris’ security arrangements would not say how long the CHP would provide protection.

The curtailing of Secret Service protection comes as Harris is about to begin a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, which include visits to London and Toronto. The book, title references the short length of her presidential campaign. The tour begins next month.

Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president was the subject of an elevated threat level — particularly when she became the Democratic presidential contender last year. The Associated Press reports, however, a recent threat intelligence assessment by the Secret Service conducted on those it protects, such as Harris, found no red flags or credible evidence of a threat to the former vice president.

During his second term, President Trump stripped Secret Service protection from several one-time allies turned critics, including his former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both of whom have been targeted by Iran. In March, he ended Secret Service protection for former President Biden’s children — Hunter and Ashley Biden — who both had been granted extended protection by their father.

Harris’ predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, did not have extended Secret Service protection beyond the standard six months.

Harris, a former senator, state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, announced earlier this year she won’t seek to run for California governor in 2026.

During last year’s campaign, Trump faced two assassination attempts, including the July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a Secret Service counter sniper shot a gunman dead after he fired eight shots, killing an attendee, wounding two others and grazing Trump’s right ear.

Times Staff Writer Melody Gutierrez and the Associated Press contributed to this story

Angel Stadium turns 60 next year. By then, the city of Anaheim hopes to learn how many hundreds of millions of dollars it might take to keep the stadium viable for decades to come.

The Angels’ stadium lease extends through 2032, and the city manager said Tuesday there are no talks between the city and the team about what might happen beyond then.

“I want to be clear that there are no long-term discussions taking place, and none imminent,” Anaheim City Manager Jim Vanderpool told council members Tuesday.

In 2022, after the disclosure of a federal corruption investigation into then-mayor Harry Sidhu, the council killed a deal under which Angels owner Arte Moreno would have bought the stadium and surrounding land for $150 million, then built a neighborhood atop the parking lots and renovated or replaced the stadium.

The Angels remained a tenant in the city-owned stadium, and in 2023 the council authorized an assessment of the condition of the facility.

“We expect a finalized assessment in mid-2026,” Vanderpool said.

After an initial visual inspection, engineers are currently testing concrete and metal structures within the ballpark, Vanderpool said.

The results could inform the city and team about what needs to be done to maintain the stadium into the future as well as spark a debate over which party should be responsible for any currently needed upgrades.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday night that he’s firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, an unprecedented move that would constitute a sharp escalation in his battle to exert greater control over what has long been considered an institution independent from day-to-day politics.

Trump said in a letter posted on his Truth Social platform that he is removing Cook effective immediately because of allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, made the accusations last week.

Pulte alleged that Cook had claimed two primary residences — in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Atlanta — in 2021 to get better mortgage terms. Mortgage rates are often higher on second homes or those purchased to rent.

Trump’s move is likely to touch off an extensive legal battle that will probably go to the Supreme Court and could disrupt financial markets, potentially pushing interest rates higher.

The independence of the Fed is considered critical to its ability to fight inflation because it enables it to take unpopular steps such as raising interest rates. If bond investors start to lose faith that the Fed will be able to control inflation, they will demand higher rates to own bonds, pushing up borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and business loans.

Legal scholars noted that the allegations are likely a pretext for the president to open up another seat on the seven-member board so he can appoint a loyalist to push for his long-stated goal of lower interest rates.

Fed governors vote on the central bank’s interest rate decisions and on issues of financial regulation. Although they are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, they are not like Cabinet secretaries, who serve at the pleasure of the president. They serve 14-year terms that are staggered in an effort to insulate the Fed from political influence.

No president has sought to fire a Fed governor before. In recent decades, presidents of both parties have largely respected Fed independence, though Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson put heavy pressure on the Fed during their presidencies — mostly behind closed doors.

Still, that behind-the-scenes pressure to keep interest rates low, the same goal sought by Trump, has widely been blamed for touching off rampant inflation in the late 1960s and ‘70s.

The announcement came days after Cook said she wouldn’t leave despite Trump previously calling for her to resign. “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said in a previous statement issued by the Fed.

Senate Democrats had expressed support for Cook, who has not been charged with wrongdoing.

Another Fed governor, Adriana Kugler, stepped down unexpectedly Aug. 1, and Trump has nominated one of his economic advisors, Stephen Miran, to fill out the remainder of her term until January.

“The Federal Reserve has tremendous responsibility for setting interest rates and regulating reserve member banks. The American people must have the full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve,” Trump wrote in a letter addressed to Cook, a copy of which he posted online. “In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity.”

Trump argued that firing Cook was constitutional, even if doing so will raise questions about control of the Fed as an independent entity.

“The executive power of the United States is vested to me as President and, as President, I have a solemn duty that the laws of the United States are faithfully enacted,” the president wrote in the letter to Cook. “I have determined that faithfully enacting the law requires your immediate removal from office.”

Among the unresolved legal questions are whether Cook could be allowed to remain in her seat while the case plays out. She may have to fight the legal battle herself, as the injured party, rather than the Fed.

In the meantime, Trump’s announcement drew swift rebuke from advocates and former Fed officials who worry that Trump is trying to exert too much power and control over the nation’s central bank.

“The President’s effort to fire a sitting Federal Reserve Governor is part of a concerted effort to transform the financial regulators from independent watchdogs into obedient lapdogs that do as they’re told. This could have real consequences for Americans feeling the squeeze from higher prices,” Rohit Chopra, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

It is the latest effort by the administration to take control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome H. Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him.

Forcing Cook off the Fed’s governing board would provide Trump an opportunity to appoint a loyalist. Trump has said he would appoint only officials who would support cutting rates.

Powell signaled last week that the Fed may cut rates soon even as inflation risks remain moderate. Meanwhile, Trump will be able to replace Powell in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. However, 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate-setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the chair might not guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.

Rugaber and Weissert write for the Associated Press.

As a buy-and-hold investor, I closely follow my long-term investments through exchange-traded funds and retirement accounts. I’ve always followed a Warren Buffett-style of investing, in which I look for strong, profitable companies to hold over the long term.

However, I also recognize that tech stocks are way too important — and profitable — to miss out on. Tech stocks represent companies that are at the forefront of innovation and development, leading the world’s charge into the future. Without tech companies, we wouldn’t have a host of massively significant advances that we take for granted today — things like personal computers, online banking, 5G wireless service, the internet, smartphones, and GPS technology. Nor would we have the incredible types of tech that companies are still making rapid progress on today — such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, generative AI, and autonomous vehicles.

Including strong, profitable tech stocks in your portfolio is one of the best ways to give yourself an opportunity to outperform the market. Consider that the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is up nearly 18% in the last 12 months, handily outperforming the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

Three tech stocks that I think would be great choices for any retail investor’s portfolio are Nvidia (NVDA 1.65%), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 2.58%), and Meta Platforms (META 2.04%).

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Nvidia

Semiconductor maker Nvidia is the biggest company in the world by market capitalization, so it naturally gets the top position on this list, too. While a recent pullback has driven the market cap from $4.4 trillion down to $4.2 trillion, the tailwinds that have propelled Nvidia’s upward over the last few years are still present — and they won’t be going away any time soon.

Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) that are used by data centers to provide the computing power required by a host of advanced computing tasks, such as training and running large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Nvidia’s GPUs are designed to be deployed in clusters of hundreds or thousands, boosting the parallel processing power they can apply to workloads. In addition, Nvidia’s CUDA platform provides libraries and tools for developers who are working on software that will be powered by its GPUs. It’s a popular platform with developers, and it’s only compatible with Nvidia’s chips. That added competitive advantage is one reason why I’m confident that it will continue to control the lion’s share of the GPU market for years to come.

Nvidia will release its results for its fiscal 2026 second quarter on Aug. 27, and I think it’s going to be another sterling report. I’ll also be looking carefully at management’s guidance, as the company is expected to resume selling its H20 AI chips to customers in China after being blocked from exporting them to that country earlier this year.

2. Taiwan Semiconductor

As the company that fabricates the advanced chips designed by Nvidia (as well as an array of other chip companies), Taiwan Semiconductor benefits from many of the same tailwinds as the GPU leader. But there are some differences between their businesses that make TSMC stock even more appealing.

As the world’s leading third-party chip foundry, Taiwan Semi manufactured nearly 12,000 products for 522 customers in 2024, employing 288 separate process technologies. It’s involved in about 85% of all semiconductor start-up product prototypes. In short, this is an ideal stock to own if you believe that the semiconductor business broadly will continue to grow, but you want to hedge some of your exposure away from Nvidia.

Taiwan Semi is also moving to limit its exposure to the trade war between Washington and Beijing, and to expand its manufacturing footprint further beyond the island of Taiwan, which China has designs on. The company is in the midst of spending $165 billion to expand its new manufacturing and R&D facility in Arizona and bring some of its most advanced fabrication processes to the U.S.

3. Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms, which operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, is the unquestioned king of the social media companies. On average, 3.48 billion people use its platforms every day — and that number is increasing. Its daily active user count was up by 6% in June from a year earlier.

The company leverages that massive audience — and the mountain of information it collects about them — into an impressive revenue stream. Ad impressions were up 11% in the second quarter from the previous year. Overall, Meta reported $47.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter, up 22% year over year.

Meta’s own artificial intelligence platform, Meta AI, has been driving a lot of its recent success. Meta AI’s chatbot can generate content, answer questions, and create images. The company also provides AI-powered tools to advertisers to help them reach the customers they want, making their ads on its social media platforms more effective.

Tech stocks to buy and hold

Companies in the tech sector must constantly innovate in their efforts to stay relevant, and their stocks can sometimes be volatile. But Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Meta Platforms aren’t merely chasing trends — they’re shaping them. I expect that these companies will remain at the forefront of their industries as we move into the second half of the decade, and I view them as good bets to continue outperforming the market. That’s why I like them for any buy-and-hold portfolio.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a massive opportunity for investors. Just as the internet spawned several new industries, such as e-commerce and smartphones, AI will also create new industries in the next 20 years that don’t exist today.

Sticking with industry-leading tech companies that are enabling the AI revolution is all you need to do well. If you have a few thousand dollars you’re committing to a long-term investment plan, here are two AI stocks you can buy and hold for the long term.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC)

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 2.58%) have delivered outstanding returns for investors over many years. It’s the largest chip manufacturer in the world. Top AI companies like OpenAI and Alphabet‘s Google (GOOGL 3.10%) (GOOG 2.98%) are using TSMC to build their chips. This puts TSMC in a lucrative position to capitalize on the AI boom.

Importantly, TSMC’s long-term track record of delivering profitable growth is why you can sleep well at night investing in this stock. Over the last 10 years, revenue grew 14% on an annualized basis, and that includes a few soft demand cycles along the way, yet AI chip demand is causing revenue to accelerate. The company’s revenue grew 44% year over year in the most recent quarter.

The momentum continues to build for TSMC. For example, Google just announced its Tensor G5 AI chip will be made by TSMC and deliver improved performance for AI features on Google’s Pixel phones.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT maker OpenAI is tapping TSMC for its first custom AI chip. Given the lead times for making new chips, TSMC should be mass-producing OpenAI’s new chip in 2026. This is a positive indicator for TSMC’s future growth.

While some on Wall Street might be concerned about spending on AI infrastructure, including chips, running out of gas in the near future, the key signal for investors is that the largest tech companies continue to guide for more capital spending in data centers and AI infrastructure, which benefits TSMC. The company expects growth for advanced AI chips to increase more than 40% annually over the next five years.

Despite these demand trends, the stock is still reasonably priced. At a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 23, investors should continue to outperform the broader market with TSMC stock.

2. Alphabet (Google)

Alphabet is benefiting from multiple growth opportunities. The company hauled in $371 billion in trailing revenue over the last year from advertising, cloud computing, and AI. The stock also trades at a reasonable valuation that suggests it’s likely undervalued, especially as its cloud computing business continues to report strong growth.

Alphabet has more than 2 billion users across seven products, making Google one of the most valuable brands. Its investments in AI features are making its products more useful and driving solid gains for its core advertising businesses like Search and YouTube. Google Search reported another solid quarter of growth with ad revenue increasing by 12% year-over-year in Q2.

The company’s advantage in AI can be seen in the growth happening at Google Cloud. Cloud revenue grew 32% year-over-year last quarter, and this lifted the segment’s operating profit to $2.8 billion for the quarter, up from $1.2 billion in the same quarter last year. This shows businesses are increasingly choosing Google Cloud at a time when there is stronger competition than ever in the cloud market due to AI.

Alphabet said it will spend $85 billion in capital expenditures this year to meet cloud demand. Despite spending this huge amount on technology infrastructure, management expects the demand-supply situation for cloud services to remain “tight” entering 2026. This indicates incredibly strong demand that should see Alphabet’s cloud business continue to report high double-digit growth for the foreseeable future.

This echoes the strong demand for AI chips that TSMC is seeing in its business, and suggests that the AI opportunity is still in the early innings. Despite Alphabet’s strong competitive advantage with billions of people using its services every day, in addition to a booming enterprise cloud business, the stock trades at a reasonable forward P/E of 20. This makes Alphabet stock a solid long-term buy.

The financial sector is dominated by big banks which mainly focus on generating stable profits instead of breakneck growth. However, a new generation of fintech companies — which are modernizing traditional payment and banking services with their tech platforms — are growing a lot faster than those aging industry leaders.

But it can be tough to separate the winners and losers in that fragmented fintech market. So today, I’ll discuss three potential winners which have plenty of long-term growth potential: Upstart (UPST 8.34%), Adyen (ADYE.Y 2.86%), and Nu Holdings (NU 1.94%).

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Upstart

Upstart is an online lending marketplace that uses AI to approve loans. Instead of using traditional data like an applicant’s annual income or credit score, it uses non-traditional data points like standardized test scores, GPAs, and previous jobs to approve a broader range of loans for younger and lower-income applicants with limited credit histories.

Upstart doesn’t provide any loans of its own. It only serves as an AI-powered middleman for its partners, which mainly include banks, credit unions, and auto dealerships. It generates most of its revenue by charging those partners processing fees for approving their loans.

Upstart suffered a severe slowdown in 2023 as soaring interest rates curbed the market’s appetite for new loans. But its growth accelerated again in 2024 as interest rates declined, and analysts expect its revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at a CAGR of 36% and 245%, respectively, from 2024 to 2027. Those are incredible growth rates for a stock that trades at 21 times next year’s adjusted EBITDA. The near-term concerns about slower interest rate cuts are likely squeezing its valuations, but its stock could soar a lot higher once those headwinds dissipate.

2. Adyen

Adyen is a Dutch fintech company that doesn’t provide any consumer-facing payment apps. Instead, it develops backend software for processing payments, analyzing customer data, and organizing financial information. Its software works behind the scenes and can be directly integrated into a merchant’s existing online, mobile, and on-store payment platforms. It also enables merchants to develop their own digital wallets and branded payment cards.

That flexibility makes it popular choice for businesses that don’t want to lock themselves to a bigger payments platform like PayPal (PYPL 3.43%). That’s probably why eBay, PayPal’s former parent company and top e-commerce partner, chose Adyen to replace PayPal as its preferred payment platform in a five-year transition from 2018 to 2023.

Adyen’s revenue growth accelerated during the pandemic as more customers ramped up their online spending, but it suffered a slowdown in 2022 and 2023 as it lapped those gains. Rising interest rates, geopolitical conflicts, and other macro headwinds exacerbated its slowdown.

But Adyen’s growth accelerated again in 2024, and analysts expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to rise at a CAGR of 22% and 28%, respectively, from 2024 to 2027. Adyen still looks reasonably valued at 22 times next year’s adjusted EBITDA, and it should keep growing as it pulls more merchants away from centralized payment platforms.

3. Nu Holdings

Nu Holdings owns NuBank, the largest digital bank in Latin America. It’s based in Brazil, and it also provides its services in Mexico and Colombia. Without any brick-and-mortar branches, it expanded much faster than traditional banks. It served 122.7 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2025, compared to 33.3 million customers at the end of 2021. As Nu gained more customers, it increased the stickiness of its platform with credit cards, e-commerce services, and cryptocurrency trading tools.

As a result, its average revenue per active customer (ARPAC) jumped from $4.50 in 2021 to $12.20 in its latest quarter. Its average cost for serving each customer also held steady, and its margins expanded. Nu has plenty of room to grow because about a quarter of Latin America’s adult population remains unbanked.

From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Nu’s revenue and net income (which turned positive in 2023) to rise at a CAGR of 23% and 36%, respectively. Yet its stock still looks dirt cheap at 18 times next year’s earnings per share (EPS) — presumably because investors are concerned about the persistent inflation and political instability in its top markets. If you expect Nu to overcome those challenges — as it did in the past — then it deserves a much higher valuation.

When it comes to athletes who deserve to be welcomed on a red carpet walk each time they show up for classes, the name of John Michael Flint of Bishop Diego High comes to mind.

He’s 6 feet 2 and 180 pounds, was the league player of the year in volleyball, has a 38-inch vertical leap that allows him to dunk a basketball or kill a volleyball at the blink of an eye, and starts for the football team at receiver and safety. He’s also an A student and the backup quarterback.

“We’re talking to him about doing some kicking,” football coach Tom Crawford said. “He can pretty much do anything you ask. He’s the complete student-athlete.”

He’s going to be a captain for the football team and also helps out with campus ministry.

“He’s mature beyond most high school kids’ years in terms of decisions he makes and how he relates to coaches and peers,” Crawford said. “I just like him because he has a great, quiet confidence and poise about him.”

He’s expected to also play basketball this coming season after not playing last season.

So get ready for the year of John Michael Flint showing the way at Bishop Diego.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

The court, saying the administration used “a novel series of legal and personnel moves,” held that Habba’s term as the interim U.S. attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the U.S. Senate didn’t follow procedures required by federal law.

“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote.

The opinion says that Habba’s actions since July “may be declared void.”

Brann, a President Obama appointee, said he’s putting his order on hold pending an appeal. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant Habba would remain in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office.

A message seeking comment was sent to Habba’s office Thursday. The Justice Department said it intends to appeal the ruling.

Brann’s decision comes in response to a filing on behalf of New Jersey defendants challenging Habba’s tenure and the charges she was prosecuting against them. They sought to block the charges against them, arguing that Habba didn’t have the authority to prosecute the case after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired in July.

The defendants’ motion to block Habba, a onetime White House advisor to President Trump and his former personal defense attorney, is another high-profile chapter in her short tenure.

She made headlines when Trump named her U.S. attorney for New Jersey in March. She said the state could “turn red,” a rare, overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.

She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal immigration detention center. Habba later charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. She denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

Volatility over her tenure unfolded in late July when the four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close and it became clear that she would not get support from home state Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, effectively torpedoing her chances of Senate approval.

The president withdrew her nomination. Around the same time, federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed, but Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

In his opinion, Brann questioned the legal moves the administration conducted to keep Habba in place.

“Taken to the extreme, the President could use this method to staff the United States Attorney’s office with individuals of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senate’s advice and consent,” he wrote.

The Justice Department has said in filings that the judges acted prematurely and that the executive has the authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws in the state.

Trump had formally nominated Habba as his pick for U.S. attorney on July 1, but Booker and Kim’s opposition meant that under long-standing Senate practice known as senatorial courtesy, the nomination would stall out.

A handful of other Trump picks for U.S. attorney are facing a similar circumstance.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Teyana Taylor was ordered to cover ex-husband Iman Shumpert’s $70,000 in attorney fees after she was found in contempt of court for violating terms of her 2024 divorce agreement.

Taylor, 34, and Shumpert, 35, both had been accusing each other of violating the agreement by leaking their settlement terms to blogs, according to court documents filed Aug. 5 in Georgia’s Fulton County Superior Court.

The court found the “Gonna Love Me” singer had violated the “prohibition against disclosure of ‘summaries, abstracts, portions and descriptions’” of the final judgment in their divorce.

Taylor confirmed her marriage to the former NBA pro during a 2016 appearance on “The Wendy Williams Show” and the couple appeared that same year in the official music video of the track “Fade” by Kanye West (now known as Ye).

The exes have two children together, Iman “Junie” Tayla and Rue Rose, now 9 and 4, respectively. Shumpert helped Taylor deliver both babies at home in the couple’s bathroom.

The couple separated in 2023 and she filed for divorce that November. The split was finalized in July 2024, then in March of this year details of the agreement suddenly appeared online, leading to the filings in civil court.

Taylor had asked the court to order Shumpert to pay her legal fees, but after she refused to show proof of income, the answer was no. The “Coming 2 America” actor did not answer questions about her assets and her income, stating the information was “completely irrelevant to any issue.”

The court ordered Taylor to pay for Shumpert’s fees, saying she had the means to pay because she has been in three movies since the divorced was finalized and has TV series booked for this fall.

During the hearing, Taylor failed to prove that Shumpert had provided details from their divorce case to entertainment blogs.

What’s the difference between Harvard and UCLA when it comes to fighting President Trump’s attacks?

It may come down to how much Gavin Newsom wants his shot at the White House.

Harvard appears to be on the brink of caving to the president’s demands around claims of antisemitism and a host of issues that most would describe as policies for inclusiveness and diversity, but which Trump derides as “woke,” whatever that means.

The storied university may pay out a huge settlement — rumored to be about $500 million — to pacify an administration increasingly bent on domination of American institutions. Armed with that success, the president has targeted UCLA by freezing more than $500 million in federal grants and demanding a payout of about $1 billion.

“We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom on this extraordinary public institution,” Newsom said recently. “We are not like some of those other institutions that have followed a different path.”

Let’s hope that’s true.

Technically, the University of California is run by the Board of Regents, of which Newsom is a member. But Newsom has so far appointed or reappointed several voting members, and you’re not going to convince me that the rest will go rogue on this decision on how to battle for the soul of UCLA, one of the most important the board will ever make.

So Newsom will be the decider, to steal a phrase from President George W. Bush.

And deciding to capitulate not only looks bad, but has terrible consequences that would dog a candidate Newsom. Not to mention crippling California as a whole.

Harvard may hold a place in the American psyche as the best of the best, but when it comes to actual impact, UCLA and the University of California system are in an entirely different league. More than 1 million Californians hold a degree from a UC, with about 200,000 currently enrolled across the system. Each year, UCLA alone contributes more than $2 billion to the local economy, and adds to the body of human knowledge with its unparalleled research in ways that money cannot quantify.

“With all respect to Harvard, the University of California dwarfs Harvard in terms of size and scale and the impact on the country,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) told me. “When you look at the UC just in terms of science and healthcare and helping to birth Silicon Valley, helping to birth the pharmaceutical industry, the UC has a cultural, educational and economic relevance unlike any other institution on the planet.”

The stakes are simply higher for California. Harvard, a private university, can not only withstand more financially, but ultimately matters less. UCLA, with great respect to UC Berkeley, is the “people’s university,” as Zev Yaroslavsky puts it. He’s a former L.A. County supervisor and current director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

“There is a difference between a Harvard and a UCLA, or UC Berkeley or UC San Diego or University of Michigan,” he said, and if the president managed to extract his pound of flesh, “it would bankrupt the No. 1 public university in the United States.”

The problem is this is a lose-lose situation. If the university settles, it is going to be forced to pay a tribute of hundreds of millions of dollars. While it may be able to lower the purposefully debilitating $1 billion Trump is demanding, it will still pay a price that damages it for years to come. But at least it will know the number.

If the university doesn’t settle, it risks years of litigation with no certainty of an eventual win.

On Tuesday, a federal court in a separate lawsuit ordered the administration to unfreeze more than $80 million in funding that is currently being withheld. But even with that win, the entire UC system remains in jeopardy of the president’s agenda, and there is no reason to believe the Supreme Court would side with California if or when the case made it that far.

But even if UCLA were to settle, what’s to stop Trump from coming back next year for another bite? As Yaroslavsky points out, give a bully your lunch money once, and they’ll keep coming back for more.

“There’s always a temptation to negotiate and work it out,” said Wiener, the state senator. “I don’t think that that’s an option here.”

Neither do I, though the business-minded decision would be to cut a deal. But we also have a larger issue to consider.

Education is resistance to authoritarianism, and crushing it has long been a goal of the far right. Point being, educated, free-thinking folks often prefer diversity and democracy.

In 2021, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech titled “The Universities are the Enemy,” which summed it up well.

“We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country,” he said. And here we are.

If the university of the fourth-largest economy on the planet signals that it can’t stand up to this, what university will risk it?

“California needs to say, ‘No, we’re not going to give him control over the UC, we’re not going to pay him taxpayer dollars as extortion,’” Wiener said. “If California can’t say no, then I don’t see who can.”

So once again, California — and Californians — are a line of defense. It’s up to us to let our leaders know that we don’t want our taxpayer-funded universities to cave to this assault, and that we expect our governor to fight.

It’s in his best interest, and ours.

Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford watched his team’s 31-21 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday after completing his first extensive passing workout earlier at the Rams’ Woodland Hills training facility.

Stafford, who had not practiced because of a back issue, threw more than 60 passes during the workout, coach Sean McVay said.

“It was awesome,” McVay said. “He looked good. He threw the ball really well, there was no limitations in terms of the types of throws — deep, intermediate, short. … And he felt really good.

“And so looking forward to progressing him back into practice on Monday. But it was a good step in the right direction.”

Stafford, 37, is working through an aggravated disc issue. McVay said he did not know if Stafford felt discomfort during the workout, and that the 17th-year pro would participate only in individual drills on Monday.

Earlier in the week, McVay said Stafford was not scheduled to participate in a scheduled joint practice with the Chargers on Wednesday. That practice has been canceled, McVay said, because of Chargers injuries.

“I think they’re a little bit banged up,” McVay said, adding that he had spoken with Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh. “Bummer that we weren’t able to get that done, but I totally understand. And we’ll figure out a way to get great work against ourselves.”

The surf can be fun on the right tides, but it is most often best for beginners unless the waves reach over 3 feet and begin to close out quickly. It is a popular spot with foil boarders who like to practice on the rolling waves commonly found on smaller days.

If you don’t like the occasional wag of a wet dog, you should pick another spot. There is a short trail leading up to the cliffs. From the top, you get a great view of the strand heading south into Del Mar with Torrey Pines and La Jolla in the distance. At high tides, you lose access to a strand that heads north to Solana Beach for short periods.

Best for: Dog lovers, volleyball, walkers and joggers, families

Bathrooms: Porta-potties

Parking: Paid street parking along Coast Highway

Dog-friendly: Yes, off-leash from the day after Labor Day to June 15 and from dawn to 8 a.m. the rest of the year, otherwise must be leashed.

ADA-accessible: Yes, paved ramp leading to the beach, but there is no path leading out onto the sand.

What’s nearby: The Del Mar Fairgrounds, home of the Sound, an indoor music venue that fits 1,900, is just behind the beach. Also, try the breakfast burrito at Ranch 45 Local Provisions.

THIS is officially Love Island’s sauciest season for nearly a decade, with crew forced to take action on behalf of frisky cast.

It comes after Islanders coined a new term for one sex act based on footballer Andy Carroll.

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For the first time since 2016, production took the step of ordering in more condoms to ensure there was protection available.

They took action after it became apparent this year’s cast were keen to get hands on.

A source said: “It’s been a long while since there’s been as much action in the bedroom as this year.

“When Harry and Helena went into the Hideaway just 56 hours into the series it set the ball rolling and it’s been a particularly feral year.

“There’s been duvet tents most nights.

“Obviously duty of care is paramount so producers stocked up on condoms to ensure there were enough for the run.”

Viewers were shocked when the ITV2 dating show aired scenes of randy Harrison Solomon asking Harry Cookseley, who slept in the next bed, to pass him a condom in the middle of the night.

Harrison slept with Lauren Wood twice before she lost her place in a vote and he followed her out.

But others have gone all the way too, including girlfriend and boyfriend Meg Moore and Dejon Williams.

As part of their duty of care process, ITV are careful what they air and usually wait for the Islanders to consent to sex scenes being screened.

The girls admitted to performing “Handy Carolls” on their boys, though, in cheeky new terminology.

But ex-Islander Mitch Taylor told the Sun he was put off going all the way in the villa during his 2023 series because of show procedure.

He said: “Even if you shuffled about it in bed a bit, you’d go to the beach hut the next day and production are going ‘did you wear a condom?’

“It’s like instant production c*ckblock for me, the next day production asking 21 questions.

“That killed it for me to be honest.”

Fans have always considered Love Island’s 2016 series its sauciest year, when Alex Bowen and now wife Olivia plus Zara Holland, Terry Walsh and Emma Jane Woodhams set the screen alight.

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