U.S.

May 7 (UPI) — Federal law enforcement agents have arrested and charged 18 people accused of selling drugs in and around downtown Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, according to authorities who say additional drug operations will be conducted.

The 18 people arrested over the last 24 hours in the so-called Operation Free MacArthur Park are among 25 defendants named in a federal criminal complaint charging them with distribution of, and possession with intent too distribute, a controlled substance, the Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California told reporters during a press conference that some 300 federal drug and law enforcement agents participated in the raid and that they “are not going anywhere.”

“This is not a one-and-done operation,” he said. “We are here and we are not leaving.”

Located in Los Angeles’ Westlake neighborhood, the historic MacArthur Park is within a densely populated immigrant area and has long been associated with drugs, crime and gangs.

Last summer, it was the backdrop for National Guard and federal agents deployed to the city as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

On Wednesday, it was the location of a similar show of force as heavily armed federal drug and law enforcement agents, with military-style vehicles, conducted raids in and around the park as they sought to arrest those named in the criminal complaint.

Among those arrested were Mallaly Moreno-Lopez, 32, and her boyfriend, Jackson Tarfur, 28, whom authorities believe are the main sources of fentanyl and methamphetamine in MacArthur Park.

The pair are accused of delivering narcotics to the MacArthur Park-adjacent Alvarado Corridor to be stashed in storefronts and then distributed to street-level dealers. Their Westmont residence is allegedly used as a stash location for drugs that are to be sold in MacArthur Park, according to authorities.

The complaint alleges 27 separate drug deals between March 9 and April 15 in and around the MacArthur Park area.

According to authorities, Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration personnel seized about 40 pounds of fentanyl at one defendant’s Calabasas residence.

Seven suspects remained at large, authorities said.

Essayli said they were at MacArthur Park on Wednesday “to liberate it,” while blaming the Democratic-led government of California for allowing the area to become what the Justice Department called an open-air drug market.

“Look, we’re here today because California policies have failed. The policies of California to let people use drugs open and notoriously, with little to no criminal consequences, is a failed experiment,” he said.

“MacArthur Park should be for families, should be for residents of Los Angeles, not for drug dealers and gangsters.”

The Los Angeles Police Department said it assisted the federal agencies in the operation.

May 6 (UPI) — The FBI raided the offices of and a cannabis business co-owned by L. Louise Lucas on Wednesday in Portsmouth, Va.

Lucas is a Virginia state senator, president pro tempore of the state Senate and a vocal leader of Virginia redistricting efforts.

Officials told The Washington Post that the investigation has to do with corruption and bribery allegations involving the business. Lucas was not arrested, and an FBI spokesperson said the investigation was ongoing.

Democrats called in question the motivation behind the raid; Lucas has often criticized President Donald Trump and was instrumental in the successful Virginia referendum in April to redraw the state’s congressional maps. However, The Washington Post, NBC News and The New York Times reported that sources familiar with the case claimed the investigation was opened during the Biden administration and has to do with the marijuana dispensary.

Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, D-Va., said that the raid “occurs in the broader context of President Trump’s repeated abuse of the Department of Justice to target his perceived political opponents.”

Don Scott, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, emphasized that Lucas has not been charged with anything.

“I am deeply concerned by today’s raid,” he said, WAVY-TV reported. “Given the politicization of this administration — an FBI led by Kash Patel and a Justice Department led by President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney — I think people should take this with a grain of salt and allow the facts to come out before jumping to conclusions,” he said.

Scott said he spoke with Lucas after the search, The New York Times reported.

“She basically said, ‘They’re not going to find anything there and I didn’t do anything wrong,’ ” he said. “She’s very upset and she’s very angry and she won’t back down.”

Lucas was elected to the Virginia General Assembly in 1991.

May 6 (UPI) — Consuelo Porras, Guatemala’s attorney general, will leave office May 17 after years of confrontation with President Bernardo Arévalo.

Porras is ending an eight-year term that began in 2018 under sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and more than 40 countries that accused her of corruption and undermining democracy by attempting to interfere with the results of Guatemala’s 2023 presidential election.

The relationship between Porras and Arévalo was marked by open confrontation and institutional hostility since the president’s electoral victory in 2023.

Arévalo repeatedly accused Porras of leading an “attempted coup” through judicial investigations aimed at dismantling Semilla, the political party that brought him to power, and blocking his inauguration. Porras defended her actions as enforcement of the law.

After taking office, Arévalo sought to remove her through legal reforms and public meetings that she refused to attend, deepening a political crisis in which the executive branch and the Public Ministry operated as opposing forces until the end of her tenure.

Arévalo announced Tuesday that he had officially appointed attorney Gabriel García Luna to lead the Public Ministry for the 2026-2030 term.

While announcing the appointment, Arévalo said the decision was intended to mark the beginning of a “new stage of justice” in response to demands from the Guatemalan people.

The president said the Public Ministry requires leadership capable of “rescuing” the institution and strengthening its independence. He added that the new attorney general would not serve the interests of the government or “particular or spurious political interests,” but instead guarantee impartial justice.

According to reports by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre and Argentine outlet Infobae, Arévalo justified his choice by saying the country needs officials capable of rebuilding judicial institutions after years of crisis.

Porras attempted to seek a third term, but failed to secure enough votes from the nominating commission to reach the final shortlist of six candidates presented to the president.

Before leaving office, she also unsuccessfully sought a seat on Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, a position that would have granted her immunity from possible future legal proceedings.

Among the most serious allegations she could face is a criminal complaint related to her alleged connection to a network of illegal adoptions of Indigenous children during the 1980s. United Nations experts have already called for independent investigations into the case.

Civil society organizations have also documented at least 16 alleged cases involving misuse of the criminal justice system, including political persecution against the Semilla party, journalists and judicial officials.

Although Guatemala’s current Supreme Court blocked several attempts to strip Porras of immunity while she remained in office, her departure could allow the next attorney general to reopen those complaints and launch additional investigations into alleged obstruction of justice and corruption during her administration.

U.S. sanctions mainly involved the revocation of her visa and a permanent ban on entering the country for both her and her husband after she was designated a “corrupt and anti-democratic actor” under the Engel List.

The U.S. Engel List is a State Department-mandated public sanctions list that names foreign individuals from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and, since 2021, Nicaragua whom the United States determined engaged in significant corruption, undermined democratic institutions or obstructed corruption investigations. Those on the list are barred from entering the United States and have their visas revoked.

That designation later served as the basis for the European Union and Canada to impose harsher sanctions, including the freezing of assets and bank accounts in those jurisdictions, sharply restricting her financial freedom outside Guatemala.

Ted Turner, the brash media mogul who created CNN and revolutionized how Americans watched television, and who wielded his media empire and wealth to pursue liberal global causes and land conservation, has died. He was 87.

Turner died Wednesday, according to his family.

In 2018, he revealed he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease, which had been progressing in recent years.

Turner’s outsized public persona — some called him the “Mouth from the South” for his free-wheeling trash talk — matched the Georgian’s influence on news, politics, sports and entertainment in the late 20th century. Turner repeatedly shook up established industries by invading quickly and expanding options for consumers, while railing against monolithic competitors who were less daring or nimble than his maverick Turner Broadcasting System.

Turner created the cable stations TBS and Turner Classic Movies; he owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, the Atlanta Hawks basketball team and revitalized professional wrestling with World Championship Wrestling.

Turner was one of the first adopters of cable and satellite broadcasting technology, and for many rural Americans living beyond the tower signals of major cities, he was the first person to bring them interesting TV.

The media baron constantly generated headlines. He had a Clark Gable pencil mustache, raced sailboats, cavorted with the late communist leader Fidel Castro in Cuba, and at one point married Academy Award-winning actress and activist Jane Fonda. His wealth enabled him to become one of the largest private landowners and wealthiest philanthropists in the U.S.

July 1990 image of Ted Turner with Jane Fonda.

(Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

His crowning cultural achievement was the creation of the Cable News Network in 1980, which created the model for today’s cable news titans. The 24-hour news channel was not widely expected to be a success. All-night broadcasting had not been proven as a business model in an industry dominated nationally by corporate monoliths like ABC, NBC and CBS, where news programming was something that happened on a set schedule. And CNN’s headquarters weren’t in media centers like New York or Los Angeles, but Atlanta.

But Turner believed that “over-the-air networks would decline as audiences turned to videos and other outlets for entertainment on demand,” wrote the late journalist Daniel Schorr in a 2001 memoir.

“The network future belonged to whoever would deliver what was happening now — live news and live sports. That was why he wanted to be the first to deliver all news, all sports, all the time,” wrote Schorr, whom Turner courted to join CNN.

Within two years, CNN had more than 9 million subscribers. By the 2000s, Turner’s once far-flung idea for an around-the-clock news service had become so successful that it had attracted imitators like MSNBC (now called MS NOW) and Fox News.

“We not only became profitable, but also changed the nature of news — from watching something that happened to watching it as it happened,” Turner said of CNN in 2004. “If we needed more money for [broadcasting from] Kosovo or Baghdad, we’d find it. If we had to bust the budget, we busted the budget. We put journalism first, and that’s how we built CNN into something the world wanted to watch.”

Fox Corp. Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch, who was both a rival and friend of Turner, said his “vision for 24-hour cable news transformed the media industry and gave viewers everywhere a front seat to witness history unfold. His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape.”

Turner recognized the value of global distribution long before his rivals, launching CNN’s international business in the mid-1980s. He bought his first western property, The Bar-None Ranch in Montana, and would eventually become one of the nation’s largest individual landowners with nearly 2 million acres, which provide habitat for threatened species and his beloved American bison.

“Ted’s entrepreneurial spirit, creative ambition and willingness to take risks changed the media industry forever,” David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, said Wednesday in a note to employees. “He believed deeply in the power of ideas, in doing things differently and in building platforms that could inform, inspire and connect people around the world.”

Robert Edward Turner III was born in Cincinnati on Nov. 19, 1938, and raised in Georgia. A mischievous child — who later became a mischievous adult despite attending the Georgia Military Academy — he had a tough childhood at the hands of his alcoholic father, Ed.

“Ninety percent of the arguments I had with Ed were over his beating Ted too hard,” Ted’s mother, Florence Turner, recalled later.

“My dad ran an old-fashioned household and he insisted that pretty much everything had to be his way,” Ted Turner said in a 2008 memoir. “My father and I had a complex relationship but I loved him.”

The younger Turner attended Brown University but dropped out before graduating. His savings had run out, his father had stopped financially supporting his tuition, and in his final days on campus, he was suspended for bringing a woman to his dorm room, according to his memoir.

He soon joined his father’s expanding billboard advertising company, Turner Advertising, where he had been working off and on for years since childhood.

He inherited the business at the age of 24 after his father died by suicide. By then, Turner had already had years of experience , and he worked furiously to reverse his father’s recent sale of part of the company to a competitor and paid down its daunting debt, an act that presaged the empire-building to come.

While growing the business, Turner also pursued his passion for competitive sailing, which is how he met his first wife, Judy Nye, in college. It’s also how their marriage ended. Turner intentionally hit his wife’s boat during a 1963 race to keep her from passing him, and the pair, who had two children, split immediately afterward.

It was to be the first of three divorces. . “My problem is I love every woman I meet,” Turner has said. He would go on to win the America’s Cup in 1977 while expanding his father’s company into a modern multimedia conglomerate.

Leveraging the billboard business, Turner started buying local radio stations across the South in the late 1960s. In 1970, he bought the Channel 17 television station in Atlanta, competing with local network affiliates by airing old movies whose rights were affordable and picking up programming dropped by the less nimble competition. He didn’t like putting news on prime time back then — too negative — and soon picked up broadcast rights for the Braves, Hawks and other local sports.

Oct. 1998 photo of former President Jimmy Carter, right, and Atlanta Braves team owner Ted Turner, during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta.

(PAT SULLIVAN/AP)

The Braves were a ratings hit, and when the team flailed and went up for sale, Turner’s company became its owner in 1976. The team continued to flail but Turner boosted its profile with gimmicks such as sewing “Channel 17” on the back of a pitcher’s jersey and dressing up as the team’s batboy and manager, to the league’s disdain. Turner bought the Hawks shortly after.

Facing entrenched local network affiliates, Turner expanded his independent station’s reach across the South and then the U.S. by embracing the new technologies of cable and satellite broadcasting. Channel 17 became nationally known as the “SuperStation,” with call letters WTBS, later shortened to TBS.

The quirky Atlanta station’s local broadcasts of old movies and sports games had become national broadcasts.

Still hungry for more, Turner finally turned his attention to news programming. He launched CNN in 1980 in a desperate bid to create a national 24-hour news channel before the broadcast titans ABC, NBC and CBS — and their gargantuan budgets — could beat him to it.

“The 24/7 genre started with Ted Turner,” veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour said Wednesday on CNN. “He was the original, and he made us all proud, and he made us all hopeful, and he made us all strive for his vision of a better world.”

There were some lean early years. But the nascent channel fended off an attempt by ABC to create a competitor, and critics could see the value of an ever-present news channel, even if quality was a little thin at times.

“Non-viewers of CNN are missing a lot. There are so many reasons to watch,” Los Angeles Times critic Howard Rosenberg wrote in 1986, hailing the 6-year-old channel as an “institution.” “It’s not always good, but it’s always there.”

In 1986, CNN was the only broadcaster running live coverage when the Challenger shuttle liftoff ended in disaster. In 1991, the network gave Americans a live and uninterrupted look at the invasion of Iraq. American officials held news conferences knowing that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was watching them on CNN.

Americans had seen images of war before, but not broadcast nonstop into their homes.

“CNN seeks to be a stethoscope attached to the hypothetical heart of the war, and to present us with its hypothetical pulse,” the French theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote, critiquing the conflict as a media spectacle. Media scholars began to wonder whether a “CNN effect” was influencing government policy. Officials found that they now had to respond much more quickly to crises unfolding on live television.

Turner was not adversarial to communist countries of the era and even tried his own version of the Olympics, called the Goodwill Games, a bit of private-sector peace-craft that brought the Soviet Union and the U.S. out of their respective Olympic boycotts and back into direct competition in the 1989s. All on television, of course.

Turner also saw professional wrestling as part of his sports portfolio, at one point trying to pit his World Championship Wrestling program against competitor Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire, then called the World Wrestling Federation. Turner similarly tried to take a bite out of MTV with the Cable Music Channel, with a promise “to stay away from the excessive, violent or degrading clips to women that MTV is so fond of putting on.”

Moralism was a Turner hallmark. Turner had started his life as a conservative — Turner had met his second wife, Jane Smith, at a 1964 fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater — and turned toward more liberal-leaning causes, such as world peace, nuclear nonproliferation and fighting climate change, later in life.

At the 1990 American Humanist Assn.’s annual convention, Turner presented his “Ten Voluntary Initiatives” — his atheistic version of the Ten Commandments — which included pledges to world peace, environmentalism, nonviolence and “to have no more than two children, or no more than my nation suggests.” He would become a major private donor to the United Nations, pledging $1 billion and launching the United Nations Foundation nonprofit.

In 1991, a year marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first U.S. war against Iraq and the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Time magazine named Turner its “Man of the Year” for his “visionary” creation of CNN, which covered those events live. He also married Fonda that year (the ceremony was reported by CNN) and his Braves narrowly lost the World Series.

Time’s honorific was also a nice bit of corporate synergy. The magazine’s parent company, Time Warner, owned about 20% of Turner Broadcasting System stock.

Turner launched the Cartoon Network in 1992, which helped introduce his then-newly acquired Hanna-Barbera characters — including Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo — to a new generation of viewers.

Adversaries thought that Turner’s ventures could be reckless and impulsive. Far-seeing accomplishments in national broadcasting and the creation of CNN were also paired with several expensive misadventures, including a failed attempt to buy CBS.

Turner had to unwind a purchase of the MGM film studio less than a year after buying it, though he held onto one valuable asset: The studio’s film library, which became the foundation of the Turner Classic Movies channel and, later, jewels in the Burbank-based Warner Bros. studio vault.

In 1996, Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner to form the world’s largest media company, marking the beginning of the end of Turner’s apex in corporate media. Time Warner’s 2000 merger with budding internet giant AOL, then the largest-ever corporate merger, ended in disaster. Turner, who had not been a key player in the negotiations and had made no secret of his disdain for that deal, was fired as an executive.

“Ted Turner was one of the rare leaders who truly changed the trajectory of an industry,” Versant Media Chief Executive Mark Lazarus, a former Turner underling, said in a statement. “I saw firsthand his willingness to take risks and his belief that media could be something bigger and more impactful.”

CNN Worldwide Chairman Mark Thompson added: “He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand.”

Turner resigned from the AOL Time Warner board in 2003, and in 2007, announced he had sold his company shares. In his later days, one of his best-known ventures was his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain. His philanthropy and land conservation efforts and protection of the American bison became guide posts during his retirement years.

While CNN maintains influence in the U.S. and abroad, its TV ratings have declined in recent years — a casualty of changing consumer behavior, the rise of social media, derision from President Trump — and several ownership changes.

During the past decade, CNN has had three different corporate owners. The company is poised to be sold again, this time to billionaire David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance. That proposed merger would bring CNN under the same roof as CBS News.

“I’ve often considered and joked about what I might want written on my tombstone,” Turner said in a 2008 memoir. “At one point, when I felt like I could get out of the way of the press, ‘You Can’t Interview Me Here’ was a leading candidate. … These days, I’m leaning toward, ‘I Have Nothing More to Say.’”

Turner is survived by his five children — Laura Turner Seydel (Rutherford), Robert Edward “Teddy” Turner IV (Blair), Rhett Turner, Beau Turner, Jennie Turner Garlington (Peek) — 14 grandchildren and a great granddaughter. The family plans a private and public service at a later date.

Pearce is a former Times reporter. Times Staff Writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.

May 6 (UPI) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The testimony is voluntary and behind closed doors. Lutnick is one of many people called before the committee to explain their ties to the late sex offender and financier.

“The Secretary looks forward to addressing any questions on the record when he testifies voluntarily before the Oversight Committee,” a spokesperson for the Commerce Department told CBS News. “He looks forward to putting to rest the inaccurate and baseless claims in the media designed to distract from his historic work underway at the Commerce Department.”

Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing tied to Epstein.

Lutnick and Epstein were next-door neighbors in New York. He has said his interactions with Epstein were minimal, but earlier this month, he told a congressional committee that he had visited Epstein’s island, Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with his family.

“We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,” Lutnick told lawmakers. “Then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together. We were on family vacation. We were not apart. To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don’t recall why we did it. But we did.”

Epstein was convicted of solicitation involving a minor in 2008.

A photo of Lutnick and Epstein that appears to be on Little St. James with three other men was in the files released earlier this year.

Lutnick and Epstein also invested together in a now-shuttered advertising agency, Adfin, working together as late as 2014.

Lutnick previously claimed that he cut contact with Epstein in 2005

In October, Lutnick said on a podcast that he and his wife, Allison, visited Epstein’s New York townhouse in 2005, NBC News reported.

He said he saw a massage table in the middle of a room filled with candles. Lutnick said Epstein told him he had massages “every day” and got “weirdly close” to say, “The right kind of massage.”

“In the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again,” Lutnick said.

“I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy,” he added. “If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross.”

The panel will likely question Lutnick’s credibility, Matt Dallek, a historian and political management professor at George Washington University, told NBC

“It’s risky business for him to go before Congress and testify about Epstein,” Dallek said. “Because lo and behold, he visited the island with his kids.”

Dallek said Trump will pay attention to Lutnick’s performance.

“If Lutnick comes off as wishy-washy or ineffective, Trump could sour on him,” Dallek said. “Especially if he wants a fall guy for the economy.”

COLUMBIA, S.C. — An election-year redistricting movement has spread to South Carolina as Republicans attempt to redraw majority-Black congressional districts that have suddenly become susceptible because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upending protections for minority voters.

Urged on by President Trump, South Carolina Republicans are attempting to redraw a district long held by a Black Democratic lawmaker in their quest for a clean sweep of the state’s seven congressional seats.

Lawmakers already are meeting in special sessions in Alabama and Tennessee in a bid to change their U.S. House districts. And Louisiana lawmakers are making plans for new congressional districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map.

The stakes are high for minority voters who stand to lose their preferred representatives and for any Republican lawmakers reluctant to follow Trump’s wishes. In Republican primary elections Tuesday, Trump-endorsed challengers defeated at least five of the seven Indiana state lawmakers targeted by Trump’s allies for refusing to support a congressional redistricting effort last year.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

The ruling revved up an already intense national redistricting battle ahead of a November midterm election that will determine control of the closely divided House.

Since Trump prodded Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last year, a total of eight states have adopted new congressional districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10 seats. But some of the new districts could be competitive in November, meaning the parties may not get all they sought.

South Carolina to test its will for redistricting

Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has represented South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District since it was redrawn to favor minority voters in 1992. He’s running for an 18th term. But it could get harder for him to win reelection if Republicans redraw his district.

Leaders in the state House and Senate said a redistricting effort needs to start with a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The issue could come up as soon as Wednesday. But if only a few Republicans aren’t on board, it can’t succeed.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey has warned that redistricting could backfire because of thin political margins, resulting in a second Democrat in the U.S. House. Massey told reporters Tuesday that he had a cordial conversation with Trump about redistricting, each laying out their concerns.

The state’s primaries are June 9 and early voting starts in three weeks.

Alabama looks at setting a new primary

The state House on Wednesday could debate legislation that would allow Alabama to hold a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.

In light of the court’s ruling on Louisiana’s districts, Alabama officials have asked courts to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters. Republicans instead want to use a map passed in 2023 by the Legislature that could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.

Alabama’s primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state’s request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.

Democrats denounced the legislation as a Republican power grab that harkens back to the state’s shameful history of denying Black residents equal rights and representation.

Republicans are “working to secure an electoral victory by taking Alabama back to the Jim Crow era, and we won’t go back,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell told a crowd gathered outside the Alabama Statehouse.

Tennessee plan targets Memphis district

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan urged by Trump that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. Republicans didn’t say much about the plan Tuesday.

But as the state Senate began work Tuesday, shouts of “shame, shame, shame” could be heard inside the chamber from protesters gathered in the hallways. On the chamber floor, state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Black Democrat from Memphis, called the redistricting “an act of hate.”

Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about the plan to divide Memphis, saying the move could undermine the work for voting rights carried out by his father, Martin Luther King Jr.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.

Thousands had already voted in Louisiana

After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Republican Gov. Mike Landry postponed the state’s May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts. State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican, said a redistricting committee he leads plans to hold a public hearing Friday.

Louisiana voters had already sent in more than 41,000 absentee ballots by last Thursday, when Landry suspended the House primaries, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. That’s about a third of all the absentee ballots sent out to voters. Around 19,000 were from registered Democrats, 17,000 from registered Republicans and the remainder belonged to neither party.

Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primary.

Collins, Loller, Chandler and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala., Loller from Nashville and Lieb from Jefferson City, Mo. AP writer Jack Brook contributed to this report from New Orleans.

May 6 (UPI) — Republican voters in Indiana and Ohio largely backed Trump-aligned candidates Tuesday in primaries seen as tests of President Donald Trump‘s influence within the GOP.

Both states held their party primaries on Tuesday to decide candidates for hundreds of races for November’s midterm elections, but most eyes were on contests for the Indiana state Senate, where incumbent Republicans had rejected Trump’s redistricting push.

Indiana

Though too late to influence Indiana’s congressional map before the midterms, Trump endorsed challengers to incumbents who had opposed his effort to redraw the map to add Republican seats.

Trump’s influence within the GOP in the Hoosier State appeared strong: Of his seven endorsed challengers against Indiana Republican state senators who opposed his gerrymandering push, five appeared poised to win outright, one seemed to have lost and another was in a tight race.

“Big night for MAGA in Indiana,” Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said in a social media statement, referring to the acronym for Trump’s far-right nationalist Make American Great Again movement.

“Proud to have helped elect more conservative Republicans to the Indiana State Senate.”

Nearly 90% of all Indiana precincts were reporting as of early Wednesday, according to the Indiana Election Division, but five of the seven Trump-backed candidates had already declared victory.

Those five are Trevor De Vries, Brian Schmutzler, Blake Fiechter, Tracey Powell and Michelle Davis.

“Thank you to every Hoosier who came out to vote today,” De Vries said in a social media post late Tuesday.

“And special thanks to President @DonaldTrump for his endorsement that helped seal the deal and showed Indianapolis what real Hoosiers wanted.

“We did it, Indiana! Time to get to work.”

De Vries beat incumbent Daniel Dernulc, state senator for District 1, in a landslide. According to the unofficial results, De Vries secured 75.1% of the vote to Dernulc’s 23.3%.

Schmutzler was poised to beat state Sen. Linda Rogers in a 55.8% to 44.2% split, Fiechter over state Sen. Travis Holdman 61.5% to 38.5%, Powell’s 64.7% led state Sen. Jim Buck’s 35.3% and Davis led state Sen. Greg Walker 58.8% to 41.2%.

Trump-endorsed Paula Copenhaver also declared victory in her race against Sen. Spencer Deery despite being in a virtual tie. According to unofficial state results, she was trailing Deery by three ballots.

“After all provisional ballots are counted, we will prevail and be declared the winner of this race,” she said on X.

“I want to thank President Donald Trump for his unwavering support and endorsement. President Trump is the leader of our party, and it showed clearly tonight in his victories across the state.”

The only Trump-endorsed candidate to lose was Brenda Wilson. State Sen. Greg Goode was poised to win with 53.6% of the vote to Wilson’s 36%, according to the unofficial results.

A sixth incumbent who stood against redistricting, Sen. Rich Niemeyer, also appeared poised to lose his seat to challenger Jay Starkey, who was not endorsed by Trump.

Ohio

In Ohio, the race to watch was on the GOP gubernatorial primary.

With incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine barred by term limits from running again, Ohio’s governor’s mansion will have a new occupant.

Amy Acton and her running mate David Pepper ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.

Republican voters in the state nominated Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and Robert McColley for lieutenant governor in a landslide.

According to unofficial results from the Office of Ohio Secretary of State, the Ramaswamy-McColley ticket secured 82.47% of the vote compared to the 17.53% that Casey Putsch and Kimberly Georgeton received.

“I speak for Rob and myself here: We are in this because we believe that together — with the complementary skills that we bring to the table — we are the two people in this state who can work together as a team to lead Ohio back to our true potential,” he said Tuesday night during his victory speech.

“To our greatest heights to put more money in your pocket, to bring down those costs and to give your kids the world-class education that is the birthright of every Ohioan.”

Trump had endorsed Ramaswamy for governor.

“I know Vivek well, competed against him and he is something SPECIAL,” Trump said earlier Tuesday.

“Vivek Ramaswamy will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio.”

Ramaswamy gained national attention during the 2024 GOP presidential primary, running against Trump. Instead of attacking the former New York real estate mogul, Ramaswamy aligned himself with Trump’s America First movement, often praising him.

“Thank you, Mr. President!” Ramaswamy said in response to Trump’s endorsement.

“It’s time to make Ohio greater than ever.”

May 5 (UPI) — One of 23 people injured in a weekend shooting at a lake party in an Oklahoma City suburb has died, authorities said Tuesday as they continue to search for a suspect.

The shooting occurred at around 9 p.m. CDT Sunday at Lake Arcadia where a group of young people were having an unauthorized party near a campground that had been advertised across social media.

Police initially said 10 people were taken to area hospitals but warned the number would rise as individuals were transported by private vehicles.

The deceased victim was identified by the Edmond Police Department as “an 18-year-old young woman.”

“Our thoughts are with her loved ones, as well as all those affected by this tragic incident,” the Edmond Police Department said in a statement.

“We thank our community and media partners for their patience and understanding as we work to confirm details and release appropriate information. This investigation is being handled with the utmost care and seriousness.”

The announcement came a day after local police announced the casualty toll had increased to 23, with injuries ranging in severity. Some suffered gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Police said they were not releasing suspect information at this time but asked members of the public with information about the shooting to contact authorities.

Edmond Mayor Mark Nash issued a statement Monday explaining that shootings such as the one on Sunday are rare for the city and “will not define us.”

“We are a strong, engaged community. We support one another, we face challenges directly and we move forward together,” he said.

“That is what makes Edmond special, and that is exactly what we will continue to protect.”

May 5 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have released an immigration enforcement package that includes $1 billion in taxpayer money earmarked for President Donald Trump‘s massive ballroom project at the White House — a project the president has widely touted as being fully funded by private donors.

That $1 billion is to be used for security improvements to the 90,000-square-foot space, including “security adjustments and upgrades, including within the perimeter fence of the White House Compound to support enhancements by the United States Secret Service relating to the East Wing ModernizationProject, including above-ground and below-ground security features,” the bill says.

Since a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in late April, Republicans have said the ballroom is needed for presidential security. Trump administration court filings on the plan from early April say the project will be able to withstand drone attacks and include a bomb shelter and underground medical facilities, NBC News reported.

“Congress has rightly recognized the need for these funds,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “Due in part to the recent assassination attempt on President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the proposal would provide the United States Secret Service with the resources they need to fully and completely harden the White House complex, in addition to the many other critical missions for the USSS.”

This $1 billion is part of a reconciliation bill that Congress plans to pass with only Republican votes, CNN reported. The full package contains about $70 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol. Democrats have earlier blocked such funding without reforms, including requiring judicial warrants and banning officers from wearing masks.

Trump has long said the ballroom project, which is expected to cost $300 million to $400 million, is a gift to the nation from private donors with “not one penny” of government funds to be used, NBC News reported. The president demolished the White House’s East Wing without congressional approval for the project, a move that’s drawn ongoing legal challenges.

Last week, after the Correspondents’ Dinner incident, the Department of Justice asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that challenged the ballroom plans. DOJ officials said “there is no better example of why this ballroom is necessary.”

Senate Democrats say they’ll try to force a vote to strip the $1 billion in ballroom money from the bill, which is expected to be voted on later in May.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zambia is accusing the United States of tying a $2-billion deal for critical health assistance to access to the southern African nation’s rich mineral assets, and calling the outgoing U.S. ambassador’s allegations of corruption “mischievous” and “undiplomatic.”

The comments by Zambia’s foreign affairs minister, Mulambo Haimbe, on Monday brought into the open simmering tensions over President Trump’s “America First” strategy, which is reshaping aid to Africa into transactional agreements.

Some African leaders and health experts have criticized the new U.S. stance and its demands for sensitive health data in exchange for badly needed support for health systems strained by the Trump administration’s dismantling of foreign aid. Some say they would not receive access to health innovations like vaccines in return.

The U.S. is also seeking to challenge China, a dominant player in Zambia and much of Africa, whose minerals are critical to the green energy transition, including inputs for solar panels, electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems.

Zambia says talks stalled over data-sharing demands

In a statement, Haimbe described the accusations of Zambian graft and negotiation inertia by outgoing U.S. ambassador Michael Gonzales as “mischievous” and “deeply regrettable, undiplomatic and inconsistent with the spirit of mutual respect.”

Haimbe also accused the U.S. of tying access to critical minerals to the conclusion of the health deal, which Gonzales earlier dismissed as “alarmist allegations” that he called “disgusting” and “absolutely and patently false.”

Negotiations have continued for months to conclude the deal, one of dozens the Trump administration is pursuing in some of the world’s most aid-dependent countries.

Gonzales in late April said Zambian leaders had “abdicated their responsibilities, letting the United States pay for healthcare while officials diverted government funds to their own pockets.” He said Zambian authorities had “ignored” U.S. overtures to conclude a new deal.

But Haimbe said negotiations had stalled over “unacceptable” data-sharing demands “in violation of our citizens’ right to privacy” and “the insistence on preferential treatment of U.S companies over Zambia’s critical minerals.”

Zambia “takes the view, first and foremost, that Zambians must have a say on how her critical minerals are used, and second that no one strategic partner is to be treated preferentially to others,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. says its approach aims to reduce donor dependency

The U.S. approach replaces decades of engagement anchored in the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.

In their place, U.S. officials are negotiating country-by-country agreements that recast aid as a transaction, tying funding to conditions including commercial provisions, domestic financing commitments, disease surveillance, pathogen sharing and even religion.

Since late last year, the U.S. has signed agreements with about 30 countries, many in Africa. Washington says the approach is meant to reduce donor dependency, promote local ownership and safeguard American interests, including against an aggressive China that dominates trade in Africa but contributes less aid.

There has been pushback.

Ghana last week said it had rejected a proposed deal over provisions granting broad access to sensitive health data without safeguards. Zimbabwe walked away from a $367-million package over similar concerns. In Kenya, a $2.5- billion agreement signed in December has been put on hold after a court challenge arguing it violates data protection laws.

In Lesotho, draft U.S. proposals sought 25 years of access to health data and biological samples before local officials secured a shorter five-year deal.

Health experts say data would largely flow one way

Critics say the data-sharing demands tilt toward U.S. interests and warn the information-sharing would largely go in just one direction: toward Washington.

The new agreements aim to ensure the flow of disease surveillance data and biological samples, but through bilateral channels, after the U.S withdrew from the World Health Organization in January, said Asia Russell, executive director of advocacy group Health GAP.

Countries currently report disease outbreaks primarily through the WHO, which coordinates responses and is negotiating new frameworks on pathogen-sharing and equitable access to vaccines.

The U.S., now outside those talks, is pursuing direct access instead.

“[The U.S. wants] to understand what’s actually happening,” said Jen Kates, a senior vice president at the Washington-based nonprofit KFF. “But they are trying to do it in a very different way.”

Health advocates say this risks creating a parallel global health system. In Zimbabwe, a government spokesperson in February said the government terminated negotiations because the U.S. was not offering a “corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations — such as vaccines, diagnostics or treatments — that might result from that shared data.”

“That raises serious concerns about who benefits,” said Atilla Kisla of the Southern Africa Litigation Center.

Advocates point to the harsh experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, when African countries contributed data and samples but were largely last in line for vaccines.

Experts warn against health as a ‘bargaining chip’

The agreements with the U.S. are drawing criticism for closed-door negotiations and limited public scrutiny.

“Secrecy is at the center of this. That puts accountability for results at risk,” said Health GAP’s Russell. “It’s impossible to evaluate these deals properly without seeing the full terms. Part of what made PEPFAR successful was transparency. Now that’s been taken away.”

The deals also come with tighter financial conditions. Many include reduced funding compared to previous levels of U.S. assistance, while requiring countries to increase domestic health spending, with aid at risk if targets are not met.

“These are going to be very heavy lifts,” said KFF’s Kates. “Countries are already under strain.”

Critics say some agreements also advance U.S. commercial and political interests, blurring the line between aid and transactional diplomacy.

“When health becomes a bargaining chip, everyone becomes less safe,” Russell warned.

Mutsaka and Imray write for the Associated Press. Keketso Phakela in Maseru, Lesotho, contributed to this report.

May 5 (UPI) — The Center for AI Standards and Innovation, part of a U.S.government agency, announced Tuesday that it will test artificial intelligence models from some top firms before release to vet them for security risks.

CAISI has deals with Microsoft, xAI and Google DeepMind for this testing and targeted research “to better assess frontier AI capabilities and advance the state of AI security,” it said in a release. The center is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This follows similar deals in 2024, under the Biden administration, with prominent AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, which have been “renegotiated” to fit Trump administration directives, Politico reported.

The government has increasingly shown interest in matters of AI technology and security. CNBC also reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering an executive order to create a process for AI oversight by the White House.

Some of this interest has been heightened by the announcement last month of Anthropic’s new Mythos AI model. The company described the model as excelling “at identifying weaknesses and security flaws within software” and limited its initial use to certain companies. These companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, will use it as part of defensive security work and as part of Project Glasswing, a cybersecurity initiative, Anthropic said.

The announcement Tuesday from CAISI said that the center has completed more than 40 evaluations of AI models so far.

“Independent, vigorous measurement science is essential to understanding frontier AI and its national security implications,” CAISI director Chris Fell said in a statement. “These expanded industry collaborations help us scale our work in the public interest in a critical moment.”

WASHINGTON — The United States has launched a new military operation to ensure commercial shipping vessels can safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, deploying scores of warships, fighter jets and drones to counter Iranian efforts that have threatened the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil.

At a news conference Tuesday at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new initiative — dubbed “Project Freedom” — is a temporary and defensive operation meant to resume the flow of traffic through the international waterway as hostilities have continued in the region.

“We are not looking for a fight, but Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” Hegseth said, while calling Iran’s tactics “international extortion.”

The operation comes nearly a month after the United States reached a fragile ceasefire deal with Iran, a truce that Hegseth said remains in effect even though Tehran has continued to attack U.S. forces and commercial vessels.

“The ceasefire is not over,” Hegseth said.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that since the ceasefire took effect, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times, seized two container ships and attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times. All of these instances, he said, are “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.”

Those attacks have left more than 1,550 vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to transit, disrupting global trade and pushing energy markets toward crisis, with fuel prices climbing and shipping costs surging.

The new U.S. mission was cast as separate from the broader military campaign over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As negotiations to denuclearize Iran continue, Caine said commercial vessels wanting to cross the strait will now “see, hear and frankly feel the U.S. combat power around them, on the sea, in the skies and on the radio.”

Two U.S. commercial vessels, escorted by Navy destroyers, have already moved through the Strait, Hegseth said.

“We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact,” Hegseth said. “They said they control the strait, they do not.”

Hegseth called the operation a “direct gift from the United States to the world,” aimed at resuming traffic through one of the world’s most vital waterways.

“To what remains of Iran’s forces: if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower,” Hegseth said. “The president has been very clear about this.”

On Tuesday evening local time, the UAE’s defense ministry said in a statement on X that the country’s defensive systems “are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats and that “sounds heard across the across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.”

Tuesday’s barrage marks the second consecutive day of attacks targeting the UAE since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold on April 8. On Monday, the UAE said it engaged a total of 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran.

Times staff writer Nabih Bulos, in Beirut, contributed to this report.

May 5 (UPI) — Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, announced the company is downsizing about 14% of its workforce.

Armstrong posted a memo to employees on X saying he had made “the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase” by approximately 14%, explaining it is the result of “two forces” that “are converging at the same time.”

The first of the “forces” at play is the current downturn in the crypto market, leading to a “need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster and more efficient for our next phase of growth.”

The second reason cited by Armstrong is the rise of AI “changing how we work.”

“All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core,” Armstrong wrote.

Coinbase is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings on Saturday, with shares up nearly 4% in premarket trading.

The announcement follows other companies including Block, Pinterest, CrowdStrike and Chegg making the decision to cut jobs as a result of AI integration.

May 5 (UPI) — Iran warned Tuesday that it was “just getting started” after its military clashed with U.S. forces attempting to guide commercial vessels marooned in the Persian Gulf out through the Strait of Hormuz.

Mohammad Ghalibaf, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, signaling Iran’s intention to exploit the United States’ need for a timely resolution to the conflict, said Iran was digging in for an extended fight that it was prepared to keep going for as long as necessary.

“The new equation in the Strait of Hormuz is being solidified. Shipping security and energy transit have been jeopardized by the U.S. and its allies with the cease-fire violations and blockade. However, their evil acts will fail. We know well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America, while we are just getting started,” said Ghalibaf.

Speaking at a news briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday morning, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to try to de-escalate the situation, stressing that the mission to free trapped merchant ships was a short-term, defensive operation purely aimed at providing protection for the hundreds of vessels he said “are lining up to transit.”

“Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration, with one mission, protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression. American forces won’t need to enter Iranian waters or airspace. It’s not necessary. We’re not looking for a fight,” he said.

However, echoing threats made by U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday night, Hegseth said that Iran “will face overwhelming firepower” if it attacks commercial shipping and that he expected other countries to “step up” to protect the strategically important sea lane “at the appropriate time.”

Day one of Trump’s Project Freedom on Monday saw Iran claim it fired on U.S. naval vessels approaching the strait, forcing one to turn around, while Trump said U.S. forces sank seven Iranian navy “fast boats,” prompting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to dub the effort “Project Deadlock,” warning that the conflict could only be resolved through compromise.

The UAE also said it was targeted with Iranian missiles and drones for the first time since a cease-fire came into force April 9, blaming the attacks for a fire in its Fujairah Oil Industry Zone in which three people were injured.

“Events in Hormuz make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis. As talks are making progress with Pakistan’s gracious effort, the U.S. should be wary of being dragged back into a quagmire by ill-wishers. So should the UAE,” said Araghchi.

The comments came hours after Trump threatened to blow Iran “off the face of the Earth’ if it attacked U.S. vessels involved in Project Freedom.

U.S. Central Command said no U.S. Navy ships had taken fire while Iran rejected as “outright lies,” claims by CENTCOM that two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels “successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are safely headed on their journey.”

May 4 (Asia Today) — Hyundai Motor and Kia accelerated their shift toward electrified vehicles in the United States in April, even as overall sales fell slightly.

Hyundai Motor Group said Monday it sold 159,216 vehicles in the U.S. market in April, down 2.1% from a year earlier. Hyundai Motor sold 86,513 vehicles, down 1.5%, while Kia sold 72,703, down 2.8%. Genesis sales rose 0.8% to 6,356 vehicles.

The decline was attributed to a high base effect from advance purchases last year linked to tariff concerns. Major global automakers also reported weaker sales, while Hyundai Motor Group maintained its No. 2 position in the market.

Eco-friendly vehicle sales showed clear growth despite the overall decline. Hyundai and Kia sold 48,425 eco-friendly vehicles in April, up 47.6% from a year earlier. Their share of total sales exceeded 30% for the first time, reaching 30.4%.

Hybrid sales surged 57.8% to a record 41,239 vehicles. Hyundai sold 21,713 hybrids, up 47.7%, while Kia sold 19,526, up 70%.

Electric vehicle sales also rose 7.7% to 7,186. Hyundai EV sales edged lower to 4,779, but Kia’s EV sales jumped 65% to 2,407, driving growth in the segment.

By model, the Hyundai Tucson led sales with 22,024 vehicles, followed by the Elantra with 14,778 and the Palisade with 11,324. Sonata sales rose 18.2% to 7,105, while Elantra sales climbed 12.6%, showing signs of recovery in sedan demand.

Among hybrid models, Sonata hybrid sales surged 170% to 4,520 and Elantra hybrid sales rose 55.3% to 2,399, reflecting stronger demand for electrified models.

For Kia, the Sportage remained the top seller with 15,803 vehicles, followed by the K4 with 13,214 and the Telluride with 12,577. Seltos sales rose 31.7% to 5,335, absorbing demand in the compact SUV segment.

Among Kia’s eco-friendly vehicles, the Sportage hybrid rose 65.2% to 7,446 and EV9 sales jumped 481.5% to 1,349.

Genesis maintained its position in the premium market, led by GV70 sales of 2,837, up 7.7%, and G70 sales of 991, up 23.4%.

Hyundai and Kia said their balanced portfolio of hybrids, electric vehicles and internal combustion engine models is helping them respond flexibly to changing market conditions.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260504010000367

The ninth in an occasional series of profiles on Southern California athletes who have flourished in their post-playing careers.

When the Dodgers drafted David Lesch in January 1980, they had visions of his fastball lighting up radar guns at Dodger Stadium.

He never made it that far.

Lesch never climbed above the lowest rung on the minor league ladder, where he pitched just 10 innings and gave up more runs, hits and walks than he got outs. Less than 18 months after he was drafted, Lesch, wracked by a rotator cuff injury, was released, his major league dream over before he was old enough to legally buy a beer.

“I went to Disney World after that,” he said.

But that wasn’t the only decision the Dodgers made that changed Lesch’s life. When he was drafted, the team gave him just a small bonus, but sweetened the deal by offering to pay for college if he ever went back to school. For the team, it seemed a safe bet.

“They probably have this algorithm saying ‘this is the No. 1 draft pick. If he doesn’t make it, he’s not going back to college. He’ll be assistant baseball coach of his high school or something,’” Lesch said.

Oops.

Lesch not only went back to college, but he also wound up getting three degrees, including a master’s and a PhD from Harvard. It was arguably the most important investment in humanity the Dodgers made since signing Jackie Robinson, because Lesch went on to become one of the world’s top experts on the Middle East, writing 18 books and more than 140 other publications while advising four presidents and a cadre of United Nations diplomats.

David Lesch interacts with students in his history class at Trinity University in San Antonio.

(Lucero Salinas / Trinity University)

“That was the best deal,” Lesch, 65, said by phone from San Antonio, where he is the Ewing Halsell Distinguished Professor of History at Trinity University.

“Without that I probably could not have said yes to Harvard because of the price. The Dodgers committed to paying.”

And by doing so, the Dodgers may have altered history just a bit.

Lesch’s regular meetings with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, which ended with Lesch facilitating an important if temporary breakthrough in U.S.-Syrian relations? The diplomatic and conflict-resolution work in Syria and the wider U.N. initiatives on regional issues throughout the Middle East? The thousands of students Lesch inspired to go on to perform important diplomatic and public-service roles of their own?

None of that happens if Lesch’s shoulder had held on or if the Dodgers had reneged on their deal.

“It was very fortunate that he hurt his rotator cuff. Baseball’s loss is academia’s gain,” said Robert Freedman, a scholar and expert on Russian and Middle Eastern politics who taught Lesch at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

“I’ve been teaching for, I guess, 60 years now and I can tell when a student can see a complex problem and can penetrate right to the heart of the problem very quickly. He was one of those students.”

Still, it took a slightly offhand comment from Freedman, who now teaches at Johns Hopkins, to launch Lesch on his post-baseball career.

“We were having lunch and he was looking for a project and I mentioned to him ‘you know, there hasn’t been a good American scholar doing work on Syria for many, many years,’” he said.

“That struck his interest.”

Playing a child’s game and managing life-and-death Middle East politics share very little in common. But Lesch made the transition seamlessly.

“It is like he’s several different people, or has been,” said journalist and author Catherine Nixon Cooke, whose book “Dodgers to Damascus: David Lesch’s Journey from Baseball to the Middle East” traces those parallel lives.

“I’m wondering if, in a sense, it all worked out the way it was supposed to,” Cooke continued. “Even though his dream was to be a major leaguer, David certainly has reinvented himself to this really remarkable man following a completely different path.

“It was the Dodgers who paid for him to go to Harvard and so it’s kind of a weird thing. Baseball took away his dream because he got hurt, but baseball also gave him his backup plan.”

Lesch was still a teenager when, 20 minutes into his first spring training camp in Vero Beach, Fla., Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda plucked him off a minor league practice field to pitch batting practice in the main stadium.

Waiting for him were Ron Cey, Bill Russell, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes and Reggie Smith, the heart of a lineup that would win a World Series a season later.

It was the first time — and nearly the last — that Lesch faced big-league hitters. And it didn’t start well.

Batting practice pitchers throw from behind an L-shaped screen that protects them from comebackers and Lesch had never used one. That, combined with his understandable nervousness, caused him to short-arm his first fastball, which sailed at Cey’s head, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

“He got up and gave me this mean look,” Lesch said. “I remember it so vividly right now. I really thought I was going to be released that day.”

Instead, he gathered himself and finished the session, earning pats on the back from both Garvey and Lasorda. The incident, he said, has colored the rest of his life.

“I’ve met with presidents, prime ministers, been in war zones, all sorts of things,” Lesch said. “Anytime I say ‘well, you know, this should make me nervous,’ I think about that episode and the fact that I made it through and did OK.”

In high school, Lesch had focused on basketball and baseball. Academics? Not so much. So after spending his freshman year of college at Western Maryland College, he transferred to Central Arizona, a junior college, so he would be eligible for the January 1980 draft, allowing him to trade his books in for a baseball.

The so-called secondary draft, which was discontinued six years later, was specifically targeted toward winter high school graduates, junior college players, college dropouts and amateurs who had been previously drafted but did not sign. As a result, the bonuses teams offered winter draft picks were just a fraction of what players taken in the June draft received.

Lesch’s was so low, he can’t even remember what it was.

“I want to say $10,000 to $15,000,” he said. “No more than $20,000.”

When it became clear the Dodgers weren’t going to budge on the money, Lesch’s father, Warren, a family physician in suburban Baltimore, pulled out the Harford County phone book and looked up the number for Baltimore Orioles coach Cal Ripken Sr. Lesch played high school ball against Ripken’s son Cal Jr., who had been a second-round draft pick of the Orioles two years earlier. So his father thought the Ripkens might have some advice on what to ask of the Dodgers.

David Lesch, a former Dodgers draft pick, stands on the baseball diamond at Trinity University in San Antonio.

(Lucero Salinas / Trinity University)

“Ripken goes ‘does your son like school and is he smart?’” Lesch’s older brother Bob remembers. “So Ripken suggested if they offer you XYZ bonus money, take less and say ‘I’ll take this amount, but you have to cover education if he doesn’t make it.’”

Neither side thought that clause would ever be triggered; Lesch, a big, intimidating right-hander who threw bullets from behind Coke-bottle eyeglasses, wasn’t headed to a classroom, he was going to Dodger Stadium.

Until he wasn’t.

Lesch missed a couple of weeks with a back injury. By overcompensating for the sore back, he developed paralysis in the ulnar nerve in his right arm, limiting him to five appearances in his first minor league season.

He arrived healthy for his second spring in Vero Beach and threw three no-hit innings in his first outing against double-A and triple-A players, creating such a buzz that Ron Perranoski, the Dodgers’ major league pitching coach, showed up to watch his second game. By then the shoulder and back stiffness that shortened his first season had returned, and Lesch was rocked. Perranoski left early and unimpressed.

Lesch’s delivery had one major flaw: He threw directly overhand, as opposed to three-quarters or even sidearm, which can increase velocity but also places additional strain on the shoulder and elbow. As a result, his fastball could top out in the mid-90s one day, but when the stiffness and pain returned, it left him throwing in the low 80s.

The inconsistency continued to plague Lesch, and eventually the Dodgers decided they’d seen enough and released him. When he got back to Maryland, Lesch’s father sent him to see an orthopedic surgeon, who found the problem wasn’t in his back or elbow but rather the rotator cuff.

“We didn’t live in the era of pitch counts. So he just pitched,” said David Souter, a high school and college teammate who went on to develop big-league pitchers.

“He had the ability if he was developed and stayed healthy. I think he probably overthrew and tore his rotator cuff and nobody knew it.”

If Lesch had come along 10 years later, when rotator cuff surgeries were common, he might have returned to the mound. But in 1981, a rotator cuff injury was a death sentence for a pitcher.

“It’s just a crapshoot based on physiology,” Lesch said. “I probably was destined. Something would have happened.”

If he could do it over again, Lesch said he would change one thing.

“I’d throw sidearm,” he said. “It’s much less stress.”

He threw to big league hitters just one more time. Following the strike that interrupted the 1981 season, Ripken Sr. phoned Lesch back and asked him to throw batting practice at Memorial Stadium to help the Orioles prepare for the resumption of play. As a reward, the Orioles let Lesch hit — he never had batted in the minors — and he drove a pitch over the left-field wall, then dropped the bat and walked away.

He never stepped on a major league field again.

The Dodgers’ investment in Lesch’s education appeared manageable when he enrolled at a satellite campus of the University of Maryland, in part because his brother Bob was the school’s sports information director.

But it was 1981 and the Middle East was at the forefront of geopolitics. Lesch became convinced the Middle East would be central to world affairs for decades to come. Inspired and encouraged by Freedman and another professor, Lou Cantori, he applied to graduate school at Harvard, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago, knowing he couldn’t afford any of those schools on his own.

“I probably could not have said yes to Harvard when they accepted me because of the price,” Lesch said. “The Dodgers had committed to paying and whatever it was, it was a lot more collectively — my undergraduate MA and PhD — than I had gotten in the bonus.”

That wasn’t the only time his baseball background worked in his favor. Years after starting at Harvard, Lesch stumbled upon written evaluations of his application and learned that his grade-point average and other factors were similar to those of other applicants, but it was his athletic career that had swung enough votes in his favor to get him accepted.

“Failure is at the core of sports. And so you have to have this resiliency,” Lesch said. “What a lot of the top colleges have found is that these young kids out of high school who somehow get a 4.6 GPA, they come in — and I’ve seen this as a professor — they get their first C and they’re distraught.

“Athletes stick with it. They say ‘how can I turn this around? How can I get better?’ Admissions departments across the board have looked at athletes much differently.”

The struggles Lesch experienced on the diamond did not follow him into academia. Yet becoming an expert on the Middle East definitely was a backup plan.

“His first passion was clearly baseball and basketball,” said Souter, the former teammate. “Every kid dreamed … that.”

If the shoulder injury wasn’t a strong enough sign that that dream was over, the fire that destroyed Lesch’s childhood home a few years later was. The flames, which severely burned both his parents, also erased his baseball career, consuming all the photos and memorabilia he had collected, save for the championship ring from his one minor league season, which he found buried in the embers. It was the only thing to survive the blaze intact.

David Lesch’s championship ring from his one minor league season, the only surviving keepsake of his professional career after a his family’s home was destroyed in a fire.

(Courtesy of David Lesch)

A post-graduate trip to Syria, the first of more than 30 visits he has made to the country, sealed the deal a few years later. The love he once had for baseball he now felt for a strange and mysterious place that was as old as history itself yet as secretive as the classical ciphers.

Soon Lesch was helping arrange high-level meetings between Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and President George H.W. Bush, a baseball fan who seemed as interested in Lesch’s Dodgers days as his Middle Eastern expertise. But his big break came during the first presidential term of Bush’s son George W. Bush, when Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father as Syria’s president, welcomed Lesch for the first of many interviews that informed his book, “The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Assad and Modern Syria.”

“His forte is listening,” Cooke, the biographer, said of Lesch, whose polite, unassuming manner reflects an adult life spent mostly in San Antonio. “When he goes in to try to mediate something, he is a big listener. There is a side of David that doesn’t talk much. But he’s listening.”

The book humanized al-Assad and opened, for a time, the possibility of normalized relations between Syria and the West, with Lesch serving as an unofficial liaison between Damascus and Washington, as well as other Western capitals.

“He’s absolutely a critical player in what we would call two-track diplomacy,” Freedman said. “If the government wants to reach out but doesn’t want to take the political consequences, they send somebody to sound out the situation.

“It’s absolutely critical that we have people like that who can speak the language and understand the overall context, which sadly is lacking in the current administration.”

David Lesch teaches students in his history class at Trinity University in San Antonio.

(Lucero Salinas / Trinity University)

But that opening closed as quickly as it opened. Lesch’s close contacts with al-Assad raised suspicions among some in Syria, and Lesch was poisoned twice. His relationship with al-Assad was severed completely shortly afterward when he criticized al-Assad for failing to implement promised reforms and becoming a “bloodthirsty tyrant.” The Syrian civil war took nearly 700,000 lives and displace another 6.7 million people before al-Assad and his family fled into exile in Russia in 2024.

“Many governments think that they can reduce war to a calculation,” Lesch said. “What we cannot measure accurately or fully appreciate is the human element. We cannot assess a people’s sense of grievance, passion, revenge, ideological commitment and historical circumstances that shaped the nature of their response and staying power.

“This is where academics can make a contribution to policy, giving it the depth and insight gleaned from years of study and learning the culture and the people.”

Baseball’s loss wasn’t just academia’s gain. It may prove to be humanity’s as well.

“I don’t really have any regrets,” Lesch said. “My career turned out great. I could not think of doing anything else at this point and, in fact, in a way I’m glad [baseball] didn’t work out.”

U.S. Central Command said its new plan to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz kicked off Monday with the safe passage of two U.S.-flagged merchant ships. Dubbed Project Freedom, the operation is designed to “restore freedom of navigation for commercial shipping” through this strategically vital body of water, the command stated on X. Iran closed the Strait after being attacked by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28. Meanwhile, Iran says this move will threaten the fragile ceasefire and that it will attack any ships transiting the Strait without permission.

“U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers are currently operating in the Arabian Gulf after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in support of Project Freedom,” CENTCOM stated in a message posted on X Monday morning. “American forces are actively assisting efforts to restore transit for commercial shipping. As a first step, 2 U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are safely headed on their journey.”

CENTCOM didn’t say which ships transited the Strait and it is unclear if the Navy destroyers escorted them. We have reached out to CENTCOM for more details.

Project Freedom involves “guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members,” CENTCOM said in a post on X Sunday.

“The mission, directed by the President, will support merchant vessels seeking to freely transit through the essential international trade corridor,” CENTCOM added. “A quarter of the world’s oil trade at sea and significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer products are transported through the strait.”

“Our support for this defensive mission is essential to regional security and the global economy as we also maintain the naval blockade,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander.

President Trump on Sunday framed Project Freedom as an effort to gets ships and crews out of the Strait. It is unclear if this operation will also protect ships trying to enter as well. It’s possible this could occur once CENTCOM evaluates the realities in the waterway as ships are evacuated. We will update this story with any additional details we learn.

As part of Project Freedom, vessels “choosing to transit the Strait of Hormuz should consider routing via Oman territorial waters south of the Traffic Separation Scheme,” U.S. Navy Central (NAVCENT) cautioned Monday morning. The Traffic Separation Scheme refers to new traffic patterns Iran set up for ships transiting the Strait through its territorial waters.

“Due to anticipated traffic volume, coordination with Oman authorities via VHF channel 16 is advised to maintain safety of navigation,” according to NAVCENT. “Transit via or in close proximity to the Traffic Separation Scheme should be considered extremely hazardous due the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated.”

Iran has placed an undetermined number of mines in the Strait since the war broke out, a U.S. official told us.

As we noted last week, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) group says strait transits have fallen by more than 90%, leaving 850 merchant ships and around 20,000 sailors trapped inside the Gulf and unable to leave. 

In reaction to Project Freedom and the new NAVCENT transit guidance, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Monday warned that “maritime movements of vessels, contrary to the regulations declared by the Iranian Navy, would face serious risks, and that they would be stopped by force.”

The IRGC added that it maintains control over the Strait and that ships adhering to its rules will be safe. In addition, it called Project Freedom, as well as the ongoing U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, acts of “piracy.” IRGC also said that Project Freedom is in violation of the April 8 ceasefire agreed to by the U.S. and Iran.

In addition to the IRGC warning, Iranian media claimed that “two missiles struck a U.S. Navy patrol boat. This patrol boat, which today moved near Jask violating security and navigation rules intending to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, was targeted by a missile attack after ignoring the warning from the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy.”

The official Iranian FARS news agency added that the “patrol boat was unable to continue its route due to the hits and was forced to retreat and flee the area.”

Iranian media offered no proof of the attack. In a post on X, CENTCOM denied that claim.

“No U.S. Navy ships have been struck,” the command stated. “U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports.”

🚫 CLAIM: Iranian state media claims that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a U.S. warship with two missiles.

✅ TRUTH: No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports. pic.twitter.com/VFxovxLU6G

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 4, 2026

However, the United Arab Emirates on Monday said that one of its oil tankers was attacked by two Iranian drones as it sailed through the Strait.

“The UAE condemns in the strongest terms the targeting of a national tanker affiliated with [Abu Dhabi National Oil Company] ADNOC while passing through the Strait of Hormuz,” the UAE Foreign Ministry stated on X, adding that there were no injuries in the attack.

The ministry did not say which ship was attacked or when. However, the United ​Kingdom ⁠Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it received a report of an incident on May 3 “78NM north of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A tanker has reported being hit by unknown projectiles. All crew reported safe. No environmental impact reported.”

Project Freedom and the new NAVCENT transit guidance were launched following a message U.S. President Donald Trump posted Sunday on his social media.

“Countries from all over the World, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle Eastern dispute going on so visibly, and violently, for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz, on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with — They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders!” Trump proclaimed on Truth Social. “For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business.”

The president added that Project Freedom is a humanitarian effort, conducted as the U.S. and Iran are working on ways to end the conflict.

“I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all,” Trump avowed. “The Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance. This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran.”

Still, if Iran does not comply, Trump issued a warning to Tehran. 

“I think it would go a long way in showing Goodwill on behalf of all of those who have been fighting so strenuously over the last number of months,” the American leader posited. “If, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.” 

Trump on Truth Social announces that “Project Freedom” will begin in the morning to get ships out of the Strait of Hormuz pic.twitter.com/a7ygbWUEFQ

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) May 3, 2026

As Project Freedom kicks off, shipping companies are taking a wait-and-see attitude about its effectiveness.

“We of course welcome initiatives aimed at improving the security situation in principle,” a spokesperson for German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd told us Monday morning. “However, we currently have too little information on how such an escort service could be safely implemented in practice, so we are maintaining our risk assessment. We have taken note of the latest announcement. We are currently reviewing the information available and are in close contact with relevant authorities and our security partners.”

“At this stage, our risk assessment remains unchanged and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for Hapag-Lloyd transits until further notice,” the company added.

While CENTCOM says Project Freedom had a successful first encounter, there are still many questions to be answered about this operation. Despite Iranian bluster, it is unknown so far if its threats are just posturing for domestic consumption or if they will really fire on U.S. warships. Such a move would guarantee a ferocious U.S. response and an end, at least temporarily, to the ongoing moves to stop the now-paused war.

Update: 2:15 PM EDT –

Earlier today, U.S. Army AH-64 Apache and U.S. Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopters destroyed six small Iranian boats that were threatening commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz, according to Cooper. You can read more about that here.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

May 4 (UPI) — A United Airlines flight hit a delivery truck and a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike on approach to Newark International Airport in New Jersey, where it landed safely and nobody was hurt.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Sunday afternoon incident, which “has been classified as an accident due to the extent of the damage to the airplane.”

“An NTSB investigator arrived in Newark this morning to conduct interviews of the flight crew,” the agency said in a statement posted to X.

“The investigation will examine multiple factors, including flight operations, meteorological conditions, human performance, crew resource management, aircraft performance and air traffic traffic control,” it said.

The flight was on approach from Venice, Italy, into Newark but flew too close to traffic, clipping a delivery truck and then hitting a light pole that reportedly struck a Jeep on the highway, CBS Baltimore and WABC reported.

The flight, which was carrying 221 passengers and 10 crew, landed safely at the airport around 2 p.m., with officials from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to the bakery that owns the truck noting that they have no idea how the incident happened.

“Upon its final approach into Newark International Airport, United flight 169 came into contact with a light pole,” United said in a statement.

“The aircraft landed safely, taxied to the gate normally and no passengers or crew were injured,” the airline said. “Our maintenance team is evaluating damage to the aircraft and we will investigate how this occurred.”

May 4 (UPI) — Elon Musk on Monday settled a lawsuit filed against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission for $1.5 million after the agency accused him of breaking securities laws.

The SEC alleged in January 2025 that Musk cost Twitter shareholders $150 million because he delayed disclosing his purchase of more than 5% of shares in the company within the 10 days required by law.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter led to a series of lawsuits because of how he purchased the company, which has since been renamed to X, which saw him become its biggest shareholder before he launched a successful hostile takeover, The Washington Post reported.

In the settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, would see Musk pay a $1.5 million penalty while allowing him to admit no wrongdoing, CNBC reported.

“A trust vehicle has agreed to a small fine for being late on one filing,” Musk attorney Alex Spiro said of the agreement, which will see one of his client’s revocable trusts paying the fine.

Musk made a play to buy Twitter in 2022, first buy purchasing more than 5% of the company, which he did not disclose and was the reason the SEC filed suit, which allowed him to put other investors in a poor position before he launched his takeover.

May 4 (UPI) — The U.S. Secret Service shot a man near the Washington Monument on Monday after spotting a person with a gun nearby and called for backup.

An ensuing shootout with the man while he tried to run resulted in a child near the monument being injured before the suspect was also shot, and both have been hospitalized, NBC Washington, Fox 5 DC and Politico reported.

The incident comes just over a week since a man rushed security at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., in an alleged attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump and other members of the administration that were in attendance.

The suspect had been under surveillance for some time before he was approached based on officers observing what they termed a “suspicious” person.

“Whether or not it was directed to the president or not, I don’t know, but we will find out,” said Matthew Quinn, deputy director of the secret service, adding that the agency is patrolling the area — the monument is about half-a-mile from the White House — “24/7, hard core” after recent events.

Law enforment officials were patrolling near the monument, down the street from the White House, when they observed the person and approached.

The suspect pulled out a gun and fired toward them, resulting in an exchange of gunfire, which resulted in both the suspect and a nearby child.

The child suffered a graze would to his lower body, was taken to an ambulance and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, Quinn told reporters.

Streets were blocked off after the incident and members of the White House Press Pool were evacuated from the area during the incident, which occurred as Trump was holding a small business event inside the White House and reportedly was not aware of what happened.

The U.S. Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department both said that their investigations are ongoing.

May 4 (UPI) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is breathing on his own and recovering from pneumonia in Florida after he was hospitalized over the weekend.

Giuliani was hospitalized with the infection on Sunday where he was in critical but stable condition because of difficulty breathing but has improved over the last 24 hours, his spokesman said on Monday afternoon.

The mayor’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, said that he remains in critical but stable condition but he has improved markedly since his hospitalization, is now breathing on his own and has his family by his side.

On Sunday, Goodman had said that Giuliani was hospitalized but had not reported why he was in the hospital, nor did he offer any details.

“Mayor Rudy Giuliani is recovering from pneumonia,” Goodman said in a post on X.

Giuliani, he said, “is the ultimate fighter — as he has demonstrated throughout his life — and he is winning the battle. His family deeply appreciated the outpouring of love and support … Please keep the prayers coming.”

Goodman said that Giuliani was diagnosed with restrictive airway disease after the days he spent in lower Manhattan breathing dust-filled air after the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, which included asbestos that had been used in the construction of the buildings in the 1970s.

The condition, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, is a decrease in the total volume of air the lungs can hold because of a decrease in the organs’ elasticity or issues linked to chest wall expansion when a person inhales.

Pneumonia can be caused by bacteria, viruses and other pathogens that can enter the lungs while breathing and, depending on the overall health of the person, can be deadly.

Pneumonia is a respiratory infection and, helped by the Sept. 11-linked condition, it overwhelmed his body and required mechanical ventilation in order to stabilize his overall condition.

“He is now breathing on his own, with his family and primary medical provider at his side,” Goodman said.