women

SACRAMENTO — The federal safety-net healthcare system for low-income and disabled Americans, Medicaid, won’t be the only medical coverage devastated by the package of spending cuts and tax breaks signed into law by President Trump on the Fourth of July.

Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimates that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out due to increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled. Those who do stay could be hit with an average monthly premium increase of up to 66%.

This is Phil Willon, the L.A. Times California politics editor, filling in for columnist George Skelton this week.

To find out more about how the millions of Californians who rely on Covered California for health insurance will be affected by Trump’s megabill, I spoke with Jessica Altman, the organization’s executive director.

We spoke on Thursday, while the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives was voting to approve the reconciliation legislation. According to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the package will lead to 11.8 million more people going without health insurance nationwide over the next decade.

Price increase imminent

Covered California serves as a marketplace exchange for state residents seeking healthcare insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, allowing them to select from name-brand insurance providers and choose from a variety of coverage plans.

“A quarter of the people we cover are sole proprietors. That’s everything from mom-and-pop Etsy shops to a consultant, a highly educated tech worker in San Francisco doing contract work. We really have that full spectrum,” Altman said.

Covered California also serves as a health insurance sanctuary for residents whose income rises enough for them to lose eligiblity for Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California, or those who work for companies that don’t provide benefits.

The current cost for basic coverage ranges from $0 a month for individuals earning around $21,000 — just above the income eligibility for Medi-Cal — to 8.5% of the income of people making $75,000 or more, Altman said.

The vast majority of Californians receive federal subsidies to lower their premiums, including many middle-income families who had become eligible when Congress expanded the financial assistance in 2021.

Those subsidies were not renewed in the Trump megabill. In theory, the Republican-led Congress could remedy that before the end of the year but, given that Trump spent most of his first term in office trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the odds of that appear slim.

“We have many, many people paying less than $10 a month for their health insurance. We’re going to lose that price for sure,” Altman said. “We also have people, that person making $75,000 a year … they’re going to lose all of their tax credits and potentially pay hundreds more a month.”

And that price increase will start to hit home in four months, when Covered California’s open enrollment signup period begins for 2026.

Thousands of Californians will drop their coverage because they can no longer afford the expense, Altman predicts.

“This is a moment where Americans and Californians are so financially strained: Their rent, their food, their gas, their child care, all of their transportation, all of these things,” Altman said. “They are not in a position today where they feel like any of those costs can rise by 66%.”

Altman said the governor and California Legislature budgeted an additional $190 million for Covered California, which hopefully will help reduce the number of residents who will lose their healthcare coverage. But, she said, it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the federal cuts.

Targeting legal immigrants and ‘Dreamers’

Approximately 112,000 lawful immigrants in California also will be stripped of premium tax credits and cost-sharing support, essentially pushing health coverage out of financial reach, she said. That includes immigrant groups that have been eligible for assistance for years, including those with work and student visas, refugees, asylees and victims of human trafficking.

“They are limiting it so only green card holders and a couple of very nuanced categories of certain Cuban immigrants and certain immigrants from Pacific Island nations can get financial assistance,” Altman said.

Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children, a group known as “Dreamers,” will be stripped of their eligibility, Altman said.

Thousands more Californians likely will drop coverage because of new burdensome verification requirements, including increased tax filings, and bureaucratic hurdles that must be overcome to maintain eligibility.

Big picture

California Gov. Gavin Newsom already has warned that the cuts to Medicaid in what Trump calls the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a cornerstone of his second-term agenda, will lead to hospital and clinic closures, especially in the state’s underserved rural areas.

Altman said that impact will be exacerbated by the tens of thousands of Californians expected to lose their medical insurance they secured through Covered California. Medical facilities received higher compensation to care for patients who secured health insurance through Covered California than they do for patients on Medi-Cal. And hospitals and clinics will now take an even greater financial hit for caring for Californians with no health insurance, raising healthcare costs for everyone else.

“We know people will get less healthcare. They will not get their preventive care, they will not get their primary care at the rates that they do when they’re covered,” Altman said. “But when they really need care, they’re going to go get it. They’re going to get it at the emergency room, and our system is going to pay for it anyway.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Valadao votes for a Trump megabill expected to disrupt healthcare for many in the Central Valley
The TK: Gov. Newsom will visit South Carolina, a pivotal presidential primary state
The L.A. Times Special: Kidnappers or ICE agents? LAPD grapples with surge in calls from concerned citizens

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Here we go again.

A bunch of successful, conservative professional women are telling young women they don’t need careers to have fulfilling lives. All they need to do is avoid college (or better yet, just use it to find a husband), get married, have babies, stay home and live happily ever after.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the proliferation of “tradwife” (i.e. traditional wife) influencers on various forms of social media, or the coverage of conferences like the woefully misnamed Young Women’s Leadership Summit that recently took place in Dallas. A project of Charlie Kirk’s conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, the summit promised to focus on “foundational aspects of womanhood” such as “faith, femininity and well-being.”

The conference drew 3,000 women who, according to reports, were mostly college students or young professionals. They sported pins that read “My favorite season is the fall of feminism” and “Dump your socialist boyfriend,” and they were told by Kirk, “We should bring back the celebration of the Mrs. degree.”

“The left wants women to feel angry and like victims, and like your rights are being taken away,” a 31-year-old influencer named Arynne Wexler told a reporter for New York magazine. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in fact her rights are being taken away. Perhaps she has forgotten that the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in 2022?

Anyway, there is absolutely nothing new here. A certain subset of women — straight, white, conservative, religious — has always fought against gender equality for their own reasons, but mostly I’d say because it threatens their own privileged status and proximity to male power.

Nearly half a century before Wexler bemoaned “the left,” Phyllis Schlafly, lawyer, author and anti-feminist crusader, said basically the same thing: “The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy. Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.”

Hmmm. I’m pretty sure it was oppressive patriarchy that prevented women from owning property, having their own credit cards and bank accounts, from earning equal pay, accessing legal birth control and abortion, serving on juries and holding public office. Until second wave feminism came along in the 1960s and 1970s, I’m pretty sure, too, that oppressive patriarchy allowed employers to fire women once they married or got pregnant, and that domestic violence, marital rape and sexual harassment were not treated as crimes. Oh, and it was feminists who pushed for Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which addressed gender inequality in education, including, crucially, in sports.

Attacking feminism because you‘ve never experienced a time when women were not, for the most part, legally equal to men springs from the same ignorant well as believing measles vaccines are unnecessary because you’ve never experienced the (largely vaccine-eliminated) disease for yourself.

Indeed, reciting the accomplishments of feminism reminds me of that classic scene in the 1979 black comedy “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.” You may recall it: What have the Romans ever given us? (Just sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health.)

A consistent thread in the argument against gender equality is that feminism makes women feel bad for staying home with their kids and not pursuing careers.

In Dallas last month, young conference-goers told the New York Times “that it was feminism and career ambition making them unhappy, not the broader stress of puzzle-piecing together the responsibilities of modern life.”

In 1994, then-First Lady Barbara Bush said she had experienced a period of depression and partly attributed it to “the women’s movement,” which, as she told NPR, “sort of made women who stayed home feel inadequate.” I get that. But in response, I would paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inadequate without your consent. If you are lucky enough to be able to stay home with your children and do not feel compelled to carve out a career, more power to you.

Alex Clark, a popular podcaster and influencer who headlined the Young Women’s Leadership Conference, offered the crowd her Make America Healthy Again formula: “Less Prozac and more protein. Less burnout, more babies, less feminism, more femininity.”

But having lots of babies is stressful — having one baby is stressful — and can certainly lead to its own kind of burnout.

One of the most popular tradwives in the country, Hannah Neeleman, is a Mormon mother of eight young children. She is married to a rancher who is the son of the founder of Jet Blue, has more than 9 million social media followers and, as a former professional ballerina, posts under the handle Ballerina Farm.

Last summer, in a profile published by the Times of London, she was dubbed the “queen of tradwives.” We learned that she does all the food shopping, makes all the meals and has no help with childcare. I would submit that she is a career woman as well, since she runs popular social media accounts that generate millions of dollars a year in income. In a stunning admission, her husband told the London Times reporter that his wife “sometimes gets so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week.”

I could not help but think of Mormon housewives in the state of Utah, which has led the nation in antidepressant prescriptions for decades. “Most men here would just as soon their wives take pills than bother to delve into the problems, and maybe find out they might have something to do with the problems,” a Mormon mom told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, the year the prescription study was released.

Dana Loesch, a conservative commentator, radio host and author who once shilled for the National Rifle Assn., was one of the speakers in Dallas whose reality contradicts her rhetoric.

“I’ll tell you this, ladies,” she told the crowd. “You cannot have it all, at the same time. Something will suffer.”

Oh please. Loesch has it all — a career, marriage and kids.

So why can’t they?

@rabcarian.bsky.social
@rabcarian.

SEOUL — It’s a worldwide shift that has taken political scientists and sociologists by surprise: the growing ideological divide between young men and women.

In the recent U.S. presidential election, President Trump won 56% of the vote among men ages 18 to 29, according to an analysis from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

In Germany, young men are twice as likely as young women to support the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, according to the Pew Research Center. Last year’s European Parliament elections showed a similar trend. According to the European Policy Center, in Portugal, Denmark and Croatia, more than four young men voted for far-right candidates for every young woman who did the same.

But few countries exemplify the trend more than South Korea, where a recent presidential election showed just how polarized its youth has become.

In South Korea, 74.1% of men in their 20s and 60.3% of men in their 30s voted for one of the two conservative candidates compared with 35.6% and 40.5% of their female counterparts, respectively.

Experts say the so-called 2030 male (men in their 20s and 30s) phenomenon, which emerged alongside the mainstreaming of gender equality discourse in South Korea over the last decade, has defied traditional left-right taxonomies.

The “2030 men are difficult to define under standard electoral theory frameworks,” said Kim Yeun-sook, a political scientist at Seoul National University’s Institute of Korean Political Studies.

Having come of age in a world with radically different social contracts than those of their parents, right-leaning 2030 male voters are less likely to focus on North Korea — a defining preoccupation for older conservatives — than on feminism, which for them has become a dirty word that conjures “freeloading” women trying to take more than they are owed.

The men have taken umbrage with visual symbols or hand gestures — such as a pinched forefinger and thumb — that they argue are anti-male dog whistles used by feminists, in some cases succeeding in getting companies to discontinue marketing campaigns featuring such offending content.

South Korean women supporting the #MeToo movement stage a rally to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day in Seoul on March 4, 2018.

(Ahn Young-joon / Associated Press)

In the 2022 presidential election, it was men in their 20s and 30s who helped Yoon Suk Yeol — the conservative candidate who claimed that structural sexism no longer existed — clinch a razor-thin victory over his liberal opponent, Lee Jae-myung, who was elected president in June.

This perception that men — not women — are the true victims of gender discrimination in contemporary society is a defining belief for many young South Korean men, says Chun Gwan-yul, a data journalist and the author of “20-something Male,” a book about the phenomenon that draws on extensive original polling of young South Koreans.

Although male backlash to contemporary feminism is the most visible aspect of the phenomenon, Kim Chang-hwan, a sociologist at the University of Kansas, says that its roots go back to socioeconomic changes that began much earlier.

Among them was a series of government policies three decades earlier that led to a surge in both male and female college enrollment, which soared from around 30% of the general population in 1990 to 75% in 2024. Add to that the increasingly long-term participation of women in the workforce, Kim said, and “the supply of educated labor has ended up outpacing economic growth.”

“The young men of today are now feeling like they are having to compete five times harder than the previous generation,” he said.

(Despite the fact that gender inequality in South Korea’s job market is among the worst in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with women making on average around 65% of their male counterparts and far more likely to be precariously employed, such wage gaps tend to be less prominent for earners in their 20s.)

And although most research has shown that the negative effect of South Korea’s male-only compulsory military service — which lasts up to 21 months — on wages and employment is minimal, anxieties about getting a later start than women in a hypercompetitive job market have also contributed to young South Korean men feeling that they are getting a raw deal.

Chun, the data journalist, points out that the mass entry of women into higher education also led to another tectonic shift being felt by the current crop of young men: the rapid collapse of traditional marriage dynamics.

“Women have been doing the math and are increasingly concluding marriage is a net loss for them,” he said. “South Korea transformed from a society where marriage was universal into a marriage-is-optional one in an incredibly short time frame, especially compared to many Western countries where those changes played out over 60 or 70 years.”

In 2000, just 19% of South Koreans between the ages of 30 and 34 were unmarried, but today that number is 56%, according to government data. Over a third of women between 25 and 49 years old now say they don’t ever want to get married, compared with 13% of men, according to a government survey last year. One in 4 men will now remain unmarried in their 40s.

South Korean women take part in a rally to mark International Women’s Day in downtown Seoul on March 8, 2024.

(Jung Yeon-je/ AFP/Getty Images)

Chun notes that the mismatch in the marriage landscape has bred in many the misogynistic resentment associated with incels, a term for men who identify as involuntarily celibate. A common refrain among young conservative men is the swearing-off of South Korean women, who are often cast as “kimchi women” — gold diggers who are unwilling to pull their weight while demanding too much of men.

“Do you need to only date Korean women just because you’re Korean? No,” said Chul Gu, an online personality popular among young men in a recent stream. “There are Thai women, Russian women, women of all nationalities. There is no need to suffer the stress of dating a Korean kimchi woman.”

Resentment toward South Korean women, Chun says, is inseparable from the generational animus that feeds it.

“In the worldview of young South Korean men, they aren’t just fighting women, they are fighting the older generation that is siding with those women,” he said. “It’s essentially an anti-establishment ethos.”

The “586 generation,” as they are commonly called, are South Koreans in their 50s or 60s who came of age during the high-growth, authoritarian period of the 1980s. Associated with the pro-democracy movements of the time, the 586 generation is one of the most liberal and pro-gender equality demographics in South Korea — and one whose members built much of their wealth through cheap real estate, an avenue no longer available for the majority of young South Koreans accustomed to seeing housing prices in Seoul double in as little as four years.

“Young South Koreans are seeing those homes become worth millions,” Chun said. “Meanwhile, South Korea’s birth rate is falling and life expectancy is rising to 80 or 90, so many young voters are thinking, ‘We’re going to have to be responsible for them for the next 40 to 50 years.’”

Among the candidates in last month’s presidential election, it was Lee Jun-seok, a 40-year-old third-party conservative candidate, who most aggressively targeted these tensions.

During his campaign, Lee promised to segregate South Korea’s fast-depleting national pension by age, a move he said would relieve younger South Koreans of the burden of subsidizing the older generation’s retirement.

Although he finished with just 8% of the total vote, he won the largest share — 37.2% — of the 20-something male vote, and 25.8% from men in their 30s.

“South Korea is very much locked into a two-party system where it is generally rare to see a third party candidate make much of a difference,” Kim, the political scientist, said. “I think there’s a lot of negative polarization at play — an expression of defeatism or disenfranchisement at the fact that status quo politicians aren’t addressing young men’s problems.”

Data show that disillusionment with democracy too runs deep.

According to a recent survey of 1,514 South Koreans by the East Asia Institute, a Seoul-based think tank, just 62.6% of South Korean men between the ages of 18 and 29 believe that democracy is the best political system — the lowest percentage in any age and gender group — with nearly a quarter believing that a dictatorship can sometimes be more preferable.

Whether the rightward drift of young South Korean men is a temporary deviation or a more serious forecast for South Korea’s democracy is still an open question, according to Kim.

“But now is the time to act,” she said. “There absolutely needs to be a political response to the younger generations’ frustrations.”

WASHINGTON — As Americans mark the Fourth of July holiday this weekend, the Trump administration is planning ahead for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, a moment of reflection for a nation beset by record-low patriotism and divided by heated culture wars over the country’s identity.

‘A grand celebration’

Fireworks burst over Washington, D.C., landmarks on July 4, 1976, at the nation’s bicentennial celebration.

(Charles Tasnadi / Associated Press)

White House officials are actively involved in state and local planning for the semiquincentennial after the president, in one of his first acts in office, established “Task Force 250” to organize “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.”

The administration has launched a website offering its telling of the nation’s founding, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — which he had hoped to pass by this Independence Day — includes a provision allocating $40 million to commission 250 statues for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” to be built at an undetermined location.

Trump has been thinking about the 250th anniversary for years. He invoked the occasion in his first joint session to Congress in 2017, stating it would be “one of the great milestones in the history of the world.” And in 2023, campaigning for a second term, he proposed a “Great American State Fair” to take place around the country throughout the year.

But that milestone year comes amid fierce debate over Trump’s attempts to exert government control over the teaching of American history.

In March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” directing public institutions to limit their presentation of the nation’s history without nuance or criticism. “This is not a return to sanity,” the Organization of American Historians responded at the time. “Rather, it sanitizes to destroy truth.”

On the “America 250” website created by the White House, the account of the nation’s founding is outsourced to Hillsdale College, a far-right institution that was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025.

“A question over this coming year is whether the celebrations around the 250th will be used as yet another cudgel in the culture wars where the goal is to divide rather than unite,” said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University.

“The view Trump’s ‘Task Force 250’ seems to be laying out is comfortable, but doesn’t give us a full view of that historical moment,” Ekbladh said. “And a full view doesn’t reduce things to a story of tragedy or oppression — although there was plenty of both — but can show us the full set of experiences that were the foundations of a dynamic country.”

Dueling celebrations in a divided nation

In 1976, when the United States marked its 200th birthday, the festivities were prolific. Federal government letterhead was decorated for over a year to mark the anniversary. State-sponsored celebrations were designed to revive a national sense of patriotism that had been challenged by a stagflating economy, lingering trauma from the political convulsions of the late 1960s and the Vietnam War.

A full schedule of events has yet to be made public. But scholars expect echoes of 1976, when government efforts to instill pride in a weary nation met with mixed success.

“In 1976, there were dueling celebrations: official, government-sponsored ones, and ‘people’s’ observances organized by progressive groups,” said Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University. “I expect something of that kind will occur next year too.”

There are significant differences. This time, the nation will celebrate a constitutional system of checks and balances under historic pressure from a president testing the bounds of executive power.

“Two hundred and fifty years of constitutional democracy is well worth honoring,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a history professor at Bowdoin College, “but this particular anniversary is symbolic in ways that resonate exactly opposite to Trump’s vision of governance and history.”

Most of the Declaration of Independence, Rudalevige noted, is dedicated to laying out “how centralized executive authority leads to tyranny, and must be opposed.” And the document’s promise of inalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness have been a beacon of hope and inspiration to immigrants since the founding.

“So the next year will mark a hugely important tension between the version of American history that Mr. Trump and his allies want taught — and actual American history,” Rudalevige said. “We will have a sort of polarized patriotism.”

Patriotism hits new lows

That polarization has already become evident in recent polling.

A survey published by Gallup this week found that a historically low number of Americans feel patriotic, with 58% of U.S. adults identifying as “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American. That is nine points lower than last year, and the lowest figure registered by Gallup since they began polling on the matter in 2001.

Pride among Republicans has stayed relatively consistent, with 92% registering as patriotic. But it has plummeted among Democrats and independents. And pride decreased across parties by age group, with more Democrats in Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s — telling Gallup they have “little” or “no” pride in being an American than saying they are extremely or very proud.

If nothing else, historians said, the anniversary is an opportunity for everyday Americans to reflect on the country they want to live in.

“To be sure, for many people the day is just a day off and maybe a chance to go to a parade and see some fireworks,” said Ekbladh, of Tufts. “But the day can and should be a moment to think about what the country is.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Even some Orange County Republicans question Trump sweeps targeting immigrant workers
The deep dive: How Trump’s big budget bill would jump-start his immigration agenda
The L.A. Times Special: Trump was winning with Latinos. Now, his cruelty is derailing him

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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Gemma Gray

‘Consider the health impacts’

In January, as wildfires tore through greater Los Angeles, more than 7,500 emergency personnel mobilized — confronting searing heat and extreme winds, trying to contain the devastation.

Among them stood an Olympic gold medalist and a professional soccer champion.

L.A. County firefighters David Walters and Erin Regan, former athletes who were among the 7,500 emergency personnel who responded to the January wildfires in Southern California, earned them this year’s Pat Tillman Award for Service that will be presented at the ESPY Awards.

The award — named after Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who left the NFL to enlist in the Army following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and was killed in action — celebrates those with deep ties to sports who have served others, embodying Tillman’s legacy.

Years before joining the fire department, Walters helped the U.S. win the 4×200-meter freestyle relay gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games. He swam the lead leg in the preliminaries, helping the team set an Olympic record that paved the way for a world-record win in the final.

During the fires, Walters recounted the exhausting conditions as crews fought blazes that scorched nearly 38,000 acres — claiming the lives of 30 people and destroying homes, businesses and landmarks in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.

“We’re pretty much trying to keep what is left here standing,” Walters told NewsNation. “So we’re not laying down. We’re staying in our position — that’s correct, I did sleep on top of the hose bed last night, just staying ready to do what we can still do.”

Walters told ESPN he is honored to serve Los Angeles.

“This has been a challenging year, but also a rewarding one as we watched the Los Angeles community come together to support their neighbors,” he said in ESPN’s award announcement.

Regan, who joined the department in 2008, once anchored the Washington Freedom to a Women’s United Soccer Assn. title following a stellar goalkeeping career at Wake Forest, where she earned first-team All-ACC honors and broke multiple school records.

Outside of firehouse duties, Regan champions female representation in the fire service. She co-founded Girls’ Fire Camp, a one-day program introducing young girls to firefighting, and launched the Women’s Fire Prep Academy, offering mentorship and hands-on training for aspiring female firefighters.

“My career choice was inspired by my family’s history of public service, so receiving this award is a tribute to the many great influences that shaped my upbringing,” Regan said in ESPN’s award announcement. “As first responders, we take pride in hard work and serving others, and I’m truly humbled to be recognized alongside incredible heroes like Pat Tillman.”

The ESPYs, hosted by comedian Shane Gillis, will air on ABC and stream on ESPN+ on July 16 at 8 p.m. PDT.

Kartal has enjoyed a remarkable rise through the rankings in the past 18 months.

At Wimbledon last year, she arrived as a wildcard ranked 281 in the world and went on to reach the third round.

On her return this year, ranked 230 places above that, she cut a calm and mature figure.

Ostapenko, 28, had beaten Kartal comfortably in the opening round at Eastbourne last week but the Briton maintained her composure as she fell 5-2 behind in the opening set.

A wayward Ostapenko forehand into the net was the catalyst for Kartal to go on and win the next five games, saving set points at 5-4 before motoring ahead to take the set.

Ostapenko was left stunned when Kartal sent a ripping forehand round the net post but the former Wimbledon semi-finalist managed to cut out the errors and take the second set comfortably to level things up.

That said, Ostapenko grew increasingly frustrated throughout the match – muttering under her breath and berating herself while shouting up at her coaches.

Fans in the crowd were also on the receiving end of glaring looks as she complained that they were being too noisy, asking the umpire to tell them to be quiet before shouting at them and raising her arms in exasperation.

But throughout that Kartal remained steadfast and raced through the third set, securing a double break before serving out for an impressive victory.

Prosecutors make closing arguments in six-week trial that heard harrowing testimony from people who faced alleged abuse.

United States prosecutors argued that Sean “Diddy” Combs used his wealth and influence to evade accountability for violently abusing women in closing arguments in the entertainment mogul’s trial.

Prosecutors told the jury on Thursday that Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, oversaw a vast criminal conspiracy.

“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” prosecutor Christy Slavik told jurors in her address. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”

The trial of the billionaire former rapper, a central figure in the rise of hip-hop in US popular culture, has included harrowing testimony from women who described an atmosphere of cruelty, exploitation, and intimidation.

Over six weeks of testimony, prosecutors also said that Combs pushed people to participate in drug-fuelled sex parties known as “freak offs”, with footage of people engaged in sex acts then used as leverage by Combs.

Slavik said that Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” singer and former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura to have sex with escorts for his own entertainment and used a “small army of employees” from his entertainment empire to cover up abuses and intimidate anyone who tried to push back.

Combs sat with his head down while Slavik made her remarks before the jury, wearing a light-coloured sweater and khaki trousers. His lawyers have argued that while Combs has a violent temperament and has committed violent acts against romantic partners, prosecutors have misrepresented a sexually unorthodox lifestyle as evidence of crimes such as racketeering and trafficking.

Judge Arun Subramanian told the jury that they would hear final statements from the defence on Friday, with the prosecution given a chance to offer a rebuttal before jurors are instructed on their responsibilities and sent to begin deliberation.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday or Monday, and Combs faces a minimum of 15 years in prison if he is convicted on all counts.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states may exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from providing medical screenings and other healthcare for women on Medicaid.

The court’s conservative majority reversed the longstanding rule that said Medicaid patients may obtain medical care from any qualified provider.

In a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled the Medicaid Act does not give patients an “individual right” to the provider of their choice.

The dispute has turned on abortion. Medicaid is funded by the federal government and the states. For decades, conservative states have argued their funds should not be used in Planned Parenthood clinics because some of those clinics perform abortions.

But until now, the federal government and the courts had said that Medicaid patients can go to any qualified provider for healthcare.

In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the decision “will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them. And, more concretely, it will strip those South Carolinians — and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country — of a deeply personal freedom: the ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed.

Planned Parenthood clinics provide cancer screenings, birth control medical screenings, pregnancy testing, contraception and other healthcare services.

Congress pays most of the state’s costs for Medicaid, and it says “any individual eligible for medical assistance” may receive care from any provider who is “qualified to perform the service.”

Lupe Rodríguez, executive director of National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, called the decision “an attack on our healthcare and our freedom to make our own decisions about our bodies and lives. By allowing states to block Medicaid patients from getting care at Planned Parenthood health centers, the Court has chosen politics over people and cruelty over compassion.”

Three years ago, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade and ruled states may prohibit nearly all abortions.

Nonetheless, South Carolina continued its legal fight to prevent Medicaid patients from receiving care at Planned Parenthood’s clinics in Charleston and Columbia.

Former Gov. Henry McMaster, who issued the ban on Planned Parenthood in 2018, said he did so to protect “his state’s sovereign interests.”

Critics of the move said the state has a severe shortage of doctors and medical personnel who treat low-income patients on Medicaid.

Oti Mabuse was seen getting emotional on the Loose Women panel earlier today, as she reminisced on her time on the TV show DNA journey with her sister Motsi

Oti Mabuse broke down in tears on today’s episode of Loose Women as she spoke about her emotional journey on the show, DNA Journey.

During the episode of the ITV show, which aired in 2023, Oti and Motsi Mabuse explored their family history in South Africa, in which they discovered a WWII connection.

Their grandfather, Paulus Mabuse, fought for the British in the Native Military Corps during the war. During the ITV daytime show, Oti revisited a clip of herself and her sister Motsi when they found out, which moved her to tears.

In the clip, Oti and Motsi were seen breaking down in tears when they were given medals their grandfather received for his work in the armed forces.

‘It’s a good thing, it’s an amazing thing. Please don’t think we’re sad. One of the missing pieces that we’ve missed and needed to hear for so long, it’s a beautiful thing. We’re so grateful. These are tears of, “Oh my God!”‘

The pair said they had “no idea” that there were war medals in their family, as they learnt their grandfather fought for the British in World War II. Oti revealed that her grandfather, along with many others were promised land. However, they were relocated and left in the middle of nowhere.

Oti said it made her feel “horrendous” as she said both her and Motsi cried their make-up off. However, she said they felt liberated knowing where they come from. “Now I know that I’m a granddaughter of a soldier,” she told the panel, before the clip was played.

As they cut back to the studio after the clip was played, Oti wiped away he tears as she said: “It’s moving.

“Also, I think that we tried to look for something, we didn’t wait for the show to come to us. We also asked our parents, and you can see the generational trauma that it causes.

“My dad didn’t speak to his dad and so he didn’t know. All that they knew is maybe they drank, they went to the mine, and then they died. He didn’t know that his life served a purpose and he helped save the world.

“We’re here because of people like our grandad, and it means the world to us.”

Speaking on her experience on Loose Women, Oti said it was the “best show” she’d ever done. “It gave me something personally back. Our history in South Africa is really rough. Specifically with my family it was wiped out, so we had no way of getting any information.”

Tonight, Sam Thompson and Marvin Humes will be taking part in the ITV show to discover their family history. In the episode, the duo start off in Jamaica. There, JLS star Marvin finds out that his Great Grandma Blanche was not actually married to his Great Grandfather David James.

They had four children, but immediately after the fourth, Marvin’s Grandma Ruby, was born in 1930, David James left.

Meanwhile, Sam flies into a panic when he is told he has an ancestor who spent time in Jamaica. “It doesn’t sounds good, don’t say it..” he says. However, he is relieved to learn there is no slavery connection.

It comes after Sam admits to Marvin that he knew “nothing” about his family history before taking part in the show.

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THE HAGUE — President Trump’s gamble in bombing Iran offers significant rewards if it succeeded in destroying Tehran’s nuclear program — and historic risks if it did not. He will get credit for success only if he acknowledges the consequences of failure.

‘You were a man of strength’

Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, and other lawmakers hold a news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday.

(Bloomberg)

There are critics of Trump’s decision to order strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. A segment of the president’s base is worried about another military entanglement in the Middle East, and a contingent of Democrats are concerned that he operated outside his constitutional authorities to wage war. But majority support exists on a bipartisan basis across Washington and among U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East for the president’s military actions, which was on display at the NATO summit in The Hague this week.

“You were a man of strength, but you were also a man of peace,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, told the president as they met in the Netherlands, “and the fact that you are now also successful in getting the ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to commend you for it — I think this is important for the whole world.”

At a cocktail reception in the center of the old city, where haunting Ukrainian music played in the nearby town square, Democratic senators emphasized their hope that Trump’s military strikes prove to be an operational success.

“If we have in fact either taken out Iran’s nuclear program,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, sitting alongside Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, “or badly set it back, in ways that mean that they’re not going to get a nuclear weapon anytime soon, I think that is a good thing.”

And former President Biden’s secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, also expressed hope that the strikes succeeded, despite criticizing the resort to military action in the first place. “Now that the military die has been cast,” he wrote in the New York Times, “I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage.”

For two decades, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have warned of peril to the region and the world if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons — but also of Tehran’s ability to rest comfortably at the threshold of that weapons capability, in a Goldilocks position that allows them to enjoy the strategic benefits of nuclear statehood without incurring the costs.

For more than a decade, a consensus of national security and intelligence experts in Washington has assessed that Iran made a strategic decision to park itself there, holding that capability like a sword of Damocles over the international community as it fueled militant organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, undermining U.S. interests and regional stability.

Whether or not Tehran was preparing to “break out” toward a warhead, Trump’s military action was an effort to remove that years-old threat and change the strategic paradigm — a move that has won praise from European leaders and Democrats who have grown weary of decades of diplomacy with Iran that barely moved the needle.

A 2015 nuclear agreement between six world powers and Tehran was designed to oversee Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But the deal allowed Iran to maintain its domestic enrichment program, and had provisions under which caps on its enrichment capacity would expire starting this year.

“There is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week. “Yes, it is not without risk. But leaving things as they were was not an option either.”

‘That hit ended the war’

Yet the risks of failure are significant.

Trump’s predecessors feared that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, regardless of their tactical success, could give Tehran the political justification to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and openly pursue nuclear arms, driving its program further underground and out of sight. In the worst-case scenario, enough of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure could remain intact for Tehran to race to a bomb within days or weeks.

“In war-gaming the military option during my time in the Biden administration, we were also concerned that Iran had or would spread its stockpile of uranium already enriched to just short of weapons grade to various secure sites and preserve enough centrifuges to further enrich that stockpile in short order,” Blinken wrote. “In that scenario, the Iranian regime could hide its near weapons-grade material, greenlight weaponization and sprint toward a bomb.”

A preliminary report on the U.S. raid, called Operation Midnight Hammer, from the Defense Intelligence Agency lends credence to those concerns. The low-confidence assessment, largely based on satellite imagery of Iran’s bombed sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, indicates that its core nuclear capabilities remain intact after the strikes despite the U.S. deployment of exceptionally powerful “bunker-buster” weapons, according to one official familiar with its findings. The Trump administration has acknowledged the authenticity of the assessment, first reported by CNN.

Satellite imagery captured days before the U.S. strike at Fordo also showed a line of trucks at the site, raising concerns that some of its enriched uranium had been removed at the last minute — a fear that Israeli officials have acknowledged to The Times.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is only one of 18 such federal agencies that will examine the operation’s success, and the Israelis will conduct their own review. But the reaction from Trump and his team to the leaked report suggests they view anything but success as a political liability that must be publicly denied.

“That hit ended the war,” Trump told reporters in The Hague, blasting the reporters who broke the story as “idiots” seeking to “demean” the pilots who conducted the mission. “We had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit.”

“What they’ve done is they’re trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less,” he said.

The president’s resistance to the possibility of failure, or of only partial success, in the military operation could hamper the response to come. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday described the strikes as a moment that reinforced his government’s determination to pursue “nuclear technologies.”

“The aggression of Israel and the United States will have a positive impact on Iran’s desire to continue developing its nuclear program,” Araghchi said. “It strengthens our will, makes us more determined and persistent.”

Pressed by another reporter on whether the preliminary assessment was correct, Trump replied, “Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive,” indicating he had concluded the operation was a success before the intelligence community had completed its work.

“The intelligence says we don’t know it could have been very severe, that’s what the intelligence says,” he added. “So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take that we don’t know — it was very significant. It was obliteration.”

‘It was a flawless mission’

It would not be the first time the Trump administration has politicized a U.S. intelligence assessment. But the Israeli government, which sees existential stakes in Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, may be less likely to exaggerate the impacts of the operation, acutely aware of the consequences of a grave intelligence failure for its security.

An initial Israeli assessment tracks with the president’s view that the nuclear program has been in effect destroyed.

“The devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement, pushed by the White House on Wednesday. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

“This achievement can continue indefinitely,” the statement continued, “if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.”

On Wednesday, an Israeli official told The Times that its initial assessment of the damage would be supplemented by additional intelligence work. “I can’t say it’s a final assessment, because we’re less than a week after,” the official said, “but that’s the indication we have now.”

Still, just like in the United States, multiple organizations within Israel’s national security apparatus are expected to weigh in with assessments. The Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, has yet to complete its review of the operation, an Israeli official said.

A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said Wednesday that its nuclear installations were “badly damaged” by the U.S. strikes. But it remains unclear whether Iran was able to move fissile material and enrichment equipment to another facility before the strikes occurred — or whether it had previously hidden material in reserve, anticipating the possibility of an attack.

All of those pressing questions, to Trump and his aides, are the chatter of critics.

“It was a flawless mission,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in The Hague. “Flawless,” Trump replied, nodding in approval.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘Scared to be brown’: California residents fearful amid immigration raids
The deep dive: Most nabbed in L.A. raids were men with no criminal conviction, picked up off the street
The Times Special: Trump’s attack on Iran pushed diplomacy with Kim Jong Un further out of reach

More to come,
Michael Wilner

—
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The Loose Women panellists are said to be worried that, as part of the upcoming shake-up at ITV, they are going to be axed from their jobs to make way for younger stars

Loose Women’s panellists are said to be worrying about their future as younger stars “take over.” It’s no secret that there has been panic backstage behind ITV’s midday show, with several of its leading ladies being vocal about the major changes which will come into play next year.

Last month, ITV announced a major overhaul of their daytime schedules, which affects both Loose and Lorraine Kelly’s self-titled morning programme. However, despite being hit with a mass loss of viewers, the magazine show This Morning remains unaffected. While both Lorraine and Loose air throughout the year, they will be axed to just 30 weeks of airtime.

Now, sources have said that older members of the panel, including Coleen Nolan, Kaye Adams, Nadia Sawalha, Denise Welch, Ruth Langsford and Linda Robson, no longer feel safe in their jobs. Kaye and Nadia are two of the original serving panellists from the show’s launch in 1999.

Reports claim that some of the older panellists fear they’ll be axed in favour of younger members of the panel, including GK Barry, Olivia Attwood, former singer Frankie Bridge and Stacey Solomon, who hasn’t been on the show since 2023. The younger panellists have millions of online followers and use social media platforms such as TikTok to their advantage.

Former singer Stacey has a staggering six million followers on her Instagram page alone. “The other girls feel like they can’t compete with Stacey’s stats,” a source told Closer magazine. The outlet goes on to claim that other members of the panel are being encouraged to build their online following on platforms such as TikTok, but this has been branded a “full-time job in itself.”

Bosses on the programme are reportedly telling panellists that any change is not a personal move, but that hasn’t gone down too well. “Nadia has been warning her co-stars it’s not about who you are anymore, but how many followers you have,” the insider added.

While final decisions are yet to be made, the source went on to comment: “In the long term, it could mean a farewell to the golden oldies. Coleen has been on the show, on and off, since 2000, a quarter of a century. Viewing numbers are down, and financial cuts have been made to save the ship and there’s a few that are expected to walk the plank.”

Nadia, however, has spoken publicly about the cuts. Speaking on her YouTube page, the actress and broadcaster said: “Do you know what, at the moment, all of us on screen are in work and are proud of what we do. But behind the scenes there are people that are really suffering, and what you don’t realise is when you attack the show you attack them, because you never see all the army of people behind the scenes and how hard they work.

“So to all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes who have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I’m so sorry. Mark knows how upset I’ve been at home about it. I just can’t bear it. So just be f*****g kind to people.”

She then added: “What people don’t realise at Loose Women is that we’re self-employed, I am self-employed. Every contract is a new contract. I could be let go tomorrow, in five years, you don’t know because we’re not employees.

“So I can’t tell you anything except I am on for my next contract. What has been brutal over the past week, and I am getting tearful about it, is that hundreds of people are going to be made redundant out of the blue. A lot of my friends and colleagues have been there for decades and I cannot tell you how upsetting it was to see people walking around numb with shock and fear about what they are going to do. That has been so awful. It has been worse than whatever trolls have been saying about our show that we feel really protective of.”

Speaking previously of the fears the panellists are having, a Loose source told the Mirror: “We are not planning any radical changes to the panel. All of our Loose Women are hugely valued and we celebrate each and every one and the experience and opinions they bring to the show every day.

“Many of our long standing panellists have appeared on the show for the majority of its 25 year run on screens and those stalwart, Loose legends are at the core of the show’s success and hugely popular with the audience. The show remains a big priority within our daytime slate, having secured a BAFTA nomination, launched a podcast and celebrated a milestone anniversary in the last year alone.”

The Mirror has approached Loose Women, Nadia and Stacey’s spokespeople for comment.

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DIY cervical cancer tests will be sent to women’s homes under NHS plans to boost uptake and help eradicate the disease.

The kits will be posted to those who have ignored or missed their smear test invitation and are therefore “underscreened”.

2

They contain a swab to self-sample the cervix for human papillomavirus (HPV), a group of viruses that cause 99 per cent of cervical cancers.

The NHS wants to eliminate the cancer entirely by 2040 using screening and vaccination.

But only 69 per cent of women take part in screening, well below the 80 per cent target.

This means that more than five million women in England are not up to date with their check-ups.

The screening programme saves an estimated 5,000 lives per year in England but the number could be higher with better uptake.

Health chiefs said women may avoid their smear test for fear it will hurt or be embarrassing, or because they struggle to find the time.

The new test is a quick at-home sample that is then sent off to a lab in the post.

Health bosses hope it will help overcome barriers that prevent some women from attending cervical cancer screening appointments.

The initiative will be rolled out in January 2026.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “These self-sampling kits represent healthcare that works around people’s lives, not the other way around.

“They put women firmly in control of their own health, ensuring we catch more cancers at their earliest, most treatable stages.”

“We know the earlier cancer is diagnosed the better the chances are of survival.

“By making screening more convenient, we’re tackling the barriers that keep millions of women from potentially life-saving tests.”

Research has suggested that offering DIY testing kits could boost uptake.

A trial – led by King’s College London in partnership with NHS England – found that offering self-sampling kits to “under-screened” women when they attend their GP practice and by posting kits to women’s homes could boost uptake in England by about 400,000 each year.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that the new programme “specifically targets those groups consistently missing vital appointments” including younger women, those from minority ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ people.

The initiative comes after the UK Health Security Agency revealed that young women in certain parts of England are at higher risk of cervical cancer due to “alarmingly” low uptake of HPV jabs.

At-home cervical cancer screening is part of the government’s upcoming 10 Year Health Plan, due to be published in the coming weeks, which will focus preventing illness instead of only treating it when symptoms appear.

2

Eve Appeal chief executive, Athena Lamnisos, said: “There are so many different reasons why those who are eligible aren’t responding to their cervical screening invitation letter.

“HPV self-testing will be a step change for some. Being able to do the test in their own time and following simple instructions is what many people want and need.

“Ensuring that the under-screened and never screened know about this new test is vital for Eve.”

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, added: “We welcome the UK government’s decision to roll out cervical cancer home screening kits in England – to help remove barriers and make cervical screening more accessible.

“The gold standard way to test for HPV is still a sample taken by a clinician and this will be suitable for most people.

“But beating cervical cancer means beating it for everyone, and this move helps to bring us closer to that goal.

“It’s important to remember that cervical screening is for people without symptoms so, if you notice any unusual changes for you, do not wait for a screening invitation – speak to your doctor.”

The NHS Cervical Screening Programme invites women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64 for regular screening.

Under current guidelines, people aged 25 to 49 are called back for a check-up every three years if they test negative for HPV, whereas 50 to 64-year-olds are invited for checks every five years.

But from July, people who test negative during an in-person test with their clinician will be invited back after five years, rather than three, following a recommendation by the UK National Screening Committee.

The change comes after evidence showed that people who test negative for HPV are extremely unlikely to develop cervical cancer within the next decade.

Anyone whose sample shows traces of HPV will continue to be invited to more frequent screenings.  

Digital invitations and reminders for cervical screening were also recently rolled out as part of the NHS App’s ‘ping and book’ service to boost uptake.

Cervical cancer symptoms, such as bleeding between periods and during sex, should be investigated by a GP.

Around 13 high-risk types of HPV are known to cause 99.7 per cent of cervical cancers.

They cause cell changes which can eventually turn cancerous.

Dangerous strains of the common virus can also lead to mouth, anal, penile, vulval and vaginal cancer.

SACRAMENTO — California really does still have a Legislature, even if you haven’t been reading or hearing much about it. In fact, it’s currently making a ton of weighty decisions.

They’ll affect many millions of Californians — with a gamut of new laws and hefty spending.

But the lawmakers’ moves have been slipping under the news radar because of our focus on more compelling non-Sacramento events — including protests against overzealous federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, President Trump’s power trip of calling up the California National Guard over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections and Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla’s being shoved to the floor and handcuffed for simply trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.

Plus congressional wrangling over Trump’s “Big Beautiful” ugly, debt-hiking bill — and the eruption of a Middle East war.

Meanwhile, it’s one of the busiest and most important periods of the year in the state Capitol. This is budget time, when the Legislature and governor decide how to spend our tax dollars.

The Legislature passed a $325-billion so-called budget June 13, beating its constitutional deadline by two days. If it hadn’t, the lawmakers would have forfeited their pay. But although that measure counted legally as a budget, it lacked lots of details that still are being negotiated between legislative leaders and Newsom.

The final agreements will be tucked into a supplementary measure amending the main budget bill. That will be followed by a long line of “trailer bills” containing even more policy specifics — all currently being hammered out, mostly in back rooms.

The target date for conclusion of this Byzantine process is Friday. The annual budget will take effect July 1.

Some budget-related issues are of special interest to me and I’ve written about them previously. So, the rest of this column is what we call in the news trade a “follow” — a report on where those matters stand.

Prop. 36

For starters, there’s Proposition 36 funding.

Californians cast more votes for Proposition 36 last year than anything else on the ballot. The measure passed with 68% of the vote, carrying all 58 counties.

Inspired by escalating retail theft, the initiative toughened penalties for certain property and hard-drug crimes, such as peddling deadly fentanyl. But it offered a carrot to drug-addicted serial criminals. Many could be offered treatment rather than jail time.

Proposition 36 needs state money for the treatment, more probation officers to supervise the addicts’ progress and additional law enforcement costs. The measure’s backers estimate a $250-million annual tab.

Newsom, however, was an outspoken opponent of the proposition. He didn’t provide any funding for it in his original budget proposal and stiffed it again last month when revising the spending plan.

But legislative leaders insisted on some funding and agreed on a one-time appropriation of $110 million.

Woefully inadequate, the measure’s backers contend. They’re pushing for more. But some fear Newsom might even veto the $110 million, although this seems doubtful, given the public anger that could generate.

Greg Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn., which sponsored the initiative, says more money is especially needed to hire additional probation officers. Treatment without probation won’t work, he insists.

Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) is trying to change the $110-million allocation mix. There’s nothing earmarked for county sheriffs who now are handling lots more arrests, she says.

“I want to make sure we uphold the voters’ wishes and are getting people into drug treatment,” Blakespear says. “This passed by such a high percentage, it should be a priority for elected officials.”

Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) predicts the Legislature will still be fiddling with the budget until it adjourns in September and vows: “I’ll continue to advocate for adequate funding for 36.” He asserts the budget now being negotiated won’t hold up because of chaos under Trump, who’s constantly threatening to withhold federal money due California.

Healthcare for immigrants

Another sticky issue is state-provided healthcare for immigrants living here illegally.

Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature decided a few years ago to generously offer all low-income undocumented immigrants access to Medi-Cal, California’s version of federal Medicaid for the poor.

But unlike Medi-Cal for legal residents, the federal government doesn’t kick in money for undocumented people. The state foots the entire bill. And it didn’t set aside enough. Predictably, state costs ran several billion dollars over budget.

The Newsom administration claims that more adults enrolled in the program than expected. But, come on! When free healthcare is offered to poor people, you should expect a race to enroll.

To help balance the books, Newsom proposed $100 monthly premiums. The Legislature reduced that to $30. They both agreed to freeze enrollments for adults starting Jan. 1.

The Legislature also wants to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for even more people who are non-citizens: those with what it considers “unsatisfactory immigration status.” What does that mean? Hopefully it’s being negotiated.

Delta tunnel

And there’s the matter of the governor’s proposed water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Newsom tried to squeeze the controversial issue into the budget process, although it had nothing to do with the budget. But as a budget trailer bill, it could avoid substantive public hearings in the Legislature.

The governor wants to “fast-track” construction of the $20-billion, 45-mile tunnel that would transmit more Northern California water to Southern California. Delta farmers, local residents and coastal salmon interests are adamantly opposed. Fast-track means making it simpler to obtain permits and seize property.

Legislative leaders told the governor absolutely “No”: come back later and run his proposal through the ordinary committee process. Don’t try to fast-track the Legislature.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘A good day’: Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot
The visit: Vice President JD Vance rips Newsom, Bass and mocks Padilla during visit to Los Angeles
The L.A. Times Special: Welcome to the deportation resistance, Dodgers. What’s next?

Until next week,
George Skelton

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FRISCO, Texas — Minjee Lee closed with a two-over 74 but never gave up the lead Sunday in the final round of the Women’s PGA Championship to win her third major title.

While Lee had three bogeys in a four-hole stretch on the front nine, she had started the day with a four-stroke lead over Jeeno Thitikul. And the world’s No. 2-ranked player, also in that final group, bogeyed both par fives that are among the first three holes on Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco.

Lee, ranked 24th, finished at four-under 284, three strokes ahead of Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen, the only other players under par.

“A lot of patience out there today. Obviously, I had ups and downs today,” Lee said. “It’s a battle against myself pretty much, especially with how tough the conditions were this whole week, not just today. Just amplified because it’s major Sunday.”

Kim and Wannasaen both shot 68 to match the best rounds of the day, and the tournament, after only two 68s combined the first three rounds. Kim was bogey-free, but had only pars after three consecutive birdies to wrap up her front nine.

With a record $12 million purse that was up from $10.4 million a year ago and matched the U.S. Women’s Open for the most price money, Lee took home $1.8 million. That matches the $1.8 million Lee got for her four-stroke win in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open.

The 29-year-old Australian who is a Texas resident, living in nearby Irving, got her 11th career win. It was her first this season, making it 16 players to win 16 LPGA tournaments this year.

PGA Tour

Keegan Bradley celebrates after winning the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands on Sunday.

(Jessica Hill / Associated Press)

CROMWELL, Conn. — Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley rallied from three shots behind with four holes to play and birdied the 18th hole before a delirious home crowd for a two-under 68 to win the Travelers Championship.

The victory only strengthened the case for Bradley to bring his clubs to Bethpage Black for the September matches against Europe. He moved to No. 9 in the standings.

And he wound up beating Tommy Fleetwood, who scored the clinching point for Europe at Marco Simone two years ago.

One shot behind Fleetwood going to the 18th hole, Bradley stuffed his approach to just under 6 feet below the hole. Fleetwood, looking like this might be the time he wins a PGA Tour title, came up some 50 feet short and took three putts for bogey and a 72.

PGA Tour Champions

AKRON, Ohio — Miguel Angel Jimenez won the Kaulig Companies Championship for his fourth PGA Tour Champions victory of the season, rallying to force a playoff and beating Steven Alker with a 20-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole.

Two strokes down after playing partner Alker birdied the par-five 16th, Jimenez made a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-four 17th and an 18-footer on the par-four 18th.

Tied for the lead entering the round at Firestone South, the 61-year-old Jimenez and 53-year-old Alker each shot two-under 68 to finish at 10-under 270. Stewart Cink was third at eight under after a 66.

Jimenez won his third major title after taking the Regions Tradition and the Senior British Open — both in 2018 — and earned a spot next year in The Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass. The Spanish star has 17 career victories on 50-and-over tour.

The U.S. Senior Open begins Thursday at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo.