Department

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who shot a man in the back in 2021 will not face criminal charges, according to records made public by the district attorney’s office late last month.

Los Angeles County prosecutors found there was “insufficient evidence” to prove Deputy Yen Liu was not acting in lawful self-defense when he shot Adrian Abelar at a Rosemead auto body shop four years ago, firing a round that fractured several vertebrae and nearly paralyzed him, according to court records and Abelar’s attorney.

Abelar, 29, had just thrown a gun from the car and was face down on the pavement when Liu opened fire at point blank range, according to body-worn-camera footage. Deputies were responding to reports that Abelar — a convicted felon who could not legally possess a firearm — had threatened to shoot several people at the auto body shop.

But when Liu and two other deputies arrived at the scene, they found Abelar sitting calmly in his car. The deputies approached Abelar, who lied about the fact that he was on probation. Abelar said he decided to flee because he feared if deputies found him with a gun, they would arrest him or kill him.

Abelar said he tossed the weapon as soon as he got out of the car. In video from the incident, deputies can be heard shouting, “Gun!” right before Liu closes in on Abelar, whose right arm is clearly outstretched and empty at the time Liu opens fire.

Ultimately, prosecutors decided the reported threats made by Abelar and the fact that he was in possession of a gun precluded them from charging the deputy.

“Since one reasonable interpretation of the evidence leads to the conclusion that Liu acted in response to an apparent danger, insufficient evidence exists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Liu did not act in self-defense when he shot Abelar in the back,” prosecutors wrote in a 10-page declination memo made public in late July.

Abelar’s case gained renewed attention in late 2023, when high-ranking members of then-Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s administration became concerned with the amount of time it was taking the sheriff’s department to complete its investigation of the shooting. There were only four other cases since 2013 in which more than two years elapsed between a deputy-involved shooting and a charging decision being made by prosecutors, according to a 2021 report by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General. Such delays, the report said, reduce the chances of a successful prosecution.

“The D.A.’s office bent over backward to claim they can’t prove a criminal violation … they clearly can and don’t want to,” said Abelar’s civil attorney, Thomas Beck. He claimed the investigation was “purposefully stalled for more than two years.”

Liu has returned to active duty and is assigned to the Temple Station, where he worked when the shooting occurred, according to Nicole Nishida, a sheriff’s department spokeswoman. An internal review to determine whether or not Liu violated department policy has been launched, Nishida said.

Use-of-force experts who reviewed footage in the case previously told The Times that Liu’s decision to shoot was problematic.

“The guy clearly does not have a weapon in his hand and the deputy who is on top of him draws his firearm, jams it in the guy’s back and fires it immediately upon contact,” said Ed Obayashi, a lawyer and former Plumas County sheriff’s deputy who advises police departments throughout California about use-of-force incidents.

Abelar’s lawyer disputed claims made by Richard Doktor, the auto body shop owner, who summoned deputies to the scene by claiming Abelar had made threats and brandished a gun.

According to recordings made public by law enforcement, Doktor said Abelar arrived at his shop that day demanding car repairs because he was fleeing from the cops due to an active murder warrant. Doktor separately alleged to The Times in an interview that Abelar was threatening his employees with a gun.

While there was a warrant out for Abelar’s arrest on a probation violation at the time of the shooting, he was not wanted for any violent crime, according to the sheriff’s department. Abelar has not been charged with a crime in relation to the incident at Doktor’s shop.

Beck said statements given to the sheriff’s department by other auto shop employees do not corroborate Doktor’s claims. Neither the sheriff’s department nor the district attorney’s office responded to questions about the veracity of Doktor’s allegations. Doktor has also criticized the sheriff’s department’s response, contending Abelar was “no threat” when Liu fired his gun.

Doktor did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment this week.

Abelar’s civil suit was settled last year for $700,000, according to Beck. But his client has not been paid yet and will not be able to claim that money for a while.

Abelar fell into homelessness after his “only living relative” died last year, Beck said. While living on the street, Abelar was arrested last May on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, resisting arrest and having a forged driver’s license, records show.

In February, he pleaded no contest to the weapons charge and a sentencing enhancement for having a prior violent felony conviction and was sentenced to four years in state prison, records show. Even with jail credits, Abelar likely won’t get out of prison until 2028.

Aug. 6 (UPI) — The Justice Department has published a list of 35 so-called sanctuary jurisdictions as it plans to sue them amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

“Sanctuary policies impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will continue bringing litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions and work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country.”

The list includes 18 cities, 13 states and four counties.

The Justice Department said: “This list is not exhaustive and will be updated as federal authorities gather further information.”

So-called sanctuary policies are those that limit a jurisdiction’s cooperation between local and state law enforcement with federal immigration officers. Proponents argue such policies promote greater trust and cooperation between the local communities and their police, while opponents say they interfere with federal immigration enforcement and prevent immigration agents from doing their job.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on conducting mass deportations with incendiary rhetoric and misinformation, has sought to crack down on immigration since returning to office. In late April, he signed an executive order directing Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to compile a list of sanctuary jurisdictions for punishment.

Under the executive order, jurisdictions found to be violating immigration federal law may lose federal funding.

The Trump administration has brought lawsuits challenging the sanctuary policies of Chicago, Ill., New York City, N.Y., Los Angeles, Calif., Denver, Colo., and the states of New York and Colorado.

Last month, a judge threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit filed against Chicago’s sanctuary policies. At the same time, Louisville, Ky., rescinded its sanctuary policies following threats of being sued by the Trump administration.

The city of Los Angeles has tentatively agreed to pay $500,000 to two Knock LA journalists who claim their constitutional rights were violated when police arrested them while covering a protest four years ago in Echo Park.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the city agreed Monday to settle a lawsuit brought by the reporters, averting a federal civil trial just before jury selection was set to begin. The payout, which still needs approval from the City Council, would cover damages and attorney fees.

Kate McFarlane, an attorney who argued the lawsuit on the pair’s behalf, said the outcome felt somewhat hollow. The Los Angeles Police Department’s treatment of journalists covering recent protests against the Trump administration shows that the department’s culture has not changed despite the litigation, she said.

“We’ve been seeing journalists in the last few weeks being attacked by LAPD, either by less-lethal weapons or other weapons that LAPD uses to suppress their First Amendment rights to report,” McFarlane said.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment. The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office did not respond to questions.

Another recent lawsuit filed by several news media advocacy groups after dozens were injured by police actions during protests in June led to a court order that bars officers from targeting reporters with hard foam projectiles and other crowd-control munitions.

The Knock LA case stems from the evening of March 25, 2021. Jonathan Peltz and Kathleen Gallagher, both working for the online news nonprofit organization, were reporting on the removal of a homeless encampment from the banks of Echo Park Lake.

Despite “clearly identifying” themselves as reporters and being among other journalists “engaged in similar conduct,” Peltz or Gallagher said in their lawsuit that they were arrested and booked after the LAPD declared an unlawful assembly. Under state law, journalists are generally allowed to cover police activity even after members of the public have been ordered to disperse.

Among those detained were Times reporter James Queally, Spectrum News reporter Kate Cagle and L.A. Taco reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray. Unlike the two Knock LA journalists, they were were all released at the scene.

Police, however, bound Peltz and Gallagher by the wrists with plastic zip ties. They also searched the pair and their phones, and confiscated their other belongings before placing them on buses with dozens of other arrested protesters. Both remained in custody for more than four hours.

Peltz, the lawsuit claims, was later taken to the hospital, where medical staff said swelling in his arms and hands was the result of a pinched nerve from being held in the zip ties for so long.

None of the more than 180 people arrested that night were charged.

Attorneys for the two journalists argued that their arrests fit a pattern of LAPD officers “obstructing, targeting, and retaliating against” journalists reporting on their actions — particularly those from smaller, nontraditional media outlets —dating to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

In a text thread disclosed during the litigation, then-LAPD Chief Michel Moore messaged some of his senior staff members on the night of the Echo Park protest, asking about Queally’s detainment. Moore said he had been texted by another Times reporter asking for an explanation.

The thread included former assistant Chiefs Daniel Randolph and Beatrice Girmala as well as deputy Chief Donald Graham, the incident commander that night.

Moore wrote: “Queally posted that he is being arrested. I’ve asked [the public information officer] to support and assist in any way possible. If Queally is in custody it will garner significant attention due to his status with the LAT.”

Graham responded that he would send a spokesperson to the scene to “to identify Queally.”

Moore responded that he “[w]ould recommend you hold transports until figured out.”

The LAPD later released an after-action report that acknowledged some missteps in dealing with members of the news media, but also defended the police response that night, arguing that officers felt threatened and arrests became necessary.

The department said it stepped up its outreach to local media organizations and provided additional training for new sergeants and detectives for identifying journalists at mass demonstrations.

McFarlane, the attorney for the Knock LA reporters, said their case was less about who the LAPD sees as a member of the media and more as a reflection of the department’s ongoing efforts to thwart scrutiny.

“The broader theme is that it’s clear that the LAPD is trying to hide their actions, especially when we know their actions are unlawful,” she said.

Aug. 4 (UPI) — The Justice Department announced Monday its Civil Rights Division would end a decades-old consent decree, which banned the federal government from using civil service exams to hire qualified candidates.

Luevano v. Director, Office of Personnel Management, a 1979 lawsuit filed during the Carter administration, accused the federal government’s Professional and Administrative Career Examination — or PACE — of discriminating against Black and Hispanic applicants.

A consent decree was entered in 1981, making civil service exams obsolete for the next 44 years. In March, the Trump administration filed a motion to terminate it.

“For over four decades, this decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit — not race.”

Angel Luevano, who filed the case more than forty years ago, said attorneys for both sides met with the U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia last week to resolve the issue.

“The Decree has had its usefulness and a tremendous effect on the country,” Luevano said. “Millions of minorities and women hold jobs because of that class action lawsuit. It wasn’t DEI. It didn’t just benefit minorities and women. The alternative Outstanding Scholar Program … was actually used 70% by Whites.”

Luevano said he took the PACE exam, before filing the lawsuit, to get into a federal job and achieved a passing grade of 80, but did not get referred to federal openings because only those with 100 on their tests got jobs.

“I’m extremely proud of the effect that it has had on federal hires and getting minorities and women into federal jobs,” he added. “It affected my decision to join, it was the key for me to join federal civil rights compliance in the Labor Department.”

On Monday, the Justice Department called the federal government’s hiring practices over the last four decades “flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

“It’s simple, competence and merit are the standards by which we should all be judged; nothing more and nothing less,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia. “It’s about time people are judged, not by their identity, but instead ‘by the content of their character.'”

WASHINGTON — The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.

In a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the department said it would start a 12-month pilot program under which people from countries deemed to have high overstay rates and deficient internal document security controls could be required to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when they apply for a visa.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration is tightening requirements for visa applicants. Last week, the State Department announced that many visa renewal applicants would have to submit to an additional in-person interview, something that was not required in the past. In addition, the department is proposing that applicants for the Visa Diversity Lottery program have valid passports from their country of citizenship.

A preview of the bond notice, which was posted on the Federal Register website on Monday, said the pilot program would take effect within 15 days of its formal publication and is necessary to ensure that the U.S. government is not financially liable if a visitor does not comply with the terms of his or her visa.

“Aliens applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure and who are nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” the notice said.

The countries affected will be listed once the program takes effect, it said.

The bond would not apply to citizens of countries enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program and could be waived for others depending on an applicant’s individual circumstances.

Visa bonds have been proposed in the past but have not been implemented. The State Department has traditionally discouraged the requirement because of the cumbersome process of posting and discharging a bond and because of a possible misperceptions by the public.

However, the department said that previous view “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period.”

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

Donald Trump has it in for public education.

Don’t be fooled by last week’s release of DOE billions for the coming school year. Education Secretary Linda McMahon claimed that since the surprise decision in late June to withhold the funding, the government vetted all the programs to make sure they met President Trump’s approval. In reality, the White House was inundated by protests from both sides of the aisle, from teachers, parents and school superintendents all over the country. A week earlier, 24 states had filed suit against the administration for reneging on already appropriated education funding.

The reprieve will be temporary if the president has his way. Shuttering the Department of Education, and its funding priorities, was a marquee Trump campaign promise.

Already, about 2,000 DOE staff members have been fired or quit under duress. That’s half the agency’s personnel. On July 14, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction against the firings as lawsuits protesting the firings work their way through the courts. In essence, the ruling gives Trump a green light to destroy the department by executive fiat now, even if the Supreme Court later decides only Congress has that power.

The high court majority did not spell out its reasoning. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, deplored the “untold harm” that will result from the ruling, including “delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”

McMahon touts what she considers her agency’s “final mission”: ending federal funding for school districts that cannot prove that they have eliminated diversity, equity and exclusion initiatives, or what Trump calls “critical race theory and transgender insanity.” The stakes are high: What’s at issue is the withdrawal of nearly $30 billion in aid.

The DEI threat rejects a 60-year bipartisan understanding — based on Title 1 of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act to the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act — that Washington should invest federal taxpayer dollars in closing the achievement gap that separates privileged youth from poor and minority students and children living in poverty.

Those funds support smaller classes, after-school programs and tutoring. Research shows that Title 1 can claim credit for disadvantaged students’ improved performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — NAEP — the nation’s K-12 report card, which the administration is also targeting. The most innovative programs, including the Harlem Children’s Zone preschool, charter schools and after-school and summer-vacation programs and one-on-one, face-to-face learning through Tutoring Chicago, have recorded especially dramatic results.

Support for students with disabilities would also become history, along with the requirement that schools deliver “free and appropriate education” to youngsters with special needs. That would have a disastrous impact on these students, historically dismissed as hopeless, because needs-focused special education can change the arc of their lives.

In demanding that districts “prove” they have eliminated DEI as a condition for receiving federal funds, McMahon claims that focusing exclusively on “meaningful learning,” not “divisive [DEI] programs,” is the only way to improve achievement.

She’s flat-out wrong. DEI initiatives, while sometimes over the top, have generally proven to boost academic outcomes by reducing discrimination. That’s logical — when students feel supported and valued, they do better in school. Wiping out efforts designed to promote racial and economic fairness is a sure way to end progress toward eliminating the achievement gap.

Clearly, the studies that show the gains made by DEI programs are irrelevant to an administration whose decisions are driven by impulse and ideology. Its threats to the gold standard test of American education, NAEP — an assessment that’s about as nonpartisan as forecasting the weather — gives the game away. If you don’t know how well the public schools are doing, it’s child’s play to script a narrative of failure.

Tucked into Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a nationwide school voucher program, paid for by a 100% tax deduction for donations of up to $1,700 to organizations that hand out educational scholarships. There’s no cap on the program, which could cost as much as $50 billion a year, and no expiration date.

The voucher provision potentially decimates public schools, which will lose federal dollars. Since private schools can decide which students to admit and which to kick out, the gap between the haves and haves-less will widen. Students with special needs, as well as those whose families cannot afford to participate, will be out of luck.

What’s more, vouchers don’t deliver the benefits the advocates promise. Studies from Louisiana, where “low-quality private schools” have proliferated with the state’s blessing, as well as the District of Columbia and Indiana, show that students who participate in voucher plans do worse, especially in math, than their public-school peers.

Michigan State education policy professor Joshua Cowen, who has spent two decades studying these programs, reached the startling conclusion that voucher plans have led to worse student outcomes than the COVID pandemic.

Vouchers “promise an all-too-simple solution to tough problems like unequal access to high-quality schools, segregation and even school safety,” Cohen concludes. “They can severely hinder academic growth — especially for vulnerable kids.”

The defenders of public education are fighting back. Twenty states have gone to federal court to challenge the Department of Education’s demand that they eliminate their DEI programs. “The Trump administration’s threats to withhold critical education funding due to the use of these initiatives are not only unlawful, but harmful to our children, families, and schools,” said Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell, announcing the lawsuit.

The White House may well lose this lawsuit. But litigation consumes time, and the administration keeps finding ways to evade judicial rulings, sometimes with the help of the Supreme Court. It could be years before the judges reach final decisions in these cases, and by then the damage will have been done.

That’s why it is up to Congress to do its job — to represent its constituents, who have consistently supported compensatory education programs and special education programs in public schools, resisting the siren song of vouchers — and to insist that the administration obey the dictates of legislation that’s been on the books for decades.

Will a supine Congress rouse itself to protect public education? After all, that’s what the rule of law — and public education — requires.

David Kirp is professor emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books on education, including “The Sandbox Investment,” “Improbable Scholars” and “The Education Debate.”

WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic House members — including four from California — sued the Trump administration Wednesday after lawmakers were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities where they sought to conduct oversight visits.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, says each plaintiff has attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advanced notice, and been unlawfully blocked from entering.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, said in a statement that visit requests should be made with enough time to prevent interference with the president’s authority to oversee executive department functions, and must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. McLaughlin said a week’s notice suffices.

“These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” she wrote.

Among the plaintiffs are California Reps. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, and Lou Correa of Santa Ana, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.

Also included are Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, who is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

In an interview with The Times, Gomez said there was always an understanding between the executive and legislative branches about the importance of oversight. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.

“We believe this administration, unless they’re faced with a lawsuit, they don’t comply with the law,” he said. “This administration believes it has no obligation to Congress, even if it’s printed in black and white. That’s what makes this administration dangerous.”

In a statement, Correa said that, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job has always been to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Until this summer, he said, he fulfilled that role with no issues.

Reports from immigrant detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and a lack of medical care. U.S. citizens have in some cases been unlawfully detained by immigration agents.

The lawsuit demands that the Trump administration comply with federal law, which guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct oversight visits anywhere that immigrants are detained pending deportation proceedings. The lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and American Oversight.

ICE published new guidelines last month for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours notice from staff before an oversight visit. The guidelines, which have since been taken down from ICE’s website, also claimed that field offices, such as the facility at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, “are not detention facilities” and fall outside the scope of the oversight law.

The agency says it has discretion to deny or reschedule a visit if an emergency arises or the safety of the facility is jeopardized, though such contingencies are not mentioned in federal law.

The lawsuit calls ICE’s new policy unlawful.

A federal statute, detailed in yearly appropriations packages since 2020, states that funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”

Under the statute, federal officials may require at least 24 hours’ notice for a visit by congressional staff — but not members themselves.

The lawmakers say congressional oversight is needed now more than ever, with ICE holding more than 56,800 people in detention as of July 13, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

Ten people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal oversight bodies at Homeland Security, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.

Gomez said members of Congress have a duty to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. The administration’s position that holding facilities inside ICE offices are not subject to oversight is a slippery slope, he said.

“What happens if they set up a camp and they say ‘This is not a detention facility but a holding center?’ For us it’s that, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the potential for the future becomes more problematic,” he said.

July 29 (UPI) — The State Department has increased to $10 million its reward for information leading to the identification or location of the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Sa’ad bin Atef al-Awlaki is the man the State Department says leads AQAP and has called for attacks against the United States and its allies.

Al-Awlaki also has led AQAP attacks against the United States and kidnapped Americans and other Westerners in Yemen in his prior role as the amir of the Shabwah province in Yemen, according to a State Department news release issued on Tuesday.

The State Department previously offered a $6 million reward for information identifying or locating al-Awlaki’s whereabouts via the Rewards for Justice program.

Al-Awlaki also goes by the names Sa’d Muhammad Atif and Jalaal al-Sa-idi and was born in Yemen sometime between 1978 and 1983.

He stands 5’6″ and has a thin build, according to the State Department.

The State Department also is offering rewards of $5 million and $4 million, respectively, for information leading to the identification or location of Ibrahim al-Banna and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi.

Al-Banna and al-Qosi are part of the leadership team that assists al-Awlaki in his role as the leader of AQAP.

Anyone with information on al-Awlaki, al-Banna or al-Qosi can contact the Rewards for Justice office via Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp at +1202-702-7843.

Those using a Tor browser also can contact the Rewards for Justice’s Tor-based tipline at he5dybnt7sr6cm32xt77pazmtm65flqy6irivtflruqfc5ep7eiodiad.onion.

Congress created the Rewards for Justice program in 1984, which is administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

The program offers rewards for information that helps protect American lives, U.S. interests and national security.

Since its inception, Rewards for Justice has paid out more than $250 million in rewards to more than 125 people who provided information that helped protect U.S. citizens and end threats to national security.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday filed a misconduct complaint against the federal judge who has clashed with President Trump’s administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Escalating the administration’s conflict with U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said on social media that she directed the filing of the complaint against Boasberg “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.”

The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in March to Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges saying the administration would trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Associated Press.

The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” the complaint says, adding that the administration has “always complied with all court orders.” Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the administration has complied with their orders.

The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law.

The judge’s verbal order to turn around planes that were on the way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court.

The comments were supposedly made during a meeting of the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s governing body. The remarks were first reported by the conservative website The Federalist, which said it obtained a memo summarizing the meeting.

Boasberg, the chief judge in the district court in the nation’s capital, is a member of the Judicial Conference. Its meetings are not public.

The complaint calls for an investigation, the reassignment of the deportations case to another judge while the inquiry is ongoing and sanctions, including the possible recommendation of impeachment, if the investigation substantiates the allegations.

Trump himself already has called for Boasberg’s impeachment, which in turn prompted a rare response from Roberts rejecting the call.

The complaint was filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

More than 250 Venezuelans who were deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, were sent home to Venezuela earlier this month in a deal that also free 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents who had been held by Venezuela.

But the lawsuit over the deportations and the administration’s response to Boasberg’s order remains in his court.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press.

It was just past 12:30 a.m. on June 9 when Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a burglary in progress at a home in Lynwood.

Upon arrival, according to the department’s incident summary, they saw Federico Rodriguez, 45, through a window, holding what appeared to be a pair of scissors.

Hearing screams inside, deputies forced a door open and entered the home, where they found Rodriguez repeatedly stabbing a woman. Sgt. Marcos Esquivel immediately drew his handgun, footage from his body-worn camera showed, and fired multiple shots that killed Rodriguez.

The incident was the fifth of six fatal shootings by deputies that the sheriff’s department has reported so far this year.

The woman Rodriguez was stabbing survived. But despite the apparently life-saving actions of the deputies, two days later the case became a point of controversy in a broader dispute between the department and L.A. County’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates misconduct and the use of deadly force by law enforcement.

The inspector general’s office sent a letter on June 11 to the County Board of Supervisors raising concerns that officials have been blocked from scenes of shootings by deputies and deaths in county jails.

Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office interprets the state law that led to its creation over a decade ago as giving him and his staff the authority to conduct meaningful on-site investigations, with state legislation approved in 2020 strengthening that power.

Inspector General Max Huntsman listens to testimony in the Robinson Courtroom at Loyola Law School in 2024.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Huntsman said allowing his staff to tour scenes of shootings and receive information directly from homicide detectives and other sheriff’s department personnel while the dead bodies have yet to be removed is essential for proper oversight.

But the sheriff’s department has repeatedly denied or limited access, Huntsman said. The June 11 letter announced the “indefinite suspension of Office of Inspector General regular rollouts to deputy-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.”

Huntsman said the decision to halt the rollouts was a response to a persistent lack of transparency by the sheriff’s department.

“The purpose of going there is to conduct an independent investigation. If all we’re doing is standing around being fed what they want us to know, that is not an independent investigation,” he told The Times. “We’re not going to pretend to be doing it when we only get to peek under the curtain.”

At the Civilian Oversight Commission meeting on July 17, Sheriff Robert Luna said his department “will now have a process in place” to allow officials responding to shooting scenes to contact an assistant sheriff to ensure “a little more oversight” over the process.

An interior view of the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Luna called Huntsman’s June 11 letter “alarming,” but disputed how many times officials had been turned away, saying he was only aware of it happening “once — at least in the last five years.”

Commissioner Jamon Hicks inquired further, asking whether the department could be incorrect about the number of times access has been restricted or denied, given that the inspector general’s office alleges it has been a recurring issue.

“It could be, and I’d love to see the information,” Luna said. “I’ve been provided none of that to date.”

Huntsman told The Times that officials from his office were “prohibited from entering” Rodriguez’s home on July 9, as were members of the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. It was at least the seventh time the sheriff’s department had improperly limited access since 2020, he said.

In a statement, the sheriff’s department said the “claim that the OIG was denied access on June 9 at a [deputy-involved shooting] scene in Lynwood is inaccurate.”

“An OIG representative was on scene and was given the same briefing, along with the concerned Division Chief, Internal Affairs Bureau, Civil Litigation Bureau, Training Bureau, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” the statement said.

An exterior view of the hiring banner outside the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The statement went on to say that the department is “only aware of one incident on February 27, 2025,” in which the OIG was denied access to a deputy-involved shooting scene.

“The Sheriff’s Department remains firmly committed to transparency in law enforcement and continues to work closely and cooperatively with all oversight bodies,” the statement said.

During the July 17 meeting, Dara Williams, chief deputy of the Office of Inspector General, said the office’s personnel often arrive at shooting scenes hours after deputies have pulled the trigger because of the logistical challenges of traveling across the county. Sheriff’s department homicide detectives typically present preliminary findings and offer tours of the scenes.

But on several occasions, the watchdogs have been denied access entirely, leaving them to rely solely on whatever information the sheriff’s department chooses to release, Williams said.

Hans Johnson, the Civil Oversight Commission’s newly elected chair, said investigators can’t do their jobs properly without being able to scrutinize homicide scenes.

“We count on you, in part, as eyes and ears in the community and in these high-value and very troubling cases of fatalities and deaths,” he said at the July 17 meeting.

Williams said the the sheriff’s department has also been “painfully slow” responding to requests for additional information and records following homicides by deputies. She said that in one particularly egregious example, “we served a subpoena in October of last year and we are still waiting for documents and answers.”

Responding to Huntsman’s letter on June 16, Luna wrote to the Board of Supervisors that the department’s Office of Constitutional Policing “has assisted the OIG by providing Department information to 49 of 53 instances” since January. “Suffice it to say,” he added later in the letter, “robust communications take place between the OIG and the Department. Any assertion to the contrary is false.”

Luna said sometimes access could be restricted to preserve evidence, but Williams said she does not “think it’s fair to say that we were excluded” for that reason.

Williams told the commission she was not allowed to tour a scene earlier this year that Huntsman later told The Times was a Feb. 27 incident in Rosemead.

The sheriff’s department’s incident summary stated that Deputy Gregory Chico shot Susan Lu, 56, after she refused commands to drop a meat cleaver and raised the blade “toward deputies.” Lu was taken to a hospital and declared dead later that day.

In his June 16 letter, Luna wrote that “the OIG, Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), other Department units, and executives were denied access … due to concerns regarding evidence preservation, given the confined area and complexity of the scene layout.”

Williams told the commission “there was a narrow hallway but the actual incident took place in a bedroom, so I don’t know why we couldn’t have walked down that narrow hallway to just view into the bedroom” where the homicide took place.

“The bottom line,” she added later, “is we don’t want to mislead the public to give them the idea that this is actually effective oversight because, once again, we’re just getting the information from the department.”

The package includes radar systems, hundreds of missiles and logistical and engineering support from US personnel.

The US State Department has approved the potential sale of a surface-to-air missile package worth $4.67bn to the government of Egypt, the Pentagon has announced.

In a statement on Thursday, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said it had agreed to a “possible Foreign Military Sale” of a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) package, including four AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar systems, hundreds of missiles, and dozens of guidance units.

NASAMS is a US- and Norwegian-developed air defence system designed to engage hostile aircraft, aerial drones, and cruise missiles.

US government employees and contractors will also provide engineering, technical and logistics support services to the Egyptian military as part of the potential deal.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency statement said, referring to Egypt.

The prime contractor will be a US multinational aerospace and defence conglomerate, RTX Corporation, located in the state of Massachusetts.

The defence agency said that it had already “delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale”.

If approved, about 26 US government employees and 34 contractors will travel to Egypt for an “extended period” in order to provide training and technical and logistics support.

Cairo, a longstanding US ally in the Middle East, has received generous defence funding from Washington since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

But there have been indications of warming ties between Egypt and China in recent years, including the countries’ first-ever joint military drills, hosted in April and May this year.

Called the “Eagles of Civilization 2025”, the countries’ air forces conducted two weeks of training, which the Egyptian military described as part of “broader efforts to deepen defence ties with China and strengthen joint military capabilities”.

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials were set to meet on Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The meeting in Florida, which Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said on Tuesday he was working to arrange, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of President Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.

In a social media post Tuesday, Blanche said that Trump “has told us to release all credible evidence” and that if Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the Justice Department “will hear what she has to say.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Thursday. The person who confirmed the meeting insisted on anonymity to describe a closed-door encounter to the Associated Press.

A lawyer for Maxwell confirmed on Tuesday there were discussions with the government and said Maxwell “will always testify truthfully.”

The House Committee on Oversight issued a subpoena on Wednesday for Maxwell to testify before committee officials in August.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Fla. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.

Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, including royals, presidents and billionaires.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Bondi told Trump in May that his name was among high-profile people mentioned in government files of Epstein, though the mention does not imply wrongdoing.

Trump, a Republican, has said that he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy” but that they later had a falling out.

A subcommittee on Wednesday also voted to subpoena the Justice Department for documents related to Epstein. And senators in both major political parties have expressed openness to holding hearings on the matter after Congress’ August recess.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has introduced legislation with bipartisan support that would require the Justice Department to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his associates.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have said they will address whatever outstanding Epstein-related issues are in Congress when they return from recess.

Epstein, under a 2008 nonprosecution agreement, pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. That allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work release program. He was required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender.

In 2019, Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for nearly identical allegations.

Tucker and Williams write for the Associated Press. Williams reported from Detroit.

July 24 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Justice is meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, at a federal courthouse in Florida on Thursday.

She was originally scheduled to meet Justice Department representatives at the minimum-security prison where she is serving a 20-year sentence for sex-trafficking, but instead the meeting will happen at the U.S. attorney’s office, located inside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, as first reported by ABC News.

“For the first time, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislaine Maxwell to ask: what do you know?” posted U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to X Tuesday in regard to the Thursday meeting.

Maxwell has also been subpoenaed by House Oversight Committee Chairperson Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., for a deposition slated to take place at the prison where she is held on Aug. 11.

Maxwell was convicted and sentenced in June 2022 as an accomplice in Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme and was denied a reassessment by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that a recent review of Epstein-related documents by the Justice Department and FBI allegedly found that President Donald Trump‘s name appeared several times in the files, and that Trump was informed of that by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in May before the Justice Department said it would not make those files public.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday during a press conference that when the Epstein files are made public, “which we must do as quickly as possible,” it needs to be done in a way that protects the victims mentioned in the files, some of whom are purportedly minors.

But he also stressed that only “credible evidence” should be revealed, and Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus responded on X Wednesday that “We understand [Johnson’s] general concern, Congress should always vet the credibility of its witnesses.”

However, Markus claimed, “those concerns are unfounded,” and that Maxwell testifies before Congress and not invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, that “she would testify truthfully.”

Markus also said that Maxwell is looking forward to her meeting with the DOJ, and that will inform how she proceeds in regard to the Congressional subpoena.

Rumors that Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while in custody, had a list of clients who participated in the abuse and exploitation have been denied by the DOJ. Further rumors involve President Donald Trump’s past relationship with Epstein, although Trump has since called public’s interest in the Epstein files a “scam” and a “hoax” created by his political opponents.

When Children’s Hospital Los Angeles first told thousands of patients it was shuttering its pediatric gender clinic last month, Jesse Thorn was distraught but confident he could quickly find a new local care team for his kids.

But by the time the Center for Transyouth Health and Development officially closed its doors on Tuesday, the father of three was making plans to flee the country.

“They’re targeting whoever they can,” Thorn said. “[I’m afraid] the police will show up at my door because I took my child to see their doctor.”

Until this week, Children’s was among the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States — and one of few providing puberty blockers, hormones and surgical procedures for trans youth on public insurance.

The closure of the renowned program signals a wider unraveling in the availability of care across the country, experts said. That includes in former safe havens such as California, New York and Illinois, where state laws protecting trans-specific healthcare are crumbling under mounting legal pressure and bureaucratic arm-twisting by the Trump administration.

In the last week, University of Chicago Medicine and Children’s National in D.C. announced they will end or dramatically scale back services for trans youth, following similar moves by Stanford Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

“There’s a rapid collapse of the provision of this care in blue states,” said Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and legal instructor at Harvard. “By end of 2025, most care will effectively be banned.”

Some parents in L.A. say they fear the Department of Justice will use private medical data subpoenaed from California’s largest pediatric safety-net hospital to take their children away from them.

“It’s absolutely terrifying,” said Maxine, the mother of a Children’s Hospital patient, who declined to give her last name for fear of attacks on her son.

“I’m very afraid that the DOJ and this acting Attorney General are going to come after parents and use the female genital mutilation law … to prosecute parents and separate me from my child,” she said.

On July 9, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced the Department of Justice was subpoenaing patient medical records from more than 20 doctors and clinics, the latest in a cavalcade of legal and technical maneuvers against providers who care for trans youth.

“Medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology will be held accountable by this Department of Justice,” Bondi said in a news release announcing the move.

Children’s would not say whether it had been subpoenaed or if it had turned over records responsive to the government’s demand.

The Justice Department was already investigating pediatric specialists for a litany of alleged crimes, from deceptive trade practices to billing fraud. Federal health agencies have vowed to withhold funding from institutions that continue to provide affirming care.

“These threats are no longer theoretical,” Children’s Hospital executives wrote to staff in an internal email announcing the closure June 12. “[They are] threatening our ability to serve the hundreds of thousands of patients who depend on CHLA for lifesaving care.”

Advocates say gender-affirming care is also lifesaving. They point to statistics — contested by the federal government and some experts — showing high rates of suicide among trans youth.

In June, the decision to shutter the clinic was widely condemned. Advocates said Children’s Hospital L.A. had “thrown trans kids under the bus” in disregard of state law.

Few are saying that now.

“You could see kids with leukemia being cut off their chemo therapy unless these hospitals stop provide care to trans people,” Caraballo said. “If one of the biggest children’s hospitals in the country couldn’t shoulder that burden, I don’t see many others being able to do so.”

Others agreed.

“No matter what California or any other state has done to say, ‘We want to protect these kids,’ unless they can write checks that equal the amount of money that’s being lost, [programs close],” said Dara E. Purvis, a law professor at Temple University.

So far, the Trump administration has painted parents as victims of “radical gender ideology.”

Some experts warned that as the government tightens the screws on doctors and hospitals, trans teens and their families are likely to seek hormones outside the medical system, including through gray market channels.

“We’ve seen this with abortion,” Caraballo said. “People are going to go about getting it whichever way they can.”

There are fears that families could face prosecution for continuing to seek medications, similar to charges being filed against mothers who have secured abortion pills for their teenagers.

“We’re working with Congress on existing criminal laws related to female genital mutilation to more robustly protect children,” Justice Department Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle said during a Federal Trade Commission workshop entitled “The Dangers of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors.”

“We are using all of the tools at the Department of Justice to address this issue,” Mizelle said.

For now, dozens of hospitals across California still provide gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy and surgical procedures.

But the list changes almost day to day.

“Even programs that may have been operating a month ago are not operating now,” said Terra Russell-Slavin, chief impact officer at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “There’s a lot of concern about even being public about offering care because those agencies become targets.”

With the medical care their children rely on under threat and few promised protections from the state, some families are unsure what the coming months will bring.

For one Orange County father, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation against his trans son, plans for future travel are suddenly in jeopardy.

He said only about half of his son’s identity documents match his gender, and they’ve been warned not to try to change others.

“He won’t be able to leave the country because he can’t get a matching passport,” the father said.

For Maxine, the L.A. mom, balancing the banal with the existential is a daily strain.

“My kid is just living their life. They want to go to concerts, they want to go shopping for back to school — they don’t know any of this is happening,” the mother said. “You have to experience this intense fear while maintaining a normal household for everybody else.”

In his first major shake-up since taking over the Los Angeles Police Department in November, Chief Jim McDonnell has given new assignments to more than a dozen officials from the upper ranks.

Faced with ongoing struggles to woo new recruits and uncertainty around his plans to overhaul the LAPD, McDonnell gave the first indications about how he intends to reorganize by elevating three deputy chiefs — Emada Tingirides, Michael Rimkunas and Scott Harrelson — to top positions and resurrecting a long-dormant bureau.

The moves were announced in a departmentwide email last week but aren’t expected to take effect until later this month.

Tingirides, who lost out to McDonnell in a bid to become chief last fall, becomes assistant chief in charge of the Office of Operations, which oversees patrol functions. She was recently announced as a finalist for the same job in Fort Worth, according to local news reports. Her recent promotion is seen by some inside the department as a move to convince her to stay. She becomes the highest-ranking Black woman in the department’s history.

Harrelson will now be in charge of the department’s training and recruitment efforts as the head of the Office of Support Services, replacing Assistant Chief Daniel Randolph, who is expected to retire in the coming weeks.

Filling out McDonnell’s inner circle are two other holdovers from the administration of former Chief Michel Moore: Rimkunas and Dominic Choi, who served as interim chief until McDonnell took over in November. Choi remained an assistant chief but was named McDonnell’s chief of staff — in effect the department’s No. 2.

The head of the bureau that includes internal affairs, Rimkunas will now run the Office of Special Operations.

McDonnell also resurrected the department’s Human Resources Bureau, which was shut down in 2004 when McDonnell he was a senior official under former Chief William J. Bratton. He didn’t immediately say what the new bureau’s responsibilities will be.

It’s unclear whether McDonnell will have to submit parts of his reorganization plan to the City Council, which in the past has had to sign off on changes to the department’s structure.

When he took the job last year, McDonnell initially said he wanted to spend at least three months studying the LAPD to understand how it had changed since he came up through the ranks. He left in 2010 to become the top cop in Long Beach, then served a term as L.A. County sheriff. His early review timeline was thrown off, he told reporters at a news conference last week, because of the fires in January and the recent protests over federal immigration raids.

The series of major incidents, McDonnell said, presented an unexpected opportunity to evaluate his senior staff to see how they performed “in crisis mode.”

The chief added that he had delayed his realignment for the “outcome of the budget to see where we were” and the completion of a monthslong study of the department by Rand Corp., a global policy think tank brought in last year to conduct a top-down review. The study was recently finished, and McDonnell said he was reviewing its recommendations, as well as those made by the numerous internal working groups he had convened to look at recruitment, discipline and other workplace issues.

Without offering details, McDonnell hinted that another one of his priorities will be beefing up the department’s detective ranks and overhauling the system that handles misconduct complaints against officers, long a source of controversy and frustration.

“I have in rough form what I think it could look like, but I certainly want to get the input from those who are dealing with it on a day-to-day basis on how do we best deal with the nuances of doing the job today with the number of resources that we have,” he told reporters.

McDonnell has come under growing pressure from critics who have said he is moving too slowly to make changes, with more urgency required as the city gets ready to host events such as the next year’s World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.

In other personnel moves announced last week, McDonnell moved Deputy Chief Marc Reina from the Training Bureau to South Bureau, where he previously worked as captain, and promoted German Hurtado, the department’s immigration coordinator, to deputy chief over Central Bureau, which has been the epicenter of recent protests.

Hurtado has been named in at least two pending lawsuits by LAPD officials accusing him of covering up unjustified uses of force by officers during the 2020 protests. The city has denied wrongdoing and is fighting the cases in court.

“As far as I know, I’m only named as a witness in those cases, and I’m not at liberty to talk about ongoing lawsuits,” Hurtado said when reached Monday by The Times.

McDonnell also demoted Assistant Chief Blake Chow to his civil service rank of commander — a similar trajectory to McDonnell, who was made to drop a rank during the tenure of former Chief Charlie Beck. Capt. Ray Valois, who helped oversee the department’s response to the Palisades fire, was elevated to commander in the Valley Bureau.

Mississippi freshman defensive lineman Corey Adams was shot and killed Saturday night near Memphis, Tenn. He was 18.

Adams was a three-star recruit out of Edna Karr High School in New Orleans. His alma mater posted a tribute Sunday morning on Facebook.

“This is a post we never want to have to make and words can’t describe this type of pain. We are heartbroken and tormented to pieces,” the Karr Cougar Football account posted.

“Corey Adams was more than a football player! He was a friend, brother, son, student, and all around great young man. We never question God but this is one we just don’t understand. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of his story but we will #DoIt4Co.”

The Shelby County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it is investigating a shooting that took place at around 10:14 p.m. Saturday night outside a residence in Cordova.

“When deputies arrived at the intersection of Forest Hill-Irene and Walnut Grove, they stopped a vehicle, finding an adult male gunshot victim,” the sheriff’s office stated. “They provided life-saving measures until Shelby County Fire arrived. Shelby County Fire personnel later pronounced the victim deceased on the scene.”

A second statement, issued hours later early Sunday morning, identified the victim as Adams.

The sheriff’s department also noted that “four adult males arrived by personal vehicles to area hospitals with gunshot wounds. All four victims are listed in non-critical condition.”

The shooting is an active homicide investigation, the department stated.

According to his Mississippi bio, Adams was a two-time all-state selection who had 19 sacks, 62 tackles (21 for loss), one fumble recovery and four batted passes his senior year. 247 Sports reports that he received offers from 17 schools — including USC, LSU, Oregon, Texas A&M and Mississippi State — before signing with the Rebels.

He enrolled at Mississippi in January. Months later, Adams posted pictures on Instagram of himself taking part in spring practice.

Mississippi football said in an X (formerly Twitter) post that it was “devastated” to learn of Adams’ passing.

“While our program is trying to cope with this tragic loss, our thoughts are with his loved ones during this incredibly difficult time,” the Rebels wrote. “Out of respect for his family, we will not be commenting further at this time. We ask the Ole Miss community to keep Corey in their thoughts and respect the privacy of everyone involved.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump sued Dow Jones and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for libel on Friday, striking back against the publication of a bombshell story in the Wall Street Journal alleging the president sent a sordid letter to notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s.

The Journal, a Dow Jones publication, reported Thursday that Trump sent a raunchy 50th birthday card to Epstein that included a sketch of a naked woman, featuring breasts and a squiggly “Donald” signature mimicking pubic hair.

The paper said it had reviewed copies of a collection of lewd letters that Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, gathered from Epstein’s friends and colleagues and compiled in an album to mark his 2003 birthday.

“We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday, adding that the suit also targets Murdoch and the reporters on the story.

The suit comes amid renewed questions over the nature of Trump’s years-long friendship with Epstein, the late and disgraced financier whose sprawling sex trafficking ring victimized more than 200 women and girls.

On Friday, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said that FBI officials reviewing more 100,000 records from the Epstein investigation in March were directed to flag any documents that mentioned Trump.

In a letter to leadership of the Justice Department, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said his office “was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

Trump had already been facing mounting pressure from his MAGA base to publicly release Justice Department files from the case of Epstein.

Trump ordered Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to reverse course on a recent decision to close the case and unseal grand jury testimony. The Justice Department filed a motion to begin that process on Friday afternoon.

“Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” Trump announced Thursday on Truth Social. “This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!”

The Department of Justice and FBI declared earlier this month in a memo that Epstein’s case was closed and his 2019 death in a New York city jail was a suicide. But Bondi, a Trump appointee and arch loyalist, immediately agreed Thursday to Trump’s new demand.

“President Trump — we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts,” Bondi wrote on X.

It remains to be seen if Trump and Bondi will persuade a federal judge in New York to release the grand jury transcripts. Such documents are typically not made public and released only under narrowly defined circumstances.

Trump and Epstein became friends in the 1980s.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Mr. Trump told New York magazine, in 2002, noting that Epstein was “a lot of fun to be with” and “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

But their friendship apparently broke down in 2008 after Epstein was convicted of child sexual offenses. Their relationship — and the possibility of Trump’s involvement in Epstein’s crimes — has been scrutinized ever since.

The Epstein case has riveted Trump’s Republican base, largely because of the multimillionaire financier’s connections to rich and powerful people they suspect were involved in his child sex trafficking.

But releasing the files is not entirely up to Trump, even if he wanted to.

“You’ve got decades’ worth of materials,” said David Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, who said the disclosure of grand jury information is governed by federal rules and cannot be released without a court order.

Even if material does get released, it will pertain only to Epstein and Maxwell’s direct activities — and will be much more limited than the volume of investigative materials, including witness interviews, emails, videos and photos that otherwise exist.

Additionally, “there’s a lot of redactions that will have to be made,” Weinstein said, noting the number of individuals who might have been associated with Epstein during the investigation but were not themselves suspected or charged with crimes. “You’ve seen some of that already in the civil cases that were filed, and where courts have said, ‘No, this is what can be put on the docket.’”

After the Department of Justice dropped the case, many of Trump’s most vocal allies, such as U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), openly dissented from the administration and called for the release of all files.

Earlier this week, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require Bondi to make public all unclassified records, documents and investigative materials that the Department of Justice holds on the Epstein case.

“We all deserve to know what’s in the Epstein files, who’s implicated, and how deep this corruption goes,” Massie said in a statement. “Americans were promised justice and transparency. We’re introducing a discharge petition to force a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on releasing the COMPLETE files.”

A poll conducted by the Economist/YouGov this month found that 83% of Trump’s 2024 supporters favor the government releasing all material related to the Epstein case.

Wilner reported from Washington, Jarvie from Atlanta. Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump says he wants to hire 10,000 new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, but experts and the history of law enforcement hiring sprees suggest the process could be challenging, lengthy and possibly result in problematic hires.

The massive funding bill signed into law this month by Trump earmarks about $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement, including tens of billions for new deportation agents and other personnel. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to The Times, said that the agency will deliver on the president’s hiring directive.

“In June, our 2025 Career Expo successfully recruited 3,000 candidates and generated 1,000 tentative job offers — nearly double the 564 from 2023,” she wrote. “Our recruitment strategy includes targeted outreach, thorough vetting and partnerships with state and local law enforcement.”

During his first term, when Trump called for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire 15,000 people collectively, a July 2017 report by the Homeland Security inspector general found significant setbacks.

“Although DHS has established plans and initiated actions to begin an aggressive hiring surge, in recent years the Department and its components have encountered notable difficulties related to long hire times, proper allocation of staff, and the supply of human resources,” the report states.

The independent watchdog concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants.

It doesn’t appear either goal was met. In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. And Cronkite News reported that when Trump left office in 2021, Border Patrol had shrunk by more than 1,000 agents.

“The mere mechanics of hiring that many people is challenging and takes time,” said John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University who studies U.S. incarceration and has researched the hiring challenges ICE faces.

When the initial version of the funding bill passed the House of Representatives, it laid out a target of at least 10,000 ICE officers, agents and support staff, specifying a minimum of 2,500 people in fiscal year 2025 and 1,875 people in each subsequent year through 2029.

The legislation didn’t outline specific hiring goals for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol, though Homeland Security said that, in addition to the 3,000 Border Patrol agents, the funding will also support the hiring of 3,000 more customs officers at ports of entry.

The Senate modified the bill and on final passage, the law removed those hiring specifics, meaning ICE can use the funding for a variety of purposes. ICE has more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel. CBP has 60,000 employees, including about 19,000 Border Patrol agents.

Studies on accelerated hiring efforts have found that, in some cases, contracts were poorly managed. Ten months into a 2018 contract with the professional services firm Accenture, by which point CBP had paid $13.6 million, the inspector general found that just two people had accepted job offers.

Residents confront ICE agents and Border Patrol agents over their presence in their neighborhood on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on June 20.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Hiring thousands of employees would be an even bigger lift today, Pfaff said.

He pointed to the fact that since 2020, police departments nationwide have also struggled to recruit and retain officers. Immigration officer pay is lower than rookie salaries at big-city law enforcement agencies, such as the New York Police Department.

A job posting for a deportation officer offers a salary range of about $50,000 to $90,000. Pfaff compared that with NYPD, where officer salaries start at just over $60,000 and rise to more than $125,000 in less than six years.

Another recruitment push resulted in a wave of high-profile corruption cases.

During a Border Patrol hiring spree from 2006 to 2009, standards for hiring and training were lowered, about 8,000 agents were brought on. The Associated Press reported that the number of employees arrested for misconduct — such as civil rights violations or off-duty crimes like domestic violence — grew yearly between 2007 and 2012, reaching 336, or a 44% increase. More than 100 employees were arrested or charged with corruption, including taking bribes to smuggle drugs or people.

A 2015 report from an internal audit by a CBP advisory council said that “arrests for corruption of CBP personnel far exceed, on a per capita basis, such arrests at other federal law enforcement agencies.”

Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor who directs the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, studied the mid-2000s hiring spree. He said smuggling organizations have only gotten more sophisticated since then, as have security measures, so it’s more valuable for smugglers to “buy someone off” instead of attempting to bring in people or drugs undetected.

Beyond corruption, Heyman said he worries the drive to quickly increase Homeland Security staffing could lead to Americans being deported, as well as an increase of assault and abuse cases and deaths of detainees.

“Getting 10,000 [new employees] means basically hiring the people who walk in the door because you’re trying to hit your quota,” he said. “Rapid, mass-hiring lends itself to mistakes and cutting corners.”

The recruitment issues at Border Patrol led to reforms, such as the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010, which included mandatory polygraph testing for job applicants (though that requirement was not implemented for ICE applicants). The polygraph tests revealed some applicants had concerning backgrounds, including some believed to have links to organized crime.

The reforms also slowed hiring as two-thirds of Border Patrol applicants began failing the polygraph exam by 2017, the Associated Press reported.

If the government is not able to hit its hiring goals, it might turn to contractors, the U.S. military and local law enforcement to help carry out Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration. It is likely to continue its expansion of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to function as deportation agents. Homeland Security said the new budget will fully fund the 287(g) program.

Pfaff said that while using local police to make immigration arrests could help in the short term, many major cities and states, including California, have already banned the agreements or limited cooperation with ICE. Still, ProPublica reported that more than 500 law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements since January.

Jason Houser, who was ICE’s chief of staff under the Biden administration, said training new hires takes about a year and that classes are typically capped at 50 students.

Houser said another short-term workaround for permanent staff could be the use of contractors.

Most immigrant detainees are held in facilities that are run by private prison companies, including the Florida-based GEO Group and Tennessee-based CoreCivic.

But those companies have a limited inventory of detention space. CBP could also use its funding to erect soft-sided, temporary facilities on military bases within the 100 miles of the U.S. boundary, in which CBP has authority to conduct immigration checkpoints and other enhanced enforcement activities.

Houser said temporary facilities could be set up by October, and they could be staffed with National Guard or U.S. military personnel in administrative, nursing, food and sanitation roles.

Federal law generally prohibits the military from arresting civilians. But Homeland Security officials have said military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain anyone who attacks an immigration agent until law enforcement can arrest them.

But Houser worries that placing young service members, who aren’t trained to conduct civil detention, in charge of those facilities will lead to people getting hurt. He also worries that without other countries agreeing to accept more deportees, the number of immigrants detained for months could quickly balloon.

As of June 29, there were nearly 58,000 immigrants held in detention, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization. That’s far beyond the congressionally approved 41,500 detention beds this fiscal year.

“This is 9/11-style money,” Houser said. “Think about the money in counterterrorism post-9/11. It turns the entire apparatus toward this goal. Everything in government is going to turn to where the money is, and that’s the scary piece to me.”

AFTER nearly three decades of trading, a popular House of Fraser store is set to close.

The department store in Victoria Centre, Nottingham, which first opened in 1997, will roll down the shutters in October this year.

1

It’s bittersweet news for shoppers, who have been treated to a 20 percent off sale inside the store.

The once-thriving shopping hub was nearly shut in 2022 after Fraser Group chief exec Michael Murray described the brand as a “broken business”.

At the time, he said: “House of Fraser was a broken business when we bought it.

“We’ve completely changed the operating model. It was mostly concession, the stores were way too big, they were under‑invested.

“Our future vision is that House of Fraser will diminish and Frasers will grow.”

Once boasting more than 60 stores across the UK, the department store has steadily shuttered locations since its 2018 acquisition by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.

Between 2022 and 2025 alone, over a dozen sites—including flagship locations like Oxford Street and regional mainstays in Cardiff, Cheltenham, and Nottingham—have closed their doors.

The closures reflect a deeper failure to adapt to a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

Many of its stores were oversized and heavily reliant on concessions—third-party brands renting space—which offered little control over stock or customer experience.

Frasers Group is now repositioning itself around a new retail vision, investing in smaller-format “Frasers” stores and upmarket lifestyle hubs, with sport and luxury offerings as its focus.

The Sun has approached House of Fraser representatives for comment.

House of Fraser is just one brand struggling against recent economic pressures and changes in consumer habits.

A combination of rising inflation, energy costs, and interest rates has squeezed both household spending and business margins, creating a perfect storm for retail operators.

For many consumers, essentials have taken priority over discretionary purchases, leading to a noticeable decline in footfall and in-store spending.

Even major players with established reputations have found themselves forced to close stores, reduce staff, or pivot entirely toward e-commerce.

This comes as Poundland bosses implemented a series of closures this year after the business was hit by spiraling operating costs and weakening footfall.

In Cornwall, one Poundland was evicted from one of its locations – leaving staff locked out of work overnight.

The budget chain was kicked out of its store on Fore Street in St Austell, CornwallLive reported.

A bizarre notice was also posted in the window of the popular store.

It read: “We as authorised agents acting on behalf of the above-named landlord have today re-entered these premises and any lease or licence is hereby determined.

“Any attempt to enter these premises without the written authority of the above-named landlord will result in criminal/civil proceedings being taken.”

A Poundland spokesperson confirmed that the locks were changed overnight without notice.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday asked California counties to provide it with lists of all inmates in their jails who are not American citizens, as well as the crimes they have been accused or convicted of and their scheduled release dates.

The Justice Department said in a statement that its “data requests” to the counties — including Los Angeles and San Francisco counties — were “designed to assist federal immigration authorities in prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens who committed crimes after illegally entering the United States.”

The requests add another layer to the Trump administration’s already roiling turf war with California over immigration policy and state and local sanctuary laws. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been swarming the region making thousands of arrests as part of President Trump’s call for mass deportations, and the Justice Department is already suing the city of Los Angeles over its sanctuary policy.

State officials have long defended California’s sanctuary policies, which generally forbid local authorities from enforcing civil immigration laws but provide for exceptions in cases involving criminal offenses. They have also criticized the administration and ICE agents for their recent arrest tactics in Southern California, including by citing figures that show that a majority of those arrested had no criminal convictions.

What immediate impact the demands would have — and whether they would spark a legal challenge from the state or counties — was not immediately clear. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department recently resumed transferring some jail inmates to ICE for the first time in years, citing criminal exceptions to state and local sanctuary laws.

A spokesperson for L.A. County referred questions about the request to the Sheriff’s Department.

Asked about the request during a Civilian Oversight Commission meeting Thursday morning, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said information about all county inmates is already publicly available on the department’s website.

“The minute you get booked, processed and you get Livescanned, that’s a national system, so agents of the federal government will know you’re in custody,” he said. “So it’s not that we’re notifying them, it’s an automatic notification based on your fingerprints.”

The Justice Department said that it hoped the counties would voluntarily comply with its requests. But if they do not, it said, it would “pursue all available means of obtaining the data, including through subpoenas or other compulsory process.”

It said that while “every illegal alien by definition violates federal law, those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation’s safety and security.”

Not every noncitizen in the U.S. is in the country illegally, given that there are non-citizen permanent residents and other visa holders. However, as part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has given heightened scrutiny to people in those categories, as well.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, in her own statement about the requests, said that removing “criminal illegal aliens” from the country was the administration’s “highest priority.”

“I look forward to cooperating with California’s county sheriffs to accomplish our shared duty of keeping Californians and all Americans safe and secure,” Bondi said.

In May, Luna’s department transferred inmates from its jails to ICE for the first time since early 2020. Between May and June, the department handed 20 inmates over to the federal agency.

At Thursday’s oversight meeting, Luna said the department received 995 civil detainer requests from ICE in 2024, and that it did not comply with any of them, which it is not legally required to do. But he said that the department had to turn over the 20 inmates because it received federal judicial warrants from federal authorities for each of them.

He said he expected such warrants to increase, which would increase the number of inmates turned over.

“Those are legal documents signed by a judge. We cannot deny those,” he said.

Max Huntsman, the county’s inspector general, and other experts have said the Sheriff’s Department is required by federal and state law to comply with the warrants, and the process is legal under state and local sanctuary policies.

Times staff writers Rebecca Ellis and Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.