Department

June 11 (UPI) — The proposed Department of Defense budget puts “America first” while addressing Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine fielded questions during a more than 2-hour hearing regarding the proposed $961.6 billion DOD budget for the 2026 fiscal year.

The Defense Department is improving pay, housing, healthcare and other services to improve the quality of life for military members and their families, Hegseth told committee members.

“This budget puts America first and gives our warriors what they need,” he said during his opening statement.

The proposed budget request also would “end four years of chronic underinvestment in our military by the Biden administration,” Hegseth added.

Russia and the Ukraine war

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opened the hearing with questions about the Ukraine War, including who is the aggressor and preferred outcomes.

Hegseth said Russia is the aggressor and China would prefer to keep the conflict going as long as possible to distract from its moves in the Indo-Pacific region.

Europe needs to do more to defend its territory against Russian aggression, Hegseth said, and the United States must remain strategic in its handling of the war while addressing matters in the Indo-Pacific region.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., cited ongoing Russian aggression against civilian targets in Ukraine as evidence that Russia has no intention of ending the war there.

The 2026 budget request eliminates aid to Ukraine, while senators are working to impose more sanctions on Russia, Coons said.

“What message do you think it sends” when Russia “attacks civilian centers in Ukraine and the United States does not send additional air defense and interceptors to Ukraine?” Coons asked.

Hegseth said arms are still flowing to Ukraine, but other NATO allies are not doing enough to end the war.

“You’re not a real coalition, you’re not a real defense alliance, unless you have real defense capability and real armies that can bring those to bear,” Hegseth said.

“That’s a reality that Europe is waking up to quickly,” he added, “and we’re glad.”

Coons said the United States should not negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine “at any cost” and instead should continue supporting Ukraine to achieve an enduring peace.

“Putin will only stop when we stop him,” Coons said. “The best way to stop him is through a stronger NATO.”

Chinese military threats and Hegseth’s DOD leadership

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said China has more than 400 warships and is rapidly expanding its fleet versus 293 ships for the United States.

She asked why the Defense Department only seeks funding to build two submarines and an ocean surveillance ship, plus some destroyers.

Hegseth said the 2026 budget request reflects a 13% increase for investing in national defense over the current fiscal year.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., then questioned Hegseth’s leadership.

“I am repeatedly hearing that your policy and personnel changes at the Pentagon are only undermining [and] not strengthening our military’s preparedness to protect our country,” Murray said.

She accused Hegseth of using the military to police areas in the United States, including sending the National Guard and Marines to California to use against “peaceful protesters.”

Murray then asked Hegseth if the Defense Department would continue to fire shipbuilders, which he denied it has done.

“We are investing historically in our shipbuilding defense industrial base and workforce and ships in this budget,” Hegseth said.

Murray said the Navy is firing shipbuilder staff in the state of Washington and accused it of asking welders if they ever donated to the Democratic Party.

Hegseth said no welders are subject to litmus tests to work on naval projects and denied that political questions are asked.

Iranian, Russian, Chinese and North Korean coalition

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Hegseth and Caine if the world is underestimating Iran’s intent to “kill all the Jews,” including using a nuclear weapon against Israel if Iran had one.

Caine said Iran would use one to pressure Israel but doesn’t know if Iran would use it to “wipe out Israel.”

Hegseth said a radical cleric in Iran would use one to wipe out Israel.

“They’re going to use a nuclear weapon if they get it,” Graham said.

He also asked if China intends to “take Taiwan by force if necessary.”

Hegseth said the DOD doesn’t know that China has made the decision to do so.

Caine suggested China might use military force against Taiwan, and the United States needs to prepare for it.

Coons said China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are aligned and pose the greatest threat to world peace since the Cold War.

He cited Ukraine as an example of the future of warfare, but said the Department of Defense is “internally divided” and operating on a continuing resolution for the first time.

The current state within the Defense Department “cannot continue,” Coons added.

Next-generation fighter and collaborative drones are planned

The Defense Department also wants to spend $4 billion during the 2026 fiscal year to develop the F-47 fighter and “collaborative combat” drone aircraft, according to DefenseScoop.

The $4 billion request is just part of the 2026 budget request, but the amount of the entire proposed budget has not been released.

The Air Force wants to spend $3.5 billion on the F-47 fighter project, which would give it a fighter capable of exceeding Mach 2 with a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles.

The current F-22 and F-35A fighter jets have top speeds of greater than Mach 2 and Mach 1.6 and ranges of 590 and 670 nautical miles, respectively.

The Air Force wants to buy up to 185 F-47 fighters during the program’s duration.

The Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program would promote the development of next-generation drone aircraft that are capable of flying with the manned F-47 and other next-generation fighters.

Los Angeles city councilmembers sparred with Police Chief Jim McDonnell Tuesday over the LAPD’s handling of protests against President Trump’s immigration crackdown, with some challenging the department’s relationship with its federal counterparts.

The chief appeared before the council to discuss the LAPD’s attempts to control the protests that have erupted mostly in downtown Los Angeles every day since Friday, sometimes descending into chaos.

Mayor Karen Bass and other local officials have decried both the federal immigration raids that prompted the protests and the vandalism and violence that have broken out at some protests. Over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections, the Trump administration has sent the National Guard and Marines to L.A., which Bass lambasted as unnecessary. She said Tuesday that she is considering a curfew for downtown L.A., as the protests showed no sign of abating and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military deployments would last at least 60 days.

McDonnell told the City Council that his officers arrested 114 people at protests Monday night — 53 for failure to disperse and 15 for looting. One person was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon on an officer and another was arrested for attempted murder. The LAPD arrested 27 people at protests on Saturday and 40 on Sunday.

In the testiest exchange of the afternoon, Councilmember Imelda Padilla asked the chief if the LAPD would consider warning city officials if it hears from federal law enforcement that immigration raids are coming.

“You’re asking me to warn you about an enforcement action being taken by another agency before it happens? We can’t do that,” McDonnell responded, noting that such a warning would amount to obstruction of justice.

“That would be completely inappropriate and illegal,” he said.

City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he disagreed with the chief on referring to agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “law enforcement partners.”

“If we know somebody is coming here to do warrantless abductions of the residents of this city, those are not our partners,” he said. “I don’t care what badge they have on or whose orders they’re under. They’re not our partners.”

In an interview after the meeting, McDonnell said his department must continue to cooperate with federal agencies on issues other than immigration enforcement. Since 1979, the LAPD has taken a strong stance against enforcing federal immigration law, prohibiting its officers from initiating contact with anyone for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status.

“All of the crimes we investigate, potentially could be in partnership with [federal agencies],” McDonnell said. “It is a partnership, and without that partnership, we wouldn’t be able to go into the World Cup, the Olympics … that require that we work with federal, state and local partners.”

Other councilmembers took aim at the chief over his officers’ shooting of rubber bullets during the protests.

“To see a reporter get shot with a rubber bullet … on live television does not add to the de-escalation,” said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, referring to an Australian reporter who was shot during a protest on Sunday. “We have to be mindful of the tactics being used by some LAPD members that is adding to the escalation.”

“Just like a few protesters can take away from the messaging, the same thing can be said about LAPD. It overshadows the response,” he added.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that some LAPD officers acted “out of line for the situation.”

“I have lawyers posting videos of them getting shot,” she said. “I’ve seen videos of non-lethals being fired at protesters more than 50 yards away.”

McDonnell replied that the LAPD is the best department in the country at holding its officers’ accountable for their actions. But he said he couldn’t speak about specific uses of force by his officers at the protests, since the situation was still developing.

On Tuesday, City Councilmembers Tim McOsker, Ysabel Jurado and Eunisses Hernandez signed a proposal asking various city agencies to provide information on the security infrastructure to “prevent unlawful entry by federal entities” at City Hall, council offices, public service counters, city-owned parking lots and other facilities.

“As this Federal political theater plays out, the safety of City facilities must be given special consideration for the sake of both City employees and the public,” the proposal said.

The crowd near Los Angeles City Hall had by Sunday evening reached an uneasy detente with a line of grim-faced police officers.

The LAPD officers gripped “less lethal” riot guns, which fire foam rounds that leave red welts and ugly bruises on anyone they hit. Demonstrators massed in downtown Los Angeles for the third straight day. Some were there to protest federal immigration sweeps across the county — others appeared set on wreaking havoc.

Several young men crept through the crowd, hunched over and hiding something in their hands. They reached the front line and hurled eggs at the officers, who fired into the fleeing crowd with riot guns.

LAPD officers stage on Los Angeles Street.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Jonas March, who was filming the protests as an independent journalist, dropped to the floor and tried to army-crawl away.

“As soon as I stood up, they shot me in the a—,” the 21-year-old said.

Violence and widespread property damage at protests in downtown L.A. have diverted public attention away from the focus of the demonstrations — large-scale immigration sweeps in such predominantly Latino cities as Paramount, Huntington Park and Whittier.

Instead, the unrest has trained attention on a narrow slice of the region — the civic core of Los Angeles — where protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.

A person lobs a large rock at CHP officers stationed on the 101 Freeway.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The escalating unrest led LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Sunday night to break with Mayor Karen Bass, who has condemned President Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to the city.

“Do we need them? Well, looking at tonight, this thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference. The chief said he wanted to know more about how the National Guard could help his officers before he decided whether their presence was necessary.

McDonnell drew a distinction between protesters and masked “anarchists” who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.

CHP officers on the 101 Freeway.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that’s not the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” McDonnell said. “These are people who are all hooded up — they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on.”

“They’re people that do this all the time,” he said. “They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics frequently. And they are connected.”

McDonnell said some agitators broke up cinder blocks with hammers to create projectiles to hurl at police, and others lobbed “commercial-grade fireworks” at officers.

“That can kill you,” he said.

The LAPD arrested 50 people over the weekend. Capt. Raul Jovel, who oversaw the department’s response to the protests, said those arrested included a man accused of ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers and another suspect who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail.

California National Guard troops watch as protesters clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said investigators will scour video from police body cameras and footage posted on social media to identify more suspects.

“The number of arrests we made will pale in comparison to the number of arrests that will be made,” McDonnell said.

Representatives of the Los Angeles city attorney and Los Angeles County district attorney’s office could not immediately say whether any cases were being reviewed for prosecution. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said those who “hurl cinder blocks, light vehicles on fire, destroy property and assault law enforcement officers” will be charged.

On Sunday, the LAPD responded to a chaotic scene that began when protesters squared off with National Guard troops and Department of Homeland Security officers outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Around 1 p.m., a phalanx of National Guard troops charged into the crowd, yelling “push” as they rammed people with riot shields. The troops and federal officers used pepper balls, tear gas canisters, flash-bangs and smoke grenades to break up the crowd.

No one in the crowd had been violent toward the federal deployment up to that point. The purpose of the surge appeared to be to clear space for a convoy of approaching federal vehicles.

Department of Homeland Security police officers had asked protesters to keep vehicle paths clear earlier in the morning, but their commands over a loudspeaker were often drowned out by protesters’ chants. They offered no warning before charging the crowd.

California National Guard troops stand guard at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Some in the crowd lobbed bottles and fireworks at the LAPD. Two people rode motorcycles to the front of the crowd, revving their engines and drawing cheers from bystanders. Police accused them of ramming the skirmish line, and the motorcycles could be seen fallen over on their sides afterward. The drivers were led away by police, their feet dragging across asphalt lined with shattered glass and spent rubber bullets.

On the other side of the 101, vandals set fire to a row of Waymos. Acrid smoke billowed from the autonomous taxis as people smashed their windows with skateboards. Others posed for photographs standing on the roofs of the burning white SUVs.

After California Highway Patrol officers pushed protesters off the 101 Freeway, people wearing masks flung chunks of concrete — and even a few electric scooters — at the officers, who sheltered under an overpass. A piece of concrete struck a CHP car, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Los Angeles Police Department officers shoot tear gas as they advance on demonstrators who formed a makeshift barricade.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Closer to City Hall, the LAPD pushed demonstrators toward Gloria Molina Grand Park, where some in the crowd wrenched pink park benches from their concrete mounts and piled them into a makeshift barricade in the middle of Spring Street.

The crowd, which included a Catholic priest wearing his robes and a woman with a feathered Aztec headdress, milled behind the barricades until LAPD officers on horseback pushed them back, swinging long wooden batons at several people who refused to retreat. Video footage circulating online showed one woman being trampled.

The crowd moved south into the Broadway corridor, where the LAPD said businesses reported being looted around 11 p.m. Footage filmed by an ABC-7 helicopter showed people wearing masks and hooded sweatshirts breaking into a shoe store.

McDonnell said the scenes of lawlessness disgusted him and “every good person in this city.”

Before any chaos erupted on Sunday, Julie Solis walked along Alameda Street holding a California flag, warning protesters not to engage in the kind of behavior that followed later in the day.

Solis, 50, said she believed the National Guard was deployed solely to provoke a response that would justify further aggression from federal law enforcement.

“They want arrests. They want to see us fail,” she said. “We need to be peaceful. We need to be eloquent.”

A phalanx of police officers on horseback surround a person who has been knocked to the ground and repeatedly pummeled with batons.

An Australian TV news reporter winces in pain as she’s shot by a rubber bullet while wrapping up a live broadcast.

A crowd milling above the 101 Freeway lobs rocks and chunks of concrete down on California Highway Patrol officers detaining protesters, prompting a volley of flash-bang grenades.

Those incidents and others captured on video have gone viral in recent days as immigration protests reached a boiling point in Los Angeles.

Leaders at the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have long maintained that they have no role in civil immigration enforcement. And yet the region’s two largest police agencies are suddenly on the front lines of the Trump administration’s crackdown, clashing in the street with demonstrators — most peaceful and some seemingly intent on causing mayhem.

Waymo taxis burn on Los Angeles Street as thousands protest ICE immigration raids throughout the city.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell condemned the actions of those carrying out the “disgusting” violence.

“This thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference Sunday when asked whether he supported President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops. After news broke Monday that the president was sending hundreds of Marines to the city, McDonnell said that without “clear coordination,” adding more soldiers to the mix creates “a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.”

Sheriff Robert Luna told The Times that deputies are prepared to support federal agents in certain circumstances — even as the department maintains its official policy of not assisting with immigration operations.

“They start getting attacked and they call and ask us for help, we’re going to respond,” Luna said.

Both publicly and behind the scenes, the situation has led to tensions with Los Angeles officials who have questioned whether local law enforcement is crossing the line with aggressive crowd control tactics — or being put in a lose-lose situation by Trump, who has cast blame on the LAPD chief and others for not doing enough.

“The federal government has put everybody in the city, and law enforcement in particular, in a really messed up situation,” said City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. “They started a riot, and then they said, ‘Well, you can’t handle the riot, so we’re sending in the military.’”

Los Angeles police officers push back protesters near a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The LAPD said in a statement that officers made a combined 50 arrests on Saturday and Sunday, mostly for failure to obey a dispersal order. They also arrested a man who allegedly rammed a motorcycle into a skirmish line of officers, and another for attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail.

Five officers were injured while policing the protests, the department said, while five police horses also suffered minor injuries. The department said officers fired more than 600 so-called less lethal rounds to quell hostile crowds.

Although the LAPD has changed the way it handles protests in recent years — moving away from some of the heavy-handed tactics that drew widespread criticism in the past — the city still pays out millions for crowd control-related lawsuits every year.

As of Monday, Internal Affairs had opened investigations into seven complaints of officer misconduct, including the shooting of the Australian TV news reporter, said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Additionally, he said, the department’s Force Investigations Division, which reviews all serious uses of force, was investigating two incidents “because of possible significant injury,” including one incident in which a protester was struck in the head with a rubber bullet.

“We’re continuing to review video and monitor the situation,” he said.

The high-profile incidents caught on video — combined with mixed messaging by L.A. officials — have created opportunities for the White House to control the narrative.

On Saturday, Mayor Karen Bass told reporters that the protests were under control, while the LAPD chief publicly lamented that his department was overwhelmed by the outbursts of violence. Trump seized on those comments, writing in a post on Truth Social that the situation in Los Angeles was “looking really bad.”

“Jim McDonnell, the highly respected LAPD Chief, just stated that the protesters are getting very much more aggressive, and that he would ‘have to reassess the situation,’ as it pertains to bringing in the troops,” Trump wrote on the right-wing social media platform shortly after midnight on Monday. “He should, RIGHT NOW!!! Don’t let these thugs get away with this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Protesters clash with police downtown near the VA Outpatient Clinic on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

On the streets over the weekend, local cops often found themselves playing defense while confronting unruly crowds.

Cmdr. Oscar Barragan in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Operations Division described the scene Sunday when his unit responded to a protest near a Home Depot in Panorama. While rumors of a raid targeting migrant workers at the store spread on social media, Barragan said the real issue was a federal immigration office nearby that was being used as a staging area.

“Social media took over and a false narrative started growing and it just grew out of control,” he said.

Barragan said there were “people launching mortars at us and rocks and things” as the scrum moved west toward the 710 Freeway and the Compton border. He said some people put nails and cinder blocks in the street trying to block the police response.

“It got pretty hairy,” Barragan said. “They just kept launching every type of firework you can imagine and it was consistent.”

He said local law enforcement tolerates protests — but has to step up to restore order when things start to get out of hand.

“The sheriff has made it clear that we allow the peaceful protests to occur, but once violence occurs we’re not gonna tolerate it,” he said.

On Sunday outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, a group of roughly 100 protesters spent hours chiding California National Guard members and Department of Homeland Security officers near the entrance to the immigration jail, calling them “Nazis” and urging them to defy orders and defend the public instead of a building.

At one point, a Homeland Security officer approached one of the more vocal demonstrators and said he “didn’t want a repeat” of Saturday’s violence, urging protesters to stay off federal property and clear a path for any vehicles that needed to enter. But around 1 p.m. on Sunday, guardsmen with riot shields moved to the front of the law enforcement phalanx on Alameda and charged into the protest crowd, screaming “push” as they rammed into people. They launched tear gas canisters and smoke grenades into the street, leaving a toxic cloud in the air.

A protester is hurt near the 101 Freeway in clashes with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

It left an enraged crowd of protesters, who had otherwise been peaceful all morning, for the LAPD to contend with.

After National Guard troops and Homeland Security officers retreated to the loading dock, LAPD officers found themselves in an hours-long back and forth with protesters on Alameda. Officers used batons, less lethal launchers and tear gas to slowly force the crowd of hundreds back toward Temple Street, with limited success.

The LAPD repeatedly issued dispersal orders from a helicopter and a patrol car loudspeaker. Some members of the crowd hurled water bottles and glass bottles at officers, and the windshield of a department vehicle shattered after it was struck by a projectile.

One officer grabbed a sign from a protester who was standing near a skirmish line, broke it in half and then swung a baton into the demonstrator’s legs. Another officer was seen by a Times reporter repeatedly raising his launcher and aiming at the heads of demonstrators.

In one particularly wild moment, two people riding motorcycles inched their way to the front of the protest crowd, revving their engines and drawing cheers. At some point, they got close to the LAPD’s skirmish line and skidded out.

Both were handcuffed and led away, their feet dragging across asphalt covered in shattered glass and spent rubber bullets. LAPD later alleged at least one of the motorcyclists rammed officers.

The tensions spilled into Monday.

City workers repair broken windows on Spring Street at Police Headquarters.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

At police headquarters, where city workers were spotted boarding up the ground-level windows, a row of officers in riot gear began assembling outside. With some government offices urging their employees to work from home, the surrounding streets were emptier than usual. Those who came downtown kept their heads down as they hustled past the now-ubiquitous “F— ICE” graffiti.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday afternoon that Trump had ordered another 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, doubling the previous total. In response, the governor said, he had worked with other law enforcement agencies on a “surge” of an additional 800 state and local law enforcement officers “to ensure the safety of our LA communities.”

McDonnell said at a news conference that the department was seeking to strike a balance between “dealing with civil unrest on the streets, [while] at the same time trying to protect peaceful protests.”

Some community leaders were left deeply unsatisfied with the police response.

Eddie Anderson, a pastor at McCarty Memorial Christian Church in Jefferson Park, argued that the LAPD was effectively doing the work of protecting Trump’s immigration agents.

“We asked them to pick a side: Are they going to pick the side of the federal government, which is trying to rip apart families?” Anderson said. “Donald Trump would like nothing more than for Angelenos to resort to violence to try to fight the federal government, because his whole scheme is to try to show L.A. is a lawless place.”

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.

A HOST of stores are shutting for good this weekend including a historic department store.

Retailers have struggled over recent years as shoppers’ wallets and purses take a hit from high inflation.

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An increase in employer National Insurance contributions and wage costs since April has added to the pressure.

Combined with soaring business rates, energy and rental costs, some retailers have been forced to hike prices and even shut stores.

It’s worth bearing in mind of course that retailers close shops for a host of reasons and not always because of a poor economic backdrop.

Sometimes chains will shut a poorly-performing branch in one area and open another further afield where they think they’ll see better footfall.

Plenty of retailers are moving away from high streets and towards out-of-town retail parks too.

In any case, five shops will shut this weekend including a more than 120-year-old department store.

Here is the full list of shops we know are closing down permanently.

Ginger

Norwich-based Ginger will pull down its shutters for the final time on Saturday.

The shop was founded by David and Rodger Kingsley in 1978 following the success of their sister company Jonathan Trumbull in 1971.

But current store manager Beckie Kingsley said the store will close due to the economic climate and aftermath of Covid-19.

She said: “It’s with truly heavy hearts that, after 46 unforgettable years, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to close the doors at our beautiful, beloved and historic Timber Hill home.

“We’ve weathered many storms over the decades, but there’s been ongoing challenges of today’s financial climate – coupled with the lasting impact and huge shifts within the retail landscape since Covid.

“This led us to ask – does it still work for us? After deep reflection, the answer, sadly, is no.”

Daniel of Ealing

Historic department store Daniel of Ealing, in London, will shut for good on Sunday, after opening 124 years ago.

Prices have been slashed across homeware, fashion, toys, sportswear and shoes, with up to 50% off.

Shoppers finding out the iconic shop will close have shared their dismay online.

One posted saying: “Loved this shop and it’s top floor restaurant.”

While another added: “Ealing has lost its heart, soul and uniqueness!”

The Works

Stationer The Works is shutting its Margate store on Sunday, with shoppers’ next nearest branches in Westwood Cross Shopping Centre or Ramsgate Garden Centre.

A spokesperson for the chain said the decision to shut the branch had been made “as part of ongoing plans to optimise our store portfolio”.

The move has been met with sadness by shoppers, with one online stating: “No I love The Works.”

Another dejectedly added: “Be nothing left in the town soon.”

Emporium Worthing

Independent bar and shop Emporium Worthing is closing to the public on Sunday “with a heavy heart”.

The owners posted a lengthy statement on Facebook announcing the closure.

It said: “We share the challenging decision to close Emporium Worthing after five memorable years of serving you.

“This has been a tough choice for us, but after careful reflection, we believe it is the best path forward and the right choice for us at this time.”

A huge closing down sale has been launched to clear stock, even including fixtures and fittings from inside.

It’s not all bad news though as the Emporium will be moving online and selling hardwares.

New Look

New Look is closing its branch in the Northfield Shopping Centre, Birmingham, on June 8.

A picture recently posted on Facebook of the shop window advertised the closure and signposted customers to the retailer’s website.

Customers finding out about the closure have been left gutted.

One posted on Facebook: “Will soon be a ghost town, absolutely nothing left.”

Another commented: “Online (retail) is killing shops.”

A New Look spokesperson said: “We would like to thank all of our colleagues and the local community for their support over the years.

“We hope customers continue to shop with us online at newlook.com, where our full product ranges can be found.”

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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency.

The Justice Department’s emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold.

Joun’s order has blocked one of the Republican president’s biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed.

The judge wrote that the layoffs “will likely cripple the department.”

But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration.

The layoffs help put in the place the “policy of streamlining the department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration’s view, are better left to the states,” Sauer wrote.

He also pointed out that the Supreme Court in April voted 5-4 to block Joun’s earlier order seeking to keep in place Education Department teacher-training grants.

The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department.

One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general.

The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.

Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. Joun’s order prevents the department from fully terminating them, but none have been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without Joun’s order, the workers were scheduled to be terminated Monday.

Trump has made it a priority to shut down the Education Department, though he has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to do that. In the meantime, Trump issued a March order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to wind it down “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

Trump later said the department’s functions will be parceled to other agencies, suggesting that federal student loans should be managed by the Small Business Administration and programs involving students with disabilities would be absorbed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Those changes have not yet happened.

The president argues that the Education Department has been overtaken by liberals and has failed to spur improvements to the nation’s lagging academic scores. He has promised to “return education to the states.”

Opponents note that K-12 education is already mostly overseen by states and cities.

Democrats have blasted the Trump administration’s Education Department budget, which seeks a 15% budget cut including a $4.5 billion cut in K-12 funding as part of the agency’s downsizing.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the DOGE team that had been led by Elon Musk to examine Social Security records that include personal information on most Americans.

Acting by a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an appeal from President Trump’s lawyers and lifted a court order that had barred a team of DOGE employees from freely examining Social Security records.

“We conclude that, under the present circumstances,” the Social Security Administration, or SSA, “may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the court said in an unsigned order.

In a second order, the justices blocked the disclosure of DOGE operations as agency records that could be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The court’s three liberals — Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — dissented in both cases.

“Today, the court grants ‘emergency’ relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans,” Jackson wrote. “The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful.”

The legal fight turned on the unusual status of the newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency. This was a not true department, but the name given to the team of aggressive outside advisors led by Musk.

Were the DOGE team members presidential advisors or outsiders who should not be given access to personal data?

While Social Security employees are entrusted with the records containing personal information, it was disputed whether the 11 DOGE team members could be trusted with same material.

Musk had said the goal was to find evidence of fraud or misuse of government funds.

He and DOGE were sued by labor unions who said the outside analysts were sifting through records with personal information that was protected by the privacy laws. Unless checked, the DOGE team could create highly personal computer profiles of every person, they said.

A federal judge in Maryland agreed and issued an order restricting the work of DOGE.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, an Obama appointee, barred DOGE staffers from having access to the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans. But her order did not restrict the Social Security staff or DOGE employees from using data that did not identify people or sensitive personal information.

In late April, the divided 4th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to set aside the judge’s order by a 9-6 vote.

Judge Robert King said the “government has sought to accord the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) immediate and unfettered access to all records of the Social Security Administration (‘SSA’) — records that include the highly sensitive personal information of essentially everyone in our country.”

But Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer appealed to the Supreme Court and said a judge should not “second guess” how the administration manages the government.

He said the district judge had “enjoined particular agency employees — the 11 members of the Social Security Administration (SSA) DOGE team — from accessing data that other agency employees can unquestionably access, and that the SSA DOGE team will use for purposes that are unquestionably lawful. … The Executive Branch, not district courts, sets government employees’ job responsibilities.”

Sauer said the DOGE team was seeking to modernize SSA systems and identify improper payments, for instance by reviewing swaths of records and flagging unusual payment patterns or other signs of fraud.

The DOGE employees “are subject to the same strict confidentiality standards as other SSA employees,” he said. Moreover, the plaintiffs “make no allegation that the SSA DOGE team’s access will increase the risk of public disclosure.”

He said checking the personal data is crucial.

“For instance, a birth date of 1900 can be telltale evidence that an individual is probably deceased and should not still receive Social Security payments, while 15 names using the same Social Security number may also point to a problem,” he said.

June 6 (UPI) — The Department of the Interior on Friday announced approval of a mining plan modification for Bull Mountains coal mine in Montana, a move criticized by environmental organizations.

Signal Peak Energy LLC was authorized to mine roughly 22.8 million tons of federal coal and 34.5 million tons of adjacent non-federal coal in Roundup.

The mine, which in Musselshell and Yellowstone counties, exports coal to Japan and South Korea.

“By unlocking access to coal in America, we are not only fueling jobs here at home, but we are also standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies abroad,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement.

In 2023, a federal judge halted the mining of federal coal at the Bull Mountains Mine pending a thorough analysis of the mine’s impacts on ranchers, vital water sources, and the climate.

The Trump administration approved the expansion without a draft environmental impact statement or the opportunity for public comment on a draft.

The Interior Department said it is using “alternative arrangements” for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, the 1969 law requiring federal agencies to assess potential environmental effects of their decisions.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, described it as one of the most notorious mining operations in the country.

In 2023, The New York Times reported on corruption and criminal history surrounding Signal Peak. It revealed embezzlement, a fake kidnapping, bribery, cocaine trafficking, firearms violations, past links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and worker safety and environmental infringements.

“It’s utter hogwash that we have to sacrifice the climate, water resources, wildlife and area ranching operations in order to send coal overseas to be burned by foreign countries,” Anne Hedges, executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center said in a news release. “Signal Peak has thumbed its nose at state and federal laws for decades.

“Now the Trump administration is rewarding these bad actors with a free pass without considering the harm to ranchers’ livelihoods, wildlife that depend on vanishing area water resources, or the devastation that will result from making the climate crisis even worse. There is no excuse for this type of lawlessness and there is certainly no national energy emergency being alleviated.”

Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, said: “The Trump administration will have a very difficult time in federal court explaining how expediting approval for expanding operations at a coal mine that exports 98% of its product falls under an extremely specific domestic energy emergency declaration. The energy emergency declaration, preposterous on its face, only ever served as an abuse of the federal government to enrich fossil fuel barons. Using it to expand the Bull Mountains coal mine makes that explicit.”

The Trump administration policy of increasing fossil fuel production stands in stark contrast to Biden administration policies.

In October 2024, the Biden administration announced $428 million in funding for 14 federal energy projects in small towns historically known for coal production.

The Trump administration is in the process of attempting to undo that clean energy approach while doubling down on coal, oil and gas production.

For the Bull Mountains coal mine, the Interior Department said Friday it is using emergency permitting procedures to disregard normal environmental review.

The Interior Department said in an April statement that the procedures reduce what would normally be “a multi-year review process down to just 28 days at most.”

The department asserts that the procedures using the radically shortened review process still upholds environmental standards.

“The Bull Mountains project is proof that we can meet urgent energy needs, work with local communities and uphold strong environmental standards,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Adam Suess in a statement.

According to the Interior Department, “These alternative arrangements apply both to actions not likely to have significant environmental impacts and to actions likely to have significant environmental impacts.”

The Trump administration is using a so-called national energy emergency declared by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 to avoid fully complying with full environmental regulations agencies would normally have to follow.

Under the alternative arrangements, companies would notify the department they want those alternative arrangements.

The official responsible for reviewing the application would then “prepare a focused, concise, and timely environmental impact statement addressing the purpose and need for the proposed action, alternatives, and a brief description of environmental effects.”

According to the Interior Department, the Bull Mountains project is expected to generate “over $1 billion in combined local, state and county economic benefits, including wages, taxes and business activity.”

Signal Peak Energy, which is the only underground mining operation in Montana, said on its website it is “committed to reimagining the industry through top-quality safety procedures and cutting-edge production methods. Our mission is to create an environment where our employees can thrive — complete with a comprehensive benefits package and an industry-leading safety record.

June 6 (UPI) — Federal officials on Friday filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to remove a lower court judge’s ruling currently prohibiting further dismantling of the Department of Education.

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are listed as the applicants on court documents.

The Trump administration is attempting to remove a temporary order instituted last month by U.S. District Court Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts that forces the federal government to re-hire almost 1,400 fired employees and prohibits further layoffs.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer also asked the Supreme Court to stay Joun’s order while it considers the application, which would allow the administration to move forward with its plans to further dismantle the department.

Joun last month ruled the department, which was created in 1979, “must be able to carry out its functions and its obligations under the [Department of Education Organization Act] and other relevant statutes as mandated by Congress.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said at the time the federal government would immediately challenge the order “on an emergency basis.”

“The Constitution vests the Executive Branch, not district courts, with the authority to make judgments about how many employees are needed to carry out an agency’s statutory functions, and whom they should be,” Sauer, who filed the application on behalf of Trump and McMahon, wrote.

“For the second time in three months, the same district court has thwarted the Executive Branch’s authority to manage the Department of Education despite lacking jurisdiction to second-guess the Executive’s internal management decisions. This Court curtailed that overreach when the district court attempted to prevent the Department from terminating discretionary grants.”

In mid-March, McMahon confirmed nearly half of her department’s staff would be placed on leave as part of Trump’s plan to eliminate the agency, part of a larger push to cut federal spending.

June 6 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday sanctioned four International Criminal Court Judges, citing investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and Israeli leaders.

The State Department announced the sanctions against Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz Del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou from Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia over what it described as the court’s effort to “arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality.”

“We do not take this step lightly,” the State Department statement said. “It reflects the seriousness of the threat we face from the ICC’s politicization and abuse of power.”

The State Department noted that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza had authorized an investigation against U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, while Alapini Gansou and Hohler authorized warrants to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Neither the United States nor Israel recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court.

“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions, targeting America or our close ally, Israel,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a statement. “The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies. This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States.”

The sanctions impose a block on “all property and interests in property” of the aforementioned judges, and American citizens are also forbidden, as per the order, from doing any business with the four judges, unless they’ve been issued a precise license issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control or are exempt.

The Assembly of States Parties, which serves as the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC, announced Friday in a press release that it rejects the orders put forth by Trump and Rubio.

“Such actions risk undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community and erode the shared commitment to the rule of law, the fight against impunity, and the preservation of a rules-based international order,” it said.

European Union Council President Antonio Costa said via social media Friday that the EU “strongly supports” the ICC.

“We must protect its independence and integrity. The rule of law must prevail over the rule of power,” he said.

The sanctions follow an executive order from Trump issued in February that considered “any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute protected persons” a threat to American national security and foreign policy, and declared economic sanctions against the ICC.

The order’s measures include the blocking of property and assets, and the suspension of entry to the United States of ICC officials, employees and agents, as well as their immediate family members.

When Michele Kaemmerer showed up at firehouses in the 1990s, she sometimes encountered firefighters who didn’t want to work with her and would ask to go home sick.

Los Angeles fire officials supported Kaemmerer, the city’s first transgender fire captain, by denying the requests.

If the slights hurt her, she didn’t let it show.

“She really let things roll off her back pretty well. Some of the stuff was really hurtful, but she always had a good attitude,” said Janis Walworth, Kaemmerer’s widow. “She never took that out on anybody else. She was never bitter or angry.”

Kaemmerer, an early leader for transgender and women’s rights at a department not known for its warm welcome to women and minorities, died May 21 at age 80 of heart disease at her home in Bellingham, Wash. She is survived by Walworth and two children.

Michele Kaemmerer wears a shirt to show pride in her trans and lesbian identity in an undated photo.

(Courtesy of Janis Walworth)

A Buddhist, a Democrat, a feminist and a lesbian transgender woman, Kaemmerer busted stereotypes of what a firefighter was. She joined the LAFD in 1969 — long before she transitioned in 1991 — and became a captain 10 years later.

“Being in a fire, inside of a building on fire, at a brush fire … it’s adrenaline-producing and it’s great,” Kaemmerer said in a 1999 episode of the PBS show “In The Life,” which documented issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. The episode featured Kaemmerer when she was captain of Engine 63 in Marina del Rey.

“The men and women here feel very stressed out having a gay and lesbian captain,” Savitri Carlson, a paramedic at the firehouse, said in the episode. “You have to realize, this is not just a job. We live, sleep, shower, eat together, change together.”

But Kaemmerer brushed off the snubs.

“They’re forced to live with a lesbian, yes,” she said, laughing as she prepared a meal at the firehouse. “And it doesn’t rub off.”

Those close to her said that Kaemmerer, who retired in 2003, was able to deal with the scrutiny and snide remarks because she was an optimist who saw the best in people.

“She really didn’t dwell on that stuff,” said Brenda Berkman, one of the first women in the New York City Fire Department, who met Kaemmerer in the 1990s through their work for Women in the Fire Service, now known as Women in Fire, which supports female firefighters across the world.

The suspicion sometimes came from other women. When Kaemmerer joined Women in the Fire Service, some members didn’t want her to go with them on a days-long bike trip.

Some argued that Kaemmerer was “not a real woman,” wondering what bathroom she would use and where she would sleep.

“She made clear she would have her own tent,” Berkman recalled. “I said to my group, ‘We can’t be discriminating against Michele — not after all we’ve fought for to be recognized and treated equally in the fire service. She has to be allowed to come.’”

Kaemmerer joined the trip.

Michele Kaemmerer fights a brush fire in an undated photo.

(Courtesy of Janis Walworth)

Born in 1945, Kaemmerer knew from an early age that she identified as a woman but hid it out of fear of being beaten or shamed. She cross-dressed secretly and followed a traditional life path, marrying her high school sweetheart (whom she later divorced), joining the Navy and having two children.

“I was very proud of her [when she came out],” said Kaemmerer’s daughter, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons. “It takes incredible courage to do what she did, especially in a particularly macho, male-driven career.”

When she came out as transgender, Kaemmerer was captain of a small team at the LAFD, with three men working under her.

“It was very difficult for them,” she said in the PBS interview.

Kaemmerer focused on her work. During the 1992 L.A. riots, her fire truck was shot at as she responded to fires, Berkman said.

In the PBS interview, Kaemmerer said that some firefighters who knew her before she transitioned still refused to work with her.

Some women who shared a locker room with her worried that she might make a sexual advance. Most firefighters sleep in the same room, but Kaemmerer sometimes didn’t, so others would feel comfortable.

“Sometimes I will get my bedding and I will put it on the floor in the workout room or the weight room and sleep in there,” she said in the PBS interview.

As she was talking to PBS about her experience as a transgender woman in the fire department, the bell sounded.

“That’s an alarm coming in,” she said, standing up and walking out of the interview.

The former chairman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission is under investigation for alleged retaliation against a Sheriff’s Department sergeant who faced scrutiny for his role in a unit accused of pursuing politically motivated cases.

Sean Kennedy, a Loyola Law School professor who resigned from the commission this year, received notification from a law firm that said it had “been engaged by the Office of the County Counsel to conduct a neutral investigation into an allegation that you retaliated against Sergeant Max Fernandez,” according to an email reviewed by The Times.

Kennedy and other members of the commission questioned Fernandez last year about his connections to the Sheriff’s Department’s now-disbanded Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, a controversial unit that operated under then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Kennedy said the commission’s inquiry into Fernandez appears to be what landed him in the crosshairs of the investigation he now faces. Kennedy denied any wrongdoing in a text message Thursday.

“I was just doing my job as an oversight official tasked by the commission to conduct the questioning at an official public hearing,” he wrote.

Last week, Kennedy received an email from Matthias H. Wagener, co-partner of Wagener Law, stating that the county had launched an investigation.

“The main allegation is that you attempted to discredit Sergeant Fernandez in various ways because of his role in investigating Commissioner Patti Giggans during his tenure on the former Civil Rights & Public Corruption Detail Unit,” Wagener wrote. “It has been alleged that you retaliated for personal reasons relating to your relationship with Commissioner Giggans, as her friend and her attorney.”

The Office of the County Counsel confirmed in an emailed statement that “a confidential workplace investigation into recent allegations of retaliation” is underway, but declined to identify whom it is investigating or who alleged retaliation, citing a need to “ensure the integrity of the investigation and to protect the privacy of” the parties.

“In accordance with its anti-retaliation policies and procedures, LA County investigates complaints made by employees who allege they have been subjected to retaliation for engaging in protected activities in the workplace,” the statement said.

The Sheriff’s Department said in an email that it “has no investigation into Mr. Kennedy.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Fernandez said that he doesn’t “know anything about” the investigation and that he has not “talked to anybody at county counsel.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” he said. “Who started this investigation? They haven’t contacted me. I don’t know how that got into their hands.”

In a phone interview, Kennedy described the inquiry as “extraordinary.”

“I think that this is just the latest in a long line of Sheriff’s Department employees doing really anything they can to thwart meaningful oversight,” Kennedy said. “So now we’re at the point where they’re filing bogus retaliation complaints against commissioners for doing their jobs.”

Kennedy resigned from the Civilian Oversight Commission in February after county lawyers attempted to thwart the body from filing an amicus brief in the criminal case against Diana Teran, who served as an advisor to then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.

The public corruption unit led several high-profile investigations during Villanueva’s term as sheriff, including inquiries into Giggans, the Civilian Oversight Commission, then-L.A. County Supervisor Shelia Kuehl and former Times reporter Maya Lau.

One of the unit’s investigations involved a whistleblower who alleged that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority unfairly awarded more than $800,000 worth of contracts to a nonprofit run by Giggans, a friend of Kuehl’s and vocal critic of Villanueva. The investigation made headlines when sheriff’s deputies with guns and battering rams raided Kuehl’s Santa Monica home one early morning in 2022.

The investigation ended without any criminal charges last summer, when the California Department of Justice concluded that there was a “lack of evidence of wrongdoing.”

Asked Thursday about the claim that Kennedy — who served as a lawyer for her while she was being investigated by the public corruption unit — interrogated Fernandez as a form of retaliation, Giggans called it “bogus” and said Fernandez “was subpoenaed because of his actions as a rogue sheriff’s deputy.”

Lau filed a lawsuit last month alleging the criminal investigation into her activities as a journalist violated her 1st Amendment rights. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ultimately declined to prosecute the case against Lau.

Critics have repeatedly alleged that Villanueva used the unit to target his political enemies, a charge the former sheriff has disputed.

In October, Kennedy and other members of the Civilian Oversight Commission spent five hours interrogating Fernandez and former homicide Det. Mark Lillienfeld about the public corruption unit, of which they were members.

Kennedy questioned Fernandez’s credibility during the exchange, asking about People vs. Aquino, a ruling by an appellate court in the mid-2000s that found he had provided false testimony during a criminal trial that was “deliberate and no slip of the tongue.”

Fernandez argued that he had “never lied on the stand,” adding that “that’s ridiculous, I’m an anti-corruption cop.”

Fernandez also fielded questions about whether he was a member of a deputy gang. Critics have accused deputy cliques of engaging in brawls and other misconduct.

Fernandez said he was not in a deputy gang or problematic subgroup. But he acknowledged that he drew a picture of a warrior in the early 2000s that he got tattooed on his body.

A lieutenant tattooed with that image previously testified that it is associated with the Gladiators deputy subgroup, of which Fernandez has denied being a member.

Kennedy also asked Fernandez about a 2003 incident in which he shot and killed a 27-year-old man in Compton. Fernandez alleged the man pointed a gun at him, but sheriff’s investigators later found he was unarmed.

In a 2021 memo to oversight officials, Kennedy called for a state or federal investigation into the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail and its “pattern of targeting” critics of the Sheriff’s Department.

Then-Undersheriff Tim Murakami responded in a letter, writing that the memo contained “wild accusations.”

On May 30, Wagener questioned Kennedy about “why I examined Max Fernandez about his fatal shooting of a community member, his Gladiators tattoo, his perjury in People v. Aquino, and why he put references to people’s sexual orientation in a search warrant application,” Kennedy wrote in a text message Thursday. “I told him I was just asking questions that relate to oversight.”

Robert Bonner, chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, provided an emailed statement that called the investigation into Kennedy “extremely troubling and terribly ironic.”

“The allegation itself is rich,” Bonner wrote. “But that [it is being] given any credence by County Counsel can only serve to intimidate other Commissioners from asking hard questions.”

On June 1, 2025, Jonathan Joss, 59, from San Antonio, Texas, was fatally shot by neighbour Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez.

Joss, a beloved voice actor and musician, who was best known for his roles in King of the Hill, as John Redcorn and as Chief Ken Hotate in Parks and Recreation, died from a gunshot wound outside his house as his husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, held him.

“I just kept telling him: ‘It’s OK. You need to cross over. You don’t need to keep struggling. You need to go ahead and cross over easy.’” Kern de Gonzales said. 

Alvarez is alleged to have said a homophobic slur, “Jotos”, at the newlyweds, who were married in March this year. According to Kern de Gonzales, a trans man, this attack came after years of homophobic abuse and not being listened to by the Arizona PD.

“I’ve been called that word while I was sitting on a bench with Jonathan, eating lunch. And I got called that holding Jonathan while he died.” Said Kern de Gonzales, who on Joss’ Facebook account, claimed that the pair had been experiencing homophobic hate from Alvarez for some time.

Joss’ murder has been described by some on social media as a ‘lynching of a native man for being gay’, while Native advocacy organisations and influencers are also pointing to Joss’ heritage as an Apache and Comanche descendant. 

In 2021, a report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute and the California Rural Indian Health Board was published in The Guardian. Of the 18 respondents to the study who identified as ‘Native LGBTQ2’, almost 90% reported multiple forms of violence. 

As reported by Them, a 2025 report from the Human Rights Campaign further states that LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit Indigenous people face disproportionately high rates of police violence. 

One respondent, Monique “Muffie” Mousseau, 56, Oglala Lakota, said, “A police officer saw me hugging and kissing my wife. He jumped me, saying, ‘we don’t tolerate f**s in South Dakota’.”

Another one, from an anonymous contributor, said, “Give me help. Don’t give me harassment. And that’s all we get around here. They harass you first. Give you help last.”

Originally, the San Antonio Police Department denied that Joss’ murder was motivated by homophobia in a statement posted to the social media platform X on June 2, despite taking these claims “very seriously”, allegedly. 

However, two days later, on June 4, the San Antonio PD released another statement on the social media platform. This time, in partnership with Pride San Antonio.

We see you, we hear you and we stand with you. Join us June 5th, in partnership with @PrideSanAntonio https://t.co/Z94nzkETIc pic.twitter.com/rQmOfluXex

— San Antonio PD (@SATXPolice) June 4, 2025

The statement, which sets out to reassure the LGBTQIA+ community that the San Antonia PD stand with them and hears their concerns, has not been received well by commenters. 

One commenter wrote, “So it’s a hate crime now that we pointed it out to you???? Yesterday “we don’t have any evidence” you corrupt fuckers (also police don’t belong at pride fuck you)”

Another accused the Police Department of being so “brainwashed by radical right wing extremism” that it could no longer recognise hate crimes. 

On June 4, NBC News reported that, according to obtained call logs, Police were called to respond to incidents at their home more than four dozen times, with most of the calls labelled as “disturbances.”

NBC were able to confirm with a police spokesperson that the police department’s “SAFFE” unit, which works to prevent crimes, had been mediating a dispute between neighbours Alvarez and Joss for over a year. Other aspects of the dispute, which involved a crossbow, a claim of arson against Alvarez and questions surrounding the display of Joss and Kern de Gonzales’ former dog’s skull, who is thought to have perished in the house fire. 

The news channel expressed that this evidence combined painted a “complicated picture of what led up to Joss’ death.” 

In February 2025, the Williams Institute published its report detailing the targeted, systematic attack on LGBTQIA+ rights, following the two weeks of Trump’s election. However, the reversal and systematic stripping of rights predate Trump and are traceable over the past decade, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. 

“In 2023, the ACLU tracked 510 anti-LGBT[QIA+] bills, and in 2024, it tracked 533 anti-LGBT bills that were introduced in state legislatures across the United States”, states the report. 

Comparatively, the ACLU has already tracked 339 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills across the U.S as of February 10, 2025, alone. So it’s perhaps no wonder that these systematic attacks have resulted in LGBTQIA+ people being five times more likely than non-LGBTQIA+ people to be victims of violent crimes. 

This is exacerbated by low trust in police forces, who, according to a 2024 Police Insight analysis, state that; “When we asked survey respondents if they would call the police for help if they became victims of a crime, we found that LGBTQ[IA+] people were less likely to say yes than non-LGBTQ[IA+] people: 71% compared with 87%.”

With growing anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment in the US, alongside the litany of failures to protect Native American communities, it is perhaps easy to understand the sense of discouragement and distrust currently being felt in relation to Joss’ murder. 

He openly advocated for the death of then-President-elect Donald Trump, hailing himself as an “assassin” and threatening to shoot the would-be 47th commander-in-chief shortly after the election, prosecutors say.

Those words, left on Facebook posts, are at the center of a federal grand jury indictment. On Tuesday, Yucca Valley resident Thomas Eugene Streavel, 73, pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of making threats.

The San Bernardino County man was arrested Monday just before 11 a.m. by United States Marshals and arraigned the next day inside Central District Court in Riverside.

He’s out on a $10,000 bond and is expected back in court July 28. Streavel could serve up to 15 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.

“This defendant is charged with threatening the life of our President — a man who has already survived two deranged attempts on his life,” said U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in a statement. “The Department of Justice takes these threats with the utmost seriousness and will prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law.”

A number listed for Streavel was not answered, and no attorney was listed for him in court documents.

His actions were detailed in a grand jury indictment from May 29 that was unsealed Tuesday.

Streavel posted a variety of threats in the days after Trump’s electoral victory in November, according to the Justice Department.

“[T]rump is a dead man walking for the time being until a patriot like myself blows his [expletive] brains out in the very near future,” Streavel posted on Nov. 6., according to court documents.

Six days later, Streavel posted on Facebook that he was “willing to make America great again and blow his [expletive] brains out,” the indictment says.

There were similar Facebook rants on Nov. 19 and on 28.

In the earlier instance, he wrote, “Let me put a bullet right between the ears of your president-elect…That’s my purpose for living,” according to the indictment.

He later posted, “I’m praying for a successful assassination of your president-elect.” He then added, “my life’s mission is killing the worthless LOSER [expletive] and my mission starts tonight so watch yourself trump [sic], you are a dead [expletive] and I am your assassin,” court documents show.

Streavel’s posts extend to before the election, when on Oct. 15 he wrote, “today is the perfect day to blow his brains out and I’d love to be the one to pull the trigger.”

The Secret Service is also investigating the matter.

“The type of rhetoric and threats made by this defendant are similar to those that led to an attempt on the President’s life last year,” said United States Atty. Bill Essayli. “There is no place for political violence or threats of violence in the United States.”

Trump was injured in a shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The shooting left one rally attendee dead and two critically injured, and the unidentified gunman was killed by the Secret Service, according to that agency.

At Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course on Sept. 15, a Secret Service agent scoping out the area one or two holes ahead of him saw the muzzle of an AK-47-style weapon pointing out of the tree line on the perimeter of the course.

Trump was unharmed in the second attempt on his life in two months.

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday officially asked Congress to claw back $9.4 billion in already approved spending, taking funding away from programs targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s a process known as “rescission,” which requires President Donald Trump to get approval from Congress to return money that had previously been appropriated. Trump’s aides say the funding cuts target programs that promote liberal ideologies.

The request, if it passes the House and Senate, would formally enshrine many of the spending cuts and freezes sought by DOGE. It comes at a time when Musk is extremely unhappy with the tax cut and spending plan making its way through Congress, calling it on Tuesday a “disgusting abomination” for increasing the federal deficit.

White House budget director Russ Vought said more rescission packages and other efforts to cut spending could follow if the current effort succeeds.

“

Here’s what to know about the rescissions request:

Will the rescissions make a dent in the national debt?

The request to Congress is unlikely to meaningfully change the troublesome increase in the U.S. national debt. Tax revenues have been insufficient to cover the growing costs of Social Security, Medicare and other programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the government is on track to spend roughly $7 trillion this year, with the rescission request equaling just 0.1% of that total.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at Tuesday’s briefing that Vought would continue to cut spending, hinting that there could be additional efforts to return funds.

“He has tools at his disposal to produce even more savings,” Leavitt said.

Vought said he can send up additional rescissions at the end of the fiscal year in September “and if Congress does not act on it, that funding expires.”

“It’s one of the reasons why we are not putting all of our expectations in a typical rescissions process,” he added.

What programs are targeted by the rescissions?

A spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview some of the items that would lose funding, said that $8.3 billion was being cut from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. NPR and PBS would also lose federal funding, as would the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR.

The spokesperson listed specific programs that the Trump administration considered wasteful, including $750,000 to reduce xenophobia in Venezuela, $67,000 for feeding insect powder to children in Madagascar and $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies and condoms in Zambia.

Is the rescissions package likely to get passed?

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., complimented the planned cuts and pledged to pass them.

“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity,” Johnson said. “Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”

Members of the House Freedom Caucus, among the chamber’s most conservative lawmakers, said they would like to see additional rescission packages from the administration.

“We will support as many more rescissions packages the White House can send us in the coming weeks and months,” the group said in a press release.

Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, gave the package a less optimistic greeting.

“Despite this fast track, the Senate Appropriations Committee will carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations,” the Maine lawmaker said in a statement.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A former Homeland Security official during President Trump’s first administration who authored an anonymous op-ed sharply critical of the president is calling on independent government watchdogs to investigate after Trump ordered the department to look into his government service.

Miles Taylor, once chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, warned in an interview with the Associated Press of the far-reaching implications of Trump’s April 9 memorandum, “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods,” when it comes to suppressing criticism of the president. That memo accused Taylor of concocting stories to sell his book and directed the secretary of Homeland Security and other government agencies to look into Taylor and strip him of any security clearances.

Taylor sent a letter via email to inspectors general at the departments of Justice and Homeland Security on Tuesday.

Coming on the same April day that Trump also ordered an investigation into Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, the dual memoranda illustrated how Trump has sought to use the powers of the presidency against his adversaries. Speaking to the AP, Taylor said the order targeting him sets a “scary precedent” and that’s why he decided to call on the inspectors general to investigate.

“I didn’t commit any crime, and that’s what’s extraordinary about this. I can’t think of any case where someone knows they’re being investigated but has absolutely no idea what crime they allegedly committed. And it’s because I didn’t,” Taylor said. He called it a “really, really, really scary precedent to have set is that the president of the United States can now sign an order investigating any private citizen he wants, any critic, any foe, anyone.”

Trump has targeted adversaries since he took office

Since taking office again in January, Trump has stripped security clearances from a number of his opponents. But Trump’s order for an investigation into Taylor, as well as Krebs, marked an escalation of his campaign of retribution in his second term.

Trump fired Krebs, who directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in November 2020 after Krebs disputed the Republican president’s unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud and vouched for the integrity of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Taylor left the first Trump administration in 2019. In the anonymous New York Times op-ed published in 2018, he described himself as part of a secret “resistance” to counter Trump’s “misguided impulses.” The op-ed’s publication touched off a leak investigation in Trump’s first White House.

Taylor later published a book by the same name as the op-ed and then another book under his own name called “Blowback,” which warned about Trump’s return to office.

After signing the memorandum April 9, Trump said Taylor was likely “guilty of treason.”

The letter by Taylor’s lawyer to the inspectors general calls Trump’s actions “unprecedented in American history.”

“The Memorandum does not identify any specific wrongdoing. Rather, it flagrantly targets Mr. Taylor for one reason alone: He dared to speak out to criticize the President,” the letter reads.

Taylor’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the request to the inspectors general was an attempt to “get the administration to do the right thing.” Lowell said that depending on the outcome of their complaint, they’ll explore other options including a possible lawsuit. Lowell, a veteran Washington lawyer, announced earlier this year that he was opening his own legal practice and would represent targets of Trump’s retribution.

Violation of First Amendment rights alleged

In the letter, Lowell calls on the inspectors general to do their jobs of “addressing and preventing abuses of power.”

The letter says Trump’s April 9 memo appears to violate Taylor’s First Amendment rights by going after Taylor for his criticism of the president, calling it a “textbook definition of political retribution and vindictive prosecution.” And, according to the letter, Trump’s memo also appears to violate Taylor’s Fifth Amendment due process rights.

The letter highlights Taylor’s “honorable and exemplary” work service including receiving the Distinguished Service Medal upon leaving the department, and it details the toll that the April 9 memorandum has taken on Taylor’s personal life. His family has been threatened and harassed, and former colleagues lost their government jobs because of their connection with him, according to the letter.

Taylor told the AP that since the order, there’s been an “implosion in our lives.” He said he started a fund to pay for legal fees, has had to step away from work and his wife has gone back to work to help pay the family’s bills. Their home’s location was published on the internet in a doxxing.

Taylor said that by filing these complaints with the inspectors general, he’s anticipating that the pressure on him and his family will increase. He said they spent the last few weeks debating what to do after the April 9 memorandum and decided to fight back.

“The alternative is staying silent, cowering and capitulating and sending the message that, yes, there’s no consequences for this president and this administration in abusing their powers in ways that my legal team believes and a lot of legal scholars tell me is unconstitutional and illegal,” Taylor said.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is withdrawing the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Elon Musk, to lead NASA, a person familiar with the decision said Saturday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the administration’s personnel decisions. The White House and NASA did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Trump announced last December during the presidential transition that he had chosen Isaacman to be the space agency’s next administrator. Isaacman has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since he bought his first chartered flight on Musk’s SpaceX in 2021.

He is the CEO and founder of Shift4, a credit card processing company. He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk.

Isaacman testified at his Senate confirmation hearing on April 9 and a vote to send his nomination to the full Senate was expected soon.

SpaceX is owned by Musk, a Trump supporter and adviser who announced this week that he is leaving the government after several months at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Trump created the agency to slash the size of government and put Musk in charge.

Semafor was first to report that the White House had decided to pull Isaacman’s nomination.

Superville and Kim write for the Associated Press.

After the Palisades fire ignited, top brass at the Los Angeles Fire Department were quick to say that they were hampered by broken fire engines and a lack of mechanics to fix them.

If the roughly 40 fire engines that were in the shop had been repaired, they said, the battle against what turned out to be one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in Los Angeles history might have unfolded differently.

Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley cited the disabled engines as a reason fire officials didn’t dispatch more personnel to fire-prone areas as the winds escalated, and why they sent home firefighters who showed up to help as the blaze raged out of control. The department, she said, should have had three times as many mechanics.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley address the media at a press conference onJan. 11.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

But many of the broken engines highlighted by LAFD officials had been out of service for many months or even years — and not necessarily for a lack of mechanics, according to a Times review of engine work orders as of Jan. 3, four days before the fire.

What’s more, the LAFD had dozens of other engines that could have been staffed and deployed in advance of the fire.

Instead, the service records point to a broader problem: the city’s longtime reliance on an aging fleet of engines.

Well over half of the LAFD’s fire engines are due to be replaced. According to an LAFD report presented to the city Fire Commission last month, 127 out of 210 fire engines — 60% — and 29 out of 60 ladder trucks — 48% — are operating beyond their recommended lifespans.

“It just hasn’t been a priority,” said Frank Líma, general secretary treasurer of the International Assn. of Fire Fighters who is also an LAFD captain, adding that frontline rigs are “getting pounded like never before” as the number of 911 calls increases.

That means officials are relying heavily on reserve engines — older vehicles that can be used in emergencies or when regular engines are in the shop. The goal is to use no more than half of those vehicles, but for the last three years, LAFD has used, on average, 80% of the trucks, engines and ambulances in reserve, according to the Fire Commission report.

“That’s indicative of a fleet that’s just getting older,” said Assistant Chief Peter Hsiao, who oversees LAFD’s supply and maintenance division, in an interview with The Times.

“As our fleet gets older, the repairs become more difficult,” Hsiao told the Fire Commission. “We’re now doing things like rebuilding suspensions, rebuilding pump transmissions, rebuilding transmissions, engine overhauls.”

The problem stems from long-term funding challenges, Hsiao said in the interview, with the department receiving varying amounts of money each year that have to be divvied up among competing equipment needs.

“If you extrapolate that over a longer period of time, then you end up in a situation where we are,” he said.

To make matters worse, Hsiao said, the price of new engines and trucks has doubled since the pandemic. Engines that cost $775,000 a few years ago are now pushing $1.5 million — and it takes three years or more to build them, he said.

The number of fire engine manufacturers has also declined.

Recently, the IAFF asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a consolidation in emergency vehicle manufacturers that it said has resulted in skyrocketing costs and “brutal” wait times. In a letter, the IAFF said that at least two dozen companies have been rolled up into just three main manufacturers.

Firefighters battle the Palisades fire on El Medio Avenue on Jan. 7 in Pacific Palisades.

(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

“These problems have reduced the readiness of fire departments to respond to emergencies, with dire consequences for public safety,” the letter said.

The IAFF is the parent organization of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the local union representing LAFD firefighters. IAFF has been running the local labor group since suspending its top officers last month over allegations of financial impropriety.

Hsiao said the LAFD’s fleet is well-maintained, and engines don’t often break down.

But the age and condition of the fleet could deteriorate further, even with an infusion of cash to buy new equipment, because the wait times are so long.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office has previously said that she secured $51 million last year to purchase 10 fire engines, five trucks, 20 ambulances and other equipment. The 2025-26 budget passed by the City Council last month includes nearly $68 million for 10 fire engines, four trucks, 10 ambulances and a helicopter, among other equipment, the mayor’s office said.

“The Mayor’s Office is working with new leadership at LAFD to ensure that new vehicles are purchased in a timely manner and put into service,” a spokesperson said in an email.

A majority of the Fire Department’s budget goes toward pay and benefits for its more than 3,700 employees, most of them firefighters.

Members of the Los Angeles Fire Department fill the council chambers to show support for former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who was at City Hall March 4 to appeal her termination to the Los Angeles City Council after Mayor Karen Bass fired her as head of the Fire Department. Under the city charter, Crowley would need the support of 10 of the 15 council members to be reinstated as chief.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Despite the city’s financial troubles, firefighters secured four years of pay raises last year through negotiations with Bass. And firefighters often make much more than their base pay, with about 30% of the LAFD’s payroll costs going to overtime, according to the city’s payroll database. Firefighters and fire captains each earned an average of $73,500 in overtime last year, on top of an average base salary of about $140,100, the data show.

Líma said that while new engines will be useful, “a one-year little infusion doesn’t help a systemic problem that’s developed over decades.” Asked whether firefighters would defer raises, he said they “shouldn’t fund the Fire Department off the backs of their salaries.”

The National Fire Protection Assn. recommends that fire engines move to reserve status after 15 years and out of the fleet altogether after 25 years.

But many larger cities need to act sooner, “because of the constant wear and tear city equipment takes,” said Marc Bashoor, a former fire chief who now trains firefighters across the country, in an email. “In my opinion, 10 years is OLD for city apparatus.”

Bashoor also noted that incorporating a variety of brands into a fleet, as the LAFD does, can increase repair times.

“When a fire department doesn’t have a standardized fleet, departments typically are unable to stock enough … parts to fit every brand,” he said in an email. “They then have to find the part or use a 3rd party, which can significantly delay repairs.”

Of the roughly 40 engines in the shop before the Palisades fire, three were built in 1999. Hsiao said engines that old are typically used for training and don’t respond to calls.

Those that are too old or damaged from collisions or fires to ever return to city streets sometimes remain in the yard so they can be stripped for parts or used for training. Some are kept as evidence in lawsuits.

According to the service records reviewed by The Times, a work order was opened in 2023 for a 2003 engine burned in a fire, with notes saying “strip for salvage.” A 2006 engine damaged in an accident was waiting for parts, according to notes associated with a work order from last April. Two 2018 engines were damaged in collisions, including one with “heavy damage” to the rear body that had to be towed in, according to notes for an order from last July. Other orders noted oil leaks or problems with head gaskets.

Almost 30 of the engines that were out of service before the fire — 70% on the list — were 15 or more years old, past what the city considers an appropriate lifespan. Only a dozen had work orders that were three months old or less. That included three newer engines — two built in 2019 and one in 2020 — whose service records showed they were waiting for “warranty” repairs.

After the fire, LAFD union officials echoed Crowley’s fleet maintenance concerns. Freddy Escobar, who was then president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, blamed chronic underfunding.

“The LAFD does not have the funding mechanism to supply enough mechanics and enough money for the parts to repair these engines, the trucks, the ambulances,” Escobar told KTLA-TV.

The issues date back more than a decade. A 2019 report showed that LAFD’s equipment was even more outdated at the time, with 136 of 216 engines, or 63%, due for replacement, as well as 43 of 58 ladder trucks, or 74%. In a report from 2012, LAFD officials said they didn’t have enough mechanics to keep up with the workload.

“Of paramount concern is the Department’s aging and less reliable fleet, a growing backlog of deferred repairs, and increased maintenance expense,” the 2012 report said, adding that mechanics were primarily doing emergency repairs instead of preventative maintenance.

LAFD’s equipment and operations have been under heightened scrutiny since the Palisades fire erupted Jan. 7, destroying thousands of homes and killing 12 people, with many saying that officials were severely unprepared.

A total of 18 firefighters are typically on duty at the two fire stations in the Palisades — Stations 23 and 69 — to respond to emergencies. Only 14 of them are routinely available to fight brush fires, The Times previously reported. The other four are assigned to ambulances at the two stations, although they might help with evacuations or rescues during fires.

The Palisades fire burns along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, despite warnings about extreme weather, a Times investigation found. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those working engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

Less than two months after the fire, Bass dismissed Crowley, citing the chief’s pre-deployment decisions as one of the reasons.

Bass has rejected the idea that there was any connection between reductions at the department and the city’s response to the wildfires.

Meanwhile, the number of mechanics on the job hasn’t changed much in recent years, fluctuating between 64 and 74 since 2020, according to records released by the LAFD in January. As of this year, the agency had 71 mechanics.

According to its report to the Fire Commission, the LAFD doesn’t have enough mechanics to maintain and repair its fleet, based on the average number of hours the department said it takes to maintain a single vehicle.

Last year, the report said, mechanics completed 31,331 of 32,317 work requests, or 97%. So far this year, they have completed 62%, according to the report.

“With a greater number of mechanics, we can reduce the delays. However, a limited facility size, parts availability, and warranty repairs compound the issue,” LAFD said in an unsigned email.

Special correspondent Paul Pringle contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has led an effort in the Trump administration to cut jobs and programs across the federal government, stood by President Trump’s side on Friday in the Oval Office, officially for the last time as a government employee. But neither man was clear whether Musk’s active hand in government is truly over.

Their display of unity comes after Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, issued a series of criticisms of Trump’s policies, both directly and through his companies, and as reports emerge that the billionaire fought fierce battles with the president’s aides and has relied on potent drugs while serving as Trump’s confidante.

“Nobody like him,” Trump said of Musk at the White House event. “He had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he’s an incredible patriot.”

“Many of the DOGE people, Elon, are staying behind. So they’re not leaving. And Elon’s really not leaving,” Trump added. “He’s going to be back and forth, I think, I have a feeling. It’s his baby.”

Musk praised the team of DOGE, an acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency program, for saving what he said was $175 billion in government spending. The program had initially set a more lofty goal of cutting $2 trillion, and it is unclear if Musk’s team has even met its revised figure, with the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service documenting an increase in federal spending over this time last year.

“The DOGE team is doing an incredible job,” Musk said. “I’ll continue to be visiting here, and be a friend and advisor to the president.”

Whether Musk continues in his role will have legal consequences. As a special government employee, Musk is obligated to end his service, now that the maximum work period allowed of 130 days has passed.

A group of 14 states has sued, arguing that Musk’s employee status was a ruse for the Trump administration to bring him into a powerful government role without having to go through a Senate confirmation process.

A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday ruled that Musk’s initial appointment was questionable, stating he “occupies a continuing position” and “exercises significant authority,” opening up a broader legal challenge over the constitutionality of his work for DOGE.

In a series of interviews leading up to his official departure from government, Musk has said that he plans to lessen his political spending going forward, and has criticized the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for pursuing legislation that would balloon the national deficit, a move he said was contrary to DOGE’s mission.

His departure this week comes after the New York Times reported on Musk’s heavy use of ketamine, a potent anesthetic drug, and after a Wall Street Journal article detailed Musk’s attempts to thwart Trump from pursuing partnerships on artificial intelligence in the Middle East that would benefit Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI and a personal nemesis of Musk’s.

Musk’s time in government has been marked by multiple setbacks for his companies. SpaceX has failed to meet essential engineering milestones for Starship, a critical super-heavy rocket ship that is critical to the U.S. effort to return humans to the moon and his own personal goal of reaching Mars. And Tesla, his electric vehicle company, saw a 71% plunge in profits in the first quarter of 2025 and a 50% drop in stock value from its highs in December.

“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk told Ars Technica, a science and technology publication, in an interview on Tuesday.

“It’s not like I left the companies,” he added. “It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether California, its interscholastic sports federation and the Jurupa Unified School District are violating the civil rights of cisgender girls by allowing transgender students to compete in school sports, federal officials announced Wednesday.

The Justice Department is also throwing its support behind a pending lawsuit alleging similar violations of girls’ rights in the Riverside Unified School District, said U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, who oversees much of the Los Angeles region, and Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Transgender track athletes have come under intense scrutiny in recent months in both Jurupa Valley and Riverside, with anti-LGBTQ+ activists attacking them on social media and screaming opposition to their competing at school meets.

Essayli and Dhillon, both Californians appointed under President Trump, have long fought against transgender rights in the state. Their announcements came one day after Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California for allowing transgender youth to participate in sports.

The legal actions are just the latest attempts by the Trump administration to scale back transgender rights nationwide, including by bringing the fight to California — which has the nation’s largest queer population and some of its most robust LGBTQ+ legal protections — and targeting individual student athletes in the state.

Both Trump in his threats Tuesday and Essayli and Dhillon in their announcement of the investigation Wednesday appeared to reference the recent success of a 16-year-old transgender track athlete at Jurupa Valley High School named AB Hernandez. Trump wrongly suggested that Hernandez had won “everything” at a recent meet — which Hernandez didn’t do.

In a comment to The Times on Wednesday, Hernandez’s mother, Nereyda Hernandez, said it was heartbreaking to see her child being attacked “simply for being who they are,” and despite following all California laws and policies for competing.

“My child is a transgender student-athlete, a hardworking, disciplined, and passionate young person who just wants to play sports, continue to build friendships, and grow into their fullest potential like any other child,” her mother said.

The mother of another transgender high school track athlete in Riverside County who is the subject of the pending lawsuit the Justice Department is now backing declined to comment Wednesday.

The Justice Department said it had sent letters of legal notice to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the California Interscholastic Federation and Jurupa Unified.

The U.S. Department of Education had previously announced in February that it was investigating the CIF for allowing transgender athletes to compete. Dhillon said the two federal departments would coordinate their investigations.

Bonta has defended state laws protecting transgender youth, students and athletes, and advised school systems and other institutions in the state, such as hospitals, to adhere to state LGBTQ+ laws — even in the face of various Trump executive orders aimed at curtailing the rights of and healthcare for transgender youth. On Wednesday, his office said it remained “committed to defending and upholding California laws.”

Scott Roark, a spokesman for the California Department of Education, said his agency could not comment. Jacquie Paul, a spokesperson for Jurupa Unified, said the school system had yet to receive the letter Wednesday, and “without further information” could not comment. A spokesperson for the Riverside Unified School District also declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The CIF, in a statement, said it “values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law and Education Code.”

However, the sports federation also changed its rules for the upcoming 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships, saying a cisgender girl who is bumped from qualifying for event finals by a transgender athlete would still be allowed to compete and would also be awarded the medal for whichever place they would have claimed were the transgender athlete not competing.

The changes brought renewed criticism from advocates on both sides of the political issue, including Chino Valley Unified school board President Sonja Shaw. Shaw is a Trump supporter running for state schools superintendent who has challenged pro-LGBTQ+ laws statewide and supports the latest investigation. She said that, in making the changes, CIF was “admitting” that girls “are being pushed out of their own sports.”

Dhillon said her office’s “pattern or practice” investigation will consider whether California’s laws and the CIF policies violate Title IX, a 1972 federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding.

Title IX has been used in the past to win rights for transgender people, but the Trump administration has taken a strikingly different view of the law — and cited it as a reason transgender rights must be rolled back.

Dhillon said the law “exists to protect women and girls in education,” that it is “perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies,” and that her division would “aggressively defend women’s hard-fought rights to equal educational opportunities.”

Essayli said in a statement that his office would “work tirelessly to protect girls’ sports and stop anyone — public officials included — from violating women’s civil rights.”

LGBTQ+ advocates, civic institutions in California and many Democratic lawmakers in the state have denounced the framing of transgender inclusion in sports as diminishing the rights of women and girls and accused Trump and other Republicans of attacking transgender people — about 1% of the U.S. population — simply because they make for an easy and vulnerable political target.

Kristi Hirst, co-founder of the public education advocacy group Our Schools USA, said the Justice Department’s actions amounted to “bullying minors and using taxpayer resources to do so,” and that a “better use of public dollars would be for the Justice Department to affirm that all kids possess civil rights, and protect the very students being targeted today.”

The “pattern or practice” investigation is the second such investigation that Dhillon’s office has launched in the L.A. region in as many months. It’s also investigating Los Angeles County over its process for issuing gun permits.

Essayli’s separate decision to back the Riverside lawsuit adds another wrinkle to an already complicated case.

The group Save Girls’ Sports is suing over the inclusion of a transgender athlete in a girls’ track meet in October, a decision they allege unfairly bumped a cisgender girl from competition, and over a decision by high school officials to block students from wearing shirts that read, “IT’S COMMON SENSE. XX [does not equal] XY,” a reference to the different chromosome pairings of biological females and males.

Julianne Fleischer, an attorney with Advocates for Faith & Freedom who is representing Save Girls’ Sports, said Wednesday that Essayli’s decision to weigh in on behalf of the group was welcome.

“This case has always been about common sense, fairness, and the plain meaning of the law,” Fleischer said in a statement. “Girls’ sports were never meant to be a social experiment. They exist so that girls can win, lead and thrive on a level playing field.”

It was unclear how the case would be affected by Essayli’s interest.

The state and school district are asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed. A hearing is scheduled next month.

Essayli, formerly a state Assembly member from Riverside County, made his name in politics in part by attacking what he has called the “woke” policies of California’s liberal majority in Sacramento. Shortly before he was appointed as U.S. attorney last month, other California lawmakers blocked a bill he introduced that would have banned transgender athletes from female sports.

Hernandez, the mother of the targeted Jurupa Valley athlete, said Trump and other officials were bullying children by “weaponizing misinformation and fear instead of embracing truth, compassion and respect,” and asked Trump to reconsider.

“I respectfully request you to open your heart and mind to learn about the LGBTQ+ community,” she said, “not from the voices of fear or division, but from the people living these lives with courage, love and dignity.”