Department

As mass protests over the police murder of George Floyd raged across Los Angeles in late May 2020, the LAPD had an unexpected problem.

After a week of demonstrations, officers had fired so many “less-lethal” crowd control projectiles made of rubber that the department’s stockpile was running low.

Scrambling to buy more, officials arranged for two reserve officers to fly a private plane to Casper, Wyo., to pick up 2,000 additional rounds from an arms wholesaler called Safariland, according to LAPD emails reviewed by The Times.

The days and weeks that followed brought more unrest in the streets, with police criticized for indiscriminately firing rubber rounds into crowds, injuring scores of people with shots to the face or torso.

Multiple reports and activists assailed the department’s response to the protests as a botched operation that resulted from poor planning, inadequate training and failure to learn from past mistakes.

According to The Times’ analysis of LAPD data released by the L.A. city attorney’s office, police actions related to the George Floyd protests have cost $11.9 million in settlements and jury awards. Scores of other pending lawsuits represent potentially tens of millions more in liability exposure.

Yet five years removed from Floyd’s killing, police backers say public opinion has largely swung back in favor of aggressive law enforcement, pointing as proof to last year’s passage of tough-on-crime legislation and ousting of progressive prosecutors.

Last month, President Trump issued an executive order promising to “unleash high-impact local police forces” in his administration’s campaign against “criminal aliens.”

The U.S. Department of Justice moved last week to cancel settlements to overhaul police departments in Louisville, Ky., and Minneapolis. The federal oversight was part of the national reckoning with racism and police brutality that followed the law enforcement killings of Breonna Taylor and Floyd, who was pinned to the pavement by a police officer for nearly 10 minutes before dying.

The push to overhaul the LAPD that began in 2020 did not result in sweeping changes, but the Police Department has in some ways come to resemble the slimmed-down version sought by some activists.

While its multibillion-dollar budget has only grown, the number of low-level arrests and traffic stops have plummeted, and staffing shortages have forced the department to focus more on responding to and solving violent crimes.

Today, the department is nearly 1,300 officers smaller than it was when Floyd died, with fewer cops on the force than at any point since 1995, mirroring nationwide declines in police staffing.

On Thursday, the L.A. City Council signed off on a $14-billion spending plan for 2025-26 that cuts funding for police recruitment in order to avoid laying off hundreds of city workers. The council provided enough money for the LAPD to hire 240 new officers over the coming year, down from the 480 proposed by Mayor Karen Bass last month.

Asked in a news radio appearance last week whether Floyd’s death had changed policing, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said it had, largely with the slump in hiring.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, center, and Capt. James Hwang perform the uniform inspection during graduation for recruit class 11-24 on May 2.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The department lost scores of cops who didn’t “feel support,” he said, and recruitment continues to prove challenging.

“So that has had a negative impact on the profession overall,” he told public radio station KCRW. “We have to restore morale within the organization; we have to restore pride within the profession.”

Following years of calls for embracing alternatives to traditional policing, LAPD officials and city leaders are continuing to explore ways to hand off calls involving substance abuse, homelessness and mental illness. Officers are also no longer responding to minor traffic accidents.

Efforts to limit police traffic involvement have gained some traction, and a controversial policy enacted by former Chief Michel Moore still restricts so-called pretextual stops of motorists or pedestrians that critics say led to the disproportionate harassment of Black and brown Angelenos. The department has also taken steps to try to limit dangerous pursuits by asking supervisors to monitor them in real-time, and if the chase proves too dangerous, to call them off.

Police data show violent crime continues to drop from pandemic highs, with the exception of aggravated assaults and robberies in certain parts of the city. Property crimes, including most burglaries, have also started to trend downward.

Some efforts at reform have stalled, including a proposal to overhaul the department’s disciplinary system for officers. Another plan that would have replaced LAPD officers with unarmed transportation workers on traffic stops sputtered amid debates around jurisdiction and funding.

Art Acevedo, who began his career with the California Highway Patrol before serving as police chief in several major cities including Houston and Miami, blamed movements to “defund” and “abolish” police for polarizing the debate on how to move forward.

Acevedo, who applied for the LAPD chief’s job that eventually went to McDonnell, said police unions and allies weaponized such rhetoric because it “effectively equated advocating for police reform as one and the same as advocating for defunding the police.”

“That movement created a backlash that has translated into a diminished appetite” for reform, he said.

Acevedo also worried about officers feeling emboldened to bend or break the rules in the current climate: “You don’t want to re-create the perception, real or not, that it’s open season for bad policing, because you’re going to have that small percentage that’re going to act on that belief that they’re not going to be held accountable.”

Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, shared similar concerns.

“I think they absolutely feel unleashed,” she said of police. “Not that they were ever on a leash.”

Part of the problem, Abdullah said, is public fatigue over the seemingly constant barrage of troubling incidents.

“People don’t have the bandwidth to respond with the kind of outrage that they would when you saw the beatings at Pan Pacific Park,” said Abdullah, referring to the LAPD’s response to protests in 2020.

John Burton, an attorney who filed lawsuits on behalf of several people who were wounded by less-lethal rounds during L.A. protests in 2020, said that most changes to the LAPD have been around the edges, but the department hasn’t addressed its culture of aggression.

The lack of progress, he said, is obvious in the LAPD internal affairs investigations he’s reviewed that rarely found anything wrong with officers’ use of force — even in the face of overwhelming video evidence. More than a few officers mentioned in his lawsuits have since been promoted, he said, even after he accused them of lying in police reports.

LAPD supervisors looked the other way, he said, because they are “very protective” of their officers.

Burton also noted that rubber projectiles are still being used, despite little evidence the weapons helped rein in chaos on the streets. Police also once faced criticism last year for the handling of pro-Palestinian protests on the USC and UCLA campuses.

“The thought that you’re going to stop somebody from throwing a rock at the cops by shooting one of these first is a fantasy,” he said. “They can cause very serious injuries.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

May 24 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s administration is lifting sanctions on war-torn Syria, with the goal of speeding recovery and reconstruction efforts in the Middle Eastern country.

The move will pave the way for “new investment and private sector activity consistent with the President’s America First strategy,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement this week.

Trump earlier this month met with Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa where he promised he would lift “crippling” U.S. sanctions.

“I have issued a 180-day waiver of mandatory Caesar Act sanctions to ensure sanctions do not impede the ability of our partners to make stability-driving investments, and advance Syria’s recovery and reconstruction efforts,” Rubio said in the statement.

“These waivers will facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water, and sanitation, and enable a more effective humanitarian response across Syria.”

During his first term in the Oval Office in 2020, Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on Syria and its then-President Bashar al-Assad. The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 had a major impact on Syria’s economy, particularly its financial and construction sectors.

Trump at the time said sanctions were targeting entities and individuals that were “actively supporting the murderous and barbaric Assad regime.”

Assad was ousted from power last December, fleeing to Russia. It ended a five-decade run of Assad family rule in Syria.

In addition to lifting sanctions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued Syria General License 25, allowing people previously blocked from conducting business with Syrian entities to do so under the new al-Sharaa government.

“The GL will allow for new investment and private sector activity consistent with the President’s America First strategy. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is providing exceptive relief to permit U.S. financial institutions to maintain correspondent accounts for the Commercial Bank of Syria,” Rubio said in the statement.

“Today’s actions represent the first step in delivering on the President’s vision of a new relationship between Syria and the United States,” Rubio said. “President Trump is providing the Syrian government with the chance to promote peace and stability, both within Syria and in Syria’s relations with its neighbors. The President has made clear his expectation that relief will be followed by prompt action by the Syrian government on important policy priorities.”

The American directive comes just days after the European Union made a similar move. EU officials on Tuesday lifted its sanctions on Syria with the same goal of helping economic recovery.

“We want to help the Syrian people rebuild a new, inclusive and peaceful Syria,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said at the time.

Brigham Young quarterback Jake Retzlaff has been accused of raping a woman at his Utah residence in November 2023.

In a civil lawsuit filed this week in state court in Salt Lake County, a woman identified in documents as Jane Doe alleges that Retzlaff “raped, strangled, and bit” her after she and a friend came over to his place to play the video game “Fortnite.” The claimant is asking for more than $300,000 in damages over claims including assault, battery and “emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment, mental distress and anxiety.”

Retzlaff’s attorney, Mark Baute, said on Wednesday in a statement to media outlets that Retzlaff is “factually innocent.”

“We look forward to proving that innocence,” Baute said. “Jake’s focus this year will be on football. We don’t try cases in the media, we will respect the process and establish Jake’s innocence through the judicial system.”

Retzlaff played two years at Corona Centennial High before spending a year each at Riverside City College and Golden West College in Huntington Beach. He has played 17 games in two seasons at BYU and led the Cougars to an 11-2 record last year. He has one year of college eligibility remaining.

BYU said in a statement to The Times that it learned about the lawsuit Wednesday.

“The university takes any allegation very seriously, following all processes and guidelines mandated by Title IX,” BYU wrote. “Due to federal and university privacy laws and practices for students, the university will not be able to provide additional comment.”

According to the lawsuit, Doe and Retzlaff met via social media in October and began messaging. They met in person in late November when Retzlaff invited the Salt Lake County resident to his place in Utah County. She and a friend came over “that evening and went to his room to play Fortnite,” the lawsuit states.

The filing states that Doe interacted with “Retzlaff’s friends and teammates” while playing the video game. Later, after her friend left, Doe and Retzlaff were kissing while watching a movie when “Retzlaff began escalating the situation, attempting to touch her breasts and genital area,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit states that Doe “tried to de-escalate the situation and attempted to slow things down, trying to pull away, and saying ‘wait.’ She did not want to do anything sexual with him.”

Retzlaff’s physical contact started “causing her pain,” the complaint states, and Doe objected — saying “no” and “wait, stop” — and “wanted to leave, but was scared and felt like she could not get away.”

According to the lawsuit, Retzlaff would go on to allegedly pull Doe’s hair, forcefully kiss her, bite her lip (which allegedly caused a cut) and “put his hands around her neck and started to press down so that she could not breathe,” among other alleged actions before raping her.

Doe left after Retzlaff fell asleep, the lawsuit states. She went to a hospital “a few days later,” according to the lawsuit, and had a rape kit performed and photos taken of her injuries. She also spoke with the Provo Police Department but initially did not give Retzlaff’s name because “she was scared and in shock and not ready to confront him,” the lawsuit states.

“At some point after speaking to the police, an officer reached out to her asking for the name because someone else filed a complaint against a football player and the police wanted to see if it was the same person,” the lawsuit states.

“At that point, [Doe] shared Retzlaff’s name, and the Provo police then encouraged her not to do anything because, as they claimed, ‘sexual assault victims never get justice.’”

In a statement released Wednesday night, the Provo Police Department said it “is aware of a civil suit involving an allegation of rape made by an anonymous plaintiff against a BYU football player” but “has not been served any legal filing relating to this civil case.”

The department said it was able “to identify a possible correlating case report” based on the details of the civil case. The initials of the woman who called in that report match those of Retzlaff’s accuser. The Times does not name victims of sexual assault unless they choose to be identified.

“Our records show that on November 27th, 2023, our department received a phone report from a woman … who gave a similar account. She was treated with courtesy and care,” the department stated.

“The complainant in that case was given several opportunities to identify her abuser. She declined to do so, as is her right, and the case was subsequently closed. Collected evidence was examined, and it revealed no actionable investigative leads. Our victim advocates followed up several times to offer services but received no response.”

The department continued: “The civil suit states that Provo Police personnel discouraged the victim from proceeding, by telling her there is no justice for victims of sexual abuse. From everything we have reviewed, this is not true. We have a team of dedicated investigators and victim advocates whose sole mission is to provide justice to victims of sexual abuse. They do not send people away, warning them there is no justice for victims.

“Our Special Victims Unit investigations regularly result in criminal accountability for offenders. We hope the plaintiff chooses to make a statement to further the criminal investigation if desired.”

The Los Angeles City Council signed off on a $14-billion spending plan for 2025-26 on Thursday, scaling back Mayor Karen Bass’ public safety initiatives as they attempted to spare 1,000 city workers from layoffs.

Faced with a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, the council voted 12 to 3 for a plan that would cut funding for recruitment at the Los Angeles Police Department, leaving the agency with fewer officers than at any point since 1995.

The council provided enough money for the LAPD to hire 240 new officers over the coming year, down from the 480 proposed by Bass last month. That reduction would leave the LAPD with about 8,400 officers in June 2026, down from about 8,700 this year and 10,000 in 2020.

The council also scaled back the number of new hires the mayor proposed for the Los Angeles Fire Department in the wake of the wildfire that ravaged huge stretches of Pacific Palisades.

Bass’ budget called for the hiring of 227 additional fire department employees. The council provided funding for the department to expand by an estimated 58 employees.

Three council members — John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez — voted against the budget, in large part due to cost-cutting efforts at the two public safety agencies. Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, voiced alarm over those and other reductions.

“I just can’t in good conscience vote for a budget that makes our city less safe, less physically sound and even less responsive to our constituents,” she said.

Rodriguez offered a similar message, saying the council should have shifted more money out of Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program to address homelessness. That program, which received a 10% cut, lacks oversight and has been extraordinarily expensive, said Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“Inside Safe currently spends upwards of $7,000 a month to house a single individual. That’s just room and board and services,” she said. “That doesn’t include all of the other ancillary services that are tapped from our city family in order to make it work, including LAPD overtime, including sanitation services, including the Department of Transportation.”

Councilmember Tim McOsker, who sits on the budget committee, said the fire department would still see an overall increase in funding under the council’s budget. Putting more money into the police and fire departments would mean laying off workers who fix streets, curbs and sidewalks, said McOsker, who represents neighborhoods stretching from Watts south to L.A.’s harbor.

McOsker said it’s still possible that the city could increase funding for LAPD recruitment if the city’s economic picture improves or other savings are identified in the budget. The council authorized the LAPD to ramp up hiring if more money can be found later in the year.

“I would love to put ourselves in a position where we could hire more than 240 officers, and maybe we will. I don’t know. But today we can’t,” McOsker told his colleagues.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who joined the council in December, also defended the budget plan, saying it would help create “a more just, equitable and inclusive Los Angeles.”

“This budget doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t close every gap. But it does show a willingness to make some structural changes,” she said.

Bass aides did not immediately respond to inquiries about the council’s actions. A second budget vote by the council is required next week before the plan can head to the mayor’s desk for her consideration.

Bass’ spending plan proposed about 1,600 city employee layoffs over the coming year, with deep reductions in agencies that handle trash pickup, streetlight repair and city planning. The decisions made Thursday would reduce the number to around 700, said City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who helps prepare the spending plan.

The remaining layoffs could still be avoided if the city’s unions offer financial concessions, said Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the council’s budget committee. For example, she said, civilian city workers could cut costs by taking four to five unpaid furlough days.

“My goal, my fervent goal and hope, is that labor comes to the table and says ‘We’ll take some furloughs, we’ll take some comp time off,’” Yaroslavsky said.

The city entered a full-blown financial crisis earlier this year, driven in large part by rapidly rising legal payouts, weaker than expected tax revenues and scheduled raises for city employees. Those pay increases are expected to consume $250 million over the coming fiscal year.

To bring the city’s budget into balance, council members tapped $29 million in the city’s budget stabilization fund, which was set up to help the city weather periods of slower economic growth. They took steps to collect an extra $20 million in business tax revenue. And they backed a plan to hike the cost of parking tickets, which could generate another $14 million.

At the same time, the council scaled back an array of cuts proposed in Bass’ budget. Over the course of Thursday’s six-hour meeting, the council:

* Restored positions at the Department of Cultural Affairs, averting the closure of the historic Hollyhock House in East Hollywood, protecting its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

* Provided the funds to continue operating the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, which had been threatened with elimination.

* Provided $1 million for Represent LA, which pays for legal defense of residents facing deportation, detention or other immigration proceedings. That funding would have been eliminated under Bass’ original proposal, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said.

* Moved $5 million into the animal services department — a move requested by Bass — to ensure that all of the city’s animal shelters remain open.

* Restored funding for streetlight repairs, street resurfacing and removal of “bulky items,” such as mattresses and couches, from sidewalks and alleys.

Even with those changes, the city is still facing the potential for hundreds of layoffs, around a third of them at the LAPD.

Although the council saved the jobs of an estimated 150 civilian workers in that department — many of them specialists, such as workers who handle DNA rape kits — another 250 are still targeted for layoff.

“We took a horrible budget proposal, and we made it into one that is just very bad,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents part of the west San Fernando Valley. “It took a lot of work to do that, but it is better and we did save jobs. But the fundamentals are still very bad.”

A former senior member of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ staff has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors, admitting he called in a fake bomb threat to City Hall late last year that was blamed on anti-Israel sentiment, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Brian Williams, a longtime law enforcement oversight official who served as Bass’ deputy mayor of public safety, agreed to plead guilty to a single count of threats regarding fire and explosives, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the next few weeks.

“In an era of heated political rhetoric that has sometimes escalated into violence, we cannot allow public officials to make bomb threats,” U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a news release announcing the deal. “My office will continue its efforts to keep the public safe, including from those who violate their duty to uphold the law.”

In a statement to The Times, Williams’ lawyer Dmitry Gorin said his client “has demonstrated his unreserved and full acceptance of responsibility for his actions.”

“This aberrational incident was the product of personal issues which Mr. Williams is addressing appropriately, and is not representative of his character or dedication to the city of Los Angeles,” Gorin said.

Williams was participating in a virtual meeting at City Hall on Oct. 3, 2024, when he used the Google Voice application on his personal phone to place a call to his city-issued cell phone, according to the plea agreement.

Williams admitted he left the meeting and called Scott Harrelson, a top aide to the LAPD chief. According to the plea, Williams falsely stated that he had just received a call on his city-issued cell phone from an unknown male caller who made a bomb threat against City Hall.

At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat, according to the plea agreement.

About 10 minutes after calling the LAPD, according to the plea, Williams texted Bass and several other senior mayoral officials a message that read: “Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.’ I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat.”

Soon after, LAPD officers searched the building and did not locate any suspicious packages or devices, according to the agreement. Williams told the officers that a man called and said: “I’m tired of the city support of Israel, I have decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the Rotunda.”

Williams showed the officers the record of an incoming call, which appeared as a blocked number on his city-issued phone. According to the plea deal, that call was the one Williams had placed from Google Voice.

Williams followed up with the mayor and other high-ranking officials some time later with several other texts, saying that there was no need to evacuate City Hall.

“I’m meeting with the threat management officers within the next 10 minutes. In light of the Jewish holidays, we are taking this thread, a little more seriously. I will keep you posted,” the text read, according to federal authorities.

Federal authorities revealed they were looking into Williams last December, when FBI agents raided his home in Pasadena. It sent shock waves through City Hall and the Police Department, where many expressed incredulity at the prospect of a respected government official faking a bomb threat.

Before the case was turned over to the FBI, detectives from the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division conducted surveillance that led them to conclude that Williams was responsible for the bomb threat, sources previously told The Times.

Williams, who was the deputy mayor overseeing the police and fire departments, was on leave because of the criminal investigation in January when Pacific Palisades was engulfed in flames, killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 structures.

“Like many, we were shocked when these allegations were first made and we are saddened by this conclusion,” said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass.

Bass named a former FBI official to replace Williams in early April. The official, Robert Clark, led anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles during his time with the Bureau before retiring in 2016 and serving as a law enforcement consultant and director of public safety for the city of Columbus, Ohio, among other roles.

Williams has held a variety of government positions spanning more than three decades. He had spent nearly two years as a deputy mayor in Bass’ office, working on issues such as police hiring, public safety spending and the search for a new police chief.

Previously, Williams was a deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor James K. Hahn, who held office from 2001 to 2005. Before that, he spent several years as an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles.

From 2016 to 2023, Williams was the executive director of the Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission, according to his LinkedIn page.

Working in Bass’ office, Williams oversaw the Police Department, the Fire Department, Port Police, Airport Police and the city’s emergency management agency, according to his hiring announcement. He was also a member of the mayor’s inner circle, playing a key role in the monthslong search for a new police chief that ended with the hiring of Jim McDonnell.

When Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman was sworn in last year, Williams was the city official chosen to address the audience on behalf of the mayor. He was also a fixture at police graduations, news conferences, community meetings and other events across the city, often wearing a well-pressed suit and a bowtie.

Williams’ attorney Gorin called his client “a career public servant who has worked closely with law enforcement, community groups, public safety and prosecuting agencies throughout his many years in local government and has devoted his life to the service of others.”

Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement that Williams “not only betrayed the residents of Los Angeles, but responding officers, and the integrity of the office itself, by fabricating a bomb threat.”

“Government officials are held to a heightened standard as we rely on them to safeguard the city,” the statement read. “I’m relieved that Mr. Williams has taken responsibility for his inexplicable actions.”

May 22 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts issued an injunction Thursday that blocks the Trump administration from its plan to dismantle the Department of Education, and that those employees recently fired from the department be rehired.

U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun stated in his ruling: “The Department 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.”

Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann stated Thursday that the administration “will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”

Joun ruled on the first civil action that was filed by the State of New York against Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon and Somerville Public Schools of Massachusetts against President Donald Trump that stated “a preliminary injunction is warranted to return the Department to the status quo such that it can comply with its statutory obligations.”

President Donald Trump had issued an executive order in March that sought to close the department, despite the Department of Education Organization Act, which shows that as the Department was created by Congress, it can only be closed by an act of Congress.

The administration of President Donald Trump has begun the process of ending the federal government’s involvement in reforming local police departments, a civil rights effort that gained steam after the deaths of unarmed Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced it would cancel two proposed settlements that would have seen the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, agree to federal oversight of their police departments.

Generally, those settlements — called consent decrees — involve a series of steps and goals that the two parties negotiate and that a federal court helps enforce.

In addition, the Justice Department said it would withdraw reports on six other local police departments which found patterns of discrimination and excessive violence.

The Trump administration framed the announcement as part of its efforts to transfer greater responsibility towards individual cities and states — and away from the federal government.

“It’s our view at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under the Trump administration that federal micromanagement of local police should be a rare exception, and not the norm,” said Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said.

She argued that such federal oversight was a waste of taxpayer funds.

“There is a lack of accountability. There is a lack of local control. And there is an industry here that is, I think, ripping off the taxpayers and making citizens less safe,” Dhillon said.

But civil rights leaders and police reform advocates reacted with outrage over the news, which arrived just days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s murder.

Reverend Al Sharpton was among the leaders who called for police departments to take meaningful action after a viral video captured Floyd’s final moments. On May 25, 2020, a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, leaned his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, causing him to asphyxiate and die.

“This move isn’t just a policy reversal,” Sharpton said. “It’s a moral retreat that sends a chilling message that accountability is optional when it comes to Black and Brown victims.”

He warned that the Trump administration’s move sent a signal to police departments that they were “above scrutiny”.

The year of Floyd’s murder was also marked by a number of other high-profile deaths, including Taylor’s.

The 26-year-old medical worker was in bed late at night on March 13, 2020, when police used a battering ram to break into her apartment. Her boyfriend feared they were being attacked and fired his gun once. The police responded with a volley of bullets, killing Taylor, who was struck six times.

Her death and others stirred a period of nationwide unrest in the US, with millions of people protesting in the streets as part of social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. It is thought that the 2020 “racial reckoning” was one of the biggest mass demonstrations in US history.

Those protests unfolded in the waning months of Trump’s first term, and when Democrat Joe Biden succeeded him as president in 2021, the Justice Department embarked on a series of 12 investigations looking into allegations of police overreach and excessive violence on the local level.

Those investigations were called “pattern-or-practice” probes, designed to look into whether incidents of police brutality were one-offs or part of a larger trend in a given police department.

Floyd’s murder took place in Minneapolis and Taylor’s in Louisville — the two cities where the Trump Justice Department decided to drop its settlements on Wednesday. In both cities, under Biden, the Justice Department had found patterns of discriminatory policing.

“Police officers must often make split-second decisions and risk their lives to keep their communities safe,” the report on Minneapolis reads.

But, it adds, the local police department “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offence and sometimes no offense at all”.

Other police departments scrutinised during this period included ones in Phoenix, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Louisiana State Police.

Dhillon, who now runs the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, positioned the retractions of those Biden-era findings as a policy pivot. She also condemned the consent decrees as an overused tool and indicated she would look into rescinding some agreements that were already in place.

That process would likely involve a judge’s approval, however.

And while some community advocates have expressed concerns that consent decrees could place a burden on already over-stretched law enforcement departments, others disagree with the Justice Department’s latest move, arguing that a retreat could strip resources and momentum from police reform.

At the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD), Chief Paul Humphrey said the commitment to better policing went beyond any settlement. He indicated he would look for an independent monitor to oversee reforms.

“It’s not about these words on this paper,” he said. “It’s about the work that the men and women of LMPD, the men and women of metro government and the community will do together in order to make us a safer, better place.”

And in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey doubled down, saying he could keep pushing forward with the police reform plan his city had agreed to.

“We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year,” he said at a news conference.

“We will make sure that we are moving forward with every sentence of every paragraph of both the settlement around the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, as well as the consent decree.”

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted a gifted Boeing 747 aircraft from Qatar for President Trump to use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The Defense Department will “work to ensure proper security measures” on the aircraft to make it safe for use by the president, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. He added that the plane was accepted “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.”

Trump has defended the gift, which came up during his recent Middle East trip, as a way to save tax dollars.

“Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE,” Trump posted on his social media site during the trip.

Others, however, have raised concerns about the aircraft being a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition on foreign gifts. They also have noted the need to retrofit the plane to meet security requirements, which would be costly and take time.

Trump was asked about the move Wednesday while he was meeting in the Oval Office with South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. “They are giving the United States Air Force a jet,” Trump said.

The Republican president has presented no national security imperative for a swift upgrade rather than waiting for Boeing to finish new Air Force One jets that have been in the works for years.

Baldor writes for the Associated Press.

May 21 (UPI) — The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his testimony last year to Congress, according to a report Tuesday.

House Republicans have accused Cuomo, who is currently a mayoral candidate for New York City, of lying to the House Oversight Committee about nursing home deaths in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, two people briefed on the matter revealed that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation in response, according to The New York Times — which was the first to report — as well as CNN and NBC.

The Justice Department’s inquiry comes after it recently withdrew a separate corruption prosecution of current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election against Cuomo.

Following last year’s testimony, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” that Cuomo, 67, undercounted the total number of deaths in New York senior care facilities by 46%, during an audit in July 2020.

Cuomo insisted during the hearing that he had not drafted, reviewed or consulted on the nursing home report, which was published by the New York State Department of Health.

Comer referred Cuomo for prosecution last year, but was denied by former Attorney General Merrick Garland. The House GOP-led panel renewed that prosecution effort last month.

“Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said Tuesday in a statement as he denied knowledge of the investigation.

“We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now? The answer is obvious,” Azzopardi said. “This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple — something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against.”

On Tuesday, Voices for Seniors applauded the investigation, in a post on X, adding it was “overdue.”

“After years of silence, deflection and political spin, the wheels of justice are finally beginning to turn,” the group said. “This investigation is not just justified, it’s overdue. The evidence paints a damning picture of a leader more concerned with image than integrity. Grieving families have waited long enough.”

“We call on the DOJ to pursue this case with relentless urgency. Voices for Seniors stands prepared to cooperate fully.”

May 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Justice Department charged Rep. LaMonica McIver in connection with her alleged actions during an incident at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in her congressional district.

U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba made the announcement via an X post that stated McIver, D-N.J., has been charged with counts related to “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.”

The charges stem from a confrontation that occurred earlier on May 9 at the Delancey Hall ICE detention prison in Newark. McIver, along with fellow New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman attempted to reportedly inspect the facility where as many as 1,000 undocumented migrants are being held.

McIver, Menendez and Watson Coleman, as well as Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, were allegedly involved in a physical confrontation between demonstrators and ICE agents. Baraka was arrested at the scene and charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, but Habba noted in the press release the charge against him has since been dropped “for the sake of moving forward.”

Habba further explained she has invited Baraka to tour Delancy Hall.

However, she alleged that McIver “assaulted, impeded and interfered with law enforcement,” and “that conduct cannot be overlooked.” She also claimed she has “persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges,” and has given McIver “every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined.”

The statement did not mention if there is any intention to take McIver into custody.

McIver also released a statement Monday, in which she said she and the other Representatives present “were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many times before,” and that the “visit should have been peaceful and short.”

Instead, she alleged, “ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor Baraka.”

“The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight,” she said. “This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.”

A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to cut the number of employees targeted for layoff by Mayor Karen Bass by more than half, bringing the total down to an estimated 650.

The council’s budget committee took steps to save more than 1,000 jobs by pursuing an array of cost-cutting measures, such as hiring fewer police officers and scaling back funding for Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people into temporary or permanent housing.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the committee, said those and many other moves would help the city protect core services, including tree trimming, street resurfacing, street light repair and sanitation teams that address illegal dumping.

“We looked for ways to save positions — not for the sake of job counts only, but to make sure the departments can still do the work our constituents need them to do for their quality of life,” said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.

The committee’s recommendations for the proposed 2025-26 budget now head to the full council, which is scheduled to take them up on Thursday.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who sits on the committee, expressed some optimism after the vote.

“We were in very rough waters, and a very different landscape, when we started this process,” said Hernandez, who represents part of the Eastside. “And now there seems to be some light between the clouds.”

As part of Friday’s deliberations, the budget committee voted to recommend a slowdown in sworn hiring at the LAPD, which would leave the agency with 8,400 officers by June 30, 2026. That represents a reduction of about 300 from the current fiscal year and 1,600 compared with 2020.

The budget committee also agreed to eliminate 42 emergency incident technicians at the fire department, a move opposed by interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, while also canceling Bass’ plan for a new homelessness unit within that agency.

In addition, the five-member panel recommended a hike in parking meter fees, which is expected to generate $14 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

Yaroslavsky said the changes endorsed by the budget committee on Friday would save about 150 civilian workers in the police department.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council, said she believes that city officials will keep finding ways to reduce the number of layoffs, by transferring workers to vacant city positions or to agencies that are unaffected by the budget crisis, such as Los Angeles World Airports and the Port of Los Angeles.

“I think we’re going to be able to truly get that number down to less than 500,” she told the committee.

Bass, faced with a nearly $1-billion shortfall, released a proposed budget last month that called for the layoff of about 1,600 employees, a fourth of them civilian workers at the LAPD. Some of the largest reductions were planned at agencies that handle sanitation, street repairs and maintenance of city facilities.

Friday’s deliberations set the stage for many positions to remain intact, particularly at the Department of City Planning, which had been facing 115 layoffs. Kevin Keller, executive officer with that agency, said the committee found the funding to restore more than 100 of those positions.

“I know there’s a lot of city workers that are breathing a big sigh of relief tonight,” said Roy Samaan, president of the Engineers and Architects Assn., whose union represents planning department employees.

L.A.’s budget crisis has been attributed to a number of factors, including rapidly rising legal payouts, lower-than-expected tax revenue and a package of raises for the city workforce that is expected to add $250 million to the upcoming budget, which goes into effect on July 1.

Bass and the council have been hoping to persuade city labor unions to provide financial concessions that would help avoid more cuts. So far, no deals have been struck.

On Friday, before the committee began its deliberations, Bass said she is optimistic about avoiding layoffs entirely. At the same time, she spoke against a budget strategy that pits the hiring of police officers against the preservation of other jobs, calling it “a Sophie’s Choice.”

If the LAPD slows down hiring, it will have fewer officers in the run-up to next year’s hosting of the World Cup, she said.

“I’m not going accept that as my choice,” she said.

During the final minutes of Friday’s five-hour meeting, council members made some last-minute restorations, identifying additional funds for youth programs, tree trimming and fire department mechanics. Hernandez pushed for the committee to restore $1 million for Represent LA, which provides legal defense of immigrants facing deportation or other enforcement actions, and $500,000 for graffiti paint-out crews.

Hernandez said the city needs to stand by immigrants amid a harsh federal crackdown. And she described graffiti removal as crucial for public safety in her district.

“Getting graffiti down quickly prevents a lot more people from getting shot, prevents them from getting killed,” she said.

NEW YORK — Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she’s put off taking two cats and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.

But it’s about to get far tighter.

As the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs: hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.

“I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could never pay it off,” says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, Calif.

Like millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in 2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would restart “involuntary collections” by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.

Farro’s loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered she couldn’t earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school and got a master’s degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got worse.

Around 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one suggestion.

“They said, ‘Move to a cheaper state,’” says Farro, who rents a 400-square-foot casita from a friend. “I realized I was living in a different reality than they were.”

Student loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold increase from 20 years ago.

That has led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% — from approximately 6,200 beneficiaries to 192,300 — between 2001 and 2019, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

This year, an estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default and are likely to experience the Department of Education’s renewed forced collections, according to the January report from CFPB.

Debbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown, Ky., is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two decades and they’ve used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews. McIntyre doesn’t know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.

She floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won’t automatically clear her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.

“I don’t know what more I can do,” says McIntyre, who is too afraid to check what her loan balance is. “I’ll never get out of this hole.”

Braxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it’s striking how many older people dial into the organization’s calls and attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts canceled but fell victim to a system “riddled with flaws and illegalities and flukes.” Many whose educations have left them in late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans, sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and fees.

For those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results can be devastating.

“We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,” he says. “We know folks that have been driven into homelessness.”

Collections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750 of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a debtor far below the poverty line.

“We’re basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand and taking them away with another,” says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New America think tank.

Linda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction, Ariz., went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.

“It’s going to mean restrictions,” says Hilton. “There won’t be any travel. There won’t be any frills.”

Some debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more are living in fear. President Trump has signed an executive order calling for the Department of Education’s dismantling and, for those seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting calls answered.

While Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a necessary step for debtors “both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook,” even some of Trump’s most fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives harder.

Randall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, Calif., says a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn’t strike him as fair, but he’s not sure Trump’s approach is either. He supported Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors. Countryman thinks Americans don’t realize how many older people are affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.

“What’s a young person’s problem today,” he says, “is an old person’s problem tomorrow.”

Countryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He’s worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been complicated by his criminal record.

He lives off his wife’s Social Security check and the kindness of his mother-in-law. He doesn’t know how they’d get by if the government demands repayment.

“I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,” he says.

Sedensky writes for the Associated Press.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into Motown singer Smokey Robinson after four of his former staffers accused him of sexual assault and wage theft.

Robinson, 85, was sued earlier this month by three former housekeepers and a former personal assistant who allege that the singer, whose legal name is William Robinson, forced them to have sex with him and also failed to pay minimum wage or overtime pay.

The suit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, also accuses the singer’s wife, Frances Robinson, of regularly screaming at the employees, using ethnically pejorative words and failing to do anything to prevent her husband’s sexual abuse despite allegedly being aware of his actions.

The couple’s attorney, Christopher Frost, has denied the allegations. Details of the Sheriff’s Department’s probe were not immediately provided Thursday.

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is actively investigating criminal allegations involving William Robinson, a.k.a. ‘Smokey Robinson,’” said department spokesperson Nicole Nishida. “The investigation is in the early stages, and we have no further comment.”

Frost said the Sheriff’s Department is required to investigate the allegations because the women filed a police report after filing the lawsuit.

In a statement, Frost called the police report “a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the Plaintiffs were previously able to create” and said his clients welcome the investigation.

“The record will ultimately demonstrate that this is nothing more than a manufactured lawsuit intended to tarnish the good names of Smokey and Frances Robinson, for no other reason than unadulterated avarice,” the statement read.

The lawsuit states that the women previously had reservations about reporting Robinson’s alleged abuse to authorities for several reasons including fear about immigration status, losing their livelihoods, public humiliation and intimidation by Robinson and his influential friends.

Attorneys representing the four woman — who filed the lawsuit as Jane Does — said they were pleased to learn that the Sheriff’s Department had opened an investigation into their clients’ claims of sexual assault.

“Our clients intend to fully cooperate with LASD’s ongoing investigation in the pursuit of seeking justice for themselves and others that may have been similarly assaulted by him [Robinson],” attorneys John Harris and Herbert Hayden said in a statement.

The civil lawsuit accuses the Robinsons of negligence, sexual battery and sexual assault, false imprisonment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, gender violence, and a hostile work environment, in addition to labor violations related to wages, breaks, meal periods, and holiday and overtime pay, according to the complaint.

The women allege that the “Tracks of My Tears” singer required them to have various types of sex with him — vaginal, oral and digital — over the years at his houses in Chatsworth, Bell Canyon and Las Vegas.

Jane Doe 1 worked for the Robinsons from January 2023 until February 2024. Jane Doe 2 worked from May 2014 to February 2020. Jane Doe 3 worked from February 2012 to April 2024, and Jane Doe 4 worked from October 2006 to April 2024.

Times staff writers Christie D’Zurilla and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike raised concerns on Wednesday about deep staffing cuts, funding freezes and far-reaching policy changes overseen by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers questioned Kennedy’s approach to the job, some saying that he has jeopardized vaccine uptake, cancer research and dental health in just a few short months.

In combative and at times highly personal rejoinders, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to reshape the sprawling, $1.7-trillion-a-year agency, saying it would deliver a more efficient department focused on promoting healthier lifestyles among Americans.

“There’s so much chaos and disorganization in this department,” Kennedy said on Wednesday during the Senate hearing. “What we’re saying is let’s organize in a way that we can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver high-quality healthcare to the American people.”

During tense exchanges, lawmakers — in back-to-back House and Senate hearings — sometimes questioned whether Kennedy was aware of his actions and the structure of his own department after he struggled to provide more details about staffing cuts.

“I have noted you’ve been unable, in most instances, to answer any specific questions related to your agency,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat.

The secretary, in turn, pushed back — saying he had not had time to answer specific questions — and at points questioning lawmakers’ own grasp of health policy.

Kennedy testified to explain his downsizing of the department — from 82,000 to 62,000 staffers — and argue on behalf of the White House’s requested budget, which includes a $500-million boost for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disease prevention, medical research and maternal health programs.

He revealed that he persuaded the White House to back down from one major cut: Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income families across the country.

But lawmakers described how thousands of job losses at the health department and funding freezes have impacted their districts.

One Washington state mother, Natalie, has faced delays in treatment for Stage 4 cancer at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The clinical center is the research-only hospital commonly known as the “House of Hope,” but when Murray asked Kennedy to explain how many jobs have been lost there, he could not answer. The president’s budget proposes a nearly $20-billion slash from the NIH.

“You are here to defend cutting the NIH by half,” Murray said. “Do you genuinely believe that won’t result in more stories like Natalie’s?” Kennedy disputed Murray’s account.

Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey asked “why, why, why?” Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff who oversee the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $4.1 billion in heating assistance to needy families. The program is slated to be eliminated from the agency’s budget.

Kennedy said that advocates warned him those cuts “will end up killing people,” but that President Trump believes his energy policy will lower costs. If that doesn’t work, Kennedy said, he would restore funding for the program.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said those savings would be realized too late for people in her state.

“Right now, folks in Alaska still need those ugly generators to keep warm,” she said.

Murkowski was one of several Republicans who expressed concerns about Kennedy’s approach to the job throughout the hearings.

Like several Republicans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work promoting healthy foods. But he raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets. Removing those food dyes would hurt the “many snack manufacturers” in his district, including the makers of M&M’s candy, he said.

Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist from Idaho, said Kennedy’s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him. The department’s news release on Tuesday, which announced the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the market, wrongly claimed that fluoride “kills bacteria from the teeth,” Simpson noted. He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn’t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay.

“I will tell you that if you are successful in banning fluoride … we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a lot more dentists,” Simpson added.

Kennedy was pressed repeatedly on the mixed message he’s delivered on vaccines, which public health experts have said are hampering efforts to contain a growing measles outbreak now in at least 11 states.

Responding to Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, Kennedy refused to recommend that parents follow the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule, which includes shots for measles, polio and whooping cough. He, instead, wrongly claimed that the vaccines have not been safety tested against a placebo.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the health committee, had extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy that he would not alter existing vaccine guidance and work at the nation’s health department. Cassidy, correcting Kennedy, pointed out that rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines recommended for children have all been tested in a placebo study.

As health secretary, Kennedy has called the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases — “leaky,” although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for most people. He’s also said they cause deaths, although none has been documented among healthy people.

“You have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single, largest measles outbreak in 25 years,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.

Seitz writes for the Associated Press.

In police circles, it’s known as the “LAPD lottery.”

Speaking at a city budget presentation this month, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said some officers have sought to “weaponize” the department’s disciplinary system to settle grievances, leaving city taxpayers on the hook for the legal bills.

Los Angeles has paid out at least $68.5 million over the last five years to resolve lawsuits filed by officers who claimed to be the victim of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers, according to a Times analysis of payout data released by the city attorney’s office.

Skeptics inside the Los Angeles Police Department write off the claims as opportunistic officers trying to hit the jackpot, twisting paper trails created by the department’s much-maligned internal discipline system into the basis for lawsuits.

But the officers who sue and their labor attorneys argue the department’s continued failure to thoroughly investigate complaints or fix systemic issues leaves no other recourse.

Several recent civil trials have resulted in settlements or jury awards in the seven figures or more, including $11.5 million to a former K-9 officer who alleged colleagues spread false rumors about him and mocked his Samoan heritage. Dozens of other suits remain pending, likely leaving the city staring down more substantial payouts in the coming years.

The question of how to deal with the suits has emerged as one of the most pressing issues since McDonnell’s tenure as chief began in November. Mayor Karen Bass has said the city’s $1-billion budget deficit is at least partly driven by expensive legal payouts, as well as emergency response costs related to the Palisades fire and “downward national economic trends.”

Last year, the LAPD’s private fundraising arm gave $240,000 to hire an outside consultant to help the department analyze “the results of litigation to see if there are lessons to be learned from that.”

The consultant, Arif Alikhan, the department’s former director of constitutional policing, said he and his team are seeking to identify trends of risky behavior, improve tracking of problem employees and hold supervisors accountable for not addressing conduct that exposes the department to liability.

Part of the challenge, he said, is that cases take years to resolve, leading to lag time in awareness. “Then it kind of bubbles up and becomes a bigger issue and then you have multiple people suing.”

The city attorney’s office, which is responsible for defending the department against lawsuits, said in response to questions from The Times that cases are settled when “there could be a jury finding of liability, and when we can reach an agreement for a reasonable amount of money.”

“We will always do what is in the best interests of the city and continue to aggressively defend lawsuits—especially when plaintiffs’ attorneys try to make a fortune off of the City with unreasonable non-economic damages claims,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement. “Our office will aggressively defend against lawsuits that lack merit, as well as lawsuits in which the plaintiff’s attorney is making unreasonable demands for taxpayer dollars to resolve a case.”

The LAPD has long wrestled with costly litigation, and many claims by aggrieved officers are dismissed. But according to the data released to The Times, payouts for officer-driven lawsuits have increased recently: At least 13 verdicts or settlements worth $1 million or more have come since 2019, including nine in the last three years.

Beyond the cost to taxpayers, the public airing of workplace disputes can prove embarrassing to a department that has long fancied itself a spit-and-polish institution.

Take the Transit Services Division, where years of troubles and finger-pointing have led to a snarl of more than half a dozen lawsuits.

A former detective, Heather Rolland, received a $949,000 payout after she accused male colleagues of disparaging her for being injured on the job and of fostering a hostile work environment for women who worked in the division, which holds a lucrative contract with the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide security on bus and train lines.

Among the male officials mentioned in her lawsuit is Randy Rangel, a former Transit Services sergeant, who filed his own claim against the city alleging he was retaliated against after reporting another officer for abusing his overtime pay. Last month, an L.A. County jury awarded him $4.5 million, which may still be challenged on appeal.

One of the witnesses who testified on Rangel’s behalf was his former captain, Brian Pratt, who also has a pending suit against the city. Pratt contends he was targeted with an anonymous personnel complaint after accusing a deputy chief of inappropriately using division staff to do nontransit work — a claim the city has denied in court filings.

The cycle of litigation continued with an internal affairs detective assigned to investigate Pratt. The detective alleged in a whistleblower claim that his bosses demanded unfavorable findings despite no evidence of wrongdoing. The lawsuit by Det. Hamilton Alvarenga also remains pending, with the city disputing his allegations.

Yet another Transit Services supervisor, Ashraf “Andy” Hanna, is pursuing legal action over what he alleged is a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. Hanna is also named as a defendant in several lawsuits, with co-workers accusing him of workplace hostility, which he disputes. One of his accusers, an officer named Natalie Bustamante, recently settled her sexual harassment lawsuit with the city for an undisclosed sum.

LAPD officers are supposed to report wrongdoing — or attempts to cover it up — to their supervisors, internal affairs or the Office of the Inspector General, which can investigate and potentially refer cases of misconduct to the chief for discipline. Those complaints are sealed from the public under state law, but the plaintiffs in several recent civil lawsuits alleged that the internal investigations tended to drag on unnecessarily and rarely led to punishment for the accused.

Attorney Matthew McNicholas, who has represented scores of officers in civil lawsuits, said he thinks that the growing payouts are a reflection of the city attorney’s hardball approach to civil litigation. This tough stance is costing taxpayers money by insisting on fighting cases even when it was clear they would lose in court, he said.

He pointed to the cases of Lou and Stacey Vince, a police couple who filed separate lawsuits against the department for retaliation and discrimination they faced while working in the San Fernando Valley. Lou Vince had alleged mistreatment after he returned from a work injury. In her claim, Stacey Vince said that after speaking up in her husband’s defense, she was denied a promotion and moved into a cramped office underneath the gym floor at the Police Academy with no furniture or Wi-Fi.

The couple, represented by McNicholas, received nearly $11 million in combined payouts.

“We tried to settle them both for low seven figures,” he said.

Joanna Schwartz, a UCLA law professor, said risk managers in L.A. and other cities should be looking for “policy changes or adjustments to staffing” after getting sued repeatedly.

“Best practices include internally investigating all allegations brought in lawsuits and then reviewing all the information that comes out during the course of discovery and trial,” Schwartz said.

The issue is not unique to the LAPD: Los Angeles County spent $150 million last year alone to defend the Sheriff’s Department from a slew of legal claims. And employment-related awards are only a fraction of the $358.8 million paid out in all LAPD lawsuits since 2019, including for traffic accidents, crackdowns on protesters and a botched fireworks detonation that leveled several city blocks and left dozens of residents displaced.

But the department’s handling of workplace complaints has drawn criticism on multiple fronts, including from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

The union for rank-and-file officers, which sometimes helps members bring lawsuits, has cited the large verdicts as a sign senior LAPD officials are turning a blind eye to injustices in the workplace.

Last week, Jamie McBride, an outspoken union board member, filed a lawsuit in which he accused an assistant police chief of unfairly reprimanding him for speaking out about the LAPD’s grooming policy, the rules for how officers can keep their hair and mustaches.

McBride said in his suit that his remarks came during a union meeting in August 2023, when someone in the audience asked whether the department intended to change its rules to allow beards without a medical exemption, which is commonly granted to Black officers with skin conditions that make shaving painful.

McBride said he replied, “Well, I hope not ‘cause I think it looks like s—.”

He learned, according to his lawsuit, that that the department opened an investigation for what it deemed “racially discriminatory comments.”

McBride’s suit argues that his statement — “however controversial” — was made in the “context of protected union activity.”

The city has not yet filed a response in court to McBride’s claim. He didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

McBride, who previously received $1.5 million after suing over alleged retaliation by his LAPD supervisors, is part of an internal work group looking at potential changes to the discipline system, along with Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Rimkunas defended the department’s “thorough and comprehensive process” for addressing officer complaints, but said he is also pushing for “additional safeguards to be certain the complaint system is properly used.”

He said internal investigators are being more judicious about screening complaints before starting a formal inquiry. Cases involving apparent personality conflicts between employees are referred back to their supervisors for mediation “within weeks, even when the behavior may not have reached the level of misconduct,” he said.

It used to take up to a year, Rimkunas said, to “reach a point for potential intervention.”

A BELOVED department chain is preparing to shut its final store this month as it launches a “Rachel Reeves closing down sale.”

The famous shop will be shuttering forever after serving customers on the high street for 140 years.

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Beales in the Dolphin Centre in Poole will close on May 31 and is slashing the price of stock by 80 per cent in the meantime.

The historic chain was founded in Bournemouth in 1881 and offers a range of iconic products, including clothing, home goods, and more.

This particular Poole Beales branch was the last one standing when the company collapsed into administration in January 2020, leading to the closure of its 22 other stores.

Despite the stores resilience, the brutal budget introduced last year saw the hike of National Insurance which has forced countless shops to close.

To mark the occasions, the store’s Facebook page is advertising a “Rachel Reeves‘ Closing Down Sale,” featuring discounts of up to 80% and a caption cheekily thanking the Chancellor for “the help.”

It wrote in the caption: “Our closing sale is almost over (cheers for the help, Chancellor) – and we’ve just dropped hundreds of lines to 80% OFF or more!

“Grab a bargain before we vanish into the budget black hole. #FinalSale #80Off #LastChance #WhenItsGoneItsGone.”

Despite weathering the storm for the past five years, it seems the Chancellor’s latest Budget changes have delivered the final blow to the struggling chain.

Beales chief executive Tony Brown previously told The Telegraph the business had become “unviable” following the Chancellor’s announcement of increases to the minimum wage and national insurance contributions in the October Budget.

Announcing the closure, Mr Brown said: “This, combined with the risks and uncertainty of further tax increases in the coming years, has left us with no alternative.

“We have been working with the Dolphin Centre, who have been supportive, along with our investors to ensure an orderly exit.

“Our team has been informed, as have our suppliers.

“We will ensure the exit is managed and no one will be left with a financial loss.”

Shoppers were left heartbroken by the news of the store’s impending closure, with one commenting on the latest post: “I’ve loved shopping here over the years.”

Another wrote: “Sadly this is happening to many shops.”

Like many businesses, Beales now faces higher employer national insurance contributions, which have risen from 13.8% to 15%.

Additionally, the threshold at which these contributions must be paid has been lowered from £9,100 to £5,000.

These changes to the tax system were confirmed by the Chancellor in the Autumn Budget last October and came into effect on 1 April.

At the same time, the national minimum wage saw a notable increase, rising to £12.21 per hour. For workers aged 18-20, the minimum wage increased by £1.40 to £10 per hour.

Founded in 1881, Beales once boasted a proud portfolio of 41 department stores in market towns across the UK, offering everything from furniture and fashion to toys and cosmetics.

The retailer’s decline has been gradual but unrelenting.

Its Southport store was shuttered last September, just three years after the site had reopened.

With the closure of the Poole branch, the last remaining link to the Beales name, a once-iconic fixture of the British high street, will vanish forever.

DEATH OF THE HIGH STREET

Retailers have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.

High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.

However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector.

The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.

At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.

Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes.

Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.

“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Saturday denied trespassing at a new federal immigration detention center during a confrontation that led to his arrest while the Democrat was at the facility with three members of Congress.

Baraka, who has been protesting the center’s opening in his New Jersey city this week, was released around 8 p.m. Friday night after several hours in custody. He was accused of trespassing and ignoring warnings to leave the Delaney Hall facility.

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for public affairs with the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview with CNN on Saturday that the investigation was ongoing and that the department released more video of the confrontation. McLaughlin accused Baraka of playing “political games.”

“I’m shocked by all the lies that were told here,” said Baraka, who said he had been invited there for a news conference. “No one else arrested, I was invited in, then they arrested me on the sidewalk.”

Baraka, who is running to succeed term-limited New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration. He has protested the construction and opening of the 1,000-bed detention center, arguing that it should not be allowed because of building permit issues.

Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraka trespassed at the detention facility, which is run by private prison operator Geo Group.

Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law.”

Video of the incident showed that Baraka was arrested after returning to the public side of the gate to the facility.

Witnesses describe a heated argument

Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation — Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — in attempting to enter the facility.

When federal officials blocked his entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.

“There was yelling and pushing,” Martinez said. “Then the officers swarmed Baraka. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put Baraka in handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the lawmakers had not asked for a tour of Delaney Hall, which the agency said it would have facilitated. The department said that as a bus carrying detainees was entering in the afternoon, “a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”

Ned Cooper, a spokesperson for Watson Coleman, said the three lawmakers went there unannounced because they planned to inspect it, not take a scheduled tour.

“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not ‘storm’ the detention center,” Watson Coleman said in a statement. “The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.”

Video of the incident

In video of the altercation shared with the Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the logo of Homeland Security Investigations can be heard telling Baraka he could not enter the facility because “you are not a Congress member.”

Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit, who said: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”

“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.

Minutes later, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded him and others on the public side. As protesters cried out, “Shame,” Baraka was dragged back through the gate in handcuffs.

Menendez said in a statement that as members of Congress, he and his colleagues have the legal right to carry out oversight at DHS facilities without prior notice and have done so twice this year. But on Friday, “throughout every step of this visit, ICE attempted to intimidate everyone involved and impede our ability to conduct oversight.”

The detention center

The two-story building is next to a county prison formerly operated as a halfway house.

In February, ICE awarded a 15-year contract to the Geo Group to run the detention center. Geo valued the contract at $1 billion, an unusually long and large agreement for ICE.

The announcement was part of President Trump’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.

Baraka sued Geo soon after the deal was announced.

Geo touted the Delaney Hall contract during an earnings call with shareholders Wednesday, with Chief Executive David Donahue saying it was expected to generate more than $60 million a year in revenue. He said the facility began the intake process May 1.

He said the activation of the center and another in Michigan would increase capacity under contract with ICE from around 20,000 beds to around 23,000.

The Department of Homeland Security said in its statement that the facility has the proper permits and inspections have been cleared.

Offenhartz, Lauer and Shipkowski write for the Associated Press. AP writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration must halt much of its widescale downsizing of the federal workforce, a California judge ordered Friday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued the emergency order in a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities last week, one of multiple legal challenges to President Trump’s efforts to drastically shrink the size of a federal government he calls bloated and too expensive.

“The Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime,” Illston wrote in her order.

The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Office of Personnel Management and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people. Plaintiffs asked that the effective date of any agency action be postponed and that departments stop implementing or enforcing the executive order, including taking any further action.

They limited their request to departments where dismantlement is underway or poised to begin, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March it would lay off 10,000 workers and centralize divisions.

Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Clinton, said at a hearing Friday that a president has authority to seek changes in the executive branch departments and agencies created by Congress.

“But he must do so in lawful ways,” she said. “He must do so with the cooperation of Congress; the Constitution is structured that way.”

Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped Musk, his billionaire advisor and major campaign donor, to lead the charge through DOGE.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave as a result of Trump’s government-shrinking efforts. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.

Lawyers for the government argued Friday that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in their own decision-making process.

“It expressly invites comments and proposals for legislative engagement as part of policies that those agencies wish to implement,” Eric Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general, said of the memo. “It is setting out guidance.”

But Danielle Leonard, an attorney for plaintiffs, said it was clear that the president, DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management were making decisions outside their authority and not inviting dialogue from agencies.

“They are not waiting for these planning documents” to go through long processes, she said. “They’re not asking for approval, and they’re not waiting for it.”

The temporary restraining order applies to agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Interior, State, Treasury and Veteran Affairs.

It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups who filed the lawsuit are also plaintiffs in another suit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his order.

Plaintiffs include the cities of San Francisco, Chicago and Baltimore; the American Federation of Government Employees union; and nonprofit groups Alliance for Retired Americans, Center for Taxpayer Rights and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Har writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week, an unusual move because it has suspended most refugee resettlement operations, officials and documents said Friday.

The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has organized their resettlement under its Office for Refugee Resettlement.

The flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told reporters.

“What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created,” he said. “This is persecution based on a protected characteristic — in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”

State Department refugee programs have been put on hold since President Trump ordered a review in February. While halting arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, most of sub-Saharan Africa and throughout Latin America, Trump also issued an executive order prioritizing the processing of white South Africans who claim racial discrimination in their home country.

“The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria has been conducting interviews and processing pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order on Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” the State Department said. “The Department of State is prioritizing consideration for U.S. refugee resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

The department said nothing about the imminent arrival of what officials said are believed to be more than two dozen white South Africans from roughly four families who had applied for resettlement in the U.S. Their arrival had originally been scheduled for early last week but was delayed for reasons that were not immediately clear.

The Health department’s refugee office was ready to offer them support, including with housing, furniture and other household items, and expenses like groceries, clothing, diapers and more, the document says. “This effort is a stated priority of the Administration.”

The Health department didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

The Trump administration has taken an outspoken adversarial position in regard to South Africa, which is the homeland of close Trump advisor Elon Musk and also holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio notably boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg in March because its main agenda centered on diversity, inclusion and climate change. Rubio also expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. in March for comments that the Trump administration interpreted as accusing the president of promoting white supremacy.

Shortly thereafter, the State Department ended all engagement with the G20 during South Africa’s presidency. The U.S. is due to host G20 meetings in 2026.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement Friday that he had spoken with Trump late last month on issues including the U.S.‘ criticism of South Africa and the Trump administration’s allegations that Afrikaners are being persecuted. Ramaphosa told Trump that the information the U.S. president had received “was completely false,” the statement said.

“Therefore, our position is that there are no South African citizens that can be classified as refugees to any part of the world, including the U.S.,” the statement from Ramaphosa’s office said.

South African Deputy Foreign Minister Alvin Botes spoke with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Friday about the refugees, the South African Foreign Ministry said. Landau is expected to lead the delegation to welcome the refugees Monday.

The Foreign Ministry said South Africa had “expressed concerns with the information conveyed that the United States has commenced with processing alleged refugees from South Africa and will begin resettling these citizens in the United States.”

The Foreign Ministry said the allegations of discrimination against Afrikaners in South Africa “are unfounded.”

“It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy; a country which has in fact suffered true persecution under apartheid rule and has worked tirelessly to prevent such levels of discrimination from ever occurring again,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Foreign Ministry said it was challenging the U.S. assessments of “alleged refugee status” but would not block anyone who wanted to leave the country as it respected their freedom of movement and choice.

The Foreign Ministry said it was seeking information from the U.S. over the “status” of the people leaving South Africa and if they were going to the U.S. as refugees, asylum seekers or “ordinary citizens.” It said it wanted assurances that the people leaving had been properly vetted and did not have outstanding criminal cases against them in South Africa.

It said South Africa was “dedicated to constructive dialogue” with the U.S.

South African Foreign Ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told the Associated Press: “Yes, we are told that there are people who are leaving. We are saying, ‘What is their status? Are they leaving as asylum seekers, are they leaving as refugees, or are they leaving as South African citizens, and they are going on some free joyride?’ It’s a question we’ve put to them.”

Lee and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP writers Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg, Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, and Seung Min Kim and Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review all of their library books that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues by May 21, according to a memo issued to the force on Friday.

It is the broadest and most detailed directive so far on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign to rid the military of diversity and equity programs, policies and instructional materials. And it follows similar efforts to remove hundreds of books from the libraries at the military academies.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the memo, which was signed Friday by Timothy Dill, who is performing the duties of the defense undersecretary for personnel.

Educational materials at the libraries “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology are incompatible with the Department’s core mission,” the memo states, adding that department leaders must “promptly identify” books that are not compatible with that mission and sequester them by May 21.

By then, the memo says, additional guidance will be provided on how to cull that initial list and determine what should be removed and “determine an appropriate ultimate disposition” for those materials. It does not say what will happen to the books or whether they will be stored away or destroyed.

According to the memo, a temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department will provide information on the review and decisions about the books. That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed.

The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.

Early last month the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Hegseth’s office to get rid of those that promote DEI.

About two weeks later, the Army and Air Force libraries were told to go through their stacks to find books related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Naval Academy’s purge led to the removal of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” based on the list of 381 books that have been taken out of its library.

In addition to Angelou’s award-winning book, the list includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” which deals with Holocaust memorials; “Half American,” about African Americans in World War II; “A Respectable Woman,” about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York; and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” about the 2012 shooting of the Black 17-year-old boy in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling.

Baldor writes for the Associated Press.