It’s the 249th birthday of the United States. And as Americans begin to prepare for our nation’s grand semiquincentennial celebration next year, it is worth reengaging with the document whose enactment marks our national birthday: the Declaration of Independence.
The declaration is sometimes championed by right-libertarians and left-liberals alike as a paean to individualism and a refutation of communitarianism of any kind. As one X user put it on Thursday: “The 4th of July represents the triumph of American individualism over the tribalistic collectivism of Europe.”
But this is anything but the case.
We will turn to lead draftsman Thomas Jefferson’s famous words about “self-evident” truths in a moment. But first consider the majority of the text of the declaration: a stirring enumeration of specific grievances by the American colonists against the British crown. In the declaration’s own words: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
One might read these words in a vacuum and conclude that the declaration indeed commenced a revolution in the true sense of the term: a seismic act of rebellion, however noble or righteous, to overthrow the established political order. And true enough, that may well have been the subjective intention of Jefferson, a political liberal and devotee of the European Enlightenment.
But the declaration also attracted many other signers. And some of those signers, such as the more conservative John Adams, took a more favorable view of the incipient America’s inherited traditions and customs. These men thought that King George III had vitiated their rights as Englishmen under the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights that passed Parliament the following year.
It is for this reason that Edmund Burke, the famed conservative British statesman best known for his strident opposition to the French Revolution, was known to be sympathetic to the colonists’ cause. As my Edmund Burke Foundation colleague Ofir Haivry argued in a 2020 American Affairs essay, it is likely that these more conservative declaration signers, such as Adams, shared Burke’s own view that “the Americans had an established national character and political culture”; and “the Americans in 1776 rebelled in an attempt to defend and restore these traditions.”
The American founding is complex; the founders themselves were intellectually heterodox. But suffice it to say the founding was not a simplistic renouncement of the “tribalistic collectivism” of Britain. There is of course some truth to those who would emphasize the revolutionary nature of the minutemen and soldiers of George Washington’s Continental Army. But a more historically sound overall conception is that 1776 commenced a process to restore and improve upon the colonists’ inherited political order. The final result was the U.S. Constitution of 1787.
Let’s next consider the most famous line of the declaration: the proclamation that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We ought to take this claim at face value: Many of the declaration’s signers did hold such genuine, moral human equality to be self-evident.
But is such a claim self-evident to everyone — at all times, in all places and within all cultures?
The obvious answer is that it is not. Genuine, moral human equality is certainly not self-evident to Taliban-supporting Islamic extremist goat herders in Afghanistan. It has not been self-evident to any number of sub-Saharan African warlords of recent decades. Nor is it self-evident to the atheists of the Chinese Communist Party politburo, who brutally oppress non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities such as the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang.
Rather, the only reason that Jefferson — and Locke in England a century prior — could confidently assert such moral “self-evidence” is because they were living and thinking within a certain overarching milieu. And that milieu is Western civilization’s biblical inheritance — and, specifically, the world-transforming claim in Genesis 1:27, toward the very beginning of the Bible, that “God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him.”
It is very difficult — perhaps impossible — to see how the declaration of 1776, the 14th Amendment of 1868, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or any other American moral ode to or legal codification of equality, would have been possible absent the strong biblical undergird that has characterized our nation since the colonial era.
Political and biblical inheritance are thus far more responsible for the modern-day United States than revolution, liberal rationalism or hyper-individualism.
Adams famously said that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Indeed, each year we should all celebrate this great nation we are blessed to call home. But let’s also not mistake what it is we are actually celebrating.
Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer
It wasn’t so much the culmination of a career as it was another signpost pointing the way to the Hall of Fame.
It certainly wasn’t the last pitch Clayton Kershaw will ever throw for the Dodgers, but it will likely be among the most memorable.
Because when Chicago White Sox third baseman Vinny Capra took a 1-2 slider for a strike to end the sixth inning Wednesday night, Kershaw became just the 20th pitcher in major league history to record 3,000 strikeouts.
More people have flown to the moon than have struck out 3,000 major league hitters. And for Kershaw, who has been chasing history since he threw his first big-league pitch as a skinny 20-year-old, entering such an elite club will be a big piece of his legacy.
Only now he has the wisdom and the grace to realize it was never about him in the first place.
“It’s an incredible list. I’m super, super grateful to be a part of it,” Kershaw said. “But if you don’t have anybody to celebrate with, it’s just doesn’t matter.”
Kershaw would know since he’s one of the most decorated players in history. Twice a 20-game winner, a five-time ERA champion and two-time world champion, he’s won three Cy Young Awards, was a league MVP and is a 10-time all-star.
“The individual stuff,” he repeated “is only as important as the people around you.”
So while Kershaw stood out when reached the 3K milestone on the 100th and final pitch he threw in the Dodgers’ 5-4 win, he refused to stand apart, pausing on his way off the field to point at his family sitting in their usual seats in the front row of the loge section. He then accepted hugs from teammates Mookie Betts and Kiké Hernández.
But he saved his warmest embrace for manager Dave Roberts, who bounded up the dugout steps to greet him.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” said Roberts, who has guided Kershaw through doubts and disappointments, through high points and lows in their 10 years together.
“I’m one of the few people in uniform that has been through them,” Roberts said. “That was kind of what the embrace was.”
Kershaw, 37, is just the fourth left-hander to reach 3,000 strikeouts but more important, he said, is the fact he’s just the second in a century, after Bob Gibson, to do it with the same team. No pitcher, in fact, has spent more years in a Dodger uniform that Kershaw.
“I don’t know if I put a ton of stock in being with one team early on,” he said. “Over time you get older and appreciate one organization a little bit more. Doc [Roberts] stuck with me, too. It hasn’t been all roses, I know that.
“So there’s just a lot of mutual respect and I’m super grateful now, looking back, to get to say that I spent my whole career here. And I will spend my whole career here.”
Kershaw struck out the first batter he faced in his Dodger debut 18 years ago, getting the Cardinals’ Skip Schumaker to wave at a 1-2 pitch. It was the first of three strikeouts he would record in his first big-league inning. So even from the start, the K in Kershaw — the scorebook symbol for a strikeout — stood out more than than the rest of the name.
In between Schumaker and Capra, Kershaw fanned nearly 1,000 different hitters, from CJ Abrams and Bobby Abreu to Ryan Zimmerman and Barry Zito.
He’s stuck out (Jason) Castro and (Buddy) Kennedy, Elvis (Andrus) and (Alex) Presley and (Billy) Hamilton and (Alex) Jackson. He’s whiffed (Scott) Cousins and brothers (Bengie and Yadier Molina), a (Chin-lung) Hu and a Yu (Darvish), a Cook (Aaron) and a (Jeff) Baker as well as a Trout (Mike) and multiple Marlins (Miami).
Former Giant Brandon Belt was Kershaw’s most frequent victim, striking out 30 times in 62 at-bats. Fewer than 50 batters have faced him at least five times without striking out, according to Baseball Reference.
Along the way Kershaw’s unique windup, the right knee pausing as he lifts both hands just above his cap, has become an instantly recognizable silhouette for a generation of Dodger fans.
There’s only one other left-hander in team history that can compare with Kershaw, yet he and Sandy Koufax are so different the comparisons are more contrasts than anything.
Kershaw has been brilliant over the entirety of his 18-year career, winning 10 or more games 12 times. He’s never finished a season with a losing record and his career ERA of 2.52 is the lowest of the last 105 years for pitchers who are thrown at least 1,500 innings. Even at 37, he’s unbeaten in four decisions.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw walks off the mound after recording his 3,000th career strikeout as right fielder Andy Pages, left, and first baseman Freddie Freeman, right, react behind him.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Koufax was 36-40 with an ERA above 4.00 through his first six seasons. And while Koufax’s career was ended by injury before his 31st birthday, Kershaw has pushed through repeated problems with his back, shoulder, knee, toe, elbow, pelvis and forearm.
Only Don Sutton has won more games in a Dodger uniform than the 216 that belong to Kershaw, who will soon be enshrined next to Koufax and Sutton in the Hall of Fame.
“Early on they were talking about this next Sandy Koufax guy, this big left-hander. Really didn’t have an idea where the ball was going, but pretty special,” said Roberts, who retired as a player after Kershaw’s rookie season. “It’s much better to be wearing the same uniform as him.”
But Roberts has seen the other side, when the young promise gives way to pitfalls. He’s seen Kershaw battle so many injuries, he’s spent nearly as much time on the injured list as in the rotation over the past five seasons. Alongside the brilliance, he’s seen the uncertainty.
So with Kershaw approaching history Wednesday, Roberts loosened the leash, letting him go back to the mound for the sixth inning despite having thrown 92 pitches, his most in more than two years.
“I wanted to give Clayton every opportunity,” he said. “You could see the emotion that he had today, trying to get that third strike. But I think it just happened the way it’s supposed to happen, in the sense that it was the third out [and] we got a chance to really celebrate him.”
Each time Kershaw got to two strikes, something he did to 15 of the 27 hitters he faced, “I said a few Hail Marys” Roberts said.
“It’s the last box for Clayton to check in his tremendous career,” he added, saying he doubted many more pitchers will ever reach 3,000 strikeouts. “You’ve got to stay healthy, you’ve got to be good early in your career, you’ve got to be good for a long time.”
And Kershaw has been all of that.
That, Roberts said, was behind the second long hug he and his pitcher shared in the dugout Wednesday night as a highlight reel of Kershaw’s career played on the video boards above both outfield pavilions. The sellout crowd, which had long been on its feet, continuing cheering, eventually drawing Kershaw back out onto the field to doff his cap in appreciation.
“That ovation,” he said “was something that I’ll never forget, for sure.”
WASHINGTON — As Americans mark the Fourth of July holiday this weekend, the Trump administration is planning ahead for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, a moment of reflection for a nation beset by record-low patriotism and divided by heated culture wars over the country’s identity.
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‘A grand celebration’
Fireworks burst over Washington, D.C., landmarks on July 4, 1976, at the nation’s bicentennial celebration.
(Charles Tasnadi / Associated Press)
White House officials are actively involved in state and local planning for the semiquincentennial after the president, in one of his first acts in office, established “Task Force 250” to organize “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.”
The administration has launched a website offering its telling of the nation’s founding, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — which he had hoped to pass by this Independence Day — includes a provision allocating $40 million to commission 250 statues for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” to be built at an undetermined location.
Trump has been thinking about the 250th anniversary for years. He invoked the occasion in his first joint session to Congress in 2017, stating it would be “one of the great milestones in the history of the world.” And in 2023, campaigning for a second term, he proposed a “Great American State Fair” to take place around the country throughout the year.
But that milestone year comes amid fierce debate over Trump’s attempts to exert government control over the teaching of American history.
In March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” directing public institutions to limit their presentation of the nation’s history without nuance or criticism. “This is not a return to sanity,” the Organization of American Historians responded at the time. “Rather, it sanitizes to destroy truth.”
On the “America 250” website created by the White House, the account of the nation’s founding is outsourced to Hillsdale College, a far-right institution that was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025.
“A question over this coming year is whether the celebrations around the 250th will be used as yet another cudgel in the culture wars where the goal is to divide rather than unite,” said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University.
“The view Trump’s ‘Task Force 250’ seems to be laying out is comfortable, but doesn’t give us a full view of that historical moment,” Ekbladh said. “And a full view doesn’t reduce things to a story of tragedy or oppression — although there was plenty of both — but can show us the full set of experiences that were the foundations of a dynamic country.”
Dueling celebrations in a divided nation
In 1976, when the United States marked its 200th birthday, the festivities were prolific. Federal government letterhead was decorated for over a year to mark the anniversary. State-sponsored celebrations were designed to revive a national sense of patriotism that had been challenged by a stagflating economy, lingering trauma from the political convulsions of the late 1960s and the Vietnam War.
A full schedule of events has yet to be made public. But scholars expect echoes of 1976, when government efforts to instill pride in a weary nation met with mixed success.
“In 1976, there were dueling celebrations: official, government-sponsored ones, and ‘people’s’ observances organized by progressive groups,” said Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University. “I expect something of that kind will occur next year too.”
There are significant differences. This time, the nation will celebrate a constitutional system of checks and balances under historic pressure from a president testing the bounds of executive power.
“Two hundred and fifty years of constitutional democracy is well worth honoring,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a history professor at Bowdoin College, “but this particular anniversary is symbolic in ways that resonate exactly opposite to Trump’s vision of governance and history.”
Most of the Declaration of Independence, Rudalevige noted, is dedicated to laying out “how centralized executive authority leads to tyranny, and must be opposed.” And the document’s promise of inalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness have been a beacon of hope and inspiration to immigrants since the founding.
“So the next year will mark a hugely important tension between the version of American history that Mr. Trump and his allies want taught — and actual American history,” Rudalevige said. “We will have a sort of polarized patriotism.”
Patriotism hits new lows
That polarization has already become evident in recent polling.
A survey published by Gallup this week found that a historically low number of Americans feel patriotic, with 58% of U.S. adults identifying as “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American. That is nine points lower than last year, and the lowest figure registered by Gallup since they began polling on the matter in 2001.
Pride among Republicans has stayed relatively consistent, with 92% registering as patriotic. But it has plummeted among Democrats and independents. And pride decreased across parties by age group, with more Democrats in Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s — telling Gallup they have “little” or “no” pride in being an American than saying they are extremely or very proud.
If nothing else, historians said, the anniversary is an opportunity for everyday Americans to reflect on the country they want to live in.
“To be sure, for many people the day is just a day off and maybe a chance to go to a parade and see some fireworks,” said Ekbladh, of Tufts. “But the day can and should be a moment to think about what the country is.”
The place names are tiny poems: Silent Street, where sound was deadened with straw out of respect for convalescing soldiers during the Anglo-Dutch wars of the late 17th century; Smart Street, named after a benevolent merchant and library builder, William Smarte; Star Lane for Stella Maris, Our Lady of the Sea; Franciscan Way, leading to Grey Friars Road, evokes monkish times. Thirteen medieval churches rise above the old town, some in disrepair. Others are renascent: St Mary-le-Tower was recently redesignated as a minster in recognition of its value to the community and its 1,000 years of existence. That’s not so long ago in a town settled very early – perhaps as early as the fifth century, and established by the seventh – by the Anglo-Saxons.
You have to rummage to find historical treasures, which lie scattered, disguised, buried, bullied. The town has one of the best-preserved medieval cores in the country, but local planners wrapped it in roads, houses and, latterly, retail and leisure centres. Things are revealed by walking: the Tooley’s Court almshouses; lemon-hued, half-timbered Curson Lodge; gloriously pargeted Ancient House; an opulent town hall; and an ostentatious former post office on Cornhill, the main square. Seen from between the columns and arches of Lloyds Avenue, it could be Trieste or Venice, minus the overtourism and rip-off cappuccinos.
Curson Lodge dates to the 15th century. Photograph: Alan Curtis/Alamy
Erica, from The Friends of the Ipswich Museums, shows me around the mansion in Christchurch Park. Only four families ever lived here – the Withypolls, Devereux, Fonnereaus and Cobbolds – each associated with their times’ trades and trends: Atlantic merchant-adventurers, titled nobles, Huguenot linen traders, brewers and bankers. A standout exhibit is a patinaed oak overmantel rescued from a house on Fore Street that belonged to Thomas Eldred, who sailed round the world with Thomas Cavendish on his 1586-8 circumnavigation. The flagship Desire gave its name to a port on the Patagonian coast. In a corner hangs a portrait of Admiral Edward Vernon, who participated in the War of Jenkins’ Ear between Britain and Spain in the mid-18th century and the capture of Portobelo in Panama; he wore grogram cloth and is thought to have introduced toasts of rum-and-water – or “grog” – to the navy.
Ipswich traded with northern Europe from Saxon times, growing to become a Hanseatic League port, exporting wool and woollen cloth, and importing wine from Bordeaux.
On the harbour front is Isaacs on the Quay, a pub carved out of an old maltings. Behind it, at 80 Fore Street, is – according to Historic England – “the last surviving example of a 15th- to 17th-century Ipswich merchant’s house with warehouses at the rear opening directly on the dock front, where merchandise was unshipped, stored and distributed wholesale or sold retail in the shop on the street front”. The local council considered filling the harbour in to build houses, but a festival in 1971 showed the area could be a place of recreation as well as cultural preservation; the Ipswich Maritime Trust, still very active, grew out of this showdown. Things to see and do: Willis Building; river cruise on the sailing barge Victor; free A Peep into the Past tourat Christchurch Mansion; Blackfriars monastery ruins
Ramsey, Isle of Man
The Manx Electric Railway to Laxey and Snaefell summit. Photograph: Allan Hartley/Alamy
Travelling overland to Ramsey from Douglas, you have a premonition of how important the sea must once have been. The meandering road and heritage electric railway both scale a mountain on the journey. Doing the trip on foot or horseback must have been hell. The Isle of Man’s longest river, the Sulby, plummets and meanders down from the uplands to meet the sea at Ramsey. Vikings, as well as Scots, entered the Isle of Man here. Its name derives from the Old Norse for “wild garlic river”.
The small working port breaks up a shoreline of sand and pebble beaches backed by apartment buildings and grand-seeming hotels. Timber and aggregate are massed up on the wharves. A bulk carrier called Snaefell River is moored beneath a single tall crane. To the south is the long Queen’s Pier, once a landing stage. Victoria never disembarked, but the pier recalls her visit. Above town is the Albert Tower. The consort made landfall.
Once Ramsey was a popular seaside resort, with Steam Packet ships to Kirkcudbright and Garlieston in Dumfries and Galloway; Liverpool and Whitehaven (I can see the Cumbrian fells). A swing bridge – closed to motorised traffic – connects the northern beach to Ramsey town centre, a likeable mishmash of Victorian buildings housing pubs, food and drink outlets, antique and bric-a-brac shops – and a very 80s strip mall with a Tesco, a drycleaner, a model shop and tattooists.
On the edge of town, I find myself at Grove House, now a museum. It was the holiday home of the island’s second most famous Gibb family. Duncan Gibb was a shipping agent from Greenock. The house reaches out to foreign climes. A tiger skin on the floor of the drawing room. A leopard skin in the bedroom. Mahogany furniture from a primeval forest. Curtains from India. A japanned backgammon set. When the men sailed away or died out, a matriarchy took over.
The Trafalgar pub, on West Quay, must have seen so many deals and binges, squabbles and scuffles. I drink an Odin’s mild in the corner. Locals look bristlingly familiar with one another, conspiratorial, as if they know something I never will. Things to see and do: Manx Electric Railway to Laxey and Snaefell summit;Ramsey Nature Reserve beach walk; walk up to Albert Tower; the TT
The Pendle witches were imprisoned at Lancaster Castle. Photograph: Tara Michelle Evans/Stockimo/Alamy
It’s easy not to notice the River Lune or the Lancaster Canal. The former snakes north of the town centre, often behind buildings – supermarkets, an enterprise zone – and is cut off by the city’s notorious roads. The canal sneaks up from the south-west, hopping across the river near a McDonald’s. Anyway, the natural movement here for pedestrians is upward and inland.
The Romans took the high road. Marching through north Lancashire, operating in conjunction with naval transports, they could look out for landing troop detachments. A Roman fort was built on the hill now occupied by Lancaster Castle. It dates from the 12th century, as does the name of Lancashire, and is infamous as the place the Pendle Witches were imprisoned prior to their trial, sentencing and hanging. A small exhibition in a dungeon of the Well Tower recounts the key points of the story, reminding us Jack Straw refused to pardon them in 1998. The castle housed a prison till 2011; its Shire Hall is still used as a courtroom.
Lancaster was once England’s fourth largest slave port, with at least 122 ships sailing to Africa between 1700 and 1800. Local merchants were involved in the capture and sale of around 30,000 enslaved people. Slave-produced goods from the West Indies included sugar, dyes, rice, spices, coffee, rum and, later, cotton for Lancashire’s mills. Fine furniture, gunpowder, clothing and other goods were produced in and around Lancaster and traded in Africa for enslaved people, or sent to the colonies.
The Ashton Memorial, in Lancaster’s Williamson Park, has views across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells. Photograph: Rob Atherton/Alamy
The slave trade and abolition trail, revised by Lancaster University professor Alan Rice, takes in churches, with their memorials to merchants who made money from slavery; the Sugarhouse, a nightclub on the site of a former refinery; Gillow’s Warehouse, which imported slave-harvested mahogany to make furniture; and 20 Castle Park, home of the slave-owning Satterthwaite family. On the abolition side are a Friends Meeting House (Quakers were among the earliest opponents of slavery) and, most poignantly, three benches in and near Williamson Park provided by philanthropists for the vagrant poor – including cotton workers laid off during the cotton famine caused by anti-slavery measures taken by Lancashire firms.
The small city of Lancaster, with its university campus and would-be genteel airs, looks and feels innocuous, and altogether unconnected to stormy seas. But it’s the nexus of a significant dark maritime history. Things to see and do: Ashton Memorial; Maritime Museum; Gallows Hill; Judges’ Lodgings.
The slider was sizzling. The hitter was frozen. The strikeout was roaring.
With an 84-mph pitch on the black in the sixth inning against the Chicago White Sox Wednesday at a rollicking Dodger Stadium, Clayton Kershaw struck out Vinny Capra looking to become the 20th player in baseball history to record 3,000 strikeouts.
As impressive as the pitch itself was the cementing of a truth that has taken nearly two decades to become evident.
How dare you diss our Sandy! Koufax won more championships! Koufax never choked in the postseason! Koufax was more dominant!
All true, Koufax being a tremendous human being worthy of every syllable of praise. But as Wednesday so clearly proved in front of a history-thirsty crowd at Chavez Ravine, Kershaw has done something that any defense of Koufax can not equal.
He’s endured. He’s taken the ball far more than Koufax while outlasting him in virtually every impact pitching category.
The Dodgers’ 5-4 victory Wednesday was the perfect illustration of the grinding that has lifted Kershaw to the Dodger heavens. He didn’t have his best stuff, he was battered by one of baseball’s worst teams for four runs on nine hits, but he fought through six innings to dramatically record his third strikeout and end his quest for 3,000 on his final hitter with his 100th pitch.
“I made it interesting, for sure,” Kershaw said afterward. “I made it take too long.”
When he took the mound at the start of the sixth, just one strikeout shy of 3,000, the crowd erupted in deafening screams previously only matched by a World Series win. When he breathtakingly struck out Capra — this was his last hitter regardless — he stalked off the mound and sighed and offered the thunderous crowd a sweaty wave.
“It’s a little bit harder when you’re actually trying to strike people out,” said Kershaw with a chuckle. “Running back out there in the sixth and hearing that crowd roar was up there for me, special moments…It was an amazing night.”
A young Dodgers fan holds up a sign that reads “3,000” to celebrate Clayton Kershaw’s strikeout milestone.
(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
In all, it was pure Kershaw, and it has been unmatched even by his legendary predecessor.
Koufax was a meteor, streaking across the sky for the greatest five seasons of any pitcher in baseball history.
Kershaw, meanwhile, has become his own planet, looming above for 18 years with a permanent glow that is unmatched in Dodgers lore.
Koufax was an amazing flash. Kershaw has been an enduring flame.
When this was previously written, manager Dave Roberts waffled on the question of whether Kershaw was the greatest Dodger pitcher ever.
This time, not so much.
“Obviously, Sandy is Sandy,” he said Wednesday. “You’re talking about 18 years, though, and the career of the body of work. It’s hard to not say Clayton, you know, is the greatest Dodger of all time.”
When one talks about the GOAT of various sports, indeed, a key element is always longevity. Tom Brady played 23 seasons, LeBron James has played 22 seasons and Babe Ruth played 22 seasons.
One cannot ignore the fact that Kershaw, in his 18th season, has played six more seasons than Koufax while pitching 463 more regular season innings. With his 3,000 strikeouts he has also fanned 604 more batters than Koufax, the equivalent of 22 more games composed solely of strikeouts, an unreal edge.
In the great Koufax debate, Kershaw is clearly being punished for his postseason struggles, and indeed his 4.49 postseason ERA doesn’t compare to Koufax’ 0.95 ERA.
But look at the sample size. Kershaw has pitched in 39 postseason games while Koufax has appeared in just eight. Kershaw has had 13 postseason starts that have lasted past the sixth inning while Koufax has had five.
Kershaw has pitched in multiple playoff rounds in multiple seasons, while Koufax never pitched in more than one playoff round per season, greatly increasing Kershaw’s opportunity for failure.
Kershaw has indeed stunk up the joint in some of the most devastating postseason losses in Dodger history. But he has taken the mound for nearly five times as many big games as Koufax and, in the end, he has just one fewer World Series championship.
“I’ve been through it, a lot, ups and downs here, more downs that I care to admit,” said Kershaw. “The fans … it was overwhelming to feel that.”
In the end, the strongest argument for Koufax supporters is the seemingly obvious answer to a question. If you had to win one game, would you start Koufax or Kershaw?
Of course you’d pitch Koufax … if your parameters were limited to five years. But if you wanted to pick a starter and you had to do it inside a two-decade window, you would take Kershaw.
Then there are those rarely recited stats that further the argument for Kershaw over Koufax: Kershaw has a better career ERA, 2.51 to 2.76. Kershaw has a better winning percentage, .697 to .655. And despite playing in an era where individual pitching wins are greatly cheapened, Kershaw has 51 more wins than Koufax.
How rare is 3,000 strikeouts? More pitchers have won 300 games. Only three other pitchers have done so left-handed. Only two pitchers in the last 100 years have done it with one team.
Now for the intangibles. If this is indeed the golden age of Dodger baseball — as Andrew Friedman so deftly described it — then the guardian of the era has been Kershaw.
The clubhouse culture is borne of his constantly present professionalism. The work ethic starts with him. The accountability is a reflection of him. For 18 years, through injury and embarrassment as well as fame and fortune, he has never complained, never blamed, never pointed fingers, never brought distraction.
And he always shows up for work. Every day. Every game. Every season. Clayton Kershaw has always been there, which is why he will be there forever on a statue that will surely be erected in the center field plaza next to the bronze figures of Jackie Robinson and, yes, of course, Sandy Koufax.
It is unlikely the Dodgers would ever script the words, “The greatest Dodger pitcher” on the base of his statue. They are understandably sensitive to Koufax and his legacy and importance to a legion of longtime fans.
But they know, just as those fans lucky enough to be at Dodger Stadium Wednesday know it.
They weren’t just watching greatness. They were watching The Greatest.
NBA players make more money than their counterparts in other team sports. NFL and MLB might conjure fields of green, but NBA courts are the equivalent of the WALDIS Ultra safe — the preferred place to stash cash.
The reasons involve simple math. NBA rosters are half the size of those in MLB and a fraction of the size of those in the NFL. Fewer players share the spoils of television deals, merchandise sales, sponsorships and game attendance. That translates into more money per player.
That also means the contract signed Tuesday by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander giving him the richest annual salary ever is not a surprise. It’s business as usual.
Fresh off leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to the NBA championship, Gilgeous-Alexander — known as SGA — signed a four-year, $285-million super maximum contract extension that will kick in during the 2027-2028 season.
That’s $71.25 million a year. Cue the confetti emoji.
In general, NBA contracts are the most lucrative, MLB contracts the longest, and NFL contracts the trickiest to decipher because not all the money is guaranteed.
The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani makes $70 million a year from the 10-year, $700-million contract he signed before the 2024 season. However, he is paid only $2 million a year because he agreed to defer the rest. The remaining $68 million per year will be paid from 2034 to 2043.
Juan Soto signed a 15-year, $765-million contract with the New York Mets before the 2025 season that does not include deferments. The outfielder received a $75 million signing bonus and will be paid an annual salary of about $46 million through 2038.
Soto’s deal includes the option to opt out after the 2029 season, at which time the Mets can override his opt out by adding an additional $4 million per season to the final 10 years of his contract. That would increase his salary to $50 million per year and raise his total earnings to $805 million.
So, while Ohtani’s and Soto’s contracts are the most lucrative because of their length, the average annual value doesn’t match that of top NBA deals. Eighteen NBA players are under contract to make $50 million or more per season, according to Spotrac.
Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics became the first player to land a deal that will pay him $70 million in a season. The five-year, $314-million extension he agreed to a year ago will max out at $71.45 million for the 2029-30 season, the last on the contract.
Tatum’s teammate Jaylen Brown signed a similar deal a year earlier, agreeing to play five years for $285.4 million, an average of $57.1 million a season.
The most lucrative NFL contracts go exclusively to quarterbacks, six of whom are under contracts that guarantee $200 million or more. Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills tops the list with a $250-million guarantee from a six-year deal he signed in May.
Fellow passers guaranteed $200 million or more: Dak Prescott ($231 million) of Dallas, Deshaun Watson ($230 million) of Cleveland, Joe Burrow ($219 million) of Cincinnati, Justin Herbert of the Chargers ($218.7 million) and Trevor Lawrence ($200 million) of Jacksonville.
Next season, seven NFL players — all quarterbacks — will be paid more than $50 million: Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes ($56.8 million), Detroit’s Jared Goff ($55 million), Allen ($55 million), Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa ($55 million), Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson ($52 million), Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts ($51.5 million) and Green Bay’s Jordan Love ($51 million).
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is tied for 13th on the list at $40 million after his contract was restructured to give him a large raise from the $23 million he made in 2024.
The highest paid non-quarterback next season will be Philadelphia Eagles tackle Lane Johnson at $41.7 million.
Circling back to MLB, Angels outfielder Mike Trout continues to hold the largest contract value besides Ohtani and Soto. He signed a 12-year, $426.5-million contract in 2019, at the time the most lucrative contract in American sports.
Trout won his third American League Most Valuable Player award — he’s also finished second in the voting four times — in the first year of the deal, but in the six years since has played more than 100 games only once because of injuries.
Other MLB contracts of note, in order of total value, include the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts (12 years, $365 million), the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (nine years, $360 million), the Mets’ Francisco Lindor (10 years, $341 million) and San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. (14 years, $340 million).
Next season, the highest paid players behind Soto will be Phillies pitcher Zach Wheeler ($42 million), Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero ($40.2 million), Judge ($40 million) and Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon ($38.6 million).
At least for the Angels, it will be the last year they must pay Rendon. The seven-year, $245-million contract he signed before the 2020 season is one of the worst in sports history. He’s hit a grand total of 22 home runs in six seasons and hasn’t played more than 58 games in any single season. This year he isn’t expected to play because of a hip injury.
Guaranteeing a player an enormous sum of money and watching him disappoint is a risk teams take regardless of the sport. Witness Watson in the NFL and Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal (five years, $250 million) in the NBA.
Gilgeous-Alexander is considered a low-risk signing because of his youth, his makeup and the fact that NBA players maintain their peak performance longer than those in the NFL and MLB, where catastrophic injuries are more frequent.
The NBA scoring leader is only 26. Until his extension begins in the 2027-2028 season, he’ll have to make do with $38 million next season and $40 million the following year.
His total over the next six seasons will be $363 million and he still could be playing at a high enough level to merit another mega-deal. Although history has proven that by then, another player will have eclipsed what for now is a staggering salary.
He’s made 1,378 senior appearances, had his debut in 1997 and is the oldest player at the Club World Cup.
Fluminense’s Brazilian goalkeeper Fabio Deivson Lopes Maciel has already had some career – and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
The 44-year-old starred in Monday’s 2-0 win over Inter Milan to help the Brazilian side into the Club World Cup quarter-final, against either Man City or Al-Hilal.
He produced four saves, including a crucial late block with his legs, as the 2023 Copa Libertadores winners stunned this season’s Champions League runners-up, before celebrating in style.
He even makes 40-year-old teammate Thiago Silva seem young in comparison, although both made a mockery of their years in the 33C heat.
Just four days before, he made history with a record-breaking 507th clean sheet – overtaking former Italy international Gianluigi Buffon. The record is 508 now.
Now, he will have his eyes set on an even more impressive record – the most appearances in world football.
Even then, there are question marks about the actual tally Fabio is chasing.
Shilton is recorded as having played 1,249 games in his club career and a record 125 England appearances, taking him to 1,374 appearances.
So why isn’t Fabio, who has played his entire career in Brazil and has never played for his country despite winning the Under-19 World Cup in 1997, already the record holder?
According to England Football Online,, external Shilton played 13 times for England Under-23s, which would take us to the 1,387 tally Shilton believes he has.
California’s fight to rein in President Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles hinges on a 19th century law with a a blood-soaked origin and a name that seems pulled from a Spaghetti Western.
In a pivotal ruling this week, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered the federal government to hand over evidence to state authorities seeking to prove that the actions of troops in Southern California violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids soldiers from enforcing civilian laws.
“How President Trump has used and is using the federalized National Guard and the Marines since deploying them at the beginning of June is plainly relevant to the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote Wednesday in his order authorizing “limited expedited discovery.”
The Trump administration objected to the move and has already once gotten a sweeping Breyer ruling that would’ve limited White House authority over the troops overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
This time, the Northern District of California judge made clear he would “only allow discovery as to the Posse Comitatus Act” — signaling what could be the state’s last stand battle to prevent Marines and National Guard forces from participating in immigration enforcement.
The Posse Comitatus Act dates back to the aftermath of the Civil War when the American government faced violent resistance to its efforts to rebuild Southern state governments and enforce federal law following the abolition of slavery.
The text of the law itself is slight, its relevant section barely more than 60 words. Yet when it was enacted, it served as the legal epitaph to Reconstruction — and a preface to Jim Crow.
“It has these very ignoble beginnings,” said Mark P. Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University and one of the country’s foremost experts on the statute.
Before the Civil War, the U.S. military was kept small, in part to avoid the kinds of abuses American colonists suffered under the British.
Authorities back then could marshal a crew of civilians, called a posse comitatus, to assist them, as sometimes happened in California during the Gold Rush. States also had militias that could be called up by the president to pad out the army in wartime.
But law enforcement by the U.S. military was rare and deeply unpopular. Historians have said the use of soldiers to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act — which saw escaped slaves hunted down and returned to the South — helped spark the Civil War.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has used constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to justify using troops to round up immigrants. Experts said leaders from the antebellum South demanded similar enforcement of the law.
“The South was all for posse comitatus when it came to the Fugitive Slave Act,” said Josh Dubbert, a historian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library in Ohio.
But by the time Congress sent federal troops to begin Reconstruction in earnest in 1867, the landscape was very different.
After white rioters razed Black neighborhoods in Memphis and mobs of ex-Confederate soldiers massacred Black demonstrators in New Orleans in the spring of 1866, “most of the South [was] turned into military districts,” said Jacob Calhoun, a professor of American history at Wabash College and an expert on Reconstruction.
“Most scholars, let alone the American public, do not understand the scale of racial violence during Reconstruction,” Calhoun said. “They only send these troops in after unimaginable levels of violence.”
At the polls, Black voters were met by white gangs seeking to prevent them from casting ballots.
“For most of American history, the idea of an American army intervening in elections is a nightmare,” Calhoun said. “[Posse Comitatus] is reemphasizing this longstanding belief but for more nefarious purposes.”
The Posse Comitatus language was tucked into an appropriations bill by Southern Democrats after their party won control of Congress in the election of 1876 — “possibly the most violent election in American history,” Calhoun said.
Historians say white lawmakers in the post-war South sought to enshrine their ability to keep Black men from voting by barring federal forces from bolstering the local militias that protected them.
“Once they’re in control of Congress, they want to cut the appropriations for the army,” Dubbert said. “They attach this amendment to [their appropriations bill] which is the Posse Comitatus Act.”
The bill won support from some Republicans, who resented the use of federalized troops to put down the Railroad Strike of 1877 — the first national labor strike in the U.S.
“It is a moment in which white Northern congressmen surrender the South back to ex-Confederates,” Calhoun said. “With the Posse Comitatus Act, racial violence becomes the norm.”
Yet the statute itself largely vanished from memory, little used for most of the next century.
“The Posse Comitatus Act was forgotten for about 75 years, from after Reconstruction to basically the 1950s, when a defense lawyer made a challenge to a piece of evidence that the Army had obtained,” Nevitt said. “The case law is [all] after World War II.”
Those cases have largely turned on troops who arrest, search, seize or detain civilians — “the normal thing the LAPD does on a daily basis,” Nevitt said. The courts have stood by the bedrock principle that military personnel should not be used to enforce the law against civilians, he said, except in times of rebellion or other extreme scenarios.
“Our nation was forged in large part because the British military was violating the civil rights of colonists in New England,” Nevitt said. “I really can’t think of a more important question than the military’s ability to use force against Americans.”
Yet, the law is full of loopholes, scholars said — notably in relation to use of the National Guard.
Department of Justice has argued Posse Comitatus does not apply to the military’s current actions in Southern California — and even if it did, the soldiers deployed there haven’t violated the law. It also claimed the 9th Circuit decision endorsing Trump’s authority to call up troops rendered the Posse Comitatus issue moot.
Some experts feel California’s case is strong.
“You literally have military roaming the streets of Los Angeles with civilian law enforcement,” said Shilpi Agarwal, legal director of the ACLU of Northern California, “That’s exactly what the [act] is designed to prevent.”
But Nevitt was more doubtful. Even if Breyer ultimately rules that Trump’s troops are violating the law and grants the injunction California is seeking, the 9th Circuit will almost certainly strike it down, he said.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” the attorney said. “And if they find a way to get to the Supreme Court, I see the Supreme Court siding with Trump as well.”
Violence begets violence, so many religions say. Americans should know. After all, the United States – a nation founded on Indigenous genocide, African enslavement and open rebellion against an imperial power to protect its wealthiest citizens – cannot help but be violent. What’s more, violence in the US is political, and the violence the country has carried out overseas over the generations has always been connected to its imperialist ambitions and racism. From the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on June 21 to the everyday violence in rhetoric and reality within the US, the likes of President Donald Trump continue to stoke the violent impulses of a violence‑prone nation.
The US news cycle serves as continual confirmation. In June alone, there have been several high‑profile shootings and murders. On June 14, Vance Boelter, a white male vigilante, shot and killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, after critically wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. That same day, at a No Kings mass protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, peacekeepers with the 50501 Movement accidentally shot and killed Samoan fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo while attempting to take down Arturo Gamboa, who was allegedly armed with an AR‑15.
On June 1, the start of Pride Month, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez allegedly shot and murdered gay Indigenous actor Jonathan Joss in San Antonio, Texas. On June 12, Secret Service agents forcibly detained and handcuffed US Senator Alex Padilla during Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles.
Mass shootings, white vigilante violence, police brutality, and domestic terrorism are all normal occurrences in the United States – and all are political. Yet US leaders still react with hollow platitudes that reveal an elitist and narcissistic detachment from the nation’s violent history. “Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God bless the great people of Minnesota…” said Governor Tim Walz after Boelter’s June 14 shootings. On X, Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden wrote: “Political violence has no place in America. I fully condemn this attack…”
Despite these weak condemnations, the US often tolerates – and sometimes celebrates – political violence. Van Orden also tweeted, “With one horrible governor that appoints political assassins to boards. Good job, stupid,” in response to Walz’s message. Senator Mike Lee referred to the incident as “Nightmare on Waltz Street” before deleting the post.
Political violence in the US is commonplace. President Trump has long fostered it – such as during a presidential debate in Philadelphia, when he falsely claimed Haitian immigrants “eat their neighbours’ pets”. This led to weeks of threats against the roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. On June 9, Trump posted on Truth Social: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT… harder than they have ever been hit before.”
That led to a federally-sanctioned wave of violence against protesters in Los Angeles attempting to end Trump’s immigration crackdowns, including Trump’s takeover and deployment of California’s National Guard in the nation’s second-largest city.
But it’s not just that Trump may have a lust for political violence and is stoking such violence. The US has always been a powder keg for violence, a nation-state that cannot help itself.
Political violence against elected officials in the US is too extensive to list fully. Assassins murdered Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy. In 1804, Vice‑President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Populist candidate Huey Long was assassinated in 1935; Robert F Kennedy in 1968; Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was wounded in 2011.
Many assassins and vigilantes have targeted those fighting for social justice: Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Marsha P. Johnson, and civil‑rights activists like Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, and Fred Hampton. Jonathan Joss and Arthur Folasa Ah Loo are more recent examples of marginalised people struck down in a white‑supremacist society.
The most chilling truth of all is that, because of the violent nature of the US, there is no end in sight – domestically or overseas. The recent US bomb mission over Iran is merely the latest unprovoked preemptive attack the superpower has conducted on another nation. Trump’s unilateral use of military force was done, presumably, in support of Israel’s attacks on Iran, allegedly because of the threat Iran poses if it ever arms itself with nuclear weapons. But these are mere excuses that could also be violations of international law.
It wouldn’t be the first time the US has sought to start a war based on questionable intelligence or reasons, however. The most recent example, of course, is the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a part of George W Bush’s “preemptive war” doctrine, attacking Iraq because they supposedly had a stockpile of WMDs that they could use against the US in the future. There was never any evidence of any stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. As many as 2.4 million Iraqis have died from the resulting violence, statelessness, and civil war that the initial 2003 US invasion created. It has not gone unnoticed that the US mostly bombs and invades nation-states with majority people of colour and non-Christian populations.
Malcolm X said it best, a week after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F Kennedy in 1963: “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” Given that Americans consume nine billion chickens a year, that is a huge amount of retribution to consider for the nation’s history of violence. Short of repealing the Second Amendment’s right-to-bear-guns clause in the US Constitution and a real commitment towards eliminating the threat of white male supremacist terrorism, this violence will continue unabated, with repercussions that will include terrorism and revenge, domestically and internationally. A country with a history of violence, elitism, and narcissism like the US – and an individual like Trump – cannot divorce themselves from their own violent DNA, a violence that could one day consume this nation-state.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Zohran Mamdani is a stylish, millennial, African-born Muslim with a Hollywood pedigree who just won the Democratic primary in the New York City mayor’s race.
If he sounds like Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, he just might be. But he’s also a lot like him.
They’re both charismatic leaders who have bucked their parties, tapped into the current political ethos that eschews traditional loyalties and by doing so, made themselves popular enough with fed-up voters to win elections when — to many in the political elite — they seem exactly like the kind of candidate who shouldn’t be able to get their grandmother’s vote.
“Working-class people want somebody who really takes on the status quo, who pushes an economic populist agenda and convinces them that something’s going to change,” Lorena Gonzalez told me.
She’s the head of the California Labor Federation, which represents unions, and even she’s fed up with Democrats.
“There are days that I’m like, why am I still in this party?” she said. “When I see them cozy up to tech, when I see this abundance issue that streamlines worker protections, when I see this fascination with billionaires and this acquiescing to not taxing billionaires and not doing anything about rent control, you know, there’s a point where I’m like, come on, grow some balls, go decide who you’re for.”
Or, as Trump put it in a social media post after Mamdani’s win, “Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!”
Trump is right, words that I don’t often say — Mamdani’s victory may signal something deeper than a lone mayor’s race on the East Coast. People — both on the left and the right — crave authenticity, and want someone to believe in, be it an orange-hued boomer or a brown-skinned hipster.
The Democrats, as political strategist Mike Madrid put it, are having their own Tea Party moment, when populist anger eats the old guard, as it did beginning in 2007 when the far-right of the Republican party began its now-successful takeover. Trump was never the impetus of the party’s swing to the fringe, he just capitalized on it.
“This is just a populist revolt of the Democratic Party against the establishment base,” Madrid said.
There’s been ad nauseam amounts of pontificating about the current state of the Democratic party. Should it go more centrist? Should it embrace the progressive end? But the truth is the voters have already decided. They do indeed want lower grocery prices, as Trump promised but failed to deliver. But they also want democracy to not crumble. And they want to buy a house, and maybe not have their neighbors deported. But really, in that order.
And they don’t trust many, if not most, of the current Democrats in office to deliver. Like Republicans before them, they want outsiders (Mamdani, 33, is serving in the state Assembly), or at least someone who can sound like one.
Gonzalez spends a lot of time talking to voters and she said left and right, Democrat and Republican, they see few differences remaining between the two parties, and are tired of voting for career politicians who haven’t delivered on economic issues.
Mamdani, whose mother is the film director Mira Nair (and who once rapped under the name Young Cardamom), campaigned on “a New York you can afford.” That included freezing payments on rent-controlled apartments, building new affordable housing with union labor, making both transit and child care free and — you guessed it — cheaper groceries. Whether he delivers or not, those were messages that a broad swath of New Yorkers, struggling like all of us with the cost of living, wanted to hear.
Which, of course, is how Trump made his own rise, promising, with showman verve, to be the voice of the toiling voiceless who increasingly are in danger of becoming the working poor. Yes, he is a con man who is clearly for the rich. But still, he knows how to deliver a line to his base: “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs.”
That may be the biggest lesson for California, where we will soon be voting for a new governor from a crowded field — of establishment candidates. Even Kamala Harris, maybe especially Harris, fits that insider image, and certainly Gavin Newsom, despite zigzagging from centrist to pugilist, can’t forward his presidential ambitions as anything but old-guard.
“What makes someone like Zohran so compelling, is even if you don’t agree with him on everything, which few voters do, you understand that he believes it and that you know where he’s coming from,” said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, a PAC that recruits young progressives to run for office.
“I think that’s the distinction between him and say someone like Gavin Newsom, which is, like, does Gavin believe what he says? Does he buy his own bull—? It’s sort of unclear,” Litman added.
The anger of voters is strikingly clear, though, especially for ones who have for so long been loyal to Democrats. A new Pew analysis out this week found that about 20% of the Republican base is now nonwhite, nearly doubling what it was in 2016. Republicans have made gains with Black voters, Asian voters and Trump drew nearly half of Latino voters. Ouch.
“One of the real challenges for the Democrats is two central pieces of the orthodoxy has been that they are the party of the working class and that they are the party of nonwhite voters,” Madrid said. “Both of those are increasingly proving untrue, and the question then becomes, well, how do you get them back? The way you get them back is by having some sort of economic populist policy framework.”
Litman said that the way to capture voters is by running new candidates, the kind who don’t come with history — and baggage. In the 36 hours after Mamdani was elected, her organization had 1,100 people sign up to learn more about how to run for office themselves, she said. It’s the biggest spike since the inauguration, and it shows that voters aren’t disinterested in democracy, but alienated from the existing options.
“The establishment is not unbeatable. They’re only unchallenged,” Litman said. “And I think the more that the Democratic Party establishment, as much as it exists, can understand that the people and the playbooks that got us here will not be the people and playbooks that get us out of it, the better off we’ll be.”
So maybe there are more Mamdani’s out there, waiting to lead the way. If Democrats are looking for advice, Trump may have offered the best I’ve seen in a while — highlighting the insider/outsider Democrats who have, like Mamdani, made their name by rattling the establishment.
“I have an idea for the Democrats to bring them back into ‘play,’” he wrote on social media. “After years of being left out in the cold, including suffering one of the Greatest Losses in History, the 2024 Presidential Election, the Democrats should nominate Low IQ Candidate, Jasmine Crockett, for President, and AOC+3 should be, respectively, Vice President, and three High Level Members of the Cabinet — Added together with our future Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani and our Country is really SCREWED!”
Johannesburg, South Africa – On the night of June 27, 1985 in South Africa, four Black men were travelling together in a car from the southeastern city of Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, to Cradock.
They had just finished doing community organising work on the outskirts of the city when apartheid police officials stopped them at a roadblock.
The four – teachers Fort Calata, 29, and Matthew Goniwe, 38; school principal Sicelo Mhlauli, 36; and railway worker Sparrow Mkonto, 34 – were abducted and tortured.
Later, their bodies were found dumped in different parts of the city – they had been badly beaten, stabbed and burned.
The police and apartheid government initially denied any involvement in the killings. However, it was known that the men were being surveilled for their activism against the gruelling conditions facing Black South Africans at the time.
Soon after, evidence of a death warrant that had been issued for some members of the group was anonymously leaked, and later, it emerged that their killings had long been planned.
Though there were two inquests into the murders – both under the apartheid regime in 1987 and 1993 – neither resulted in any perpetrator being named or charged.
“The first inquest was conducted entirely in Afrikaans,” Lukhanyo Calata,Ford Calata’s son, told Al Jazeera earlier this month. “My mother and the other mothers were never offered any opportunity in any way whatsoever to make statements in that,” the 43-year-old lamented.
“These were courts in apartheid South Africa. It was a completely different time where it was clear that four people were murdered, but the courts said no one could be blamed for that.”
Soon after apartheid ended in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up. There, hearings confirmed the “Cradock Four” were indeed targeted for their political activism. Although a few former apartheid officers confessed to being involved, they would not disclose the details and were denied amnesty.
Now, four decades after the killings, a new inquest has begun. Although justice has never seemed closer, for families of the deceased, it has been a long wait.
“For 40 years, we’ve waited for justice,” Lukhanyo told local media this week. “We hope this process will finally expose who gave the orders, who carried them out, and why,” he said outside the court in Gqeberha, where the hearings are taking place.
As a South African journalist, it’s almost impossible to cover the inquiry without thinking about the extent of crimes committed during apartheid – crimes by a regime so committed to propping up its criminal, racist agenda that it took it to its most violent and deadly end.
There are many more stories like Calata’s, many more victims like the Cradock Four, and many more families still waiting to hear the truth of what happened to their loved ones.
The coffins of the Cradock Four were carried to their funeral service in the Cradock township of Lingelihle in South Africa, on July 20, 1985 [Greg English/Reuters]
Known victims
Attending the court proceedings in Gqeberha and watching the families reminded me of Nokhutula Simelane.
More than 10 years ago, I travelled to Bethal in the Mpumalanga province to speak with her family about her disappearance in 1983. Simelane joined Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which was the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) – the liberation movement turned majority ruling party in South Africa.
As an MK operative, she worked as a courier taking messages and parcels between South Africa and what was then Swaziland.
Simelane was lured to a meeting in Johannesburg and it was from there that she was kidnapped and held in police custody, tortured and disappeared.
Her family says they still feel the pain of not being able to bury her.
At the TRC, five white men from what was the special branch of the apartheid police, applied for amnesty related to Simelane’s abduction and presumed murder.
Former police commander Willem Coetzee, who headed the security police unit, denied ordering her killing. But that was countered by testimony from his colleague that she was brutally murdered and buried somewhere in what is now the North West province. Coetzee previously said Simelane was turned into an informant and was sent back to Swaziland.
Until now, no one has taken responsibility for her disappearance – not the apartheid security forces nor the ANC.
The case of the Cradock Four also made me think of anti-apartheid activist and South African Communist Party member, Ahmed Timol, who was tortured and killed in 1971 but whose murder was also covered up.
Apartheid police said the 29-year-old teacher fell out of a 10th-floor window at the notorious John Vorster Square police headquarters in Johannesburg, where he was being held. An inquest the following year concluded he had died by suicide, at a time when the apartheid government was known for its lies and cover-ups.
Decades later, a second inquest under the democratic government in 2018 found that Timol had been so badly tortured in custody that he would never have been able to jump out of a window.
It was only then that former security branch officer Joao Rodrigues was formally charged with Timol’s murder. The elderly Rodrigues rejected the charges and applied for a permanent stay of prosecution, saying he would not receive a fair trial because he was unable to properly recall events at the time of Timol’s death, given the number of years that have passed. Rodrigues died in 2021.
‘A crime against his humanity’
Apartheid was brutal. And for the people left behind, unresolved trauma and unanswered questions are the salt in the deep wounds that remain.
Which is why families like those of the Cradock Four are still at the courts, seeking answers.
In her testimony before the court this month, 73-year-old Nombuyiselo Mhlauli,wife of Sicelo Mhlauli, described the state of her husband’s body when she received his remains for burial. He had more than 25 stab wounds in the chest, seven in the back, a gash across his throat and a missing right hand, she said.
I spoke to Lukhanyo a day before he returned to court to continue his testimony in the hearing for his father’s killing.
He talked about how emotionally draining the process had been – yet vital. He also spoke about his work as a journalist, growing up without a father, and the impact it’s had on his life and outlook.
“There were crimes committed against our humanity. If you look at the state in which my father’s body was found, that was a clear crime against his humanity, completely,” Lukhanyo testified on the sixth day of the inquest.
But his frustration and anger do not end with the apartheid government. He holds the ANC, which has been in power since the end of apartheid, partly responsible for taking too long to adequately address these crimes.
Lukhanyo believes the ANC betrayed the Cradock Four, and this betrayal “cut the deepest”.
“Today we are sitting with a society that is completely lawless,” he said in court. “[This is] because at the start of this democracy, we did not put in the proper processes to tell the rest of society that you will be held accountable for things that you have done wrong.”
Fort Calata’s grandfather, the Reverend Canon James Arthur Calata, was the secretary-general of the ANC from 1939 to 1949. The Calata family has a long history with the liberation movement, which makes it all the more difficult for someone like Lukhanyo to understand why it’s taken the party so long to deliver justice.
Seeking accountability and peace
The office of South Africa’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, says the department has intensified its efforts to deliver long-awaited justice and closure for families affected by apartheid-era atrocities.
“These efforts signal a renewed commitment to restorative justice and national healing,” the department said in a statement.
The murders of the Cradock Four, Simelane and Timol are among the horrors and stories we know about.
But I often wonder about all the names, victims and testimonies that remain hidden or buried.
The murders of countless mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters by the apartheid regime matter not only to those who cared for them but for the consciousness of South African society as a whole, no matter how normalised the tally of the dead has become.
It’s not clear how long this new inquest will take. It is expected to last several weeks, with former security police, political figures and forensic experts testifying.
Initially, six police officers were implicated in the killings. They have all since died, but family members of the Cradock Four say senior officials who gave the orders should be held responsible.
The state, however, is reluctant to pay the legal costs of apartheid police officers implicated in the murders, and that may slow down the process.
Meanwhile, as the families wait for answers about what happened to their loved ones and accountability for those responsible, they are trying to make peace with the past.
“I’ve been on my own, trying to bring up children – fatherless children,” Nombuyiselo told Al Jazeera outside the court about the years since her husband Sicelo’s death. “The last 40 years have been very difficult for me – emotionally, and also spiritually.”
DENVER — Clayton Kershaw got to the precipice of history on Thursday afternoon. And now, when he inevitably crosses the 3,000 career strikeout milepost, it will almost certainly happen on his home mound.
In the Dodgers’ 3-1 win against the Colorado Rockies, Kershaw struck out five batters over a six-inning, one-run start to move to 2,997 punchouts for his career.
For a moment, it seemed as if Kershaw might be able to eclipse the threshold on Thursday. At the end of the sixth inning, he had thrown only 69 pitches while mowing through a free-swinging Rockies lineup.
Alas, manager Dave Roberts gave his 37-year-old left-hander an early hook, turning a narrow late-game lead over to his bullpen — and preserving the opportunity for Kershaw’s milestone moment to happen back at Dodger Stadium during next week’s homestand.
“I would argue there might be a temptation to take him out [today] and let him go for it in front of the home fans,” Roberts said pregame, when asked if he would consider extending Kershaw’s leash to let him chase his 3,000th strikeout on Thursday. “I’m not going to force anything.”
Ever since Kershaw returned from offseason foot and knee surgeries in May, and showed an ability to produce even with a diminished fastball and increasing mileage on his arm, his pursuit of 3,000 strikeouts has felt less like an “if” than a “when.”
Entering Thursday, his career total was up to 2,992, leaving him just eight shy of becoming the 20th pitcher in MLB history, and only the fourth left-hander, to join the prestigious 3K club.
“I guess ultimately the last box he needs to check for his future Hall of Fame career is that 3,000-strikeout threshold,” Roberts said. “We’re all waiting in anticipation.”
More impressively, though, Kershaw has been winning games and limiting runs for the Dodgers (51-31), improving to 4-0 with a 3.03 earned-run average through eight starts this season.
“I think there’s good days and bad days, good pitches and bad pitches,” Kershaw said. “Not as consistent, not as perfect as I would want. But the results have been OK. And at the end of the day, we’re winning games that I’ve been on the mound. So I’m thankful for that. Just a product of being on a great team.”
Kershaw wasn’t exactly expecting to reach the 3,000 mark Thursday, acknowledging that “eight in Colorado is never going to be easy to do.”
Over his first two innings, however, he quickly inched closer. Thairo Estrada whiffed on a curveball in the first inning. And though Brenton Doyle hit a solo homer in the second, Kershaw set Michael Toglia and Orlando Arcia both down swinging with a slider and curveball, respectively.
“I just love that edge that he gives each start day,” Roberts said. “We certainly feed off that.”
Kershaw didn’t get another strikeout until the end of the fifth, retiring the side with a slider that froze Braxton Fulford for a called third strike. An inning before that, he was bailed out by his defense after his lone walk, when Miguel Rojas turned a spinning double-play up the line at third base to erase the free pass.
“It could’ve been one run in, runner on second, nobody out,” Kershaw said. “So to turn that double-play there was kind of a game-changer. … Biggest play of the day.”
Still, in the sixth, all eyes returned to Kershaw’s strikeout total after Tyler Freeman was rung up on a generous outside strike call to finish off an eight-pitch at-bat.
Though it would have required striking out the side, Kershaw was as little as one inning away from No. 3,000.
Instead, Roberts decided to end his day, ensuring that the next time Kershaw takes the mound — likely to be next Wednesday at home against the Chicago White Sox — he will need only three more strikeouts to do something only two pitchers before have ever done: Have a 3,000-strikeout career while playing for only one team.
“It would be very special,” Kershaw said of potentially reaching the milestone at Dodger Stadium. “It would be.”
Ohtani to pitch Saturday
While Kershaw mowed through the Rockies (18-63), Shohei Ohtani delivered the biggest swing of the day for the Dodgers, padding what was only a 2-1 lead in the seventh with a solo home run to right, his NL-leading 28th of the year.
The blast came hours after the other big news of the day, with Roberts confirming pregame that the two-way star will make his next start as a pitcher on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals.
That game will mark Ohtani’s third pitching outing of the season and could be his first in which he goes beyond the first inning. Last week, Roberts hinted at the possibility of Ohtani — who is still building up in his return from Tommy John surgery — pitching into the second inning, but he has continued to leave any final decisions open-ended.
THE HAGUE — President Trump’s gamble in bombing Iran offers significant rewards if it succeeded in destroying Tehran’s nuclear program — and historic risks if it did not. He will get credit for success only if he acknowledges the consequences of failure.
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‘You were a man of strength’
Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, and other lawmakers hold a news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday.
(Bloomberg)
There are critics of Trump’s decision to order strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. A segment of the president’s base is worried about another military entanglement in the Middle East, and a contingent of Democrats are concerned that he operated outside his constitutional authorities to wage war. But majority support exists on a bipartisan basis across Washington and among U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East for the president’s military actions, which was on display at the NATO summit in The Hague this week.
“You were a man of strength, but you were also a man of peace,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, told the president as they met in the Netherlands, “and the fact that you are now also successful in getting the ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to commend you for it — I think this is important for the whole world.”
At a cocktail reception in the center of the old city, where haunting Ukrainian music played in the nearby town square, Democratic senators emphasized their hope that Trump’s military strikes prove to be an operational success.
“If we have in fact either taken out Iran’s nuclear program,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, sitting alongside Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, “or badly set it back, in ways that mean that they’re not going to get a nuclear weapon anytime soon, I think that is a good thing.”
And former President Biden’s secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, also expressed hope that the strikes succeeded, despite criticizing the resort to military action in the first place. “Now that the military die has been cast,” he wrote in the New York Times, “I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage.”
For two decades, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have warned of peril to the region and the world if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons — but also of Tehran’s ability to rest comfortably at the threshold of that weapons capability, in a Goldilocks position that allows them to enjoy the strategic benefits of nuclear statehood without incurring the costs.
For more than a decade, a consensus of national security and intelligence experts in Washington has assessed that Iran made a strategic decision to park itself there, holding that capability like a sword of Damocles over the international community as it fueled militant organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, undermining U.S. interests and regional stability.
Whether or not Tehran was preparing to “break out” toward a warhead, Trump’s military action was an effort to remove that years-old threat and change the strategic paradigm — a move that has won praise from European leaders and Democrats who have grown weary of decades of diplomacy with Iran that barely moved the needle.
A 2015 nuclear agreement between six world powers and Tehran was designed to oversee Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But the deal allowed Iran to maintain its domestic enrichment program, and had provisions under which caps on its enrichment capacity would expire starting this year.
“There is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week. “Yes, it is not without risk. But leaving things as they were was not an option either.”
‘That hit ended the war’
Yet the risks of failure are significant.
Trump’s predecessors feared that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, regardless of their tactical success, could give Tehran the political justification to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and openly pursue nuclear arms, driving its program further underground and out of sight. In the worst-case scenario, enough of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure could remain intact for Tehran to race to a bomb within days or weeks.
“In war-gaming the military option during my time in the Biden administration, we were also concerned that Iran had or would spread its stockpile of uranium already enriched to just short of weapons grade to various secure sites and preserve enough centrifuges to further enrich that stockpile in short order,” Blinken wrote. “In that scenario, the Iranian regime could hide its near weapons-grade material, greenlight weaponization and sprint toward a bomb.”
A preliminary report on the U.S. raid, called Operation Midnight Hammer, from the Defense Intelligence Agency lends credence to those concerns. The low-confidence assessment, largely based on satellite imagery of Iran’s bombed sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, indicates that its core nuclear capabilities remain intact after the strikes despite the U.S. deployment of exceptionally powerful “bunker-buster” weapons, according to one official familiar with its findings. The Trump administration has acknowledged the authenticity of the assessment, first reported by CNN.
Satellite imagery captured days before the U.S. strike at Fordo also showed a line of trucks at the site, raising concerns that some of its enriched uranium had been removed at the last minute — a fear that Israeli officials have acknowledged to The Times.
The Defense Intelligence Agency is only one of 18 such federal agencies that will examine the operation’s success, and the Israelis will conduct their own review. But the reaction from Trump and his team to the leaked report suggests they view anything but success as a political liability that must be publicly denied.
“That hit ended the war,” Trump told reporters in The Hague, blasting the reporters who broke the story as “idiots” seeking to “demean” the pilots who conducted the mission. “We had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit.”
“What they’ve done is they’re trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less,” he said.
The president’s resistance to the possibility of failure, or of only partial success, in the military operation could hamper the response to come. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday described the strikes as a moment that reinforced his government’s determination to pursue “nuclear technologies.”
“The aggression of Israel and the United States will have a positive impact on Iran’s desire to continue developing its nuclear program,” Araghchi said. “It strengthens our will, makes us more determined and persistent.”
Pressed by another reporter on whether the preliminary assessment was correct, Trump replied, “Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive,” indicating he had concluded the operation was a success before the intelligence community had completed its work.
“The intelligence says we don’t know it could have been very severe, that’s what the intelligence says,” he added. “So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take that we don’t know — it was very significant. It was obliteration.”
‘It was a flawless mission’
It would not be the first time the Trump administration has politicized a U.S. intelligence assessment. But the Israeli government, which sees existential stakes in Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, may be less likely to exaggerate the impacts of the operation, acutely aware of the consequences of a grave intelligence failure for its security.
An initial Israeli assessment tracks with the president’s view that the nuclear program has been in effect destroyed.
“The devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement, pushed by the White House on Wednesday. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
“This achievement can continue indefinitely,” the statement continued, “if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.”
On Wednesday, an Israeli official told The Times that its initial assessment of the damage would be supplemented by additional intelligence work. “I can’t say it’s a final assessment, because we’re less than a week after,” the official said, “but that’s the indication we have now.”
Still, just like in the United States, multiple organizations within Israel’s national security apparatus are expected to weigh in with assessments. The Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, has yet to complete its review of the operation, an Israeli official said.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said Wednesday that its nuclear installations were “badly damaged” by the U.S. strikes. But it remains unclear whether Iran was able to move fissile material and enrichment equipment to another facility before the strikes occurred — or whether it had previously hidden material in reserve, anticipating the possibility of an attack.
All of those pressing questions, to Trump and his aides, are the chatter of critics.
“It was a flawless mission,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in The Hague. “Flawless,” Trump replied, nodding in approval.
SACRAMENTO — California really does still have a Legislature, even if you haven’t been reading or hearing much about it. In fact, it’s currently making a ton of weighty decisions.
They’ll affect many millions of Californians — with a gamut of new laws and hefty spending.
Plus congressional wrangling over Trump’s “Big Beautiful” ugly, debt-hiking bill — and the eruption of a Middle East war.
Meanwhile, it’s one of the busiest and most important periods of the year in the state Capitol. This is budget time, when the Legislature and governor decide how to spend our tax dollars.
The Legislature passed a $325-billion so-called budget June 13, beating its constitutional deadline by two days. If it hadn’t, the lawmakers would have forfeited their pay. But although that measure counted legally as a budget, it lacked lots of details that still are being negotiated between legislative leaders and Newsom.
The final agreements will be tucked into a supplementary measure amending the main budget bill. That will be followed by a long line of “trailer bills” containing even more policy specifics — all currently being hammered out, mostly in back rooms.
The target date for conclusion of this Byzantine process is Friday. The annual budget will take effect July 1.
Some budget-related issues are of special interest to me and I’ve written about them previously. So, the rest of this column is what we call in the news trade a “follow” — a report on where those matters stand.
Californians cast more votes for Proposition 36 last year than anything else on the ballot. The measure passed with 68% of the vote, carrying all 58 counties.
Inspired by escalating retail theft, the initiative toughened penalties for certain property and hard-drug crimes, such as peddling deadly fentanyl. But it offered a carrot to drug-addicted serial criminals. Many could be offered treatment rather than jail time.
Proposition 36 needs state money for the treatment, more probation officers to supervise the addicts’ progress and additional law enforcement costs. The measure’s backers estimate a $250-million annual tab.
Newsom, however, was an outspoken opponent of the proposition. He didn’t provide any funding for it in his original budget proposal and stiffed it again last month when revising the spending plan.
But legislative leaders insisted on some funding and agreed on a one-time appropriation of $110 million.
Woefully inadequate, the measure’s backers contend. They’re pushing for more. But some fear Newsom might even veto the $110 million, although this seems doubtful, given the public anger that could generate.
Greg Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn., which sponsored the initiative, says more money is especially needed to hire additional probation officers. Treatment without probation won’t work, he insists.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) is trying to change the $110-million allocation mix. There’s nothing earmarked for county sheriffs who now are handling lots more arrests, she says.
“I want to make sure we uphold the voters’ wishes and are getting people into drug treatment,” Blakespear says. “This passed by such a high percentage, it should be a priority for elected officials.”
Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) predicts the Legislature will still be fiddling with the budget until it adjourns in September and vows: “I’ll continue to advocate for adequate funding for 36.” He asserts the budget now being negotiated won’t hold up because of chaos under Trump, who’s constantly threatening to withhold federal money due California.
Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature decided a few years ago to generously offer all low-income undocumented immigrants access to Medi-Cal, California’s version of federal Medicaid for the poor.
But unlike Medi-Cal for legal residents, the federal government doesn’t kick in money for undocumented people. The state foots the entire bill. And it didn’t set aside enough. Predictably, state costs ran several billion dollars over budget.
The Newsom administration claims that more adults enrolled in the program than expected. But, come on! When free healthcare is offered to poor people, you should expect a race to enroll.
To help balance the books, Newsom proposed $100 monthly premiums. The Legislature reduced that to $30. They both agreed to freeze enrollments for adults starting Jan. 1.
The Legislature also wants to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for even more people who are non-citizens: those with what it considers “unsatisfactory immigration status.” What does that mean? Hopefully it’s being negotiated.
The governor wants to “fast-track” construction of the $20-billion, 45-mile tunnel that would transmit more Northern California water to Southern California. Delta farmers, local residents and coastal salmon interests are adamantly opposed. Fast-track means making it simpler to obtain permits and seize property.
Legislative leaders told the governor absolutely “No”: come back later and run his proposal through the ordinary committee process. Don’t try to fast-track the Legislature.
Iran remains the US’s adversary in the Middle East since the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
United States-Iran tensions have surged to the highest point in decades after President Donald Trump on Sunday ordered direct strikes that he said “obliterated” key nuclear facilities across the Middle Eastern country.
Iran remains the biggest adversary of the US in the region since the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled pro-Western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then, the two nations have sparred over a multitude of issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iran’s backing of proxies in the region, and US political interference.
Israel, which has long considered Iran a threat, launched unprecedented strikes across Iran last week after accusing the country of developing nuclear weapons. Israeli claims have not been backed by any credible proof, but Trump dragged the US into the war following the Israeli strikes.
On Sunday, the US directly hit Iran in what the Trump administration called a highly sophisticated covert attack that involved more than 125 US aircraft and 75 precision bombs. Washington said it “devastated” Iran’s nuclear sites, but Tehran has warned it will retaliate.
An IRGC soldier in his sandbag post in Khorramshahr, Iran, after UNSC Resolution 598 and commencement of ceasefire during the Iran-Iraq war [File: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images]
Here’s a timeline of US-Iran relations since 1953:
(1953) US-backed coup and reinstallation of the shah: Tensions initially began brewing over the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s efforts to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). The British colonial power controlled the majority stake in the joint-venture company since oil was discovered in the early 1900s. Mosaddegh’s moves to nationalise the company after his 1951 election angered the British. The US’s Central Intelligence Agency supported the United Kingdom in engineering a coup and backing once-deposed monarch, Pahlavi, back into power as shah.
(1957) Atoms for Peace: The shah’s ambitions for a nuclear-powered Iran gained support from the US and other Western allies. Both countries signed a nuclear agreement for the civilian use of nuclear power as part of then-US President Dwight D Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace programme. A decade later, the US provided Iran with a nuclear reactor and uranium to fuel it. The nuclear collaboration forms the basis for the current nuclear question.
(1979) Islamic revolution: While relations between Tehran and Washington flourished, Iranians groaned under the dictatorship of the shah and resisted the perceived overreach of Western influence on their business. Revolutionary protests began rocking the country in late 1978 and forced the shah to flee in January 1979. Exiled Islamic scholar Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to rule the new Islamic republic.
(1980) US cuts diplomatic ties: Following the US’s move to admit the shah for cancer treatment after his exile, Iranian students broke into the US embassy in Tehran and kidnapped 52 Americans for 444 days. Washington cut off diplomatic ties and imposed sanctions on the country. The shah died in exile.
(1980-88) US backs Iraqi invasion: Following Iraq’s invasion of Iran under Saddam Hussein, who was eager to push back against Khomeini’s ideology, the US sided with Iraq, deepening tensions between the two nations. The war lasted till 1988 and saw thousands die on both sides. Iraq also used chemical weapons on Iran.
(1984) Sponsor of terror designation: President Ronald Reagan officially designated Iran as a “state sponsor of terror” after a series of attacks in Lebanon, where the US had been drawn in after Israel invaded the country. In one attack on a military base in Beirut, 241 US service members were killed. The US blamed Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia movement backed by Iran. Later, though, Reagan worked with Iran behind the scenes to free American hostages held by Hezbollah. When it came to light, the Iran-Contra affair, as it was termed, was a huge scandal for Reagan.
(1988) Iran Air flight shot down: Amid war tensions and even direct attacks on each other’s military warships in the Gulf, a US naval ship breached Iranian waters and fired at the civilian Iran Air flight (IR655) headed to Dubai on July 8. All 290 people on board were killed. The US, which claimed it was a mistake, did not formally apologise or claim responsibility but paid families $61.8m as compensation.
(1995) Tighter sanctions: Between 1995 and 1996, the US imposed more sanctions. Then, President Bill Clinton’s executive orders banned US companies from dealing with Iran, while Congress passed a law penalising foreign entities investing in the country’s energy sector or selling Iran advanced weapons. The US cited nuclear advancement and support of groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
(2002) 9/11 aftermath: Following the 9/11 attacks on the US, President George W Bush, in a State of the Union address, said Iran was part of an “Axis of Evil” alongside Iraq and North Korea. At the time, Iran had been parlaying with the US behind the scenes to target their mutual foes – the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda. The cooperation was soured, and by the end of 2022, international observers noted highly enriched uranium in Iran, inviting more sanctions.
(2013) Iran nuclear deal: Between 2013 and 2015, US President Barack Obama began high-level talks with Iran. In 2015, Tehran agreed to the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that would limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for an easing of sanctions. China, Russia, France, Germany, the UK and the European Union were also party to the deal that capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent.
(2018) Trump withdraws from the nuclear deal: Under Trump’s first term, the US unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and slapped back sanctions against Iran. Trump and Israel had been critical of the deal. Iran also called off its commitments and began producing enriched uranium beyond the limits the deal had imposed.
(2020) IRGC leader assassinated: During Trump’s first term, the US killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in Baghdad in a drone strike. A year earlier, the administration had named the Quds Force a “terrorist” organisation. Iran responded with strikes on US assets in Iraq.
(2025) Letter to Tehran: In March, Trump shot off a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposing new negotiations on a nuclear deal with a deadline of 60 days. But Khamenei rejected the offer, saying the US is not seeking negotiations with Iran but rather imposing demands on it. Talks started unofficially in Oman and Italy, with Muscat acting as the mediator. Trump claimed his team was “very close” to a deal after several rounds of talks and warned Israel against strikes. Tehran, too, expressed optimism but insisted on the right to enrich uranium – a sticking point in the talks. Israel launched strikes across Iran a day before the sixth round of the Iran-US talks.
(2025) US strikes: The US bombed three key nuclear facilities in Iran, citing security concerns and the defence of Israel.
As president, Ronald Reagan spoke movingly of the shock and horror he felt as part of a military film crew documenting firsthand the atrocities of the Nazi death camps.
The story wasn’t true.
Years later, an adamant, finger-wagging Bill Clinton looked straight into a live TV camera and told the American people he never had sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
He was lying.
Presidents of all stripes and both major political parties have bent, massaged or shaded the truth, elided uncomfortable facts or otherwise misled the public — unwittingly or, sometimes, very purposefully.
“It’s not surprising,” said Charles Lewis, a journalism professor at American University who wrote a book chronicling presidential deceptions. “It’s as old as time itself.”
But White House scholars and other students of government agree there has never been a president like Donald Trump, whose volume of falsehoods, misstatements and serial exaggerations — on matters large and wincingly small — place him “in a class by himself,” as Texas A&M’s George Edwards put it.
“He is by far the most mendacious president in American history,” said Edwards, a political scientist who edits the scholarly journal Presidential Studies Quarterly. (His assessment takes in the whole of Trump’s hyperbolic history, as the former real estate developer and reality TV personality has only been in office since Jan. 20.)
Edwards then amended his assertion.
“I say ‘mendacious,’ which implies that he’s knowingly lying. That may be unfair,” Edwards said. “He tells more untruths than any president in American history.”
The caveat underscores the fraught use of the L-word, requiring, as it does, the certainty that someone is consciously presenting something as true that they know to be false. While there may be plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest a person is lying, short of crawling inside their head it is difficult to say with absolutely certainty.
When Trump incessantly talks of rampant voter fraud, boasts about the size of his inaugural audience or claims to have seen thousands of people on rooftops in New Jersey celebrating the Sept. 11 attacks, all are demonstrably false. “But who can say if he actually believes it,” asked Lewis, “or whether he’s gotten the information from some less-than-reliable news site?”
He tells more untruths than any president in American history.
— George Edwards, editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly
Reagan, who is now among the most beloved of former presidents, was famous for embroidering the truth, especially in the homespun anecdotes he loved to share.
In the case of the Nazi death camps, there was some basis for his claim to be an eyewitness to history: Serving stateside in Culver City during World War II, Reagan was among those who processed raw footage from the camps. In the sympathetic telling, the barbarity struck so deeply that Reagan years later assumed he had been present for the liberation.
Even when he admitted wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, which cast a dark stain on his administration, Reagan did so in a way that suggested he never meant to deceive.
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages,” Reagan said in a prime-time address from the Oval Office. “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”
Clinton, who famously parsed and tweezed the English language with surgical precision, offered a straight-up confession when admitting he lied about his extramarital affair with Lewinsky, which helped lead to his impeachment.
“I misled people, including even my wife,” Clinton said, a slight quaver in his voice as he delivered a nationwide address. “I deeply regret that.”
President Obama took his turn apologizing for promising “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it” under the Affordable Care Act; millions of Americans found that not to be true, and PolitiFact, the nonpartisan truth-squad organization, bestowed the dubious 2013 “Lie of the Year” honor for Obama’s repeated falsehood.
“We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place,” Obama said in an NBC interview. “I am sorry that so many are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”
Speaking at CIA headquarters, President Trump falsely accused the media of creating a feud between himself and the intelligence community.
(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)
Trump, by contrast, has steadfastly refused to back down, much less apologize, for his copious misstatements. Rather, he typically repeats his claims, often more strenuously, and lashes out at those who point out contrary evidence.
“There’s a degree of shamelessness I’ve never seen before,” said Lewis, the American University professor, echoing a consensus among other presidential scholars. “There’s not a whole lot of contrition there.”
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, has suggested Trump is unfairly being held to a more skeptical standard by a hostile press corps. “I’ve never seen it like this,” he said at one of his earliest briefings. “The default narrative is always negative, and it’s demoralizing.”
Gil Troy, a historian at Montreal’s McGill University, agreed the relationship between the president and those taking down his words has changed from the days when a new occupant of the White House enjoyed a more lenient standard — at least at the start of an administration — which allowed for the benefit of the doubt.
That, Troy said, is both Trump’s fault — “he brings a shamelessness and blatancy” to his prevarications that is without precedent — and the result of a press corps “that feels much more emboldened, much more bruised, much angrier” after the antagonism of his presidential campaign.
Since taking office, there has been no less hostility from on high; rather, echoing his pugnacious political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, Trump has declared the media to be the “opposition party.”
“We’re watching the birth pangs of a new press corps and a new series of protocols for covering the president,” Troy said.
England Under-21s have proved they have the fight to defend their European title.
The mass brawl at the final whistle, coupled with a brilliant Euro 2025 quarter-final victory over Spain on Saturday, removed any doubt these Young Lions could be a soft touch.
Charlie Cresswell promised pre-game there would be no lack of fight from England after their limp 2-1 loss to Germany and the Young Lions lived up to the billing.
Cresswell was at the heart of protecting his team-mates, with players willing to fight for each other following a late challenge on Tino Livramento seconds before the final whistle sounded on their 3-1 victory.
Similar scenes followed England’s Euro 2023 final victory over Spain and the defending champions are not willing to let their title go quietly.
They now face the Netherlands in the semi-finals on Wednesday after a performance full of class, style, guile and fight.
“There’s better ways to build camaraderie,” manager Lee Carsley joked afterwards. “But we had something similar in the final [in 2023]. Emotions run high in those scenarios, you don’t want anyone to get sent off or throw a punch.
“You can see what it means to the players, we probably have to give them a bit of leeway. Thankfully it didn’t go over the top, it’s still not nice to see. We are always trying to encourage younger players to take up football but the passion was just a bit much.”
James McAtee, scorer of England’s early opener, also epitomised the mood, the Manchester City midfielder ready and willing to dish it out.
He said: “We were the two big teams in the tournament, so them kicking off, we can’t just sit back and just let them do it. We have to give them a bit back, so I’m happy with the boys.”
Nikol Pashinyan’s visit marks Ankara and Yerevan’s second attempt at reconciliation.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is on a rare visit to Istanbul to hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in what Yerevan has described as a “historic” step towards regional peace.
The visit forms part of the two countries’ efforts to normalise ties strained over historical disputes and Ankara’s alliance with Azerbaijan, which has been in a long-simmering conflict with Armenia.
“This is a historic visit, as it will be the first time a head of the Republic of Armenia visits Turkiye at this level. All regional issues will be discussed,” Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters on Friday. “The risks of war [with Azerbaijan] are currently minimal, and we must work to neutralise them. Pashinyan’s visit to Turkiye is a step in that direction.”
Pashinyan’s visit comes a day after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks in Turkiye with Erdogan, during which he praised the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance as “a significant factor, not only regionally but also globally”, and Erdogan reiterated his support for “the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia”.
Baku and Yerevan agreed on the text of a peace deal in March, but Baku has since outlined a host of demands, including changes to Armenia’s constitution, that it wants met before it will sign the document.
Pashinyan is scheduled to meet Erdogan at Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace at 15:00 GMT, Erdogan’s office said.
An Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told the AFP news agency that the pair will discuss efforts to sign a comprehensive peace treaty.
The regional fallout from the Israel-Iran conflict, which began last Friday when Israel launched several waves of air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and military sites, will also be discussed.
Armenia and Turkiye have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since 1993.
Attempts at normalisation
Relations between the two nations have been historically strained over the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire – atrocities historians and Yerevan say amount to genocide. Turkiye rejects the label, contending that while many people died in that era, the death toll is inflated and the deaths resulted from civil unrest.
Ankara has also backed its close ally, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, in the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia. This region, which had a mostly ethnic Armenian population at the time, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia in the late 1980s. In 2020, Turkiye backed Azerbaijan in its second war with Armenia, which ended after six weeks with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of the region.
Pashinyan has actively sought to normalise relations with both Baku and Ankara.
Ankara and Yerevan appointed special envoys in late 2021 to lead a normalisation process, and resumed commercial flights in 2022 after a two-year pause.
Earlier this year, Pashinyan announced Armenia would halt its campaign for international recognition of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide – a major concession to Turkiye that sparked widespread criticism at home.
Pashinyan’s first visit to Turkiye was to attend Erdogan’s inauguration in 2023.
This is Ankara and Yerevan’s second attempt at reconciliation. Turkiye and Armenia reached an agreement in 2009 to establish formal relations and open their shared border, but the deal was never ratified because of strong opposition from Azerbaijan.
Love Island fans were treated to a night of non-stop drama and arguments in tonight’s episode, with some hailing the episode one of the best in the ITV2 show’s history
Tensions are rising in the Love Island villa as tonight saw fights, drama and admissions. The fallout from the eBay party continued tonight – with the latest challenge causing some of the most dramatic scenes in Love Island history, according to fans.
It came just after Harry and Yasmin headed for a kiss in the hideaway, leaving Helena and many of the other Islander’s fuming.
Although they all tried to sneak a peek, they were left unaware that the couple had shared three kisses, until all was revealed in the epic game, Look Who’s Talking.
In the explosive game, the Islanders each took a card, with a quote written on it. They then collectively decided which of their fellow Islanders said it – which of course, caused a whole load of drama.
Yasmin and Harry’s kiss caused chaos in the villa(Image: ITV)
It was in the game where it was revealed Harry and Yasmin shared not one, not two, but three kisses in the Hideaway, leaving Helena fuming.
The moment came after Remell read out the card: “Do you think I should kiss her? Is that what you’re saying? Kiss Yas, because I will,” as the Islanders guessed it was Harry’s words.
Once he was exposed, Harry who is currently coupled up with Helena revealed that the words came out his mouth last night after the two shared a kiss in the challenge.
He finally admitted the pair had shared a kiss in the Hideaway “twice.” However, Yasmin left the villa stunned when she corrected him by saying: “It was three times actually.”
The Islanders were left shocked by tonight’s revelations
Helena’s friend Megan was left fuming at Harry for lying as she exclaimed: “You owe it to Helena to be f*****g honest, you p***k!”
It wasn’t the only time Harry was in hot water during the game, as a number of his flirtatious comments to Yas were exposed, causing huge arguments around the fire pit.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter after the drama, one viewer penned: “nah this is the best love island season we’ve had in YEARS i’m enjoying this so bad #LoveIsland.”
A second agreed: “That might be one of the best episodes of Love Island ever. Like it deserves to be in the hall of fame #LoveIsland.”
Meanwhile, a third echoed: “I think this is the best episode ever!”
The drama comes after last night’s dumping with saw Malisha brutally dumped from the villa. It came after new bombshell Harrison chose to bring Toni back from the villa after dating both her and Malisha.
