order

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to uphold President Trump’s birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The appeal, shared with the Associated Press on Saturday, sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.

Lower-court judges have blocked them from taking effect anywhere. The Republican administration is not asking the court to let the restrictions take effect before it rules.

The Justice Department’s petition has been shared with lawyers for parties challenging the order, but is not yet docketed at the Supreme Court.

Any decision on whether to take up the case probably is months away and arguments probably would not take place until the late winter or early spring.

“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”

Cody Wofsy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said the administration’s plan is plainly unconstitutional.

“This executive order is illegal, full stop, and no amount of maneuvering from the administration is going to change that. We will continue to ensure that no baby’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this cruel and senseless order,” Wofsy said in an email.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term in the White House that would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.

While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or probably violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including formerly enslaved people, had citizenship.

The administration is appealing two cases.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.

Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.

Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.

The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

Sherman and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.

The acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento has said she was fired after telling the Border Patrol chief in charge of immigration raids in California that his agents were not allowed to arrest people without probable cause in the Central Valley.

Michele Beckwith, a career prosecutor who was made the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of California earlier this year, told the New York Times that she was let go after she warned Gregory Bovino, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, that a court injunction blocked him from carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in Sacramento.

Beckwith did not respond to a request for comment from the L.A. Times, but told the New York Times that “we have to stand up and insist the laws be followed.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

Bovino presided over a series of raids in Los Angeles starting in June in which agents spent weeks pursuing Latino-looking workers outside of Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and other areas. The agents often wore masks and used unmarked vehicles.

But such indiscriminate tactics were not allowed in California’s Eastern District after the American Civil Liberties Union and United Farm Workers filed suit against the Border Patrol earlier in the year and won an injunction.

The suit followed a January operation in Kern County called “Operation Return to Sender,” in which agents swarmed a Home Depot and Latino market, among other areas frequented by laborers. In April, a federal district court judge ruled that the Border Patrol likely violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

As Beckwith described it to New York Times reporters, she received a phone call from Bovino on July 14 in which he said he was bringing agents to Sacramento.

She said she told him that the injunction filed after the Kern County raid meant he could not stop people indiscriminately in the Eastern District. The next day, she wrote him an email in which, as quoted in the New York Times, she stressed the need for “compliance with court orders and the Constitution.”

Shortly thereafter her work cell phone and her work computer stopped working. A bit before 5 p.m. she received an email informing her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately.

It was the end of a 15-year career in in the Department of Justice in which she had served as the office’s Criminal Division Chief and First Assistant and prosecuted members of the Aryan Brotherhood, suspected terrorists, and fentanyl traffickers.

Two days later on July 17, Bovino and his agents moved into Sacramento, conducting a raid at a Home Depot south of downtown.

In an interview with Fox News that day, Bovino said the raids were targeted and based on intelligence. “Everything we do is targeted,” he said. “We did have prior intelligence that there were targets that we were interested in and around that Home Depot, as well as other targeted enforcement packages in and around the Sacramento area.”

He also said that his operations would not slow down. “There is no sanctuary anywhere,” he said. “We’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to affect this mission and secure the homeland.”

Beckwith is one of a number of top prosecutors who have quit or been fired as the Trump administration pushes the Department of Justice to aggressively carry out his policies, including investigating people who have been the president’s political targets.

In March, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles was fired after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials in Washington to drop all charges against him, according to multiple sources.

In July, Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.

And just last week, a U. S. attorney in Virginia was pushed out after he had determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute James B. Comey. A new prosecutor this week won a grand jury indictment against Comey on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that would allow hugely popular social video app TikTok to continue to operate in the United States.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had been under pressure to divest its ownership in the app’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban, due to security concerns over the company’s ties to China.

Congress passed legislation calling for a TikTok ban to go into effect in January, but Trump has repeatedly signed orders that have allowed TikTok to keep operating in the country.

Under an agreement that Trump said was approved by China’s President Xi Jinping, TikTok’s U.S. operations will be operated through a joint venture run by a majority-American investor group. ByteDance and its affiliates would hold less than 20% ownership in the venture.

About 170 million Americans use TikTok, known for its viral entertaining videos.

“These safeguards would protect the American people from the misuse of their data and the influence of a foreign adversary, while also allowing the millions of American viewers, creators, and businesses that rely on the TikTok application to continue using it,” Trump stated in his executive order.

Trump, who years ago led the push to ban TikTok from the U.S., said at a press event that he feels the deal satisfies security concerns.

“The biggest reason is that it’s owned by Americans … and people that love the country and very smart Americans, so they don’t want anything like that to happen,” Trump said.

Trump said on Thursday that people involved in the deal include Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies Chief Executive Michael Dell and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Vice President JD Vance said the new entity controlling TikTok’s U.S. operations would have a value of around $14 billion.

Murdoch’s involvement would probably entail Fox Corp. investing in the deal, a source familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly told The Times. Fox Corp. owns Fox News, whose opinion hosts are vocally supportive of Trump.

The algorithms and code would be under control of the joint venture. The order requires the storage of sensitive U.S. user data to be under a U.S. cloud computing company.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News last Saturday that the app’s data and privacy in the U.S. would be led by Oracle.

Ellison is a Trump ally who is the world’s second-richest person, according to Forbes.

TikTok already works with Oracle. Since October 2022, “all new protected U.S. user data has been stored in the secure Oracle infrastructure, not on TikTok or ByteDance servers,” TikTok says on its website.

Ellison is also preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media company that owns HBO, TNT and CNN, after already completing a takeover of Paramount, one of Hollywood’s original studios.

“The most important thing is it does protect Americans’ data security,” Vance said at a press gathering on Thursday. “What this deal ensures is that the American entity and the American investors will actually control the algorithm. We don’t want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government.”

TikTok, which has a large presence in Los Angeles, did not respond to a request for comment.

Terms of the deal are still unclear. Trump discussed the TikTok deal with China’s Xi Jinping in an extended phone call last week. Chinese and U.S. officials have until Dec. 16 to finalize the details.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

PHOENIX — The Dodgers might’ve finally found an answer to their long-maddening bullpen problems.

Just use some starters.

In a 5-4 extra-innings win over the Arizona Diamondbacks that lowered their magic number to clinch the National League West to one, the Dodgers again squandered a late-game lead when their traditional relievers faltered. They still didn’t make winning look as simple as it should have.

But win, they did on this night — thanks in large part to two scoreless innings of relief from Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw.

The game wasn’t decided until the 11th inning, when Tommy Edman gave the Dodgers a lead they finally wouldn’t relinquish.

It never would’ve gotten there, however, without the contributions of Sasaki and Kershaw out of the bullpen.

Activated from the injured list shortly before the game, and making his first appearance in the majors since suffering a shoulder injury in early May, Sasaki flashed promising signs with a scoreless frame in the bottom of the seventh, protecting a 3-1 lead the team had been staked to by Blake Snell’s six-inning, one-run start, and an early offensive outburst that included a two-run homer from Andy Pages.

Sasaki’s fastball averaged 98-99 mph, was located with precision on the corners of the strike zone, and even induced a couple of swing-and-misses, things he never did consistently while posting a 4.72 ERA in eight starts at the beginning of the season.

He paired it with a trademark splitter that was also commanded with more precision than at any point in his initial MLB stint.

Sasaki needed only 13 pitches to retire the side in order, punctuating his outing with a pair of strikeouts on 99-mph four-seamers. As he walked back to the dugout, he glanced toward his teammates with a stoic glare. Just about all of them, including Shohei Ohtani, applauded in approval.

Disaster did strike in the eighth, after the Dodgers extended their lead to 4-1 on Teoscar Hernández’s RBI double in the top half of the inning.

The bullpen’s one season-long stalwart, Alex Vesia, ran into trouble by giving up a single to Ketel Marte, a walk to Geraldo Perdomo, and an RBI double to Corbin Carroll — all with one out.

Hard-throwing rookie righty Edgardo Henriquez couldn’t put out the fire from there, giving up one run on a swinging bunt from Gabriel Moreno in front of the plate that spun away from catcher Ben Rortvedt, then another when pinch-hitter Adrian Del Castillo stayed alive on a generous two-strike call (which was no doubt impacted by Rortvedt dropping the pitch behind the plate) before lifting a sacrifice fly to center.

For the second straight night, a late-game three-run lead had evaporated into thin air.

This time, however, manager Dave Roberts had a new card to play. A night after Kershaw volunteered to pitch in relief, the future Hall of Fame left-hander was summoned for the ninth inning.

In what was his first relief appearance since the infamous fifth game of the 2019 NL Division Series, Kershaw was effective. He retired the side in order with the help of a diving catch from Tommy Edman in center. He looked comfortable in the kind of high-leverage relief role the Dodgers might need him to fill come October.

In extras, the rest of the bullpen finally held up. Blake Treinen inherited a bases-loaded jam with two out in the 10th, but got James McCann to fly out to shallow right field. Justin Wrobleski (another pitcher who began this season as a starter) was handed a save situation in the 11th, after Edman singled home a run with his third hit of the night, and retired all three batters he faced.

The United Nations General Assembly’s 80th session was meant to be a sombre assessment of a world on fire. The Sustainable Development Goals are failing, wars rage on multiple continents and the planet itself is burning. Yet the most significant drama of the 80th session was not about any single crisis but a deeper, more fundamental schism that played out in the very language used within the hall. It seems that the UN is no longer a forum for managing a shared global order; it has become the arena where two irreconcilable visions of world order are fighting for supremacy.

On one side stands the traditional, albeit, weary mulitlateralist project. Its champions, exemplified by European leaders cautiously inching towards recognition of a Palestinian state, still operate on the premise that legitimacy is derived from international law and consensus. Theirs is a world of treaties, institutions and patient diplomacy. On the other side stands a resurgent sovereigntist assault, championed most vocally by President Donald Trump, who returned to the UN stage not to engage, but to dismantle. In a nearly hour-long speech Trump admonished the UN over what he views as its ineffectiveness, framing global cooperation not as a necessity, but as a folly. The 80th UNGA revealed that the transatlantic split is no longer a policy disagreement; it is a philosophical chasm over the soul of global governance.

The issue of Palestine serves as a perfect case study in this clash of legitimacies. The moves by a growing number of countries to recognize Palestine were calculated acts of multilateralism. They were an attempt to salvage the two-state solution, a cornerstone of UN resolutions for decades, by working within the established system. The recognition was a message: that statehood is not a prize to be won through force but a status conferred by the international community.

This logic is an anathema to the Trumpian worldview. From this perspective, such recognition is not diplomacy; it is a dangerous reward for adversaries. Trump framed it as a “reward for Hamas”, reducing a complex decades-long struggle for self-determination to a simplistic binary form of terrorism. The sovereigntist argument holds that these decisions are not the UN’s to make. Power, not consensus, is the ultimate arbiter. The conflict is no longer about land; it is about who gets to decide the rules of the game.

Nowhere is this divide more stark than on the existential threat of climate change. For the multilateralist project, the climate crisis is its ultimate validation. A warming planet is a problem that no single nation, no matter how powerful, can solve alone. It necessitates the very cooperation the UN was founded to foster.

Trump’s address systematically dismantled this premise. He pulled the rug out from under the entire premise by blasting climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.” This is not merely a policy difference; it is a declaration that the central problem the UN is trying to solve is a fiction. If there is no global problem, there is no need for a global solution. The institution, in this view, becomes not just ineffective, but illegitimate.

The sovereigntist vision extends to a radical critique of domestic governance, further highlighting the divide. When Trump declared that some countries “are going to hell” over their immigration policies, he was doing more than critcizing a policy. He was asserting a model where nationa borders are absolute and the internal choices of sovereign nations, particularly those of his allies, are open for public condemnation if they deviate from his ideology. This creates a world not of mutual respect and non-interference, but of perpetual, transactional pressure.

The  consequence of this great unraveling is a world adrift. The UN was built on the fragile hope that great powers, despite their rivalries, would see a greater interest in maintaining a common system. That foundation is now cracked. We’re moving towards a multi-order world, where countries selectively engage with institutions, cherry-picking rules that suit them and ignoring those that don’t. The Global South watches this spectacle with a cynical detachment, caught between a multilateral system that has often failed them and a sovereigntist alternative that promises even greater volatility.

The 80th session offered no resolutions to this core conflict. Instead, it held up a mirror. The speeches, the sideline meetings, the starkly different vocabularies – all revealed an institution that can no longer paper over its divides. The question is no longer whether the UN can solve the world’s problems, but whether the world believes in the idea of the UN itself. As the great powers turn inward, the 80th General Assembly may be remembered not for what it achieved, but as the moment the post-war order finally conceded that it’s no longer governed by a shared vision, but by a deepening and potentially unbridgeable rift.

The Home Office has been refused permission to appeal against a temporary injunction blocking an Eritrean man from being removed to France as part of the “one in, one out” agreement between the two countries.

Last week, the 25-year-old, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was due to be among the first people sent to France under the pilot scheme.

However, in a last-minute reprieve, the High Court in London gave him at least 14 days to make representations to support his claim that he was a victim of modern slavery.

The government had argued the order risked undermining the new returns policy, but the Court of Appeal refused Home Office lawyers permission to appeal against that decision.

The “one in, one out” scheme was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in July.

Under the treaty, France agreed to take back migrants who had travelled to the UK by small boat and had their asylum claim withdrawn or declared inadmissible.

For each person returned to France, the UK will accept someone with a case for protection as a refugee who has not attempted to cross the Channel.

Lawyers for the Home Office had argued that Mr Justice Sheldon, the High Court judge that granted the last-minute order halting the removal, had made a mistake when he did so.

“The judge’s decision to grant interim relief, and for such a significant period in the context of this policy, causes real damage to the public interest and undermines a central policy objective,” Kate Grange KC said on behalf of the Home Office.

Sonali Naik KC, who represented the asylum seeker, said the judge was “entitled to grant the order in the urgent circumstances he did, for the reasons he gave and for the period he did”.

Ms Naik said the man’s case “should be considered in its own context and on its own facts”, adding that it did not have wider significance for others whom the government might seek to remove as part of the returns pilot scheme.

In their judgement on Tuesday, Court of Appeal judges said the lower court had been “correct to hold that there was a serious issue to be tried on the question of whether the Secretary of state was acting unlawfully” by seeking to remove the man in those circumstances.

A federal judge Thursday said she was “inclined to extend” an earlier ruling and order the Trump administration to restore an additional $500 million in UCLA medical research grants that were frozen in response to the university’s alleged campus antisemitism violations.

Although she did not issue a formal ruling late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin indicated she is leaning toward reversing — for now — the vast majority of funding freezes that University of California leaders say have endangered the future of the 10-campus, multi-hospital system.

Lin, a judge in the Northern District of California, said she was prepared to add UCLA’s National Institutes of Health grant recipients to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that has already led to the reversal of tens of millions of dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal agencies to UC campuses.

The judge’s reasoning: The UCLA grants were suspended by form letters that were unspecific to the research, a likely violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rulemaking.

Though Lin said she had a “lot of homework to do” on the matter, she indicated that reversing the grant cuts was “likely where I will land” and she would issue an order “shortly.”

Lin said the Trump administration had undertaken a “fundamental sin” in its “un-reasoned mass terminations” of the grants using “letters that don’t go through the required factors that the agency is supposed to consider.”

The possible preliminary injunction would be in place as the case proceeds through the courts. But in saying she leaned toward broadening the case, Lin suggested she believed there would be irreparable harm if the suspensions were not immediately reversed.

The suit was filed in June by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley professors fighting a separate, earlier round of Trump administration grant clawbacks. The University of California is not a party in the case.

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, Jason Altabet, said Thursday that instead of a federal district court lawsuit filed by professors, the proper venue would be the U.S. Court of Federal Claims filed by UC. Altabet based his arguments on a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the government’s suspension of $783 million in NIH grants — to universities and research centers throughout the country — in part because the issue, the high court said, was not properly within the jurisdiction of a lower federal court.

Altabet said the administration was “fully embracing the principles in the Supreme Court’s recent opinions.”

The hundreds of NIH grants on hold at UCLA look into Parkinson’s disease treatment, cancer recovery, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas that campus leaders argue are pivotal for improving the health of Americans.

The Trump administration has proposed a roughly $1.2-billion fine and demanded campus changes over admission of international students and protest rules. Federal officials have also called for UCLA to release detailed admission data, ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors and give the government deep access to UCLA internal campus data, among other demands, in exchange for restoring $584 million in funding to the university.

In addition to allegations that the university has not seriously dealt with complaints of antisemitism on campus, the government also said it slashed UCLA funding in response to its findings that the campus illegally considers race in admissions and “discriminates against and endangers women” by recognizing the identities of transgender people.

UCLA has said it has made changes to improve campus climate for Jewish communities and does not use race in admissions. Its chancellor, Julio Frenk, has said that defunding medical research “does nothing” to address discrimination allegations. The university displays websites and policies that recognize different gender identities and maintains services for LGBTQ+ communities.

UC leaders said they will not pay the $1.2-billion fine and are negotiating with the Trump administration over its other demands. They have told The Times that many settlement proposals cross the university’s red lines.

“Recent federal cuts to research funding threaten lifesaving biomedical research, hobble U.S. economic competitiveness and jeopardize the health of Americans who depend on cutting-edge medical science and innovation,” a UC spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “While the University of California is not a party to this suit, the UC system is engaged in numerous legal and advocacy efforts to restore funding to vital research programs across the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields.”

A ruling Lin issued in the case last month resulted in $81 million in NSF grants restored to UCLA. If the UCLA NIH grants are reinstated, it would leave about $3 million from the July suspensions — all Department of Energy grants — still frozen at UCLA.

Lin also said she leaned toward adding Transportation and Defense department grants to the case, which run in the millions of dollars but are small compared with UC’s NIH grants.

The hearing was closely watched by researchers at the Westwood campus, who have cut back on lab hours, reduced operations and considered layoffs as the crisis at UCLA moves toward the two-month mark.

In interviews, they said they were hopeful grants would be reinstated but remain concerned over the instability of their work under the recent federal actions.

Lydia Daboussi, a UCLA assistant professor of neurobiology whose $1-million grant researching nerve injury is suspended, observed the hearing online.

Aftewards, Daboussi said she was “cautiously optimistic” about her grant being reinstated.

“I would really like this to be the relief that my lab needs to get our research back online,” said Daboussi, who is employed at the David Geffen School of Medicine. “If the preliminary injunction is granted, that is a wonderful step in the right direction.”

Grant funding, she said, “was how we bought the antibodies we needed for experiments, how we purchased our reagents and our consumable supplies.” The lab consists of nine other people, including two PhD students and one senior scientist.

So far, none of Daboussi’s lab members have departed. But, she said, if “this goes on for too much longer, at some point, people’s hours will have to be reduced.”

“I do find myself having to pay more attention to volatilities outside of our lab space,” she said. “I’ve now become acquainted with our legal system in ways that I didn’t know would be necessary for my job.”

Elle Rathbun, a sixth-year neuroscience PhD candidate at UCLA, lost a roughly $160,000 NIH grant that funded her study of stroke recovery treatment.

“If there is a chance that these suspensions are lifted, that is phenomenal news,” said Rathbun, who presented at UCLA’s “Science Fair for Suspended Research” this month.

“Lifting these suspensions would then allow us to continue these really critical projects that have already been determined to be important for American health and the future of American health,” she said.

Rathbun’s research is focused on a potential treatment that would be injected into the brain to help rebuild it after a stroke. Since the suspension of her grant, Rathbun, who works out of a lab at UCLA’s neurology department, has been seeking other funding sources.

“Applying to grants takes a lot of time,” she said. “So that really slowed down my progress in my project.”

In the queer enclave of West Hollywood, some residents were furious at the sight of a Pride flag and a transgender flag lowered to half-staff to mourn Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

In the city of Los Angeles, an internal Fire Department memo saying flags should stay raised sparked conservative anger at Mayor Karen Bass.

And in Huntington Beach, where MAGA politics are warmly received, officials pledged to honor Kirk’s memory by keeping flags lowered for an additional week past the mourning period set by President Trump.

The controversial right-wing commentator’s slaying last Wednesday ruptured cultural fault lines across the country, exacerbating fears of political violence, triggering campaigns to punish those who responded crudely and prompting the president to escalate attacks on his foes.

Amid the national maelstrom, Trump’s unusual decision to order flags lowered to half-staff at public buildings to memorialize a private citizen has been a flash point at the municipal level.

The fallout has exacerbated tensions in major cities and small towns, including in Southern California, as local officials chose whether to comply — and found wrath on either end of the decision.

Kirk, 31, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and a close Trump ally, was an incendiary figure. In life, he was lionized by the far right and castigated by many others for anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Black remarks, among other offensive rhetoric. He galvanized a generation of young Americans to turn toward the GOP, with even critics acknowledging his organizing skills and impact.

It’s not unprecedented for a president to order flags lowered to half-staff for a civilian, according to James Ferrigan, a flag expert who previously served as protocol officer at the North American Vexillological Assn.

Trump called for flags to be lowered in August after two children were shot to death at a Minneapolis Catholic school, but not after Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in June.

Two days after Kirk’s death, a screenshot of an internal Los Angeles Fire Department memo that said city flags should remain raised “unless directed by the mayor” began to go viral on social media. Many lambasted Bass for not ordering the flags lowered, with some accusing her of defying the president.

Fire Department spokesperson Margaret Stewart said the department follows city flag directives and had not been instructed to lower its flags. The internal memo was not sent at the request of the mayor or anyone in her office, according to someone with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl declined to comment on the memo but noted that during Bass’ tenure, flags have been lowered to mourn the deaths of elected officials and first responders.

Ferrigan said that a local official’s choice not to lower flags after a president’s executive directive might be seen as somewhat ill-mannered but wouldn’t be breaking any rules.

“Is it a breach of protocol? Probably not,” Ferrigan explained. “Is it a breach of etiquette? Well, maybe.”

Fox 11, which first published the Fire Department memo, reported that several firehouses lowered their flags to half-staff anyway.

In fiercely progressive West Hollywood, a local news outlet posted an Instagram video of the city’s rainbow Pride flag and a blue-white-and-pink transgender flag lowered to half-staff, blowing in a light breeze.

Thousands of people commented, with most irate or confused that the city was memorializing one of the nation’s most prominent anti-transgender voices — especially with the Pride and transgender flags. Some asked whether it was meant as satire. The flag was located in Matthew Shepard Square, which honors a gay teen who was viciously slain in 1998.

Weho Times, the local outlet in question, reported that a sign was placed Sunday in the square reading: “Shame on West Hollywood for lowering our flags in honor of a racist, transphobic, homophobic, Nazi-loving monster.”

“In particular, there has been significant outrage regarding the lowering of the LGBTQ+ flags, which are prominently flown in our city as a symbol of pride, inclusion, and community identity,” West Hollywood City Manager David Wilson said during Monday’s City Council meeting, according to written comments provided by the city.

The decision to lower the flags “should not be interpreted as an expression of alignment with, or endorsement of, Mr. Kirk’s political views or actions,” Wilson said, adding that city protocol has long been to follow presidential flag lowering directives.

But, he continued, the city’s flag policy will be taken up at a council meeting next month, and potentially reconsidered.

Ferrigan, the flag expert, wasn’t entirely surprised by the battles flaring up in municipalities across the American map.

“Remember, this might be a little $10 worth of cloth,” he said. “But these are bits of cloth that people will kill for or die for.”

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (UPI) — South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction said Monday that it received a $3 billion order to build a mega-sized seawater treatment plant in Iraq.

It is a Water Infrastructure Project, Iraq’s state initiative aimed at constructing a seawater treatment facility at Khor Al-Zubair Port about 310 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Hyundai E&C noted that the plant would supply up to 5 million barrels of water every day to major oil fields in southern Iraq, including West Qurna and Rumaila, to enhance crude oil output.

The Seoul-based contractor will break ground on the project this November, with the goal of completing construction by the end of 2029.

Iraq, which derives more than 90% of its national revenue from oil exports, is seeking to nearly double daily production to 8 million barrels from 4.2 billion by 2030, according to Hyundai E&C.

The contract was awarded by TotalEnergies, a French multinational energy company that invested in WIP with Qatar’s state-run Qatar Energy and Iraq’s government-backed Basrah Oil Co.

The agreement marks Hyundai E&C’s second-largest construction project in the Arab country after the $6 billion deal to establish an oil refinery in Karbala, which was finished in 2023.

“We will put forth effort to secure a competitive edge in bidding for future projects in Iraq, including refineries, power plants, and housing, which are expected to see continued demand,” Hyundai E&C said in a statement.

Hyundai E&C’s share price rose 1.01% on the Seoul bourse Monday.

Donald Trump says crime in Democratic cities is “out of control”. And after deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, he’s now planning to send in the National Guard to other Democratic cities, like Memphis, in the Republican-run state of Tennessee. But FBI stats show crime is falling nationwide. So why the crackdown? Jillian Wolf takes a look at the evidence in this Fact Check.

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UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram explains the desperate conditions families find themselves in while being forcibly displaced from Gaza City by Israeli evacuation orders.

Israel’s latest forced displacement order for Gaza City is one too many for Nahd al-Rafati. He is refusing to leave, weary of what seems like a never-ending cycle of expulsion.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s emergency order over the nation’s capital, which federalized its police force and launched a surge of law enforcement into the city, is set to expire overnight Wednesday after Congress failed to extend it.

But the clash between Republicans and the heavily Democratic district over its autonomy was only set to intensify, with a House committee beginning to debate 13 bills that would wrest away even more of the city’s control if approved.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office said the order expires at midnight. The National Guard and some other federal agencies will continue their deployment and it’s not clear when that might end.

Trump’s takeover of Washington’s policing and Wednesday’s discussions in the House underscore how interlinked the capital is with the federal government and how much the city’s capacity to govern is beholden to federal decisions.

Trump’s order federalized the local police force

For the last 30 days, the city’s local Metropolitan Police Department has been under the control of the president for use in what he described as a crime-fighting initiative.

Local police joined hundreds of federal law enforcement officers and agents on sweeps and roundups and other police operations. About 2,000 members of the National Guard from D.C. as well as seven states were also part of the surge of law enforcement.

Crime has dropped during the surge, according to figures from the White House and the local police department, but data also showed crime was falling in the lead up to the federal takeover.

Congress, satisfied by steps that Bowser has taken to ensure that the cooperation with the city will continue, decided not to extend the emergency, returning the police to district control.

But Bowser, who has walked a tightrope in collaborating with Trump in an effort to protect the city’s home rule, must now pivot to a Congress that has jurisdiction over the city. The next order of business is a series of proposals that will be debated Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Some of the House bills focus on law enforcement

Thirteen of the bills call for repealing or changing D.C. laws. Some provisions in play would remove the district’s elected attorney general, who recently asked a judge to intervene in the takeover. Others would allow the president to appoint someone to the position.

There is also a move to lower the age of trying juveniles to 14 from 16 for certain crimes, and one to change the bail system and remove methods the council can use to extend emergency bills.

Even if the bills pass the committee and House, the question is whether they can get through the filibuster-proof Senate. D.C. activists have already begun lobbying Senate Democrats.

Bowser urged the leaders of the House Oversight Committee to reject those proposals.

She argued that a bill sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, would “make the District less efficient, competitive, and responsive.” She said she looks forward to working with the committee to build a “productive partnership” that “respects the will of D.C. residents and honors the principles of home rule.”

Republican Rep. Ron Estes and several Republican colleagues said they want their constituents to feel safe visiting the capital, and noted the recent murder of an intern who worked in Estes’ office. “We want to make sure that we have a capital that Americans are proud of,” Estes said.

Members of the Republican Study Committee in the House held a news conference Sept. 2 praising Trump’s intervention and supporting codifying his executive order.

“Congress has a clear constitutional authority over D.C., and we will use it without hesitation to continue making D.C. safe and great again,” said Rep. August Pfluger, chairman of that committee.

D.C. mayor says the bills challenge the city’s autonomy

Bowser said the bills are an affront to the city’s autonomy and said “laws affecting the district should be made by the district.”

The district is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed in 1973 but federal political leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C council.

Bowser has said repeatedly that statehood, a nonstarter for Republicans in Congress, is the only solution.

Fields and Askarinam write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday for the Trump administration and agreed U.S. immigration agents may stop and detain anyone they suspect is in the U.S. illegally based on little more than their working at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin.

In a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal and lifted a Los Angeles judge’s order that barred “roving patrols” from snatching people off Southern California streets based on how they look, what language they speak, what work they do or where they happen to be.

The decision is a significant victory for President Trump, clearing the way for his oft-promised “largest Mass Deportation Operation” in American history.

The court’s conservatives issued a brief, unsigned order that freezes the district judge’s restraining order indefinitely and frees immigration agents from it. As a practical matter, it gives immigration agents broad authority to stop people who they think may be here illegally.

Although Monday’s order is not a final ruling, it strongly signals the Supreme Court will not uphold strict limits on the authority of immigration agents to stop people for questioning.

The Supreme Court has been sharply criticized in recent weeks for handing down orders with no explanation. Perhaps for that reason, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote a 10-page opinion to explain the decision.

He said federal law says “immigration officers ‘may briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’ if they have ‘a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned … is an alien illegally in the United States.’”

He said such stops are reasonable and legal based on the “totality of the circumstances. Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.”

Those were exactly the factors that the district judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said agents may not use as a basis for stopping someone for questioning.

The three liberal justices dissented.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

“The Government … has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction,” she wrote.

Sotomayor also disagreed with Kavanaugh’s assertions.

“Immigration agents are not conducting ‘brief stops for questioning,’ as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions,” she wrote. “Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government’s conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.”

In response, Kavanaugh said he agreed agents may not use “excessive force” in making stops or arrests. But the judge’s order dealt only with the legal grounds for making stops, he said.

Kavanaugh stressed the court has a limited role when it comes to immigration enforcement.

“The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities. It should come as no surprise that some Administrations may be more laissez-faire in enforcing immigration law, and other Administrations more strict,” he wrote.

He noted the court had ruled for the Biden administration and against Texas, which had sought stricter enforcement against those who crossed the border or had a criminal record.

The case decided Monday began in early June when Trump appointees targeted Los Angeles with aggressive street sweeps that ensnared longtime residents, legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens.

A coalition of civil rights groups and local attorneys challenged the cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens caught up in the chaotic arrests, claiming they had been grabbed without reasonable suspicion — a violation of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The lead plaintiffs — Pedro Vasquez Perdomo and two other Pasadena residents — were arrested at a bus stop when they were waiting to be picked up for a job.

On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order barring stops based solely on race or ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination.

On July 28, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

The case remains in its early phases, with hearings set for a preliminary injunction this month. But the Department of Justice argued even a brief limit on mass arrests constituted a “irreparable injury” to the government.

A few days later, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to set aside Frimpong’s order. They said agents should be allowed to act on the assumption that Spanish-speaking Latinos who work as day laborers, at car washes or in landscaping and agriculture are likely to lack legal status.

“Reasonable suspicion is a low bar — well below probable cause,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his appeal. Agents can consider “the totality of the circumstances” when making stops, he said, including that “illegal presence is widespread in the Central District [of California], where 1 in every 10 people is an illegal alien.”

Both sides said the region’s diverse demographics support their view of the law. In an application to join the suit, Los Angeles and 20 other Southern California municipalities argued that “half the population of the Central District” now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion.

Roughly 10 million Latinos live in the seven counties covered by the order, and almost as many speak a language other than English at home.

Sauer also questioned whether the plaintiffs who sued had standing because they were unlikely to be arrested again. That argument was the subject of sharp and extended questioning in the 9th Circuit, where a three-judge panel ultimately rejected it.

“Agents have conducted many stops in the Los Angeles area within a matter of weeks, not years, some repeatedly in the same location,” the panel wrote in its July 28 opinion denying the stay.

One plaintiff was stopped twice in the span of 10 days, evidence of a “real and immediate threat” that he or any of the others could be stopped again, the 9th Circuit said.

Days after that decision, heavily armed Border Patrol agents sprang from the back of a Penske movers truck, snatching workers from the parking lot of a Westlake Home Depot in apparent defiance of the courts.

Immigrants rights advocates had urged the justices to not intervene.

“The raids have followed an unconstitutional pattern that officials have vowed to continue,” they said. Ruling for Trump would authorize “an extraordinarily expansive dragnet, placing millions of law-abiding people at imminent risk of detention by federal agents.”

The judge’s order had applied in an area that included Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

“Every Latino should be concerned, every immigrant should be concerned, every person should be concerned,” Alfonso Barragan, a 62-year-old U.S. citizen, said Monday on his way into one of the L.A. Home Depots repeatedly hit by the controversial sweeps. “They’re allowing the [federal immigration agents] to break the law.”

Savage reported from Washington and Sharp from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Ruben Vives in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement officials Sunday removed a peace vigil that had stood outside the White House for more than four decades after President Trump ordered it to be taken down as part of the clearing of homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Philipos Melaku-Bello, a volunteer who has manned the vigil for years, told the Associated Press that the U.S. Park Police removed it early Sunday morning. He said officials justified the removal by mislabeling the memorial as a shelter.

“The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live,” Melaku-Bello said. “As you can see, I don’t have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”

The White House confirmed the removal, telling the AP in a statement that the vigil was a “hazard to those visiting the White House and the surrounding areas.”

Taking down the vigil is the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has ordered as part of its federal takeover of policing in the city, which began last month. The White House has defended the intervention as needed to fulfill Trump’s executive order on the “beautification” of D.C.

Melaku-Bello said he’s in touch with attorneys about what he sees as a civil rights violation. “They’re choosing to call a place that is not an encampment an encampment just to fit what is in Trump’s agenda of removing the encampments,” he said.

The vigil was started in 1981 by activist William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament and an end to global conflicts. It is believed to be the longest continuous antiwar protest in U.S. history. When Thomas died in 2009, fellow protesters including Melaku-Bello manned the tiny tent and the banner — which read, “Live by the bomb, die by the bomb” — around the clock to avoid it being dismantled by authorities.

The small but persistent act of protest was brought to Trump’s attention during an event at the While House on Friday.

Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the far-right network Real America’s Voice, told Trump the blue tent was an “eyesore” for those who come to the White House.

“Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms,” Glenn said. “It’s kind of morphed into more of an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump at many times.”

Trump, who said he was not aware of it, told his staff: “Take it down. Take it down today, right now.”

Melaku-Bello said that Glenn spread misinformation when he told the president that the tent had rats and “could be a national security risk” because people could hide weapons in there.

“No weapons were found,” he told AP. “He said that it was rat-infested. Not a single rat came out as they took down the cinder blocks.”

Monsivais and Amiri write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and New York, respectively. AP writer Will Weissert in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — After months of campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump sent a sharply different message Friday when he signed an executive order aimed at rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

Trump said the switch was intended to signal to the world that the United States was a force to be reckoned with, and he complained that the Department of Defense’s name, established in the aftermath of World War II, was “woke.”

“I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength,” Trump said of the change as he authorized the Department of War as a secondary title for the Pentagon.

Congress has to formally authorize a new name, and several of Trump’s closest supporters on Capitol Hill proposed legislation earlier Friday to codify the new name into law.

But already there were cosmetic shifts. The Pentagon’s website went from “defense.gov” to “war.gov.” Signs were swapped around Hegseth’s office while more than a dozen employees watched. Trump said there would be new stationery, too.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Trump has begun referring to as the “secretary of war,” said during the signing ceremony that “we’re going to go on offense, not just on defense,” using “maximum lethality” that won’t be “politically correct.”

The attempted rebranding was another rhetorical salvo in Trump’s efforts to reshape the U.S. military and uproot what he has described as progressive ideology. Bases have been renamed, transgender soldiers have been banned and military websites have been scrubbed of posts honoring contributions by women and minorities.

The Republican president contended that his tough talk didn’t contradict his fixation on being recognized for diplomatic efforts, saying peace must be made from a position of strength. Trump has claimed credit for resolving conflicts between India and Pakistan; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Armenia and Azerbaijan, among others, though some leaders and others have disputed the significance of the U.S. role. (He’s also expressed frustration that he hasn’t brought the war between Russia and Ukraine to a conclusion as fast as he said he would.)

“I think I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong,” Trump said, echoing the “peace through strength” motto associated with President Reagan.

When Trump finished his remarks on the military, he dismissed Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the room.

“I’m going to let these people go back to the Department of War and figure out how to maintain peace,” Trump said.

Rep. Gregory W. Steube (R-Fla.) proposed legislation in the House to formally change the name of the department.

“From 1789 until the end of World War II, the United States military fought under the banner of the Department of War,” Steube, an Army veteran, said in a statement. “It is only fitting that we pay tribute to their eternal example and renowned commitment to lethality by restoring the name of the ‘Department of War’ to our Armed Forces.”

Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

The Department of War was created in 1789, then renamed and reorganized through legislation signed by President Truman in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. The Department of Defense incorporated the Department of War, which oversaw the Army, plus the Department of the Navy and the newly created independent Air Force.

Hegseth complained that “we haven’t won a major war since” the name was changed. Trump said, “We never fought to win.”

Trump and Hegseth have long talked about restoring the Department of War name.

In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”

When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”

“I’m sure Congress will go along,” he said, “if we need that.”

Trump and Hegseth have been on a name-changing spree at the Pentagon, sometimes sidestepping legal requirements.

For example, they wanted to restore the names of nine military bases that once honored Confederate leaders, which were changed in 2023 following a congressionally mandated review.

Because the original names were no longer allowed under law, Hegseth ordered the bases to be named after new people with similar names. For example, Ft. Bragg now honors Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine, instead of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.

In the case of Fort A.P. Hill, named for Confederate Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, the Trump administration was forced to choose three soldiers to make the renaming work.

The base now honors Union soldiers Pvt. Bruce Anderson and 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn, who contributes the two initials, and Lt. Col. Edward Hill, whose last name completes the second half of the base name.

The move irked Republicans in Congress who, in July, moved to ban restoring any Confederate names in this year’s defense authorization bill.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who co-sponsored the earlier amendment to remove the Confederate names, said that “what this administration is doing, particularly this secretary of Defense, is sticking his finger in the eye of Congress by going back and changing the names to the old names.”

Megerian, Kim and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.

Donald Trump’s recent floated proposal to deploy the National Guard to crime-overrun blue cities like Chicago and Baltimore has been met with howls of outrage from the usual suspects. For many liberal talking heads and Democratic officials, this is simply the latest evidence of Trump’s “authoritarianism.” But such specious analysis distracts from what all parties ought to properly focus on: the well-being of the people who actually live in such crime-addled jurisdictions.

What’s remarkable is not just the specific policy suggestion itself — after all, federal force has been called in, or sent in, to assist state-level law enforcement plenty of times — but rather how Trump is once again baiting his political opponents into defending the indefensible. He has a singular talent for making the left clutch onto wildly unpopular positions and take the wrong side of clear 80-20 issues. It’s political jiu-jitsu at its finest.

Crime in cities like Chicago and Baltimore isn’t a right-wing fever dream. It’s a persistent, documented crisis that continues to destroy communities and ruin lives. Chicago saw nearly 600 homicides in 2024 alone. In Baltimore, despite a recent downtick, violent crime remains exponentially higher than national averages. Sustained, decades-long Democratic leadership in both cities has failed, time and again, to secure even a minimum baseline level of safety for residents — many of whom are Black and working-class, two communities Democrats purport to champion.

Trump sees that leadership and quality-of-life vacuum. And he’s filling it with a popular message of law and order.

Trump’s proposal to deploy the National Guard isn’t the flight of fancy of a would-be strongman. It’s federalism functioning as the founders intended: The federal government must step in, per Article IV of the Constitution, when local governance breaks down so catastrophically that the feds are needed to “guarantee … a republican form of government.” Even more specifically, the Insurrection Act of 1807 has long been available as a congressionally authorized tool for presidents to restore order when state unrest reaches truly intolerable levels. Presidents from Jefferson to Eisenhower to Bush 41 have invoked it.

Trump’s critics would rather not have a conversation about bloody cities like Chicago — or the long history of presidents deploying the National Guard when local circumstances require it. They’d rather scream “fascism” than explain why a grandmother on the South Side of Chicago should have to dodge gang bullets on her way to church. They’d rather chant slogans about “abolishing the police” than face the hard fact that the communities most devastated by crime consistently clamor for more law enforcement — not less.

This is where Trump’s political instincts shine. He doesn’t try to “win” the crime debate by splitting the difference with progressives. He doesn’t offer a milquetoast promise to fund “violence interrupters” or expand toothless social programs. He goes right at the issue, knowing full well that the American people are with him.

Because they are. The public has consistently ranked crime and safety among their top concerns; last November, it was usually a top-five issue in general election exit polling. And polling consistently shows that overwhelming majorities — often in the 70-80% range — support more police funding and oppose the left’s radical decarceration agenda. Democrats, ever in thrall to their activist far-left flank, are stuck defending policies with rhetoric that most voters correctly identify as both dangerous and absurd.

Trump knows that when he floats these proposals, Democrats and their corporate media allies won’t respond with nuance. They’ll respond with knee-jerk outrage — just as they did in 2020, when Trump sent federal agents to Portland to stop violent anarchists from torching courthouses. The media framed it as martial law; sane Oregonians saw it as basic governance.

This dynamic plays out again and again. When Trump highlights the border crisis and the need to deport unsavory figures like Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Democrats defend open borders. When Trump attacks gender ideology indoctrination in schools, Democrats double down on letting teachers hide children’s gender transitions from parents. When Trump condemns pro-Hamas rioters in American cities, Democrats can’t bring themselves to say a word of support for Israel’s war against a State Department-recognized foreign terrorist organization. When Trump signs an executive order seeking to prosecute flag burning, Democrats defend flag burning.

On and on it goes. By now, it’s a well-established pattern. And it’s politically devastating for the left. Moreover, the relevant history is on Trump’s side. This sort of federal corrective goes back all the way to the republic’s origins; those now freaking out might want to read up on George Washington’s efforts to quash the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

Call it the art of the 80-20 issue. Along with his sheer sense of humor, Trump’s instinctual knack for picking such winning battles is one of his greatest political assets. And this time, the winner won’t just be Trump himself — it will be Chicagoans and Baltimoreans as well.

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

Sept. 4 (UPI) — A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a judge’s order to shut down Florida’s immigration detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Department of Homeland Security officials.

The opinion issued by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to wind down operations at the South Florida Detention Facility at Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee.

Environmental groups led by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe sued over the construction of the facility in May, saying the government didn’t perform a required environmental review first. They cited a federal law called the National Environmental Policy Act, which says the government must conduct such reviews before construction.

In a 2-1 opinion, the Atlanta-based appellate court said the construction of the facility can’t be challenged under NEPA because the state of Florida runs the prison, not the federal government.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appealed the lower court’s August order based on these grounds. He praised the decision in a post on X accusing Williams of being a “leftist judge.”

“The mission continues at Alligator Alcatraz,” he wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security called it a “huge victory.”

“Today’s order is a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense,” the department posted on X.

Friends of the Everglades issued a statement on Facebook saying environmental groups intend to continue “fighting” the case.

“While disappointing, we never expected ultimate success to be easy,” said Eve Samples, executive director of the group. “We’re hopeful the preliminary injunction will be affirmed when it’s reviewed on its merits during the appeal.”

The South Florida Detention Facility was the first of multiple prisons opened by the Trump administration in recent months as part of the president’s pledge to mass deport immigrants. Since “Alligator Alcatraz’s” opening in July, the DHS has opened or announced a number of other facilities with alliterative nicknames, including the “Speedway Slammer” at the Miami Correctional Center in Indiana; the “Cornhusker Clink” at the Work Ethic Camp in McCook, Neb.;, the “Deportation Depot” at the Baker Correctional Institution in north Florida; and the “Louisiana Lockup” at Angola Prison.

Immigrants’ rights groups have taken issue with the federal-state partnerships to open large-scale detention facilities and the “political spectacle” associated with the nicknames.

“The new agreements mark a new chapter in the level and scale of cooperation” between federal and state governments on immigration enforcement, the Marshall Project said in a statement in August.

The organization accused the DHS of preventing detainees from meeting confidentially with lawyers at the South Florida Detention Facility. The Marshall Project also alleged the conditions were filthy at the facility and detainees were treated inhumanely, both of which the Trump administration denied.

The DHS said Thursday that the legal challenge to the construction of the facility was about immigration policy, not the environment.

“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility. It has and will always be about open-borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop.”

A woman who worked as a hairstylist for Fox Sports has resolved most of a lawsuit that alleged former host Skip Bayless made repeated, unwanted advances toward her — including an offer of $1.5 million to have sex with him.

Noushin Faraji is still seeking class-action status for her and others who worked at Fox in California over her allegations of unpaid wages and business expenses.

Fox Sports said in a statement: “We are pleased that this matter has been resolved. There will be no further comment.”

An attorney listed for Bayless in the lawsuit, Robert H. Platt, did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment.

Faraji had claimed Fox executives fostered a hostile work environment that allowed senior managers and on-air personalities including Bayless to abuse workers without fear of punishment. The AP does not generally identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted or subjected to abuse unless they have publicly identified themselves, as Faraji had in filing the lawsuit.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Laura A. Seigle granted Faraji’s request to dismiss several allegations because “those claims were resolved,” according to an order by the judge filed this week. The judge’s order does not include details on the resolution.

The individual allegations that were dismissed include sexual battery, failure to prevent harassment and wrongful termination. Faraji was seeking unspecified damages when her lawsuit was filed in January.

Claims that remain for Faraji and allegedly others include failure to pay minimum wages and failure to reimburse business expenses, according to the judge’s order.

Faraji was a hairstylist at Fox for more than a decade. She claimed in her lawsuit that the advances by Bayless, which began in 2017 and continued until last year, included lingering hugs, kisses on the cheek and comments from Bayless that he could change Faraji’s life if she had sex with him.

In 2021, she claimed in the suit, Bayless offered Faraji $1.5 million for sex and, after she refused, later threatened her job.

Bayless worked for Fox Sports until 2024 when his show was canceled after its ratings plummeted with the departure of his co-host, Shannon Sharpe.

Faraji said she was fired in 2024 based on “fabricated” reasons. The lawsuit said she initially remained quiet about her treatment at Fox, believing she could be in danger if she went public.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — A Danish wind power company filed suit against the President Donald Trump administration Thursday seeking to reverse a stop-work order on its nearly completed Revolution Wind project off the coast of New England.

Orsted and its joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, asking it to vacate the order from the U.S. Department of the Interior, saying the administration had no authority to make it.

Orsted was ordered on Aug. 22 to stop construction on Revolution Wind to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interest of the United States.” On Aug. 29, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it was cutting about $679 million in funding to 12 wind farms, calling the projects “wasteful.”

“The Project has spent billions of dollars in reliance on these valid approvals,” the filing said. “The Stop Work Order is invalid and must be set aside because it was issued without statutory authority, in violation of agency regulations and procedures and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and is arbitrary and capricious.”

The filing noted that the Department of Defense had already OKed the project.

The offshore wind farm is 80% complete and was expected to begin operations next year. It has 65 turbines, would have a production capacity of 704 megawatts and would give off enough power for more than 350,000 homes across Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The filing said that if the company were forced to follow the stop-work order, it would “inflict devastating and irreparable harm” on Revolution Wind. The company has already spent or committed about $5 billion on the project and will incur more than $1 billion in costs if the project closes.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the wind farm would interfere with the use of U.S. territorial waters. But Orsted called it a pretext, citing Trump’s history of hating wind power.

“The president has apparent hostility towards offshore wind, including based on statements made on the campaign trail,” Orsted’s attorney told the court.