AUSTIN, Texas — President Trump and congressional Republicans have made it a priority this year to require people to prove citizenship before they can register to vote. Turning that aspiration into reality has proved difficult.
Trump’s executive order directing a documentary, proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal elections has been blocked by a judge, while federal legislation to accomplish it doesn’t appear to have the votes to pass in the Senate. At the same time, state-level efforts have found little success, even in places where Republicans control the legislature and governor’s office.
The most recent state effort to falter is in Texas, where a Senate bill failed to gain full legislative approval before lawmakers adjourned on Monday. The Texas bill was one of the nation’s most sweeping proof-of-citizenship proposals because it would have applied not only to new registrants but also to the state’s roughly 18.6 million registered voters.
“The bill authors failed spectacularly to explain how this bill would be implemented and how it would be able to be implemented without inconveniencing a ton of voters,” said Anthony Gutierrez, director of the voting rights group Common Cause Texas.
Voting by noncitizens is already illegal and punishable as a felony, potentially leading to deportation, but Trump and his allies have pressed for a proof-of-citizenship mandate by arguing it would improve public confidence in elections.
Before his win last year, Trump falsely claimed noncitizens might vote in large enough numbers to sway the outcome. Although noncitizen voting does occur, research and reviews of state cases has shown it to be rare and more often a mistake.
Voting rights groups say the various proposals seeking to require proof of citizenship are overly burdensome and threaten to disenfranchise millions of Americans. Many do not have easy access to their birth certificates, have not gotten a U.S. passport or have a name that no longer matches the one on their birth certificate — such as women who changed their last name when they married.
The number of states considering bills related to proof of citizenship for voting tripled from 2023 to this year, said Liz Avore, senior policy advisor with the Voting Rights Lab, an advocacy group that tracks election legislation in the states.
That hasn’t resulted in many new laws, at least so far. Republicans in Wyoming passed their own proof-of-citizenship legislation, but similar measures have stalled or failed in multiple GOP-led states, including Florida, Missouri, Texas and Utah. A proposal remains active in Ohio, although Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has said he doesn’t want to sign any more bills that make it harder to vote.
In Texas, the legislation swiftly passed the state Senate after it was introduced in March but never made it to a floor vote in the House. It was unclear why legislation that was such a priority for Senate Republicans — every one of them co-authored the bill — ended up faltering.
“I just think people realized, as flawed as this playbook has been in other states, Texas didn’t need to make this mistake,” said Rep. John Bucy, a Democrat who serves as vice chair of the House elections committee.
Bucy pointed to specific concerns about married women who changed their last name. This surfaced in local elections earlier this year in New Hampshire, which passed a proof-of-citizenship requirement last year.
Other states that previously sought to add such a requirement have faced lawsuits and complications when trying to implement it.
In Arizona, a state audit found that problems with the way data were handled had affected the tracking and verification of residents’ citizenship status. It came after officials had identified some 200,000 voters who were thought to have provided proof of their citizenship but had not.
A proof-of-citizenship requirement was in effect for three years in Kansas before it was overturned by federal courts. The state’s own expert estimated that almost all of the roughly 30,000 people who were prevented from registering to vote while it was in effect were U.S. citizens who otherwise had been eligible.
In Missouri, legislation seeking to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement cleared a Senate committee but never came to a vote in the Republican-led chamber.
Republican state Sen. Ben Brown had promoted the legislation as a follow-up to a constitutional amendment stating that only U.S. citizens can vote, which Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved last November. He said there were several factors that led to the bill not advancing this year. Due to the session’s limited schedule, he chose to prioritize another elections bill banning foreign contributions in state ballot measure campaigns.
“Our legislative session ending mid-May means a lot of things die at the finish line because you simply run out of time,” Brown said, noting he also took time to research concerns raised by local election officials and plans to reintroduce the proof-of-citizenship bill next year.
The Republican-controlled Legislature in Utah also prioritized other election changes, adding voter ID requirements and requiring people to opt in to receive their ballots in the mail. Before Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill into law, Utah was the only Republican-controlled state that allowed all elections to be conducted by mail without a need to opt in.
Under the Florida bill that has failed to advance, voter registration applications wouldn’t be considered valid until state officials had verified citizenship, either by confirming a previous voting history, checking the applicant’s status in state and federal databases, or verifying documents they provided.
The bill would have required voters to prove their citizenship even when updating their registration to change their address or party affiliation.
Its sponsor, Republican state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, said it was meant to follow through on Trump’s executive order: “This bill fully answers the president’s call,” she said.
Cassidy and Lathan write for the Associated Press. Cassidy reported from Atlanta. AP writers Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyo.; David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Mo.; Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Fla.; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — A former Homeland Security official during President Trump’s first administration who authored an anonymous op-ed sharply critical of the president is calling on independent government watchdogs to investigate after Trump ordered the department to look into his government service.
Miles Taylor, once chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, warned in an interview with the Associated Press of the far-reaching implications of Trump’s April 9 memorandum, “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods,” when it comes to suppressing criticism of the president. That memo accused Taylor of concocting stories to sell his book and directed the secretary of Homeland Security and other government agencies to look into Taylor and strip him of any security clearances.
Taylor sent a letter via email to inspectors general at the departments of Justice and Homeland Security on Tuesday.
Coming on the same April day that Trump also ordered an investigation into Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official, the dual memoranda illustrated how Trump has sought to use the powers of the presidency against his adversaries. Speaking to the AP, Taylor said the order targeting him sets a “scary precedent” and that’s why he decided to call on the inspectors general to investigate.
“I didn’t commit any crime, and that’s what’s extraordinary about this. I can’t think of any case where someone knows they’re being investigated but has absolutely no idea what crime they allegedly committed. And it’s because I didn’t,” Taylor said. He called it a “really, really, really scary precedent to have set is that the president of the United States can now sign an order investigating any private citizen he wants, any critic, any foe, anyone.”
Trump has targeted adversaries since he took office
Since taking office again in January, Trump has stripped security clearances from a number of his opponents. But Trump’s order for an investigation into Taylor, as well as Krebs, marked an escalation of his campaign of retribution in his second term.
Trump fired Krebs, who directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in November 2020 after Krebs disputed the Republican president’s unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud and vouched for the integrity of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Taylor left the first Trump administration in 2019. In the anonymous New York Times op-ed published in 2018, he described himself as part of a secret “resistance” to counter Trump’s “misguided impulses.” The op-ed’s publication touched off a leak investigation in Trump’s first White House.
Taylor later published a book by the same name as the op-ed and then another book under his own name called “Blowback,” which warned about Trump’s return to office.
After signing the memorandum April 9, Trump said Taylor was likely “guilty of treason.”
The letter by Taylor’s lawyer to the inspectors general calls Trump’s actions “unprecedented in American history.”
“The Memorandum does not identify any specific wrongdoing. Rather, it flagrantly targets Mr. Taylor for one reason alone: He dared to speak out to criticize the President,” the letter reads.
Taylor’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the request to the inspectors general was an attempt to “get the administration to do the right thing.” Lowell said that depending on the outcome of their complaint, they’ll explore other options including a possible lawsuit. Lowell, a veteran Washington lawyer, announced earlier this year that he was opening his own legal practice and would represent targets of Trump’s retribution.
Violation of First Amendment rights alleged
In the letter, Lowell calls on the inspectors general to do their jobs of “addressing and preventing abuses of power.”
The letter says Trump’s April 9 memo appears to violate Taylor’s First Amendment rights by going after Taylor for his criticism of the president, calling it a “textbook definition of political retribution and vindictive prosecution.” And, according to the letter, Trump’s memo also appears to violate Taylor’s Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The letter highlights Taylor’s “honorable and exemplary” work service including receiving the Distinguished Service Medal upon leaving the department, and it details the toll that the April 9 memorandum has taken on Taylor’s personal life. His family has been threatened and harassed, and former colleagues lost their government jobs because of their connection with him, according to the letter.
Taylor told the AP that since the order, there’s been an “implosion in our lives.” He said he started a fund to pay for legal fees, has had to step away from work and his wife has gone back to work to help pay the family’s bills. Their home’s location was published on the internet in a doxxing.
Taylor said that by filing these complaints with the inspectors general, he’s anticipating that the pressure on him and his family will increase. He said they spent the last few weeks debating what to do after the April 9 memorandum and decided to fight back.
“The alternative is staying silent, cowering and capitulating and sending the message that, yes, there’s no consequences for this president and this administration in abusing their powers in ways that my legal team believes and a lot of legal scholars tell me is unconstitutional and illegal,” Taylor said.
What’s in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill?
Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro breaks down the bill that Donald Trump claims will usher in an economic golden age, whilst others warn it could add significantly to the national debt.
The US prides itself on freedom of speech, but does that only apply to some and not to others?
In a country that prides itself on democracy, freedom of speech, and the right to protest, a chilling question is emerging: Who gets to speak, and who is being silenced?
More than 1,000 international students and recent graduates across the United States have reportedly had their visas revoked or their legal status altered. Meanwhile, American citizens have faced detentions at airports and border crossings, been interrogated about their political beliefs, and had their phones searched for content against President Donald Trump. Are we witnessing a quiet erosion of First Amendment rights?
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests:
Nora Benavidez – Civil rights lawyer
Conor Fitzpatrick – Senior lawyer at Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
With its sale to Skydance Media still beyond its reach, Paramount Global has nominated three new directors to bolster its small board, which has been racked with drama and churn since early last year.
The debt-laden New York-based company currently has only five board members, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who serves as chairwoman. The Redstone family holds nearly 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, giving the heiress tremendous sway.
In a proxy filing Monday, Paramount asked shareholders to elect seven directors at its July 2 annual meeting. The slate includes Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan ; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.
In addition to Redstone, three longtime board members — Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne — will stand for reelection.
Board member Judith A. McHale has decided to step down.
Leading independent director Charles Phillips left the board in October. His exit came six months after three other directors — Rob Klieger, Nicole Seligman and Dawn Ostroff — abruptly departed as the panel was struggling over terms of Redstone’s planned Paramount sale.
In late October, President Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas over his dismay with edits of a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of the election. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened an inquiry to determine whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.
Paramount has been defending against the lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump’s lawyers asserted the president suffered “mental anguish” due to the “60 Minutes” broadcast.
1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s lawsuit frivolous; CBS News executives and other journalists believe it is a shakedown to exploit the vulnerable company that is desperate to have the FCC approve the sale to Skydance.
The ruckus over the edits contributed to the departure of two top CBS News executives. Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, stepped down under pressure last month. In April, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens departed.
Redstone has expressed her dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Last month, three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that the company could face allegations of bribery if they write a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance takeover. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.
It’s been nearly 11 months since Paramount agreed to be sold to Skydance in an $8-billion deal that would inject $1.5 billion in capital into Paramount’s battered balance sheet.
Paramount has not revised its guidance on when it expects the deal to close — but the contractual deadline is early October.
As part of its proxy statement, the company again detailed the compensation packages — totaling $148 million to the top three executives and ousted Chief Executive Bob Bakish, who received compensation valued at $87 million. Co-CEO George Cheeks was paid $22.2 million. His counterparts Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy were paid $19.6 million and $19.5 million, respectively, according to the filing.
June 2 (UPI) — A Trump-appointed judge in California on Monday blocked the Alien Enemies Act deportation of a Venezuelan migrant in the Los Angeles area, saying the administration failed to provide due process.
U.S. District Judge John Holcomb, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, issued a preliminary injunction to keep most Venezuelan migrants in central California, Los Angeles and Orange County from being deported under the 1798 law.
“The government is hereby preliminarily enjoined and restrained from removing or transferring out of this district any member of the putative class pursuant to the Proclamation pending further Order of the Court regarding the amount of notice and process that is due prior to removal,” Holcomb wrote.
The Alien Enemies Act allows the removal or deportation of migrants during an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” of the United States. Trump has argued that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s actions are a “predatory incursion.”
Holcomb’s ruling follows a complaint filed by Darin Antonio Arevalo Millan, a Venezuelan citizen currently being held at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Adelanto, Calif. Arevalo wanted the judge to order the government to provide at least 30 days’ notice before any deportation of Venezuelan citizens.
While the Trump administration told the court that Arevalo was not detained under the Alien Enemies Act, Holcomb ruled that Arevalo still “faces an imminent threat of removal.”
“Arevalo seeks to avoid being deported as an alien enemy without being afforded the opportunity to challenge that designation — not to avoid deportation altogether,” Holcomb wrote.
Judges in New York, Colorado and Texas have ruled that the president is misusing the Alien Enemies Act, while a judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that Trump can use the law for alleged gang members if they are given enough notice for due process.
The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled last month that the Trump administration can revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living temporarily in the United States.
The Temporary Protection Status program is extended to migrants every 18 months, if they cannot live or work safely in their home country, due to war or natural disaster. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in February protections for certain migrants or violent gangs are not in the U.S. national interest.
Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), looks on during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on his nomination at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 9, 2025. Over the weekend, Trump revealed he would withdraw Isaacman’s nomination “after a thorough review of prior associations.” File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
June 2 (UPI) — Just days before the U.S. Senate was set to hold a confirmation vote, President Donald Trump withdrew Jared Isaacman’s nomination for NASA administrator, citing “prior associations.”
While the White House did not reveal specifics about why the nomination was being pulled, spokesperson Liz Huston confirmed Monday that the administration is looking for a new candidate to lead the agency.
“The administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars,” Huston said. “It’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon.”
On Saturday, Trump revealed in a post on Truth Social that he was withdrawing the nomination “after a thorough review of prior associations,” without providing more details.
“I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA. I will soon announce a new nominee, who will be mission aligned and will put America First in space,” Trump said.
Isaacman was expected to be confirmed this week after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., filed cloture on the nomination May 22. Several Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee had voted with Republicans in April to favorably report the nomination to the full Senate.
Isaacman, a commercial astronaut and billionaire businessman with ties to SpaceX, led the first all-civilian space flight into orbit and had received the endorsement of 28 former NASA astronauts. Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., criticized the administration’s decision to pull his nomination.
“Astronaut and successful businessman Isaacman was a strong choice by President Trump to lead NASA,” Sheet wrote in a post on X. “I was proud to introduce Jared at his hearing and strongly oppose efforts to derail his nomination.”
NASA released details Friday about its proposed fiscal year 2026 budget, which includes 25% cuts to the space agency’s overall spending. In April, Isaacman criticized reports that science funding could be cut by nearly 50%, saying it “does not appear to be an optimal outcome.”
After Trump’s weekend post, Isaacman — who was nominated last December — thanked the president and the Senate “who supported me throughout this journey.”
“The past six months have been enlightening and, honestly, a bit thrilling. I have gained a much deeper appreciation for the complexities of government and the weight our political leaders carry,” Isaacman wrote Saturday in a post on X.
“I have not flown my last mission — whatever form that may ultimately take — but I remain incredibly optimistic that humanity’s greatest spacefaring days lie ahead. I’ll always be grateful for this opportunity and cheering on our president and NASA as they lead us on the greatest adventure in human history.”
A claim by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that an immigrant threatened the life of President Trump has begun to unravel.
Noem announced an arrest of a 54-year-old man who was living in the U.S. illegally, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would then return to Mexico. The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump’s allies.
But investigators actually believe the man may have been framed so that he would be arrested and deported from the U.S. before he got a chance to testify in a trial as a victim of assault, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Law enforcement officials believe the man, Ramon Morales Reyes, never wrote a letter that Noem and her department shared with a message written in light blue ink expressing anger over Trump’s deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts. The letter was mailed to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along with the FBI and other agencies, the person said.
As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded that his handwriting and the threatening letter didn’t match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It’s not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim.
In an emailed statement asking for information about the letter and the new information about Morales Reyes, the Department of Homeland Security said “the investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.”
His attorneys said he was not facing current charges and they did not have any information about convictions in his record. The revelations were first reported by CNN.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s records show Morales Reyes is being held at a county jail in Juneau, Wis., northwest of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which is advocating for his release, said he was arrested May 21. Attorney Cain Oulahan, who was hired to fight against his deportation, said he has a hearing in a Chicago immigration court next week and is hoping he is released on bond.
Morales Reyes had been a victim in a case of another man who is awaiting trial on assault charges in Wisconsin, the person familiar with the matter said. The trial is scheduled for July.
Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. He had recently applied for a U visa, which is carved out for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, said attorney Kime Abduli, who filed that application.
The Milwaukee Police Department said it is investigating an identity theft and victim intimidation incident related to this matter and the county district attorney’s office said the investigation was ongoing. Milwaukee police said no one has been criminally charged at this time.
Abduli, Morales Reyes’ attorney, says he could not have written the letter, saying he did not receive formal education and can’t write in Spanish and doesn’t know how to speak English. She said it was not clear whether he was arrested because of the letters.
“There is really no way that it could be even remotely true,” Abduli said. “We’re asking for a clarification and a correction from DHS to clear Ramon’s name of anything having to do with this.”
Balsamo, Bauer and Licon write for the Associated Press.
June 2 (UPI) — China on Monday rejected claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that it has broken the terms of the recent trade deal made between the two nations.
A Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said in a press release that it “firmly rejects” the “unreasonable accusations” and instead alleged that the United States failed to fulfill its duties.
The statement said that China followed through in canceling or suspending “relevant tariffs and non-tariff measures” implemented in response to Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” against China and several other nations.
It also noted that despite its conciliatory actions, the Trump administration has “successively introduced a number of discriminatory restrictive measures against China” such as export control guidelines for AI chips, stopping the sale of chip design software to China, and refering to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s announcements of plans to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students.
“The United States has unilaterally provoked new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating the uncertainty and instability of bilateral economic and trade relations. Instead of reflecting on itself, it has turned the tables and unreasonably accused China of violating the consensus, which is seriously contrary to the facts. China firmly rejects unreasonable accusations,” China said.
“If the [United States] insists on its own way and continues to damage China’s interests, China will continue to take resolute and forceful measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
Trump said in a social media post on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us” after the two sides had reached the deal in Geneva in May.
Under the terms of the deal, the two sides agreed to pause tariffs between the countries for 90 days as China reduced tariffs on American goods from 125% to 10% while the United States cut tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clarified Trump’s comments on CBS News “Face the Nation” Sunday, stating that China was “withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement,” and then confirmed those products to be rare earths.
It’s not easy being a Democrat in these Trumpian times, as each day brings fresh tales of conquest and pillage.
Still, despite all that, 4,000 stiff-upper-lipped partisans showed up in Anaheim over the weekend, seeking solace, inspiration and a winning way forward.
As mouse-eared pilgrims plied the sidewalks outside, the party faithful — meeting several long blocks from Disneyland — engaged in their own bit of escapism and magical thinking.
“Joy is an act of resistance,” state party Chairman Rusty Hicks gamely suggested at a beer-and-wine reception, which opened the party’s annual three-day convention with as much conviviality as the downtrodden could muster.
That’s certainly one way to cope.
But the weekend gathering wasn’t all hand-wringing and liquid refreshment.
There were workshops on top of workshops, caucus meetings on top of caucus meetings, and speaker after speaker, wielding various iterations of the words “fight” and “resist” and dropping enough f-bombs to blow decorum and restraint clear to kingdom come.
President Trump — the devil himself, to those roiling inside the hall — was derided as a “punk,” “the orange oligarch,” a small-fisted bully, the “thing that sits in the White House” and assorted unprintable epithets.
“My fellow Golden State Democrats, we are the party of FDR and JFK, of Pat Brown and the incomparable Nancy Pelosi,” said a not-so-mild-mannered Sen. Adam Schiff. “We do not capitulate. We do not concede. California does not cower. Not now, not ever. We say to bullies, you can go f— yourself.”
The road from political exile, many Democrats seemed to feel, is richly paved with four-letter words.
Two of the party’s 2028 presidential prospects were on hand. (Another of those — Gov. Gavin Newsom — has fallen out of favor with many of his fellow California Democrats and found it best to stay away.)
A highly caffeinated New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, of 25-hour filibuster fame, summoned past glories and urged Democrats to find their way back to the party’s grounding principles, then fight from there.
“We are here because of people who stood up when they were told to sit down. We’re here because of people who spoke up when they were told to be silent. We’re here because of people who marched in front of fire hoses and dogs,” Booker hollered in his best preacherly cadence. “We are here because of people who faced outrageous obstacles and still banded together and said we shall overcome.”
Tim Walz, the party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee and the weekend’s keynote speaker, was on hand after jetting from a morning appearance in South Carolina. He delivered the most thorough and substantive remarks.
He began with a brief acknowledgment and thanks to his 2024 running mate, Kamala Harris. (She, too, stayed away from the convention while pondering her political future. The former vice president’s sole presence was a three-minute video most noteworthy for its drab production and Harris’ passion-free delivery.)
“They played a game, a blame game, and they put out misinformation about an incredibly tragic situation,” Minnesota’s governor said. “They didn’t have the backs of the firefighters. They didn’t hustle to get you the help you needed. They hung you out to dry.”
Keeping with the weekend’s expletive-laden spirit, Walz blasted Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bull—” legislation and mocked congressional Republicans as the “merry band of dips—” who lend him their undying support.
But much of his 30-minute speech was devoted to flaying his own party — “like a deer … in goddamned headlights” — saying Democrats can blame only themselves for being so feckless and off-putting they made the odious Trump seem preferable by comparison.
“There is an appetite out there across this country to govern with courage and competency, to call crap where it is, to not be afraid, to make a mistake about things, but to show people who you truly are and that they don’t have to wonder who the Democratic Party is,” Walz said to a roaring ovation.
“Are you going to go to a cocktail party with somebody who’s super rich and then pass a law that benefits them?” he demanded. “[Or] are you going to work your ass off and make sure our kids get a good education?”
And yet for all the cursing and swagger and bluster, there was an unmistakable air of anxiety pervading the glassy convention center. This is a party in need of repair and many, from the convention floor to the hospitality suites, acknowledged as much.
Alex Dersh, a 27-year-old first-time delegate from San Jose, said his young peers — “shocked by Trump’s election” — were especially eager for change. They just can’t agree, he said, on what that should be.
Indeed, there were seemingly as many prescriptions on offer in Anaheim as there were delegates. (More than 3,500 by official count.)
Anita Scuri, 75, a retired Sacramento attorney attending her third or fourth convention, suggested the party needs to get back to basics by speaking plainly — she said nothing about profanity — and focusing on people’s pocketbooks.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” she said, recycling the message of Bill Clinton’s winning 1992 campaign. “It’s focusing on the lives people are living.”
Gary Borsos said Democrats need to stop dumbing-down their message and also quit harping on the president.
“There’s a lot of ‘Trump is bad,’ ” said the 74-year-old retired software engineer, who rode eight hours by train from Arroyo Grande to attend his first convention.
“What we’re doing is coming up with a lot of Band-Aid solutions to problems of the day,” Borsos said. “We’re not thinking long-term enough.”
Neither, however, expressed great confidence in their party going forward.
In the aftermath of Democrats’ widespread electoral failures last year, party activists in California who gathered for their annual convention this weekend struggled with balancing how to stick to their values while also reconnecting with voters who were traditionally part of their base — notably working-class Americans.
California’s progressive policies and its Democratic leaders were routinely battered by Republicans during the 2024 election, with then-vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris taking the brunt of it. Harris ultimately lost the election to Trump, partly because of shrinking support among traditional Democratic constituencies, including minorities and working-class voters.
“We got to be honest in what happened, because losing elections has consequences,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, during a rousing speech Saturday afternoon. “We’re in this mess because some of it’s our own doing. … None of us can afford to shy away from having hard conversations about what it’s going to take to win elections.”
Walz, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said Democrats don’t need to retreat from their ideals, such as protecting the most vulnerable in society, including transgender children. But they need to show voters that they are capable of bold policy that will improve voters’ lives rather than delivering incremental progress, he said.
“The Democratic Party, the party of the working class, lost a big chunk of the working class,” he said. “That last election was a primal scream on so many fronts: do something, do something, stand up and make a difference.”
California is home to the most Democrats in the nation as well as a large number of the party’s most deep-pocketed donors, making the state a popular spot for presidential hopefuls from across the country.
In addition to Walz, another potential 2028 White House candidate who addressed the 4,000 delegates and guests at the Anaheim Convention Center was New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Booker argued that Democrats must remember the courage of their ancestors who fought for civil and voting rights and created the social safety net for the most vulnerable Americans as they try to fight Trumpism.
“Real change does not come from Washington. It comes from communities. It comes from the streets,” he said in a Saturday morning speech. “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.”
Harris, who is weighing a 2026 gubernatorial run and is also viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, addressed the convention by video. Gov. Gavin Newsom, also viewed as a possible White House contender, did not appear at the convention.
Delegate Jane Baulch-Enloe, a middle school teacher from Pleasant Hill in the Bay Area, said she wasn’t sure that California’s particular brand of liberalism will sell on the national stage.
“I don’t know if a California Democrat can win a presidential election,” she said as she and her daughter sorted through swag and campaign fliers in the convention cafe. “California is thought of as the crazy people. … I don’t mean that in a bad way — though I know some people do — but we do things differently here.”
She said she learned from President Obama’s memoir, “Audacity of Hope,” that most, if not all, Americans “want the same things,” but talk about them differently and have different approaches for getting there. California Democrats, Baulch-Enloe said, “need to get people on our side and help them understand that we aren’t just wacko liberals, and teach people that it’s okay to want things” like healthcare for all and high union wages.
But the 2028 presidential race was not the focus of this year’s California Democratic Party convention. Delegates were more concerned about last year’s presidential and congressional losses — though California was a rare bright spot for the party, flipping three districts held by the GOP — and preparing for next year’s midterm elections. Delegates hope Democrats will take control of Congress to stop Trump from enacting his agenda.
Aref Aziz, a leader of the party’s Asian American Pacific Islander caucus, said the party needed to sharpen its messaging on economic issues if they want to have a chance of victory in coming elections.
“When it comes to the affordability issue, when it comes to economics, those are the things that across the broad spectrum of our coalition, all those things matter to everybody,” Aziz said. “And what really is, what really is important is for us to focus on that economic message and how we’re going to improve the quality of life for everyone in these midterm elections and future presidential elections.”
He noted he was in France on his honeymoon recently, and was strolling through a grocery store and buying half a dozen eggs for 1.50 euros (the equivalent of $1.70) when the news broke that California’s economy had grown to the fourth largest in the world.
“When you look at a lot of our economies, California and New York, by all accounts, GDP, the numbers that you look at, they’re doing great,” he said. “But when it comes to the cost that consumers are paying in these places, they’re so high and so far above other countries that we end up diminishing whatever value there is in our GDP, because everything’s so expensive.”
Some Democrats questioned the impact of the weaponization of California’s liberal policies, including defending transgender rights, on voters in battleground states in 2024.
But delegates and party leaders largely argued that the state needs to continue to be on the vanguard of such matters.
“People like to point a finger somewhere, and I think California is an easy target, but I disagree,” said delegate Melissa Taylor, president of our local Foothill Community Democrats. “Because I think that California is standing up for values that the Democratic Party believes in, like we believe in labor, we believe in healthcare, we believe in women’s rights, we believe in rights for LGBTQ people.”
Jodi Hicks, the president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said issues such as reproductive healthcare access also have an economic impact.
“We have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said, adding that the party’s 2024 losses were likely prompted by multiple factors, including Harris’ being the Democratic nominee for a little over three months after then-President Biden decided not to seek reelection.
“We’re going to be analyzing 2024 for a very long time,” Hicks said. “It was such unique circumstances.”
Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday. Photo by Clemens Bilan/EPA-EFE
May 31 (UPI) — President Trump plans to meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz next week in Washington, D.C..
Merz, who was elected May 6 in a parliamentary election, is scheduled to visit with Trump on Thursday in the White House, German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said in a news release Saturday.
Merz, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, replaced Olaf Scholz, who served since 2021 with the Social Democratic Party. Merz was first elected to the Bundestag in 1994 and was leader of the opposition since February 2022.
He will travel to the U.S. capital one day ahead, according to broadcaster n-tv.
They will focus on bilateral relations, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East and trade policy, which includes tariffs, according to Kornelius.
A White House official confirmed the meeting to The Hill.
Like Trump, Merz wants a cease-fire in the war between Ukraine and Russia that began in February 2022.
Merz met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyin Berlin on Wednesday.
The chancellor said that Germany will increase financial support for Ukraine as part of a more than $5.5 billion agreement. That includes sending over more military equipment and increasing weapons manufacturing in Kyiv.
Members of the Trump administration have criticized Germany’s designation of the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party as an “extremist” political entity.
“We have largely stayed out of the American election campaign in recent years, and that includes me personally,” Merz said in an interview with Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which is part of Politico, that was published on May 7.
Last Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul traveled to Washington and met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump spoke on the phone with Merz during his visit on May 10 with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to meet with Zelensky in Kyiv.
Macron, Starmer and Zelensky have already met with Trump in the White House.
Other foreign leaders who met with Trump since he took office again on Jan. 20 include Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Irish Prime Minister Micheel Martin, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Many heads of state, including Trump, went to the funeral for Francis on April 26 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Merz wasn’t one of them.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is withdrawing the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Elon Musk, to lead NASA, a person familiar with the decision said Saturday.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the administration’s personnel decisions. The White House and NASA did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Trump announced last December during the presidential transition that he had chosen Isaacman to be the space agency’s next administrator. Isaacman has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since he bought his first chartered flight on Musk’s SpaceX in 2021.
He is the CEO and founder of Shift4, a credit card processing company. He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk.
Isaacman testified at his Senate confirmation hearing on April 9 and a vote to send his nomination to the full Senate was expected soon.
SpaceX is owned by Musk, a Trump supporter and adviser who announced this week that he is leaving the government after several months at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Trump created the agency to slash the size of government and put Musk in charge.
Semafor was first to report that the White House had decided to pull Isaacman’s nomination.
Superville and Kim write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — President Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won’t bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package.
The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical as Trump seems unable to trim deficits as promised.
“All of this rhetoric about cutting trillions of dollars of spending has come to nothing — and the tax bill codifies that,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “There is a level of concern about the competence of Congress and this administration and that makes adding a whole bunch of money to the deficit riskier.”
The White House has viciously lashed out at anyone who has voiced concern about the debt snowballing under Trump, even though it did exactly that in his first term after his 2017 tax cuts.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened her briefing Thursday by saying she wanted “to debunk some false claims” about his tax cuts.
Leavitt said the “blatantly wrong claim that the ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ increases the deficit is based on the Congressional Budget Office and other scorekeepers who use shoddy assumptions and have historically been terrible at forecasting across Democrat and Republican administrations alike.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) piled onto Congress’ number crunchers on Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “The CBO sometimes gets projections correct, but they’re always off, every single time, when they project economic growth. They always underestimate the growth that will be brought about by tax cuts and reduction in regulations.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has said the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office are “always underestimates growth” spurred by tax cuts.
(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)
But Trump himself has suggested that the lack of sufficient spending cuts to offset his tax reductions came out of the need to hold the Republican congressional coalition together.
“We have to get a lot of votes,” Trump said last week. “We can’t be cutting.”
That has left the administration betting on the hope that economic growth can do the trick, a belief that few outside of Trump’s orbit think is viable.
Most economists consider the non-partisan CBO to be the foundational standard for assessing policies, though it does not produce cost estimates for actions taken by the executive branch such as Trump’s unilateral tariffs.
Tech billionaire Musk, who was until recently part of Trump’s inner sanctum as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, told CBS News: “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Federal debt keeps rising
The tax and spending cuts that passed the House last month would add more than $5 trillion to the national debt in the coming decade if all of them are allowed to continue, according to the Committee for a Responsible Financial Budget, a fiscal watchdog group.
To make the bill’s price tag appear lower, various parts of the legislation are set to expire. This same tactic was used with Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and it set up this year’s dilemma, in which many of the tax cuts in that earlier package will sunset next year unless Congress renews them.
But the debt is a much bigger problem now than it was eight years ago. Investors are demanding the government pay a higher premium to keep borrowing as the total debt has crossed $36.1 trillion. The interest rate on a 10-year Treasury note is around 4.5%, up dramatically from the roughly 2.5% rate being charged when the 2017 tax cuts became law.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers argues that its policies will unleash so much rapid growth that the annual budget deficits will shrink in size relative to the overall economy, putting the U.S. government on a fiscally sustainable path.
The council argues the economy would expand over the next four years at an annual average of about 3.2%, instead of the Congressional Budget Office’s expected 1.9%, and as many as 7.4 million jobs would be created or saved.
Council chair Stephen Miran told reporters that when the growth being forecast by the White House is coupled with expected revenues from tariffs, the expected budget deficits will fall. The tax cuts will increase the supply of money for investment, the supply of workers and the supply of domestically produced goods — all of which, by Miran’s logic, would cause faster growth without creating new inflationary pressures.
“I do want to assure everyone that the deficit is a very significant concern for this administration,” Miran said.
White House budget director Russell Vought told reporters the idea that the bill is “in any way harmful to debt and deficits is fundamentally untrue.”
Economists doubt Trump’s plan can spark enough growth to reduce deficits
Most outside economists expect additional debt would keep interest rates higher and slow overall economic growth as the cost of borrowing for homes, cars, businesses and even college educations would increase.
“This just adds to the problem future policymakers are going to face,” said Brendan Duke, a former Biden administration aide now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Duke said that with the tax cuts in the bill set to expire in 2028, lawmakers would be “dealing with Social Security, Medicare and expiring tax cuts at the same time.”
Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, said the growth projections from Trump’s economic team are “a work of fiction.” He said the bill would lead some workers to choose to work fewer hours in order to qualify for Medicaid.
“I don’t know of any serious forecaster that has meaningfully raised their growth forecast because of this legislation,” said Harvard University professor Jason Furman, who was the Council of Economic Advisers chair under the Obama administration. “These are mostly not growth- and competitiveness-oriented tax cuts. And, in fact, the higher long-term interest rates will go the other way and hurt growth.”
The White House’s inability so far to calm deficit concerns is stirring up political blowback for Trump as the tax and spending cuts approved by the House now move to the Senate. Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have both expressed concerns about the likely deficit increases, with Johnson saying there are enough senators to stall the bill until deficits are addressed.
“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson said on CNN.
Trump banking on tariff revenues to help
The White House is also banking that tariff revenues will help cover the additional deficits, even though recent court rulings cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump declaring an economic emergency to impose sweeping taxes on imports.
When Trump announced his near-universal tariffs in April, he specifically said his policies would generate enough new revenues to start paying down the national debt. His comments dovetailed with remarks by aides, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that yearly budget deficits could be more than halved.
“It’s our turn to prosper and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it’ll all happen very quickly,” Trump said two months ago as he talked up his import taxes and encouraged lawmakers to pass the separate tax and spending cuts.
The Trump administration is correct that growth can help reduce deficit pressures, but it’s not enough on its own to accomplish the task, according to new research by economists Douglas Elmendorf, Glenn Hubbard and Zachary Liscow.
Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale University, said additional “growth doesn’t even get us close to where we need to be.”
The government would need $10 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years just to stabilize the debt, Tedeschi said. And even though the White House says the tax cuts would add to growth, most of the cost goes to preserve existing tax breaks, so that’s unlikely to boost the economy meaningfully.
WASHINGTON — The widening and increasingly bitter divide between Republicans and Democrats defines American politics, but in recent weeks, it’s the divisions inside each of the two parties that have dominated headlines.
Republicans have denounced 13 of their House colleagues who sided with Democrats earlier this month to pass Biden’s $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill. After conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted their phone numbers on social media, some of the 13 reported getting death threats.
What issues create the deep fissures within the two parties, and which Americans make up the conflicting factions?
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Pew released its latest typology on Tuesday, the eighth in the series. The results are key to understanding why American politics works the way it does.
Parties driven by their extremes
For this latest effort, Pew surveyed 10,221 American adults, asking each of them a series of questions about their political attitudes, values and views of American society. Researchers took the results and put them through what’s called a cluster analysis to define groups that make up U.S. society.
The new typology divides Americans into nine such groups — four on the left, which make up the Democratic coalition, four on the right, making up the Republican coalition, and one in between whose members are largely defined by a lack of interest in politics and public affairs.
Nearly all the Democrats agree on wanting a larger government that provides more services; nearly all the Republicans want the opposite.
And nearly all Democrats believe that race and gender discrimination remain serious problems in American society that require further efforts to resolve. On the Republican side, the belief that little — if anything — remains to be done to achieve equality has become a defining principle.
On other issues, however, the parties have deep internal splits. In each, the most energized group — the people who most regularly turn out to vote, post on social media and contribute to campaigns — stands at the edges.
On the right, that would be an extremely conservative, religiously oriented, nationalistic group which Pew calls the Faith and Flag conservatives. At the other end of the scale stands a socialist-friendly, largely secular group it calls the Progressive Left.
On several major issues, those two groups have views that are “far from the rest of their coalitions,” yet they’re “the most politically engaged groups, and they’re driving the conversation,” said Carroll Doherty, Pew’s director of political research.
The Faith and Flag conservatives, who make up about 10% of American adults and almost 25% of Republicans, have shaped the party’s policies on some social issues such as abortion, but have even more strongly affected its overall approach to politics. A majority (53%) of the group, for example, says that “compromise in politics is really just selling out.”
That has strongly shaped the GOP’s approach to legislation and helps explain the bitter, angry response to the Republicans who voted for Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure compromise.
The group is overwhelmingly white (85%), relatively old (two-thirds are 50 or older) mostly Christian (4 in 10 are white, evangelical Protestants) and heavily rural.
Their mirror image, the Progressive Left, is a significantly smaller group, only about 6% of Americans and 12% of Democrats. Despite their smaller size, however, they have had a strong impact, moving their party to the left, especially on expanding government and combating climate change.
That group is in several ways the opposite of the Faith and Flag conservatives: urban, secular and significantly more college-educated than the rest of the country.
Like the Faith and Flag group, however, the Progressives are mostly white (68%) — the only Democratic faction with a white majority.
The groups have one other trait in common — each has a deep, visceral dislike of the other party.
While those two set the parameters of a lot of American political debate, it’s the other groups in each party’s coalition that explain why the Democratic and Republican approaches to government have diverged so widely.
On the Democratic side, the two biggest blocs, which make up just over half of Democratic voters, fit comfortably into the party establishment.
The Establishment Liberals (think Vice President Kamala Harris or Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg) are a racially diverse, highly educated (one-quarter have post-graduate degrees), fairly affluent group that is optimistic in its outlook, liberal in its politics and strong believers that “compromise is how things get done” in politics.
The Democratic Mainstays (think House Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn of South Carolina or President Biden) are more likely to define themselves as political moderates and are significantly more likely than other Democrats to say that religion plays a major role in their lives. Roughly 40% of Black Democrats fit into this group.
The Mainstays are more likely than other Democrats to favor increasing funds for police in their neighborhoods and somewhat less likely to favor increased immigration, but are extremely loyal to the Democratic Party.
Together, those two groups give Democrats a strong orientation toward cutting deals, making incremental progress and getting the work of government done.
Virtually the opposite is true of Republicans, whose two largest groups, the Faith and Flag conservatives and what Pew calls the Populist Right, dislike compromise and harbor deep suspicions of American institutions. Together, those groups, which make up nearly half the GOP’s voters, have produced a party that revels in opposition but has often found itself stymied when trying to govern.
The Populists group, the one most closely identified with former President Trump‘s style of politics, has a negative view of huge swaths of American society — big corporations, but also the entertainment industry, tech companies, labor unions, colleges and universities, and K-12 schools.
Nearly 9 in 10 of them believe the U.S. economic system unfairly favors the powerful, and a majority support raising taxes on big companies and the wealthy. Both of those views put them at odds with the rest of the GOP, helping explain why the party struggles to come up with economic proposals beyond opposition to Democratic plans.
The Populist Right also overwhelmingly says that immigrants coming to the U.S. make the country worse off. That puts them in conflict with the party’s smaller but still influential business-oriented establishment.
About half the Populist group say that white people declining as a share of the U.S. population is a bad thing, more than in any other group.
The Republican establishment faction (think Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky or Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah) is what Pew calls the Committed Conservatives, pro-business, generally favorable to immigration and more moderate on racial issues.
A lot of Republican elected officials fall into that group, but unlike the very large establishment blocs on the Democratic side, relatively fewer voters do — 7% of Americans and 15% of the GOP. That creates a pervasive tension between GOP elected officials and many of their constituents.
Unlike the two larger conservative blocs, in which majorities want to see Trump run again, most Republicans in this group would prefer him to take a back seat.
Each of the coalitions also has a group that is alienated from its party.
A significant number in the Ambivalent Right, a younger, socially liberal, largely anti-Trump group within the GOP, voted for Biden in 2020.
On the Democratic side, the mostly young people in the Outsider Left are very liberal, but frustrated with the Democrats and not always motivated to vote. When Democratic political figures talk about the need to boost voter turnout, those are the potential voters many of them picture.
By the way, there’s a long connection between the Los Angeles Times and the political typology project. The first version of the political typology dates back to 1987 and was developed by the long-ago Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, a research organization founded by the company that owned The Times.
To allow readers to see how they compared to the political types in that era, The Times published the typology quiz as a full-page in print, inviting people to fill it out, mail it in and get a letter back telling them what group they belonged to. Today, you can do it all online.
Where do you fit?
From the hard-right Faith and Flag Conservatives to the socialist-friendly Progressive Left, with seven stops in between, Pew’s political typology describes nine groups into which Americans can be divided. The typology comes along with a quiz that allows you to see which group most closely matches your views on major issues.
The vice president abroad
On a trip this week to France, Harris is introducing herself to the world in personal terms, Noah Bierman wrote. The trip, he said, has given Harris a chance “to reveal herself on the world stage — highlighting her status as the first woman and the first woman of color to serve in such high office — after 10 months of focusing on responding to the COVD-19 pandemic and other crises,” which have taken a political toll.
Part of Harris’ goal in the trip is to further mend relations with France, which were strained when the administration struck a deal with Australia to help build nuclear submarines, which wiped out a major French contract to build boats for the Australian navy. In her speeches, however, Harris has also tried to make the case that the U.S. has moved past the Trump era and once again can be relied upon as an ally, Bierman wrote. That’s met with some skepticism from Europeans, who wonder what will happen in the next election.
Meantime, Mark Barabak looked at how Harris has adopted a much lower public profile of late. As past occupants of the office, including George H.W. Bush and Al Gore have found, the number-two job is an “inherently diminishing one,” he wrote.
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Their investigation, based on thousands of documents and Transportation Department data, shows that more than 200,000 people have lost their homes nationwide to federal road projects over the last three decades. In many cases, predominantly Black or Latino communities that were torn apart by freeway construction a generation or more ago have been dislocated once more by new projects.
Inflation has seriously damaged several presidencies in the last half century; now, rising prices threaten Biden, Chris Megerian and Erin Logan wrote.
At the international climate conference in Glasgow, the U.S., Britain and 17 other countries agreed to reduce emissions from the shipping industry, which is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases, Anna Phillips reported. Large container ships use fuel that is dirtier by far than the diesel that powers cars. Ships can also be a major source of air pollution in port cities, including Los Angeles.
As Democrats continue to haggle over the details of their big social spending proposal, Jennifer Haberkorn took a look at one of the plan’s largest elements — a major increase in money for early childhood education. The bill would devote about $390 billion over the next 10 years to providing preschool access to all 3- and 4-year-olds. That would mark the largest expansion of free education since high school was added about 100 years ago.
The latest from California
The state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission has come up with a draft map of new congressional and legislative districts, and it’s already causing heartburn for a number of incumbent lawmakers, Seema Mehta and John Myers reported.
The new maps may strengthen Latino political clout in California overall, but the most heavily Latino district in the state would be eliminated. The 40th District, represented by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, covers parts of East and South L.A. and would be parceled out among neighboring districts, Mehta reported. Roybal-Allard, 80, has raised very little money amid speculation that she has plans to retire next year. The state is losing one congressional district after last year’s census, and the loss was widely expected to come in the Los Angeles area, which has grown more slowly than other parts of the state.
The redrawn boundaries may force some incumbents to run against each other or run in districts that have suddenly become less politically secure. The Central Valley districts of GOP Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare and Democratic Rep. Josh Harder of Turlock would both be significantly altered, according to redistricting analysts in both parties. Reps. MikeGarcia of Santa Clarita, Michelle Steel of Seal Beach and Darrell Issa of Bonsall would all find their districts becoming less secure.
But there’s a good chance the maps will change again after a two-week public comment period, which began with the commission’s approval of the maps on Wednesday night.
The Biden administration will extend a major homelessness initiative that has allowed Los Angeles and other cities to rent hotel rooms as temporary housing for thousands of people. As Ben Oreskes reported, the administration will extend the program through March. It was slated to expire at the end of the year.
In another development related to homelessness, a group looking to oust Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin says it has submitted more than 39,000 signatures on recall petitions. If the signatures hold up to scrutiny, that would qualify the measure for the ballot. Bonin’s opponents have accused him of failing to take seriously the impact of crime that they say is connected to homeless encampments.
Reporting from Washington — For President Trump, chants and signs saying “Build the wall” are so 2016 — “Finish the wall” is his new rallying cry. Yet two years into his term, not one new mile of a barrier has been erected along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
At a rally in El Paso on Monday night, Trump went so far as to declare that nearby, just that day, “the big beautiful wall right on the Rio Grande” had gotten underway. In fact, some brush was cleared in anticipation of construction, according to a check with the Homeland Security Department.
If and when a 25-mile physical barrier ultimately is built there, it will represent the first new miles of border barriers since Trump took office. That is the reality that the president — a businessman and self-proclaimed construction expert elected in part on his promise to build a massive border wall — is increasingly attempting to obscure as he looks to reelection.
Even as the president has failed to get the funding he wants for a wall, despite two years with a Republican-controlled Congress, he has shifted to declaring victory and claiming credit for the 654 miles of fencing constructed under his predecessors — the same former presidents he often criticizes for their border policies, as he did Tuesday by derisively referring to “our past geniuses.”
Trump himself directed campaign officials that “Finish the wall” was to be the theme of the El Paso rally, according to a person familiar with the planning. With the slogan on red and blue banners hanging from the rafters, and on signs distributed to the crowd, when supporters chanted the usual “Build the wall,” Trump corrected them: “You mean finish the wall.”
The president’s attempted sleight of hand on his signature issue comes amid both deepening resignation in his circle that Democrats in Congress are not going to support significant increases in wall funding and concern about disappointing his core supporters.
“The point is this wall will not be built without Donald Trump in office in 2021 and beyond,” said Raj Shah, a former White House deputy press secretary.
Even after a record five-week partial government shutdown provoked by Trump’s funding demand, and current efforts by lawmakers to avoid another impasse, Congress will not be approving anywhere close to the $5.7 billion he’s been demanding to finance 230 miles of new wall. Instead, tentative plans in Congress call for less than a quarter of that — $1.375 billion for 55 miles of barrier.
“Am I happy? The answer is no, I’m not. I’m not happy,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. Claiming that he is “adding to” the emerging compromise, Trump did not say if he would sign off on the deal. He did say he does not expect another shutdown, which would occur if he doesn’t sign a spending bill for about a quarter of the government by midnight Friday.
Administration officials have been looking to redirect existing funds to his wall project. In his remarks to reporters during a Cabinet meeting, the president sought to reassure supporters that he’ll fulfill his promise regardless of what Congress does.
“It’s very simple: We’re building a wall and now I say we’re finishing a wall,” he said, repeating the false claim.
A campaign official, who asked to remain unidentified for speaking on the sensitive topic, argued that there is nothing contradictory in the president simultaneously claiming the wall is being finished and complaining that Congress won’t fund it.
“You can be at Mile 2 of a [26.2-mile] marathon and still say, ‘We’re going to finish,’” the person said. “And we are at Mile 2, not Mile 24. But we’ve erected some barricades, so it’s not nothing.”
The president, according to the official, “is just reassuring his voters because he knows he’s likely going to end up accepting a deal” that’s less than he sought.
Much of the work that Trump is touting consists of strengthening or restoring the existing 654 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers largely built or funded under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, according to the Government Accountability Office.
From 2007 to 2015, the Customs and Border Protection agency spent about $2.3 billion to increase barriers on the border from 119 miles to the current 654 miles, with almost all of the work done on land, much of it federally owned, in California, Arizona and New Mexico. East of El Paso, much of the land along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas — the least-fenced area — is privately owned.
So far under Trump, Congress has approved nearly $1 billion to replace more than 50 miles of fencing in California, New Mexico and Texas, the GAO reported.
Several of these renovation projects, in what are known as the El Paso and El Centro sectors, were completed in October. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen boasted that the latter was the completion of the “first section” of Trump’s border wall. More replacement construction is underway, due to wrap up this spring.
More than $640 million of the funds Congress provided last year is for 25 miles of fencing along levees in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley as well as areas in the sector “to be determined.” That is the only new construction approved under Trump so far.
Carlos A. Diaz, a CBP spokesman, said the fiscal 2018 budget, which covered spending through September last year, included roughly three dozen new miles of a levee and border wall system in the Rio Grande Valley. Construction on the first 14 miles of the levee system is to begin this month.
The Homeland Security Department planned to spend billions to meet Trump’s executive orders for his border wall despite lacking key information on cost, acquisition and technology issues — risking that a wall would “cost more than projected, take longer than planned or not fully perform as expected,” the GAO concluded in August. Cost estimates have ranged from $20 billion to more than $70 billion.
For fiscal year 2019, through Oct. 1, the White House initially requested $1.6 billion for a wall system along 65 miles in the Rio Grande Valley. Now, after a shutdown estimated to have cost the U.S. economy $11 billion, the spending agreement reached Monday night would give Trump about $200 million and 10 miles less than what he stood to get before he upped his demand to nearly $6 billion late last year.
In his struggle to win Congress’ buy-in, Trump has significantly redefined what, exactly, his wall would be. He campaigned for a “big, beautiful wall” that he’s since variably said would be precast or plank concrete, steel slats, see-through, human, “matte black,” too tall to climb over, too deep to tunnel under, to be paid for by Mexico or paid for inexplicably by the benefits of a revised trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
“Now he’s tended toward steel slats,” Kelly said. “But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”
The Trump administration awarded more than $3 million for the construction and design of eight border wall prototypes — four of reinforced concrete and two that could be seen through.
Congress’ tentative spending agreement would restrict CBP to using currently deployed designs for the new border barrier, including steel slats or bollard fencing. But it remains unclear whether the House and Senate will approve the compromise, or whether Trump will sign it if they do.
Key Trump supporters, led by Fox News host Sean Hannity, bashed the agreement as soon as it was announced for backing off the president’s $5.7-billion demand. Some liberal Democrats are likely to oppose any new funding for a border fence and complain that negotiators dropped a proposed cap on how many immigrants Trump can detain.
Still, Trump insisted Tuesday: “We’re getting a beautiful-looking structure that’s also less expensive to build and works much better.”
“I never kid about construction,” he added. “I love construction.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration invited travel industry executives to the White House in May for a meeting on federal plans for the 2026 World Cup, a landmark event that under normal circumstances would draw massive international tourism to the United States. It was a welcome gathering by President Trump and his team for an industry eager to capitalize on a rare opportunity and capture tourism dollars.
Welcome, at least, until Vice President JD Vance cracked a joke.
“We’ll have visitors from close to 100 countries — we want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise, they’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem,” Vance said, referring to the Homeland Security secretary and head of border enforcement.
Vance’s remarks, while taken in jest, fell flat in a room filled with experts more keenly aware than most of the challenges facing travel in the Trump era.
“It’s one of those moments where you’re almost, like, stop helping us,” one participant in the meeting told The Times, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Stories are flooding media overseas of capricious denials and detentions at U.S. border crossings, raising concern among international tourists over spending top dollar on vacations to America that may end up disrupted, or never materialize. Erratic tariff policies out of the White House have shaken consumer confidence that experts say reliably tracks with discretionary spending on travel. And a series of scares in U.S. aviation, coupled with cuts to the National Park Service and the National Weather Service, have made planning trips to some of the country’s top destinations less reliable.
In California, the nation’s No. 1 tourist destination, international visits are expected to drop by 9.2% through the year, with international spending anticipated to drop 4.2%, according to a forecast published last month by Visit California and Tourism Economics.
Around Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s most popular attractions, reported bookings were down “as much as 50% going into Memorial Day weekend,” Caroline Beteta, president and chief executive of Visit California, told The Times.
Narratives of travel disruptions under the Trump administration have given pause to U.S. officials and industry experts concerned not only with the immediate economic consequences of a slower summer season, but with the prospects of anemic attendance at World Cup games next year and, beyond, for the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
“Consumer confidence certainly matters,” said Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the U.S. Travel Assn. “It creates a degree of uncertainty.”
‘People should plan ahead’
Unlike much of the rest of the country, California is particularly susceptible to shifting trends among tourists from Asia, where tourism has yet to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic as robustly as it has in the Americas and Europe. Commercial flight restrictions over Russian airspace and the strength of the U.S. dollar haven’t helped, Freeman said.
On the other hand, California benefits from a tourism industry that relies more heavily on domestic travelers, the source of 80% of tourism dollars spent in the state, Beteta noted.
“There’s no question that there are widespread misperceptions about impacts to the travel experience, from reports about staff cuts to detentions at the border,” Beteta said. “Cuts at the National Park Service, for example, don’t affect the park concessionaires — and those companies run most of the visitor-facing services, such as lodging, dining, shuttle services and much more. The misperception of chaos at the parks is a PR issue that can have real consequences.”
Visitors board buses in Yosemite National Park on May 20. Reported bookings around Yosemite National Park were down 50% leading into Memorial Day weekend.
(Carlos Avila Gonzalez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
But Cassidy Jones, senior visitation program manager at the National Parks Conservation Assn., said that cuts to the parks are tangible and will directly affect visitors’ experience over the coming months, despite efforts by leadership at the Department of the Interior to paper over the cracks.
“There may be fewer entrance gates open,” Jones said. “People should plan ahead and remember to be helpful park visitors. Take the optional shuttle. Come with supplies with you, as some facilities may be closed at hours you’re not expecting, because they don’t have the staff to keep them open. Toilets may not be unwinterized yet if they’re in cold places.”
In April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order directing that national parks be “open and accessible” through the summer season, as fears grew that staffing cuts implemented by the administration could become apparent. Still, the White House cuts and hiring freezes severely disrupted a seasonal hiring and training cadence for park rangers that usually begins around Christmas, Jones said.
“Some parks may not feel like a lot of changes are evident, but there’s a lot of work that is not being done in the background,” Jones added. “The order basically demanded that even though parks have experienced devastating staffing cuts, they are to put on a sort of public appearance that everything is business as usual. That means pulling superintendents to work in visitor centers, science and research management staff to make sure facilities are clean — biologists cleaning toilets, that sort of thing.”
Flight disruptions expected
Twenty years ago, roughly half of flight delays were caused by uncertainty over the weather — a number that has dropped to 33% in recent years thanks to improved forecast quality. That progress is starting to reverse due to widespread cuts in talent, and will be felt by travelers sooner rather than later, said Rick Spinrad, who served as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under President Biden.
Trump’s government efficiency program, known as DOGE, has eliminated hundreds of positions at NOAA, including at the National Weather Service, and is proposing a 25% cut in the agency’s budget.
“In the short term, this summer, when people are doing longer traveling, we may see a degradation of services. You may see more delayed flights, more weather-impacted flights,” Spinrad said.
But Spinrad’s concern is that the cuts to NOAA will soon be felt much more deeply, at the local level, among the emergency managers, local transportation departments and public health centers that count on reliable forecasts to map out their work.
“What we’re going to start to see, I think, is the erosion of the capability of NOAA to provide services to the degree that people had become accustomed to,” he said.
Spinrad visited Southern California in late May and was taken aback by the number of people raising concern over the agency’s ability to continue predicting atmospheric river events, with all of their implications on public safety, reservoir operations and hydro power. Those forecasts rely heavily on the work of a satellite operations facility that was gutted by the Trump administration.
And the capabilities of the National Weather Service to predict phenomena like Santa Ana winds, which fueled devastating fires in Los Angeles in January, are at risk, with 30 of the agency’s 122 weather forecast offices operating without meteorologists and with technicians cut throughout, he said.
“I know it will degrade, just by definition. Everything’s going to degrade,” Spinrad added. “All of NOAA’s predictive capabilities will degrade as a result of these cuts.”
Mark Spalding, president of the Ocean Foundation, warned the aviation industry would soon face disruptions as NOAA’s capabilities continue to diminish.
“We will see effects this summer, because they’ve fired so many people and shut down so much activity,” Spalding said.
“There are a lot of services that a lot of people rely on that NOAA provides — weather prediction, ocean observing, tsunami early warning, hurricane center monitoring,” he added. “There’s a lot this summer that could be affected in ways that are akin to what we’re seeing in air traffic control due to the sudden loss of personnel there.”
Still, Freeman, of the U.S. Travel Assn., expressed optimism for the U.S. tourism sector going forward, noting he and his counterparts are in “regular communication” with the Trump administration over headwinds facing the multitrillion-dollar industry.
“We have no shortage of challenges in the travel industry,” he said. “I think the picture right now for travel is uncertain, at worst.”
“For every challenge you see, there is an opportunity on the other side,” he added.
CLOVIS, Calif. — Overcoming intense pressure to quit from President Trump, dozens of local protesters and other prominent critics of transgender athletes in girls’ sports, 16-year-old AB Hernandez bounded past many of her peers to win multiple gold medals at California’s high school track and field championships Saturday.
The transgender junior from Jurupa Valley High School — who competed despite a directive from Trump that she be barred from doing so — won state titles in the girls’ triple jump and the girl’s high jump and took second place in the girls’ long jump.
Hernandez’s success at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships in Clovis came amid high heat — with temperatures above 100 degrees for much of the day — and under an intense spotlight.
Earlier in the week, Trump had said on social media that he was “ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow” Hernandez to compete, wrongly alleging she had won “everything” in a prior meet and calling her “practically unbeatable.” Protesters gathered outside the meet both Friday and Saturday to denounce her inclusion and the LGBTQ+-friendly state laws allowing it.
Despite all that, Hernandez appeared calm and focused as she competed. When her name was announced for the long jump, she waved to the crowd. When she was announced for the high jump, she smiled.
Hernandez beat out all other competitors in the triple jump, though the runner-up was also awarded 1st place under new rules established by the California Interscholastic Federation after Trump issued his threats.
Hernandez tied with two other girls in the high jump, with the three of them all clearing the same height and sharing the gold.
Hernandez’s mother, Nereyda Hernandez, heaped praise on her after the events in a statement provided to The Times, saying, “As your mother, I cannot fully express how PROUD I am of you.”
“Watching you rise above months of being targeted, misunderstood, and judged not by peers, but by adults who should’ve known better, has left me in awe of your strength,” her mother said. “Despite it all, you stayed focused. You kept training, you kept showing up, and now you’re bringing THE GOLD HOME!!!
During some of Hernandez’s jumps, a protester could be heard on a bullhorn from outside the Buchanan High School stadium chanting “No boys in girls’ sports!” California Interscholastic Federation officials banned protest signs inside the facility, but outside protesters held a range of them — including ones that read “No Child Is Born in the Wrong Body,” “Trans Girls Are Boys: CIF Do Better,” and “She Trains to Win. He takes the trophy?”
Josh Fulfer, a 46-year-old father and conservative online influencer who lives near the stadium, said he was the protester on the bullhorn. He said Hernandez should not have been competing — regardless of how she placed — because her presence in the competition had a negative “psychological effect” on her cisgender competitors.
“I stand with truth,” he said. “Males should not be pretending to be females, and they shouldn’t be competing against female athletes.”
Loren Webster, a senior from Wilson High School in Long Beach who beat Hernandez in the long jump, said she wasn’t giving Hernandez much thought — instead, she was focused on her own performance.
“It wasn’t any other person I was worried about. I knew what I was capable of,” Webster said. “I can’t control the uncontrollable.”
A child holds a protest sign alongside a family member and others opposed to transgender athlete AB Hernandez competing in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships, at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
The intense focus on Hernandez over two days of competition Friday and Saturday reflected a broad rise in conservative outrage over transgender girls competing in sporting events nationwide, despite their representing a tiny fraction of competitors. It also reflected a concerted effort by Trump and other prominent conservative figures to single out Hernandez, individually, as an unwitting poster child for such concerns.
Recent polls, including one conducted by The Times last year, have shown that many Americans support transgender rights, but a majority oppose transgender girls participating in youth sports. California has long defended transgender kids and their right to participate in youth athletics, but other states have increasingly moved to limit or remove such rights entirely.
Marci Strange supports protestors as they protest against transgender athlete AB Hernandez competing In the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships, at Veterans Memorial Stadium In the campus of Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
Trump first latched onto transgender issues with fervor during his presidential campaign, spending millions of dollars on anti-transgender political ads. Since being elected, he has issued a wave of executive orders and other policies aimed at rolling back transgender rights and protections.
Again and again, Hernandez has been singled out in that discussion.
Earlier this week, Trump referenced Hernandez in a social media post in which he said his administration would cut federal funding to California if it didn’t block her from competing in this weekend’s state finals and more broadly get in line with his executive order purporting to ban transgender youth from participating in school sports nationwide.
The following day, U.S. Justice Department officials referenced Hernandez again, announcing the launch of an investigation into whether California, its interscholastic sports federation and the Jurupa Unified School District are violating the civil rights of cisgender girls by allowing transgender students such as Hernandez to compete in sports.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the high jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
At the meet Friday and Saturday, Hernandez often blended in with the hundreds of other athletes, hardly drawing attention. She was less conspicuous by far than the protesters there to denounce her for competing.
Hernandez’s mother has pleaded with Trump and other adults in recent days to show her daughter compassion, calling it heartbreaking “every time I see my child being attacked, not for a wrongdoing, but simply for being who they are.”
She has said her daughter “is not a threat,” while the harassment directed at her is “not just cruel, it’s dangerous.”
Local protesters — some with ties to national conservative organizations — cast Hernandez’s competing in girls’ events in starkly different terms.
Before being escorted out by police, Sophia Lorey, outreach director for the conservative California Family Council, walked around the stadium Saturday wearing a hat reading, “Women’s Sports, Women Only.” She told members of the crowd that Hernandez was a boy and handed out pink “Save Girls’ Sports” bracelets and fliers directing people to an online petition calling on the California Interscholastic Federation to change its policies to bar transgender athletes from competition.
Trump administration officials have taken a similar stance.
In a letter Wednesday to interscholastic federation executive director Ronald W. Nocetti, Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who was appointed by Trump to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, called Hernandez’s success in recent track and field events “alarming.” And she said the California policies allowing Hernandez to compete are a potential violation of Title IX, the 1972 federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs and other activities that receive federal funding.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez competed in three events including the high jump, triple jump and long jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
The remark came in a conversation on Newsom’s podcast in March, in which Hernandez was also singled out.
Kirk, a co-founder of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, asked Newsom whether he would voice his opposition to Hernandez competing in girls’ track and field events. Newsom said he agreed such situations were “unfair” but that he also took issue with “the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities,” including transgender people.
When Kirk suggested Newsom could say that he has “a heart for” Hernandez but still thinks her competing is unfair, Newsom again said he agreed.
Newsom has issued no such statement since. But, the playing field has shifted in California for transgender athletes since Trump started talking about Hernandez.
On Wednesday, the CIF announced a change in its rules for this weekend’s championships. Under the new rules, a cisgender girl who is bumped from qualifying for an event final by a transgender athlete will still advance to compete in the finals. In addition, the federation said, any cisgender girl who is beaten by a transgender competitor will be awarded whichever medal she would have claimed had the transgender athlete not been competing.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the high jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
The CIF did not mention Hernandez by name in announcing its policy change, but it did make direct reference to the high jump, triple jump and long jump — the three events in which she was to compete.
Under the new rules, Hernandez shared her place on each of the event podiums with other girls.
The CIF did not respond to a list of questions about its new policy. A spokesman for Newsom applauded the change, but others were unimpressed.
Critics of transgender athletes rejected it as insufficient and demanded a full ban on transgender athletes. Fulfer, the protester on the bullhorn, said the CIF was “admitting that they’ve got it wrong for a long time” while still not doing enough to fix it — which Trump would see clearly.
“I hope Donald Trump sees what happens this weekend, and I hope he pulls the funding away from California,” Fulfer said.
LGBTQ+ advocates also criticized the rule change, but for different reasons, calling it a crass capitulation that singled out a teenager to appease a crowd of bullies picking a political fight.
“The fact that these same political players continue to bully and harass one child, even after CIF changed its policy, shows this was never about sports or fairness,” said Kristi Hirst, co-founder of the public education advocacy group Our Schools USA.
“It was simply about using a child, while compromising their personal safety on a national scale, to score political points and distract from the serious issues families and communities in this country are actually concerned about,” Hirst said, “affording groceries, the loss of health care, and access to quality teachers and resources in their public schools.”
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the long jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
Nereyda Hernandez said she hoped AB’s wins would serve as inspiration for other kids who feel “unseen.”
“To every young person watching, especially those who feel unseen or unheard, let AB be your reminder that authenticity, courage, and resilience shine BRIGHTER than hate,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but definitely worth it.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday. Photo by Clemens Bilan/EPA-EFE
May 31 (UPI) — President Trump plans to meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz next week in Washington, D.C., in the meeting between the two leaders.
Merz, who was elected May 6 in a parliamentary election, is scheduled to visit with Trump on Thursday in the White House, Germany government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Saturday in a news release to The Hill and Politico Europe.
Merz, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, replaced Olaf Scholz, who served since 2021 with the Social Democratic Party. Merz was first elected to the Bundestag in 1994 and was leader of the opposition since February 2022.
He will travel to the U.S. capital one day ahead, according to broadcaster n-tv.
They will focus on bilateral relations, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East and trade policy, which includes tariffs, according to Kornelius.
A White House official confirmed the meeting to The Hill.
Like Trump, Merz wants a cease-fire in the war between Ukraine and Russia that began in February 2022.
Merz met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyin Berlin on Wednesday.
The chancellor said that Germany will increase financial support for Ukraine as part of a more than $5.5 billion agreement. That includes sending over more military equipment and increasing weapons manufacturing in Kyiv.
Members of the Trump administration have criticized Germany designating the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party as an “extremist” political entity.
“We have largely stayed out of the American election campaign in recent years, and that includes me personally,” Merz said in an interview with Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which is part of Politico, that was published on May 7.
Last Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul traveled to Washington and met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump spoke on the phone with Merz during his visit on May 10 with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to meet with Zelensky in Kyiv.
Macron, Starmer and Zelensky have already met with Trump in the White House.
Other foreign leaders who met with Trump since he took office again on Jan. 20 include Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Irish Prime Minister Micheel Martin, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Many heads of state, including Trump, went to the funeral for Francis on April 26 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Merz wasn’t one of them.
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Soon, the most powerful Los Angeles County politician won’t be the mayor of L.A. It won’t be a county supervisor.
It will be the elected chief executive.
“It’s probably going to be the second most powerful position in the state next to the governor,” said former West Covina Mayor Brian Calderón Tabatabai, one of 13 people now tasked with deciding just how much power should come with the post.
This week, the final five members were named to the county’s “governance reform task force.” The former politicians, union leaders, advocates and business owners will make recommendations on how to move forward with Measure G, the sprawling ballot measure approved by voters in November to overhaul L.A. County government.
Measure G was massive in scope but scant on details. That means members of the task force — five of whom were picked directly by supervisors — must figure out the contours of a new county ethics commission by 2026. They’ll also help expand the five-person board to nine by 2032.
Perhaps most consequentially, they will have to hammer out the powers of the new chief executive, an elected official who will represent 10 million county residents — a position that some task force members don’t even think should exist.
“I’m extremely concerned about the elected CEO,” said former Duarte Mayor John Fasana, a task force member. “At this point, we have to try and find a way to make it work.”
Rewind to last November’s election. The elected chief executive position was, by far, the most controversial part of the overhaul, and a bitter pill to swallow for some who were otherwise eager to see the Board of Supervisors expanded and ethics rules strengthened.
Currently, the chief executive, a role filled by Fesia Davenport, is appointed by the supervisors and works under them. She takes the first stab at the county budget and wrangles department heads, putting out whatever fires are erupting.
It’s not a glamorous job — many people don’t know it exists — but the chief executive, more than any other county leader, is responsible for keeping the place running smoothly.
With the passage of Measure G, the position will become a political one, beholden only to voters. Some have dubbed it the “mayor of L.A. County.”
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who spearheaded the overhaul, said that one of the most influential positions in local government will now come out of the shadows and be directly accountable to voters.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger has been deeply skeptical, warning that it will diminish the supervisors’ power and politicize a position that functions best behind the scenes. Supervisor Holly Mitchell had similar hesitations, as did some county employee unions.
Now, they’ve got to make it work.
Derek Hsieh, who heads the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs as well as chairs the Coalition of County Unions, said both labor groups opposed Measure G and the creation of the elected chief executive. But now, as a member of the task force, he vowed to “bring success to that decision.”
In interviews, some task force members — both supporters of Measure G and opponents — said they plan to tread carefully.
“I’ve heard murmuring, like what if we get someone like an [Alex] Villanueva running amok and burning bridges unnecessarily,” said Marcel Rodarte, who heads the California Contract Cities Assn., referring to the bombastic former sheriff. “It’s a possibility it could happen. I want to make sure that those nine supervisors have the ability to rein in the CEO.”
Rodarte and his colleagues will take the first stab at creating checks and balances. Should the chief executive be able to hire and fire department heads? What are the veto powers? How much control will the executive have over the county’s purse strings? Currently, the position has no term limits — should that change?
Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College and a task force member, said she’s already hearing concerns about the lack of term limits, which would put the chief executive on an uneven footing with supervisors, who must leave after three four-year terms. She said the task force may consider a change in state law that would permit term limits.
“Looking at the federal government, there need to be very real constraints on executive power,” she said. “There has to be a healthy friction.”
Sadhwani said she’s expecting some pushback to parts of the proposal from county supervisors, who may be less than pleased to see their power siphoned away.
“We can imagine there are board members who do not want to see those powers move to an executive branch,” she said.
Rob Quan, a transparency advocate, said he’ll be watching closely.
“What I would like to see is this task force have the freedom and independence and insulation to come up with good, thoughtful recommendations,” he said. “What I don’t want to see is these supervisors using their commissioners as gladiators.”
State of play
— THREE-RING CIRCUS: L.A. city and county officials spent the past week in U.S. Dist. Judge David O. Carter’s courtroom — either monitoring or participating in a multi-day evidentiary hearing on the city’s settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. The stakes are high: the Alliance wants to place the city’s homelessness programs into receivership, effectively removing control from Mayor Karen Bass, on the grounds that the city is not meeting its legal obligations for providing such services. The city says it has made its best efforts to comply with the agreement.
So who was in the room? City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto monitored the hearing at various points. City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo was grilled on the stand over multiple days. Dr. Estemaye Agonafer, deputy mayor for homelessness, was sometimes prickly during three-plus hours of questioning.
— WHEN DOES IT END? The testimony in the Alliance case is expected to spill into next week, although it’s not clear how many more days are needed. Carter, who has remained unusually muted during this week’s proceedings, declared at one point: “Time’s not a concern.”
— READY TO MOVE ON: Speaking of homelessness, Councilmember Tim McOsker is looking to bring an end to Bass’ emergency declaration on homelessness, rescinding the mayor’s power to award no-bid contracts and lease buildings without council approval. The move comes two and a half years after Bass declared an emergency. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, an outspoken critic of the city’s homeless programs, also has been a longtime supporter of terminating the emergency.
— WAGE WARRIORS: A coalition of airlines, hotels and concession companies at Los Angeles International Airport filed paperwork Thursday to force a citywide vote on a new ordinance hiking the minimum wage of hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour by 2028.
— FEELING POWERLESS: Former Animal Services General Manager Staycee Dains said in a series of interviews with The Times that she felt powerless to solve entrenched problems at her agency, including severe understaffing and mistreatment of shelter animals. Dains said she was repeatedly told by the city’s personnel department that she couldn’t fire problem employees. And she clashed with a union that represents shelter employees.
— MONEY IN THE MAIL: Many residents who lost their homes in the January wildfires should have received a tax refund after their damaged or destroyed properties were reassessed. But about 330 checks are in limbo after postal workers tried unsuccessfully to deliver them to vacant or destroyed homes.
— NO CHARGES: A former L.A. County probation official who was accused by more than two dozen women of sexually abusing them when they were minors will not be criminally prosecuted because the alleged incidents happened too long ago. Thomas Jackson, 58, has been named in dozens of lawsuits that were part of a historic $4-billion settlement.
— WHAT DISASTER? L.A. leaders declined to dramatically increase the budget of the city’s Emergency Management Department, despite the many natural disasters that could hit the region in years to come. Facing a nearly $1-billion shortfall, the City Council passed a budget that rejected the funding bump asked for by department leaders.
— I SUED THE SHERIFF: Former Times reporter Maya Lau is suing Los Angeles County and Villanueva, the former sheriff, arguing that her 1st Amendment rights were violated. Lau’s attorneys said she was the target of a sheriff’s investigation that was “designed to intimidate and punish” her for reporting about a leaked list of deputies with a history of misconduct.
QUICK HITS
WHERE IS INSIDE SAFE? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to the area around 103rd Street and Wilmington Avenue in Watts, according to the mayor’s team. That area is represented by Councilmember Tim McOsker.
On the docket for next week: The supervisors meet Tuesday to consider a plan for holding regular meetings with city officials about the formation of the county’s new homelessness department. According to the motion, put forward by Horvath, the meetings would ensure “open communication” with the city after the supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA.
Stay in touch
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