Free Republic

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding, including to USC, from any California campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange for priority access to federal funding. “If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly,” Newsom said. “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.” The bold statement came less than a day after the the White House asked the University of Southern California and...

A strawberry delivery driver was arrested by Border Patrol near Gov. Newsom’s Little Tokyo news conference, becoming “collateral damage.” Angel Minguela Palacios endured six weeks of harsh detention conditions, watching fellow detainees give up and self-deport. Over more than a month in detention, the 48-year-old father prayed he’d get back to his family. The lights never dimmed and Angel Minguela Palacios couldn’t sleep. He pulled what felt like a large sheet of aluminum foil over his head, but couldn’t adjust to lying on a concrete floor and using his tennis shoes as a pillow. He could smell unwashed bodies in...

On a toasty summer Sunday 40 years ago, Richard Ramirez was the nation’s most wanted man. The Nightstalker serial killer had spent months on a reign of terror, casually slipping into homes across Southern California and killing a total of 15 people.He had eluded the police all summer, but they finally identified him and released his photo to the public. He emerged that Sunday morning on a bus at the edge of downtown and moved east into Boyle Heights, the heart of Latino L.A. and the entry point for countless undocumented immigrants coming from Latin America in the 1980s. What...

The state’s new congressional lines have yet to be approved, but would-be candidates are jockeying behind the scenes. Supervisor Hilda Solis hasn’t publicly announced her candidacy, but she’s already lining up support for a potential new southeast L.A. County congressional seat. As Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to redraw California’s congressional maps plays out at the state Capitol and on the national stage, a quieter but no less bloody scramble is simultaneously underway. Newsom’s plan — a bid to counter President Trump’s drive for more GOP House seats with his own California show of force — still needs to be approved...

Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was walking his family’s dog in Van Nuys on a recent morning when he was taken into custody by federal immigration officials, according to authorities and published reports. Guerrero-Cruz, who turned 18 this month, was set to start his senior year at Reseda Charter High School on Thursday. Instead, he’s being held in Department of Homeland Security custody pending removal from the United States, the agency confirmed in statement to The Times on Friday. “Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, an illegal alien from Chile, overstayed his visa by more than two years, abusing the Visa Waiver Program under which he...

As “Madame Web” star Sydney Sweeney remains mum on allegations of promoting eugenics via her American Eagle advertisement, she has seemingly stirred up even more support from far-right figures after recently gaining the favor of President Trump. A black-and-yellow banner covering a billboard on the 91 Freeway in Corona boldly states: “Proud Boys Love Sydney Sweeney,” according to a photo that one Corona resident shared with ABC7.

As a teenager in the late 1970s, Steve Richardson was sweeping and stocking shelves at a toy store on the edge of L.A.’s Skid Row when he noticed the first signs of a monumental change in the city. Day after day, workers, hired from the surrounding streets to unload trucks full of toys, would take the empty boxes and transform them into makeshift shelters where they would spend the night. “They were called cardboard condos,” said Richardson, a Skid Row leader now known as General Dogon. “They went on block after block.” At the same time, Los Angeles Times columnist...

If California were its own country, its economy would now rank as fourth-largest of any nation across the globe, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, a new milestone that comes at a time of major economic turbulence. California has long been global powerhouse, fueled by a variety of sectors including technology, agriculture, tourism and entertainment. The new ranking comes as the state is facing challenges from a trade war with China and other nations that are key California trading partners. Newsom announced the state’s new economic ranking Wednesday after recently released data from the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Bureau of...

Lawrence Herrera started carrying a folded-up copy of his birth certificate in his wallet last week. He also saved a picture of his passport on his phone’s camera roll. For the 67-year-old Atwater Village resident who was born and raised here, the precaution felt silly. But he’s not taking any chances. “I started hearing, ‘He’s taking anyone and everyone,’” Herrara said, referrring to President Trump’s immigration crackdown. “I thought, ‘You know what? That could be me.’” Herrera was one of hundreds of protesters who spent Fourth of July in downtown Los Angeles to rally against the immigration raids that have...

California’s fight to rein in President Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles hinges on a 19th century law with a a blood-soaked origin and a name that seems pulled from a Spaghetti Western. In a pivotal ruling this week, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered the federal government to hand over evidence to state authorities seeking to prove that the actions of troops in Southern California violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids soldiers from enforcing civilian laws. “How President Trump has used and is using the federalized National Guard and the Marines since deploying...

Emma De Paz woke up at 2 every morning for 25 years to make soup, roasted chicken and tamales to sell to work crews picking up their day’s supplies at the Home Depot. She joined other immigrant vendors lining the side streets under tents and over grills in a makeshift community that was something of a refuge for Latino immigrants in the Hollywood area. Abelino Perez Alvarez and his wife sold orange juice, soda and water. Day laborers scrolled through their phones as they waited outside the parking lot in hopes of getting work. Around 7:30 a.m. Thursday, the refuge...

LEOPOLD, Ind. — On the ceiling of Abbie Brockman’s middle school English classroom in Perry County, the fluorescent lights are covered with images of a bright blue sky, a few clouds floating by.Outside, the real sky isn’t always blue. Sometimes it’s hazy, with pollution drifting from coal-fired power plants in this part of southwest Indiana. Knowing exactly how much, and what it may be doing to the people who live there, is why Brockman got involved with a local environmental organization that’s installing air and water quality monitors in her community.“Industry and government is very, very, very powerful. It’s more...

WASHINGTON — For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected — from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity. Now, the Trump administration has sought to expand the executive branch’s power to shield from public view key administration initiatives. Officials have used apps like Signal that can auto-delete messages containing sensitive information rather than retaining them for record-keeping. And they have shaken up the National Archives leadership. To historians and archivists, it points to the possibility that President Trump will leave...

Americans barely remember the Mexican-American War, but in Mexico memories of the war and other military quarrels with the United States remain deeply felt. Mexico lost half its territory, including California, in the war that broke out this week in 1846. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who often speaks of Mexico’s sovereignty, said, “We are neither a protectorate nor a colony of any foreign nation.” MEXICO CITY — At the entrance to Mexico City’s largest park lies a towering marble monument to six young military cadets killed in battle. The Niños Héroes — “boy heroes” — died while defending Mexico’s capital...

The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the removal of Venezuelan detainees accused under a wartime law of being foreign gang members early Saturday morning, after the ACLU argued the men were at risk of imminent removal to an El Salvadoran prison .... Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

Kaile Shilling, a writer and former theology student, says she moved from Los Angeles to Canada during the first Trump administration to escape America’s toxic politics. She never saw herself as the kind of person to hang a giant flag on the front of her house. But after Donald Trump was reelected last fall and started threatening to turn America’s famously polite and peaceful northern neighbor into the “51st state,” Shilling’s dual-citizenship husband unfurled an enormous red and white maple leaf banner on their home in Vancouver for all the world to see. “When he did it, I went, ‘F—...

The EPA’s plan to roll back regulations and cut climate programs will increase the cost of living for millions of people and bring about hundreds of thousands of premature deathsRepealing key protections could erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and the environment, compared with $39 billion in savings for regulated industriesLooser rules around air and water quality could also lead to worsening asthma attacks, increased ER visits and other adverse health outcomes The Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach to federal programs has delivered a considerable hit to the nation’s environment, but experts say its plans to repeal hard-won...

The Los Angeles Times has delivered another round of layoffs with the outlet’s business side slashed just weeks after 40 newsroom employees accepted buyouts. The Wrap reports the full count isn’t known, citing Oliver Darcy that dozens of employees across the company’s operations and communications sections were let go this week, including Vice President of Communications Hillary Manning. Representatives for the Los Angeles Times didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.

From tariffs to Ukraine to cuts to the federal workforce, President Trump has invoked the idea of fairness.Experts said the focus is effective, tapping into the sense among many Americans that they have been left behind.In a sit-down interview with Fox News last month, President Trump and his billionaire “efficiency” advisor Elon Musk framed new tariffs on foreign trading partners as a simple matter of fairness.“I said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do: reciprocal. Whatever you charge, I’m charging,’” Trump said of a conversation he’d had with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I’m doing that with every country.”“It seems fair,”...

NEW YORK — As their party struggles to navigate the early days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, some Democrats are convinced that their road to recovery lies in the price of eggs. Instead of leaning into Trump’s teardown of the federal government or his alliance with billionaire lieutenant Elon Musk, they’re steering to what they perceive as the everyday concerns of Americans — none more important than grocery prices and eggs in particular. U.S. egg prices hit a record average of $4.95 per dozen in January, surpassing a previous record set in January 2023, according to federal data. In some...