Tag: recent week

As ICE scales up hiring, whistleblower documents reveal deep cuts to training program

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON — New whistleblower documents detail substantial cuts by the Trump administration to the training requirements for new immigration officers.

Among the cuts are the elimination of practical exams, use of force and legal training courses, and an overall reduction in training time, contrary to an official’s testimony to Congress earlier this month.

The documents, provided to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) by whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security, were publicly revealed ahead of a forum Monday with congressional Democrats — the third in recent weeks probing what the members view as abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.

Lauren Bis, deputy assistant public affairs secretary at Homeland Security, said no training hours have been cut.

“Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive 4th and 5th Amendment comprehensive instruction,” she said. “The training does not stop after graduation from the academy. Recruits are put on a rigorous on-the-job training program that is tracked and monitored.”

Earlier this month, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that while the agency had reduced the number of training days to 42 from 75, “We went from five days a week to six days a week. Five days a week was five eight-hour days and we’ve gone to six 12-hour days.”

But the documents appear to contradict Lyons’ testimony.

“The schedules reflected on these documents indicate that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 fewer hours of training than previous cohorts of recruits,” according to a 90-page memorandum from minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Blumenthal is the top Democrat on that committee.

Blumenthal’s office also disclosed the identity of one whistleblower: Ryan Schwank, an attorney who most recently served as an instructor for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits at the ICE Academy within the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

Schwank, who resigned Feb. 13, is one of two whistleblowers who made a confidential disclosure to Blumenthal’s office last month regarding an ICE policy allowing agents to forcefully enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant.

In his testimony Monday, Schwank said that for the last five months, he watched ICE leadership dismantle its training program. What remains, he said, is a “dangerous husk.”

Schwank said the assertion by Homeland Security leaders that cadets receive the same training in a shorter time frame “is a lie.”

“This means that cadets are not taught what it means to be objectively reasonable, the very standard which the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use deadly force,” he said. “Our jobs as instructors are to teach them so well they can make split-second decisions about what they can and cannot do in life-or-death situations. Yet in the name of churning out an endless stream of officers, DHS leadership has dismantled the academic and practical tests that we need to know if cadets can safely and lawfully perform their job.”

Schwank said he was shown the secret memo authorizing forceful home entry on his first day as a training instructor. He was told to teach its contents but not to take notes on it or discuss its existence.

“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,” he said. “Incredibly, I was being shown this memo in secret by my supervisor, who made sure that I understood that disobedience would cost me my job.”

“So in effect, you were told, as an instructor on the law, that you were to train ICE agents how to break the law,” Blumenthal told Schwank.

Schwank told Blumenthal that the reason he received the training position was because the lawyer in the position before him had been forced to resign on their refusal to teach the contents of the memo.

Another witness at the forum was Teyana Gibson Brown, whose husband, Garrison Gibson, was arrested in Minneapolis last month after agents burst through their door with guns drawn. She said she and her husband repeatedly asked to see a warrant but were ignored.

“I heard the door pop and I realized we were no longer protected,” she said. “Ten officers that were all armed were standing in front of me and my family. Words can never be sufficient for me to portray what sorts of horror we felt in this moment.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said the notion that “ICE wants to write its own permission slip, without a judge, to break down your door and to violate your rights” should terrify all Americans. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, led the forum with Blumenthal.

Blumenthal’s office did not confirm whether Schwank or the other whistleblower, who is still anonymous, provided the documents that were released Monday and included in the 90-page memo.

The documents show ICE has eliminated more than a dozen practical exams that ICE officers previously needed to graduate. In July 2021, a cadet needed to pass 25 practical exams to graduate. Now, nine are required.

Eliminated exams include “Judgment pistol shooting,” “Criminal encounters,” and “Determine removability.”

“All of these are now instead evaluated, if at all, mainly by open-book, multiple-choice written exams and without any graded practical examinations,” the memo states.

During the hearing, Blumenthal raised a poster showing the two lists of exam topics. The longer list, Schwank told him, was a vital lesson on things like “how to use their firearms safely, how to encounter an individual they intended to detain, much like Mrs. Gibson Brown’s husband.”

Tests that used to be closed-book became open-book, he said. As a result, he watched cadets graduate despite using excessive force in practical exercises.

Comparisons between the program’s syllabus table of contents and general information sections from July 2025 — before the surge in hiring — and this month show that ICE appears to have cut whole courses, such as use of force simulation training, U.S. government structure, criminal versus removal proceedings, and use of force.

In a statement, Homeland Security said no training requirements have been removed and that new recruits get 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training. The agency said training was streamlined to cut redundancy and incorporate technological advancements without cutting subject matter content.

Candidates still learn the same elements always required, the agency said, including multiple classes on use-of-force policy, as well as safe arrest techniques and de-escalation.

The training reductions come as ICE plans to bring up more than 4,000 new Enforcement and Removal Operations officers this fiscal year, which ends in September. One of the documents notes that ICE had graduated 803 new officers in 2026 as of Jan. 29 and projected 3,204 more graduates by the end of the fiscal year.

In its statement, Homeland Security said the agency is prepared to train 12,000 new hires this year, and that the majority of new hires are experienced law enforcement officers who have already gone through a police academy.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) asked Schwank about the new officers ICE has hired.

“Are they police officers that already have this training, so they don’t have to worry about it?” she asked. “Is it individuals that don’t have any law enforcement background?”

Schwank said the cadets he met genuinely wanted to learn and to do their jobs correctly but didn’t arrive with a law enforcement background.

“I’ve had cadets who are 18 years old,” he said. “I had a cadet who celebrated her 19th birthday in her classes. We have cadets who don’t have college degrees. We have cadets for whom English is not their primary language.”

[ad_2]

Andrea Castillo

Source link

February 23, 2026
Trump ran on ‘America first.’ Now he views presidency as a ‘worldwide situation’

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was unapologetic about putting America first. He promised to secure the nation’s borders, strengthen the domestic workforce and be tough on countries he thought were taking advantage of the United States.

Now, 10 months into his second term, the president is facing backlash from some conservatives who say he is too focused on matters abroad, whether it’s seeking regime change in Venezuela, brokering peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza or extending a $20-billion currency swap for Argentina. The criticism has grown in recent days after Trump expressed support for granting more visas to foreign students and skilled immigrant workers.

The cracks in the MAGA movement, which have been more pronounced in recent weeks, underscore how Trump’s once impenetrable political base is wavering as the president appears to embrace a more global approach to governing.

“I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally,” Trump said this week when asked to address the criticism at an Oval Office event. “We could have a world that’s on fire where wars come to our shores very easily if you had a bad president.”

For backers of Trump’s MAGA movement, the conflict is forcing some to weigh loyalty to an “America first” ideology over a president they have long supported and who, in some cases, inspired them to get involved in the political process.

“I am against foreign aid, foreign wars, and sending a single dollar to foreign countries,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in recent weeks has become more critical of Trump’s policies, said in a social media post Wednesday. “I am America First and America Only. This is my way and there is no other way to be.”

Beyond America-first concerns, some Trump supporters are frustrated with him for resisting the disclosures about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network of powerful friends — including Trump. A group of Republicans in the House, for instance, helped lead an effort to force a vote to demand further disclosures on the Epstein files from the Justice Department.

“When they are protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I’m sorry, I can’t go along with that,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a CNN interview. “And back home, people agree with me. They understand, even the most ardent Trump supporters understand.”

When asked to respond to the criticism Trump has faced in recent weeks, the White House said the president was focused on implementing “economic policies that are cutting costs, raising real wages, and securing trillions in investments to make and hire in America.”

Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican consultant, believes the Epstein scandal has sped up a Republican backlash that has been brewing as a result of Trump deviating from his campaign promises.

“They are turning on him, and it’s a sign of the inviolable trust being gone,” Madrid said.

The MAGA movement was not led by a policy ideology, but rather “fealty to the leader,” Madrid said. Once the trust in Trump fades, “everything is gone.”

Criticism of Trump goes mainstream

The intraparty tension also has played out on conservative and mainstream news outlets, where the president has been challenged on his policies.

In a recent Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump was pressed on a plan to give student visas to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, a move that would mark a departure from actions taken by his administration this year to crack down on foreign students.

“I think it is good to have outside countries,” Trump said. “Look, I want to be able to get along with the world.”

In that same interview, Trump said he supports giving H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers because the U.S. doesn’t have workers with “certain talents.”

“You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles,’” Trump argued.

Trump in September imposed a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled workers, a move that led to confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and H-1B visa holders. Before Trump’s order, the visa program had exposed a rift between the president’s supporters in the technology industry, which relies on the program, and immigration hard-liners who want to see the U.S. invest in an American workforce.

A day after Trump expressed support for the visa program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added fuel to the immigration debate by saying the administration is fast-tracking immigrants’ pathway to citizenship.

“More people are becoming naturalized under this administration than ever before,” Noem told Fox News this week.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close ally of Trump, said the administration’s position was “disappointing.”

“How is that a good thing? We are supposed to be kicking foreigners out, not letting them stay,” Loomer said.

Polling adds on the heat

As polling shows Americans are growing frustrated with the economy, some conservatives increasingly blame Trump for not doing enough to create more jobs and lower the cost of living.

Greene, the Georgia Republican, said on “The Sean Spicer Show” Thursday that Trump and his administration are “gaslighting” people when they say prices are going down.

“It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store,” she said, while urging Republicans to “show we are in the trenches with them” rather than denying their experience.

While Trump has maintained that the economy is strong, administration officials have begun talking about pushing new economic policies. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said this week that the administration would be working to provide consumers with more purchasing power, saying that “we’re going to fix it right away.”

“We understand that people understand, as people look at their pocketbooks to go to the grocery store, that there’s still work to do,” Hassett said.

The acknowledgment comes after this month’s elections in key states — in which Republicans were soundly defeated — made clear that rising prices were top of mind for many Americans. The results also showed Latino voters were turning away from the GOP amid growing concerns about the economy.

As Republicans try to refocus on addressing affordability, Trump has continued to blame the economic problems on former President Biden.

“Cost, and INFLATION, were higher under the Sleepy Joe Biden administration, than they are now,” Trump said in a social media post Friday. He insisted that under his administration costs are “tumbling down.”

[ad_2]

Ana Ceballos

Source link

November 15, 2025
Kamala Harris still won’t weigh in on California’s tough-on-crime ballot measure

[ad_1]

DETROIT —

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is registered to vote in California, said Wednesday that she still needs to take a look at Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime measure on California’s Nov. 5 ballot that would reverse some progressive criminal justice reforms voters approved a decade ago.

“I’ve not voted yet and I’ve actually not read it yet,” Harris told reporters ahead of a flight from Detroit to New Jersey, in response to a question about Proposition 36. “But I’ll let you know.”

Harris’ campaign has previously declined to answer questions from The Times about how she will vote on Proposition 36. Continued silence from the Democratic presidential nominee, who has touted her record as California’s top law enforcement official, comes as Republicans work to make crime a key point of attack this election season.

At a campaign rally in California over the weekend, former President Trump, the GOP nominee, cast the state as a lawless mess with “the most homelessness, the most crime, the most decay and the most illegal aliens.”

Helmed by a group of prosecutors, and financed by WalMart, In-N-Out Burger and the California Republican Party, Proposition 36 would impose harsher sentences for repeat offenses of drug possession and retail theft, and would turn some crimes involving fentanyl and shoplifting from misdemeanors into felonies.

It would also give people who routinely commit drug crimes the option to receive substance abuse treatment, but skeptics have raised questions about how counties would pay for treatment.

The California GOP endorsed Proposition 36 and, according to state campaign finance reports, has spent more than $1 million in favor of the measure. The political committee behind Proposition 36, which has promoted its bipartisan support, donated $1 million to the California Republican Party in recent weeks.

Several polls have found strong voter support for Proposition 36, despite opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders of the state Legislature.

If passed, Proposition 36 would change key parts of Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that was overwhelmingly approved by Californians. As attorney general at the time, Harris did not take a position on Proposition 47. She had decided it would be a conflict of interest to weigh in, a top aide said, because she was in charge of writing the title and ballot summaries that are presented before voters.

Proposition 47 reduced the number of people serving prison sentences for nonviolent theft and drug offenses, and redirected millions of dollars each year into anti-recidivism programs. Instead, Proposition 47 called for misdemeanor charges for individuals who steal merchandise valued under $950 or commit some drug crimes.

[ad_2]

Anabel Sosa, Noah Bierman

Source link

October 16, 2024
The ‘extraordinary’ growth of California’s largest fire raises alarms. It could burn for months

[ad_1]

Just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, as temperatures in Butte County simmered around 106 degrees, a man pushed a burning car down a gully in Chico in what authorities say was an act of arson.

Within minutes, the flaming vehicle ignited tall grasses that had sprung up in the wake of a wet winter but dried out in recent weeks. Soon, live oak trees and grapevine were burning, and wind-driven embers were shooting down canyons and the along ridges of the Lassen foothills, catching new vegetation as they touched down.

By nightfall, the Park fire had grown to 6,000 acres, and by the following morning its size had expanded sevenfold. As of Saturday, the fire had surpassed 307,000 acres — the largest so far this year in California — with no containment and few signs of slowing down.

Experts say the fire’s explosive growth is due to a perfect storm of hot, dry conditions, combustible vegetation and a landscape that hasn’t burned in decades. The remote terrain has made it challenging for crews to gain access to the blaze’s swelling perimeter, and the firefight could be long and arduous as they struggle to gain a foothold.

“This is really the first fire in the past several years in California that I would call extraordinary — and that’s not a good thing,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, said in a briefing. “This fire is a big deal, and it has done some pretty incredible things.”

Indeed, the fire and its massive smoke plume have already exhibited rare and erratic behavior, including “super-cell thunderstorm-like characteristics” replete with large-scale rotations, Swain said. On Thursday, footage captured by AlertCalifornia wildfire cameras appeared to show the blaze spewing tornado-like vortices, sometimes referred to as fire-whirls or firenados.

“At this point the fire is kind of creating its own weather, and that can be pretty unpredictable,” said Courtney Carpenter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “Really big, explosive wildfires can create thunderstorms; they can make whirling fire plumes that can mimic tornadoes.”

The Park fire’s thunderstorm characteristics haven’t yet sparked lightning — though Carpenter said that’s still possible given its “explosive fire growth” and extreme behaviors. She noted that smoke from the blaze has already reached Oregon.

Fortunately, the fire’s rapid rate of spread has so far marched it north and east — stretching across northern Butte County and a growing portion of Tehama County — into a relatively remote mixture of grass, brush and timber and away from the threatened communities of Cohasset and Forest Ranch. But Swain said it is almost certain to become several times larger than it currently is, and will probably be a several-hundred-thousand-acre fire before it is contained.

“This is a fire we’re going to have with us for weeks, if not months,” he said. “This may be one of those fires that starts in midsummer and burns into mid-autumn … and it could end up posing more of a threat to communities later on.”

The fire has already carved a path of destruction. Chief Garrett Sjolund, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Butte County unit, said “numerous structures” have been burned, including 134 buildings destroyed and an additional 4,000 under threat.

Ignited within Chico’s city limits, the fire has had an overwhelming favorable path, experts said— pushed by dry, southerly winds that moved it away from the city center.

However, officials have been worried about the community of Cohasset, where they initially feared a repeat of the 2018 Camp fire, which razed the nearby community of Paradise and killed 85 people — the deadliest wildfire on record in California. During that blaze, dozens of people were trapped on the area’s limited roadways while trying to escape.

“Cohasset was particularly concerning to us because … there is really only one way out and that is a narrow, windy road,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. “It is hard to traverse, so we wanted to get those warnings out as quickly as we could.”

About 4,000 residents have been evacuated from Cohasset, Forest Ranch and parts of northeast Chico, along with several rural areas in southern Tehama County.

While the dry winds that drive fire weather conditions in the area typically come from the north, a less frequent pattern brought them from the south this week and sucked up all the Bay Area moisture they usually carry with them, said Carpenter, the weather service meteorologist.

“Things have been really dry for the last month — and hot — and that’s why we’re seeing those critical fire conditions,” she said.

The area was been under a red flag warning, signaling dangerous weather that supports rapid fire grow, both Thursday and Friday.

That pattern has pushed flames into wilderness that has been untouched by fire for decades, if not longer — making it ripe with thicker vegetation and dead and dying brush, which ignites easily and fast.

“There’s tremendous amounts of live and dead fuels,” said Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire’s Butte Unit. He added that the Ishi Wilderness area and some parts of Cohasset “have zero to little fire history” on record.

The region’s rugged topography is hampering firefighting efforts, with steep cliffs, expansive canyons and few roadways throughout the national forest.

“That’s one of the big challenges, just getting folks [to the fire lines] due to the remote area,” Collins said.

The blaze isn’t the only Western wildfire of concern. Cal Fire is battling more than 20 active fires in the state, while crews in Canada are combating an 89,000-acre blaze in the Alberta province that has already leveled portions of the historic resort town of Jasper. Experts say many of the fires have been fueled by the persistent, record-setting heat wave that has blanketed the West for weeks.

Residents from the Chico area are watching the Park fire’s movements with anxiety.

“It’s been a pretty restless time for us,” said Don Hankins, a professor of geography and planning at Cal State Chico who is also on the Butte County Fire Safe Council.

The Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve where he conducts much of his research has already burned, with cameras indicating that nearly all of its infrastructure has been lost, including an 1870s-era barn, Hankins said.

Though the blaze has some echoes of the Camp fire, the community of Cohasset has prepared in recent years for a potential fire, Hankins said, including fuel-reduction projects and prescribed burns to help clear some of the combustible material that lies between the town and the wildland.

“But unfortunately, with the wind on this, and the scale of these projects, it’s not necessarily enough to make a difference” if the fire continues to burn out of control, he said.

The days and weeks ahead are likely to see more acreage added to the fire as crews contend with rugged, volcanic topography and persistent hot and dry conditions.

“The outlook is that it’s not going to be easily contained,” Hankins said. “We’ve got a long season ahead of us before the rainy season comes, and that’s really going to be the ultimate thing to curtail any of these fires that are happening across the West right now.”

Sjolund, the fire chief in Butte County, said he’s hopeful an expected drop in temperatures and increase in humidity this weekend could assist in fighting the Park fire — and others across the region.

“It’s kind of a moving target with the way the weather patterns are coming in,” he said. “This fire is moving very rapidly and very quickly.”

[ad_2]

Hayley Smith, Grace Toohey

Source link

July 27, 2024
Person stabbed after argument spills out of L.A. Metro bus, police say

[ad_1]

A person was stabbed Friday afternoon after getting into an argument with other passengers on a Los Angeles Metro bus in University Park, authorities said.

Police were dispatched to the area of Figueroa Way and Adams Boulevard at around 12:35 p.m. after a reported stabbing, according to Rosario Cervantes, a public information officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Los Angeles Fire Department also responded, and the victim was taken to a hospital. No additional information about the victim was immediately available.

A suspect was taken into custody shortly after the incident, Cervantes said.

According to L.A. Metro spokesperson Patrick Chandler, there was an argument between three people on a bus, and the driver stopped to allow them to get off.

“The argument continued on the sidewalk and resulted in an apparent stabbing,” Chandler said in a statement. “The bus is remaining at the scene, since the passengers were witnesses.”

The stabbing is the latest in a string of violent incidents involving L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority riders in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a bus driver was stabbed in the chest by a passenger. Less than 24 hours earlier, a 70-year-old passenger had been stabbed by another passenger.

And earlier this week, 66-year-old Mirna Soza was fatally stabbed aboard a Metro train by a man who had once been banned from riding the train system.

The incidents have forced leaders to grapple with how to ensure safe passage on public transportation. Metro has discussed additional security measures such as creating its own police force, or implementing facial recognition technology and fare gates.

“Our agency has grappled with a very real and unacceptable level of violence, illicit drug use, sales and overdoses, and a blatant disregard for the law, our code of conduct and, quite frankly, basic human decency,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who sits on the L.A. Metro board. “Until we completely reverse security reality on our system, I’m concerned that we will never come back.”

Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.

[ad_2]

Melissa Gomez

Source link

April 26, 2024
Cal State faculty just got a 5% raise. Here's why they're upset.

[ad_1]

California State University officials are unilaterally raising faculty pay by 5%, rejecting demands for much higher increases and ending contract negotiations with the faculty union, a move that has ramped up labor strife as a systemwide, weeklong walkout approaches.

The pay hike effective Jan. 31 is far from the 12% increase for the 2023-24 academic year sought by the California Faculty Assn., which represents professors, lecturers, counselors, librarians and coaches. University officials said Tuesday the union’s salary demands were not financially viable and would have resulted in layoffs and other cuts.

“With this action, we will ensure that well-deserved raises get to our faculty members as soon as possible,” Leora Freedman, vice chancellor for human resources, said in a statement. “We have been in the bargaining process for eight months and the CFA has shown no movement, leaving us no other option.”

Charles Toombs, president of the California Faculty Assn., lambasted the university’s decision to end contract talks.

“CSU management expressed nothing but disdain for faculty,” he said in a statement. “CSU management has never taken seriously our proposals for desperately needed equity transformation for CSU students, faculty, and staff.”

The divide over pay had reached an apex in recent weeks, with faculty staging one-day strikes at four campuses in early December to voice dissatisfaction with the university system’s pay proposals. A weeklong strike is planned at all 23 of the system’s campuses starting Jan. 22, which marks the beginning of the spring semester for most students.

The CSU and faculty union were engaged in so-called reopener bargaining, in which parts of the existing contract can be negotiated before it expires in June. Bargaining sessions were scheduled for this week, but university leaders imposed their final offer during a session Tuesday, according to the union.

Toombs said the union, which represents 29,000 workers, had planned to “bargain in good faith” and explore a solution that could avert a strike. Instead, he said, they were met with “disrespect from management.”

“Management’s imposition gives us no other option but to continue to move forward with our plan for a systemwide strike,” he said.

Before Tuesday’s session, the sides had reached an impasse, meaning they could not reach an agreement on their own. That triggered a report from an independent fact -finder, who recommended the sides agree to a 7% increase.

Having exhausted the negotiation process without an agreement, the system was permitted to impose a final offer during bargaining. Faculty members may strike to protest the system’s decision, though the union has not yet said if they will extend the walkout planned for this month beyond a week.

Throughout negotiations, union leaders have called on the CSU to draw on money from its reserves to pay for increases, accusing the system of “hoarding billions of dollars in reserves instead of investing in faculty and staff.” An Eastern Michigan University professor commissioned by the union to conduct a financial analysis of the CSU found the system is “in very strong financial condition” with “a high level of reserves.”

But university officials have disputed the union’s findings, contending that they need to maintain the reserves to pay for short-term or emergency expenses. They also said some of the money the union says is part of the university’s reserves cannot be used on salaries.

“We are committed to paying fair, competitive salaries and benefits for our hard-working faculty members, who are delivering instruction to our students every day and are the cornerstone of our university system,” Freedman said. “But we must also operate within our means to protect the long-term success and stability of the university, our students and our faculty.”

Freedman noted the 5% raise aligns with increases given to unions representing other CSU workers.

In addition to across-the-board increases, the union had also sought to raise the salary floor for its lowest-paid workers to $64,360 from $54,360. During the one-day strikes last month, lecturers said they live in financial precarity, with many having to teach classes at multiple campuses or take on debt to pay for basic living expenses.

The faculty association also sought other improvements, including caps on class sizes, an expansion of paid parental leave to a full semester, accessible lactation rooms, and gender-inclusive restrooms and changing rooms.

The CSU’s move is unlikely to stem disagreements over pay. With the current contract set to expire in June, both sides will probably begin negotiations over the next contract in the coming weeks or months.

[ad_2]

Debbie Truong

Source link

January 9, 2024
Are high interest rates stopping you from buying or selling a home?

[ad_1]

Earlier this year, mortgage interest rates came off their 2022 highs and settled in the 6% range, providing a small break for those in the housing market.

That respite is now over. In recent weeks, rates have shot back above 7% and are now rapidly approaching 8%. The recent surge threatens to scramble the economic calculus for both buyers and sellers.

If you’ve put a pause on your decision to buy or sell a home because of high rates, The Times would like to speak with you. Please fill out the form below.

[ad_2]

Andrew Khouri

Source link

October 30, 2023
Thousands rally in downtown L.A. against Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza

[ad_1]

Thousands of people waving the black, green, red and white Palestinian flag and chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” gathered at Pershing Square on Saturday afternoon to protest Israel’s escalating air and ground war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The event began with a series of speakers who decried the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Israeli bombing attacks since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants launched their bloody incursion into Israel, and called for an end to what they termed an Israeli occupation of the densely populated enclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The crowd then began marching slowly down the middle of 6th Street, attracting hundreds more people who had arrived to show their support by joining the event led by groups that included the Palestinian Youth Movement, an independent, grassroots organization of Palestinian and Arab youths.

Demonstrators carry a gigantic black, green, red and white Palestinian flag in showing their support for Palestinians at Pershing Square in downtown L.A. on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Among them was Salah Odeh, of Pasadena, who said he was supposed to have joined his University of La Verne teammates in a game on Saturday but decided that the situation in his home country is “bigger than football.”

He said it’s imperative that the people of Gaza be given humanitarian aid and that Palestinian fighters receive military assistance in the face of Israel’s bombing campaign in recent weeks.

“People are offering their prayers, and that’s good — but we need physical help. We need military assistance,” said Odeh, who wore a black-and-white keffiyeh on his head, a Palestinian flag around his neck like a cape, and a pro-Palestine shirt and necklaces.

Gaza, he added, “is an open-air prison where everyone has been given the death penalty simply because they are Palestinian.”

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march down 6th Street in downtown L.A. on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Many of the demonstrators were heartened by the size of Saturday’s protest, which they view as an indication that younger generations are rejecting media narratives that they say unfairly seem to portray all Palestinian people as terrorists.

Negar Mizani, of Los Angeles, was accompanied by her husband and 3-year-old daughter in their third street demonstration since the war erupted on Oct. 7 with an attack on Israel by Hamas militants.

She shared an impassioned plea. “We would like for the Israeli apartheid to end — and a cease-fire,” she said. “It’s about recognition of the humanity of the people of Gaza.”

Nearby, Roy Nashef, of Los Angeles, held up a sign calling on the media to differentiate between Hamas and the residents of Gaza. “I’m just here to grieve with everyone else,” he said.

The war has led protesters on both sides to take to the streets across California and around the world.

A week ago, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles, then began marching down Hill Street chanting and carrying signs denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal.”

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered two weeks earlier near the Israeli Consulate in West L.A. to condemn the bombardment of Gaza.

The next day, thousands marched to the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in solidarity with Israel. Los Angeles is home to the second-largest Jewish community in America, with more than 500,000 members, and while views on the conflict run the gamut, many have found themselves reeling by the events that have unfolded in recent weeks.

The latest bloodshed began Oct. 7 when Hamas launched its incursion into Israel, killing more than 1,400 people — mostly civilians — and taking more than 200 hostages. Since then, Israel has launched a barrage of airstrikes across Gaza that have destroyed neighborhoods as Hamas militants fire rockets into Israel.

On Saturday, Palestinian officials published the names of 6,747 Palestinians killed and pleaded for help in a humanitarian crisis, with more than 1 million people displaced.

Israeli officials said 230 hostages are still being held in Gaza by Hamas. On Saturday night, Netanyahu said that the military had opened a “second stage” in the war by expanding the bombardment and sending ground troops into Gaza.

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.

[ad_2]

Connor Sheets

Source link

October 28, 2023