Posts by Newspaper Staff

Los Angeles Unified School District board members unanimously approved the 2025-26 budget as they faced an almost $3 billion deficit.
The $18.8 billion budget puts the LAUSD at a $2.9 billion deficit with its projected revenue for the next fiscal year at $15.9 billion. Though there are clear spending gaps, board members are positive that the district will continue to have financial stability.
“Today I, and all of the Board members present, supported a budget that keeps our District on strong financial footing and reflects our shared commitment to students,” board member Nick Melvoin said in a press release. But he added he would like the district to consider more innovative ways to generate revenue to invest in students’ success.
“This budget reflects the gravity of our district’s current financial situation, investing equitably for both the short- and long-term,” board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said in a press release.
During Tuesday’s board meeting, Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho highlighted the new amended budget investments of almost $60 million to programs like the Black Student Achievement Plan, accelerated arts investment, protection and training toward supporting LGBTQ+ students.
“They (the budget) are above all ethical and moral priorities that our school district should embrace. Doing the right thing despite the opposition,” said Carvalho. “We are on the right side of history as we make these budgetary investments.”
Parents shared their concerns during the meeting.
“This system fails families,” Maria Palma told the board. “The focus that you continue to have, the only clear hard data that we ever see are the dollars that are budgeted — of which the largest expenditures of course are salaries and benefits. So the focus here is the dollars on their way out. But where in the bargaining agreements are student academic outcomes?”
“Now you continue to have decreasing enrollment due to dismal academic outcomes and poor fiscal management,” Palma said. “Your system that you created is rotting from within.”
Though LAUSD student enrollment has significantly decreased in the past two decades — from 747,009 in 2003-04 to 387,152 students this year — board members continue to support budget increases.
“The principles and values reflected in this budget uphold our promise to student equity,” Carvalho said. “While the structural deficit we face is unwelcome, our team has adopted a responsible framework with flexible guardrails that are adaptive to our economic reality. We will continue to monitor the budget throughout the year, preparing for future challenges while maintaining transparency.”

Las Vegas has “broken ground” on the still unconfirmed $1.75 billion Athletics baseball stadium.
The city’s latest stadium project is drawing heavily on public funds — $380 million from Nevada and Clark County. That’s raising questions about whether taxpayers can expect a home run from their investment. For now, the A’s, who were previously in Oakland, are playing in Sacramento until a Las Vegas stadium is built.
“I have no doubt this is done in 2028,” Athletics President Marc Badain told The Associated Press. “You know the workforce here; they’re all here and ready to get going.”
The Las Vegas area has taken major steps to make this project a reality. This past October the 1950s mob-era Tropicana casino on Las Vegas Boulevard was blown up to make space for the nine-acre plot of the potential Las Vegas Athletics stadium. Plans call for the stadium to rise among casinos on the famous Las Vegas Strip, which is in an unincorporated area outside city limits.
But the groundbreaking ceremony Monday reflected the hesitations that Nevadans have around calling the Athletics their team. With the big names of Nevada politics present, the classic suit-clad, golden shovel-holding groundbreaking happened out of a baseball display filled with dirt, which was not on the ground. Heavy machinery dominated the photo shoot background, but they turned out to be props rented for the day.
Looking to find the funds for his $1.1 billion share of the stadium project, Athletics owner John Fisher has begun the process to sell his Major League Soccer team, the San Jose Earthquakes. The $600-million sale would plug some important holes but leaves a big price tag up in the air for Fisher. Meanwhile, Nevadan taxpayers have already been signed up to pay the sizable $380 million chunk of the total for the stadium.
The public funding was approved through the 2023 legislative session’s Senate Bill 1, mirroring the $750 million of public funds approved for the NFL Las Vegas Raiders Allegiant Stadium in 2016.
The $2 billion Allegiant Stadium has widely been considered a financial success, regularly being named the top stadium concert earner nationally, raking in over $119 million in 2024.
But like the Athletics’ potential future stadium, the vast majority of these earnings goes to the owners, who have made a good return on investment, while taxpayers can only hope to get their money back through increased tourism. Sports economists generally agree that stadiums shift money in an economy, not necessarily draw in new business to an area.
And all of this is happening amidst financial strains in Nevada, which saw a near $200 million state budget deficit earlier this year.

Seattle police detectives have identified the suspect and referred a felony assault charge to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office against the alleged attacker in a brutal assault on an independent journalist covering anti-ICE protests in Seattle.
Cam Higby told The Center Square that Antifa members assaulted him as he attended the June 14 “No Kings Day” protests in Seattle at a Department of Homeland Security building.
“There is probable cause to believe that Assault 2nd Degree (RCW 9A.36.021) occurred,” Sgt. Patrick Michaud of SPD Public Affairs emailed The Center Square. “Detectives referred criminal charges to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO).”
In a Wednesday interview, Higby said he is pleased that SPD is recommending charges against 33-year-old Jeremy Lawson of Monroe, but frustrated that it took so long and that the suspect has not been arrested.
“It has to be the slowest criminal justice system in the country,” he said. “If I [were] in my hometown in New York right now and I went and I walked down the street and punched somebody in the face, I’d be in handcuffs that day and facing charges the next day.”
Higby does not blame the Seattle detective assigned to his case for the delay.
“The detective wants to do something about it. He cares about the case, but the problem is the prosecutor,” he explained. “We have everything from this guy, who has a tattoo on his face. And it’s not sufficient evidence, right? We have the Amazon link to the shoes he was wearing during the attack, and I have linked those shoes back to pictures he has posted on Facebook.”
Higby continued: “I don’t know if there could be a more solid case outside of finding his fingerprints on my gas mask, but it’s really not the detective’s fault. It’s just that the detective has clearly been in this position before, where they have somebody dead to rights with irrefutable evidence, and the prosecutor still doesn’t seem to want to prosecute.”
The vicious attack was captured on video by Jonathan Choe, another independent journalist who on Wednesday told The Center Square that he, too, is skeptical the prosecutor will follow through with charges against the suspect.
“Honestly, I’m so cynical. I have very low expectations for anything to happen, especially since, you know, we’ve heard from not only the prosecutor’s office, but also from SPD they’re not going to even charge in these protest cases as we’ve seen unless it’s extremely serious, right? Unless someone gets shot or stabbed. So, you know, we’ll see what happens,” Choe said.
Choe also mentioned that the suspect has not been arrested.
“This guy’s still on the loose, and this happened way more than a week ago,” he said. “I think if it [were] any other context or circumstance, this guy would have been in handcuffs by now.”
Choe noted that he and other journalists who reported on the attack, including the victim, provided everything SPD needed to refer charges, including photos, videos, and the suspect’s name and address, but it took 10 days for the charges to be referred.
“I mean, what is it going to take in this day and age to get criminals off the streets, especially when we do the job for the cops?” Choe asked.
KCPAO Director of Communication Casey McNerthney responded to The Center Square’s email request for information on the case.
“That case referral will be reviewed individually by senior deputy prosecutors in our criminal division, which is the normal procedure for an assault referral such as that,” McNerthney responded via email. “I’m not familiar with what was received, but a senior deputy may request any available video and medical details if those are not yet submitted. I need to note that defendants are innocent until proven guilty in court.”
He added that video and medical records must be sent from the investigating police agency, not obtained from social media.
“In other words, the court won’t accept those if a prosecutor were to get them from an online post,” McNerthney said.
Higby provided those videos and photos to SPD, which he believes should be ample evidence to identify the attacker.
Higby told The Center Square he was grateful Choe stayed with him after the attack and convinced him to leave the area for his safety, even though Higby had called 911 and wanted to wait for police to show up.
“I told him this was not a high-priority case for them, especially when they’re dealing with Antifa militants,” Choe said. “They don’t even have enough time for that. So, I told him, just let me get you out of this place, to a safe place, and we can reassess, and I’m so glad we did because as I was driving him back, he wasn’t feeling well. And lo and behold, the next day, he got a severe bloody nose, and he went to the hospital, and they said he sustained a serious concussion.”
Six days after the attack – June 20 – Higby told The Center Square he was still suffering headaches and blurred vision from the concussion.
He was wearing a helmet, but believes the blows to his head, which left large dents and divots in the helmet, came from SAP gloves, which are weighted knuckle gloves, he said the attacker was wearing.
“It’s very likely that if I [weren’t] wearing a helmet, that I would have been either killed or critical,” Higby said. “They’re just brass knuckles basically.”
McNerthney did not indicate an expected timeline for a charging decision.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday slapped sanctions on three Mexican-based banks that it said were used to launder millions of dollars for cartels.
The move, officials said, would cut the banks off from the U.S. financial system.
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network identified three Mexico-based financial institutions – CIBanco S.A., Institution de Banca Multiple (CIBanco), Intercam Banco S.A., Institución de Banca Multiple (Intercam), and Vector Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. (Vector) – laundering money in connection with illicit opioid trafficking.
The orders are the first actions by FinCEN under the Fentanyl Sanctions Act and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which gives Treasury additional authorities to target money laundering associated with the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, including by cartels. The moves comes as Trump looks to crack down on fentanyl trafficking, especially by Mexican cartels.
CIBanco is a commercial bank with more than $7 billion in total assets. Intercam holds more than $4 billion in total assets. Vector, a brokerage firm, manages nearly $11 billion in assets.
FinCEN alleges all three “played a longstanding and vital role in laundering millions of dollars on behalf of Mexico-based cartels and facilitating payments for the procurement of precursor chemicals needed to produce fentanyl.”
“Financial facilitators like CIBanco, Intercam, and Vector are enabling the poisoning of countless Americans by moving money on behalf of cartels, making them vital cogs in the fentanyl supply chain,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “Through the first use of this powerful authority, today’s actions affirm Treasury’s commitment to using all tools at our disposal to counter the threat posed by criminal and terrorist organizations trafficking fentanyl and other narcotics.”
The move away from plant-based drugs to synthetics has helped the cartels rake in even more cash. Cartels maintain steady supply chains for precursor chemicals, primarily from China and India, needed to produce these synthetic drugs.
In the 12 months ending in October 2024, the United States recorded 52,385 overdose deaths from synthetic opioids – a 33% decline – while overall overdose deaths, from any drug, declined about 26%, according to the most recent available CDC provisional data. Provisional data from the CDC showed that 74,702 of the 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023 involved synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. That’s about 69% of all overdose deaths in the U.S.
The DEA seized about 29% less fentanyl in 2024 compared to the prior year. In 2024, the DEA seized 21,936 pounds of fentanyl. The agency also seized 61.1 million fake pills in 2024, a 24% decrease from the previous year. Data from the El Paso Intelligence Center’s National Seizure System – which consolidates drug seizure data from federal, state, and local agencies throughout the United States – indicated a similar trend, with 23,256 total kilograms seized in 2024, down from the previous year.
Fentanyl purity also fell last year, according to DEA testing. In 2024, the average fentanyl pill contained 1.94 milligrams of fentanyl, ranging from a low of 1.58 mg to a high of 2.18 mg. Based on these analyses, DEA forensic laboratory results found that about 5 out of 10 fake pills contain 2mg or more of fentanyl. The average purity of fentanyl powder samples was 11.36%, ranging from exhibits that contained almost no fentanyl (0.07%) to 82% purity.

President Donald Trump’s team of Department of Justice attorneys plans to take their tariff case to the U.S. Supreme Court if a federal appeals court doesn’t rule in their favor.
DOJ attorneys argued in a new brief that the Court of International Trade erred in ruling that the president doesn’t have unilateral authority to impose tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world. They argued that if the CIT decision was upheld, it would disadvantage the U.S. as Trump seeks to reorder global trade through tariffs to put America at the center.
“The CIT’s injunction would, if affirmed, disrupt the Executive Branch’s ongoing, sensitive diplomatic negotiations with virtually every major trading partner,” attorneys for the administration wrote. “And it would unilaterally deprive the United States of a powerful tool for combating systemic distortions in the global trading system, thus allowing other nations to continue to hold American exporters hostage to their unreasonable, discriminatory, and sometimes retaliatory trade policies.”
They added: “If the Court affirms the judgment, we respectfully ask that the Court extend its stay … to allow the government to seek relief from the Supreme Court.”
Trump has turned to the nation’s highest court multiple times this term after federal judges blocked large parts of his domestic agenda.
The administration appealed after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade unanimously ruled in May that Congress did not give the president tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The Court of International Trade gave Trump 10 days to unwind all the tariffs he issued under IEEPA. The federal appeals court granted the administration’s request for a stay, putting the Court of International Trade ruling on hold while the appeal continues.
Trump’s attorneys said presidents have used IEEPA authorities multiple times over the years. They pointed to President Jimmy Carter, who invoked the IEEPA to seize Iranian assets in response to the hostage crisis at the American Embassy in Tehran. President Ronald Reagan issued executive orders “banning commerce with Libya and freezing all U.S. assets of the Libyan government and its agents.” President Bill Clinton “blocked Russian assets related to the implementation of an agreement for the disposition of highly enriched uranium extracted from nuclear weapons.” President George W. Bush used IEEPA to “maintain the export control system previously established under a different statute. Biden also used the IEEPA. But none of those presidents used the IEEPA they way Trump has: To issue worldwide tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner.
The administration’s attorneys said the tariffs have been good for the U.S.
“And the tariffs have already achieved successes,” they wrote “They have spurred ongoing negotiations on trade agreements with major trading partners and have already produced the general terms of a historic trade deal with the United Kingdom.”
Small businesses and some states disagree. States and small businesses challenged the “Liberation Day” tariffs in two separate cases that are on appeal before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
The businesses, represented by the Liberty Justice Center, said their livelihood is on the line. The businesses included VOS Selections, a New York-based wine and spirit importer, along with others business owners, including one who expects to go out of business before the case reaches a conclusion.
On Wednesday, Liberty Justice Center added to its roster of attorneys in the high-profile case. LJC added constitutional scholars Michael McConnell and Neal Katyal and their law firms to the suit.
“More than any other case challenging executive action, the tariff cases combine fundamental principles of structural constitutional law with immense consequences for the economy,” McConnell said.
The plaintiffs argue that the IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs at all. And even if it did, it would still require an economic emergency and an unusual, extraordinary threat to be invoked. Existing circumstances don’t meet those requirements, LJC attorneys have argued.
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hold a hearing in the case on July 31, which will be available via livestream.
Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.
Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined 22 other states in filing an amicus brief in support of two lawsuits brought by National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service against the Trump administration.
Those lawsuits seek to block proposed funding cuts to public media, which would affect their organizations and local affiliates or “member stations.”
Weiser is co-leading the coalition of Democratic states supporting the lawsuits.
“Public radio and television connect millions of people in Colorado and across the country to critical information they might not otherwise be able to access,” Weiser said in a statement. “Cuts to public broadcasting won’t just rob us of programming many of us cherish, they will create real danger by reducing our ability to get critical emergency notifications to the public, especially to people in rural and tribal communities.”
On May 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and executive branch agencies to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.
The order argued public media is “biased.”
“Today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the order stated. “At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies.”
On May 27, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued to block the proposed cuts. PBS and a Minnesota-based affiliate filed a separate lawsuit on May 30.
The states’ brief was filed concurrently in both lawsuits. It argues that “public media is a public good” and cutting its funding will harm the American people, especially those in rural or tribal areas.
It specifically highlights how public media is currently used to disseminate emergency information and notifications.
“Many states, including Colorado, rely on public broadcast stations to serve as primary or secondary stations to deliver EAS messages to the public during emergencies,” Weiser’s office said in a statement.
The brief also argued for the role of public media as a “vital supplement to early childhood education.”
Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona and Rhode Island all co-led the brief. They were joined on it by leaders from California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Colorado has been a critical player in the coalition of Democratic states fighting against the many cuts pushed by the Republican president’s administration, cuts that are motivated by efforts to cut waste and save money. So far, Colorado has joined or filed over 20 lawsuits against the Trump administration, while supporting many others.
“I am proud to stand with my fellow attorneys general to urge the courts to block yet another reckless, illegal action by the Trump administration,” said Weiser, who is running in Colorado’s 2026 governor’s race.
In a separate threat to public media funding, the federal Recissions Package would cut $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. That package narrowly passed the House 214-212 a few weeks ago and has received backlash from Democrats and even a few Republicans. Nevada’s U.S. Rep. Rep. Mark Amodei of Carson City was one of only four Republican members of the House who voted against the Recissions Package, as previously reported by The Center Square.
All four of Colorado’s Republican representatives voted in favor of the package, while the state’s four Democratic representatives voted against it.
Most Republicans applauded the funding cuts in that package.
“The federal government has no business funding media companies,” said U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana. “It’s time to stop picking winners and losers and defund public broadcasting for good.”