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  • The Trump administration’s immigration raids are testing this sanctuary city

    The Trump administration’s immigration raids are testing this sanctuary city

    GRETNA, La. — Siomara Cruz was not troubled when she saw two Latina immigrants handcuffed earlier this month by masked immigration agents outside a restaurant in this New Orleans suburb.

    “They need to do things the proper way,” said Cruz, 59, a housewife whose parents emigrated from Cuba. “The law is the law. Every country has their law, and you’ve got to respect it.”

    Across the street, Tracey Daniels said it was “awful” to see immigration agents in an unmarked SUV detain a Latino man outside the gas station kitchen where she was preparing lunch plates of red beans, rice, and fried catfish.

    “They’re just snatching these people, snatching them away from their families,” said Daniels, 61. “Now they got people afraid to come outside, businesses closing.”

    The immigration operation, dubbed Catahoula Crunch by the Department of Homeland Security, follows similar crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and other cities. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement earlier this month that 250 people had been arrested since the start of the operation.

    The mission is exposing stark divides in and around New Orleans that reflect broader national reactions to the administration’s immigration raids — and who should help enforce them.

    Across 10 national polls in November and early December, 43% approve of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, while 55% disapprove. The share of people who approve of Trump’s handling of immigration has dropped from about 50% in March. Last week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, signed a law seeking to limit immigration enforcement in his state as he continues challenging the administration’s aggressive campaign there.

    New Orleans is a “sanctuary city,” where officials have historically refused to support federal immigration sweeps. But new state laws designed to penalize those who impede immigration enforcement could put officials and officers at risk if their departments do not cooperate with federal operations.

    And some surrounding police departments, including in Gretna, have signed 287(g) agreements to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people who authorities say entered the country illegally.

    Those agreements have also divided residents. Some said that immigration enforcement should fall exclusively to federal agents — that having local officers partner on the issue risks alienating immigrant communities or violating people’s rights. But police supporting the operations said they get more complaints about crime in their communities than they do about Catahoula Crunch.

    Gretna Deputy Police Chief Jason DiMarco said his 150-person force needs to serve everyone in its diverse community, but added that having so many undocumented residents in the city makes it harder to identify suspected criminals. Last month, he said, local police accompanied ICE agents on a raid that picked up four suspects, including an alleged MS-13 gang member. DiMarco noted that within the last year, Gretna police have investigated several serious crimes committed by undocumented suspects, including one who fled the country after allegedly killing an immigrant who had come to the United States legally.

    Now, because of the 287(g) agreement, officers can coordinate directly with ICE.

    “If they run across an illegal immigrant in their day-to-day patrol activities … they can actually detain the person, check their legal status, and if they aren’t here legally, we can contact ICE and they’ll come and get them,” DiMarco explained of the partnership during an interview at his office earlier this month.

    DiMarco, who is from Gretna, has watched the city of nearly 18,000 grow more diverse, to include a member of his own family who emigrated from Honduras. Like many in the New Orleans area, his family tree includes immigrants from several countries, including France, Italy, and Cuba.

    “New Orleans is the original melting pot of the world,” he said. “… People from every walk of life lived in this city. And they intertwined and managed to live together cohesively.”

    So far, DiMarco said, he hasn’t fielded any complaints about his department’s work with ICE. Even if people don’t agree, he said, officers have a duty to enforce the law, including one signed in June by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, that criminalized “any act intended to hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts.”

    Anyone in violation could face jail time or fines.

    “We don’t get to pick and choose which you can and can’t enforce,” DiMarco said.

    But DiMarco also worries the ongoing raids may make immigrants even more hesitant to report crime.

    “We don’t want somebody to get victimized and get picked on, whether they be illegal or not,” he said. “Nobody deserves to be a victim of a crime.”

    Most Catahoula Crunch activity has been to the west of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, which includes Gretna and other towns where law enforcement agencies signed 287(g) agreements. In last year’s presidential election, 55% of Jefferson Parish voted for Trump, while 82% of neighboring Orleans Parish voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

    Kenner, Jefferson Parish’s most populous city, has more than 64,000 residents — about one-third of whom are Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Police Chief Keith Conley said Kenner partnered with ICE at the request of local business owners, including immigrants.

    “We had members of our community pleading with us to keep our community safe,” Conley said, describing gang activity that he said had its roots in Central American countries that residents of Kenner had fled. “They saw the ways of their home countries coming here. When I have business leaders coming to me, I have to respond.”

    Conley said his city has experienced “some pretty heinous crimes” in recent years, including murder and child sexual assaults.

    “And we weren’t getting much cooperation” from federal officials, he said. “It was a failure at the top.”

    Landry requested a National Guard deployment to New Orleans in September, citing an alleged increase in violent crime, even though police and city leaders say crime has decreased and federal support is not needed. The city’s homicide rate is nearly the lowest in 50 years. Violent crimes — including murders, rapes, and robberies — have all decreased 12% through October compared with a year ago, according to New Orleans police.

    Conley and some Jefferson Parish residents, however, said they are grateful the Trump administration has sent federal agents into their region. Outside a Lowe’s hardware store in neighboring Metairie, where immigration agents were spotted this month, Howard Jones, 71, said he was supportive of local law enforcement agencies joining the operation.

    “I’m all for people being deported who are not here legally,” said Jones, a retired data warehouse analytics consultant and self-described moderate conservative who voted for Trump the last three presidential elections.

    But Gloria Rodriguez, 38, a Mexican immigrant who works in construction, said she did not like seeing local police involved. Though she is a legal permanent resident and her husband and 18-year-old son who were in the truck with her are U.S. citizens, they carried their passports and immigration paperwork in case they were stopped by federal agents.

    “They should not cooperate with immigration, just do their job and get criminals out of the streets instead of hardworking people,” Rodriguez said, adding that she has been troubled by reports of U.S. citizens being caught up in the immigration crackdown.

    “What if they take us?” she said.

    Unlike their counterparts in Gretna, Kenner, and other cities with 287(g) agreements, New Orleans officials have resisted cooperating with the Trump administration’s efforts.

    New Orleans police adopted a policy that prohibits officers from assisting federal immigration enforcement except under certain circumstances, such as a threat to public safety. The policy resulted from a 2013 federal consent decree to address a history of unconstitutional practices, including racial profiling. Last month, a federal judge ended the consent decree, but Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said last month that immigration remained a civil issue, adding that police would not enforce civil laws but instead ensure that immigrants “are not going to get hurt and our community is not in danger.”

    Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, has since encouraged Kirkpatrick to have officers “fully cooperate” with federal immigration officials.

    Murrill warned that New Orleans police policies “appear to conflict with current state law,” referencing this year’s statute that says thwarting federal immigration efforts could be considered obstruction of justice.

    Kirkpatrick did not respond to a request for comment, but a department spokesperson said in a statement this month that “NOPD is not involved in, informed of, or responsible for any enforcement activity conducted by ICE, DHS, or U.S. Border Patrol.”

    The police department’s role, the statement added, “is to enforce state and municipal criminal laws. We do not handle or participate in federal immigration enforcement.”

    Murrill is also embroiled in a legal battle with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, which operates city jails under a federal consent decree and has refused to cooperate with ICE.

    Chief Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino has appeared in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Kenner, and other areas with agents, where he has been met with protests and signs of support. Anti-ICE protesters confronted Bovino and temporarily shut down a New Orleans City Council meeting this month, but other residents posed for photos with Bovino while holding a homemade sign that read: “Thank you ICE.”

    New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno is already pressing federal officials to prove they are targeting only immigrants with violent criminal histories. Moreno, a Democrat who will be the city’s first Latina mayor, will not take office until Jan. 12. But she said she is concerned Catahoula Crunch is creating a “culture of fear” and forcing businesses to close and workers to stay home. She created a website advising residents of their rights, and the city council launched an online portal where they can report alleged abuse by federal officers.

    Some New Orleans business owners posted “ICE Keep Out” signs this month, while others said they worried that doing so could make them targets. Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter held meetings with employees — all documented — to address their fears after seeing reports of masked immigration agents conducting raids in armored vehicles.

    “It’s giving a lot of people anxiety, including our employees,” said Lisa Blount, whose family owns the restaurant, as she stood near the packed bar. “We are in a busy season, an important, celebratory time in New Orleans. We’re not going to let them bully their way in.”

    A few streets away, Dominican immigrant Diomedes Beñalo was unloading gold chairs for a wedding and said he wished local police would do more to protect residents’ rights. He questioned why federal agents are hiding their faces.

    “That seems like a thing that can make them violate people’s rights,” said Beñalo, 40, adding that undocumented immigrants’ civil rights should not be violated.

    “The police should make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “That’s what we pay police to do.”

  • Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’

    Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’

    The U.S. Coast Guard has allowed a new workplace harassment policy to take effect that downgrades the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to “potentially divisive” despite an uproar over the new language that forced the service’s top officer to declare that both would remain prohibited.

    The new policy went into effect Monday, according to written correspondence that the Coast Guard provided to Congress this week, a copy of which was reviewed by the Washington Post. The manual is posted online and makes clear that its previous version “is cancelled.”

    Spokespeople for the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the military service, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The symbols issue was expected to come up at a House committee hearing Tuesday.

    The Post was first to report on the Coast Guard’s plan to revise its workplace harassment policy last month. The Trump administration called the article “false,” but within hours of its publication the service’s acting commandant, Adm. Kevin Lunday, issued a memo forcefully denouncing symbols such as swastikas and nooses, and emphasizing that both remain prohibited.

    Lunday said at the time that his Nov. 20 memo would supersede any other language. It was not immediately clear Tuesday why publication of the new harassment policy was not paused so the “potentially divisive” language used to describe swastikas and nooses could be removed to align with Lunday’s directive.

    Lunday has been the Coast Guard’s acting commandant for several months. He was elevated to the role after the Trump administration ousted his predecessor, Adm. Linda Fagan, citing among other things her “excessive focus” on “non-mission-critical” diversity and inclusion initiatives. The Senate is expected to hold Lunday’s confirmation vote later this week.

    The Coast Guard’s policy softening the definition of a swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the Nazis’ extermination of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — comes as antisemitism is on the rise globally. At least 15 people were killed over the weekend at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia.

    Deborah Lipstadt, a historian who served as President Joe Biden’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said the Coast Guard’s decision to approve the change was “terrifying.”

    “What’s really disturbing is, at this moment, when there is a whitewashing of Nazis amongst some on the far right, and Churchill is painted as the devil incarnate when it comes to World War II, to take the swastika and call it ‘potentially divisive’ is hard to fathom,” Lipstadt said. “Most importantly, the swastika was the symbol hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and gave their lives to defeat. It is not ‘potentially divisive,’ it’s a hate symbol.”

    Citing court documents, Lipstadt noted that Unite the Right marchers in Charlottesville, Va., while planning a 2017 demonstration that left a woman dead and 19 others injured, had urged one another not to use swastikas “because it will paint us as Nazis.”

    “When far-right protesters in Charlottesville were strategic enough to recognize the swastika would do them no good and now we have an arm of the U.S. military saying, ‘It’s not so bad,’ that’s frightening,” Lipstadt said.

  • ‘Charles Manson,’ a shot at federal workers and a response to Vanity Fair. Here are the highlights from JD Vance’s Pa. visit.

    ‘Charles Manson,’ a shot at federal workers and a response to Vanity Fair. Here are the highlights from JD Vance’s Pa. visit.

    With the midterm elections 11 months away, Vice President JD Vance visited one of the most closely watched swing districts in the country to ask Pennsylvania voters to aim their anger over the economy at Democrats rather than the Trump administration.

    During a speech at Uline Shipping Supplies in Alburtis in the Lehigh Valley, Vance blamed immigrants for the housing shortage and invoked the name of notorious killer and cult leader Charles Manson as he doubled down on President Donald Trump’s rhetoric from the week before in the Poconos.

    Vance’s visit was to U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie’s district, while Trump’s speech last week at the Mount Airy Casino Resort was in U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s district. Both freshman Republicans won their seats by roughly a percentage point last year and are among the most vulnerable incumbents in Congress headed into 2026.

    Both speeches were billed as being focused on the economy — as Trump and Vance seek to counter Democrats’ message on affordability ahead of next year’s election. But both delved into an assortment of topics.

    Though Vance’s remarks were wide-ranging, the vice president hewed to the White House message that while the price of eggs might still be high, the administration is working to improve pocketbook issues and restore confidence in the economy.

    “Even though we’ve made incredible progress, we understand that there’s a lot more work to do, and the thing that I’d ask from the American people is a little bit of patience,” Vance said.

    Affordability

    Vance didn’t say the affordability crisis is a “Democratic hoax,” as Trump did.

    He just said it’s the Democrats’ fault.

    “When I hear the Democrats talk about the affordability crisis they created,” Vance said, “it’s a little bit like … Charles Manson criticizing violent crime. Look in the mirror, my friend, you are the cause of the problem.”

    It’s a variation of Trump’s line from last week that “Democrats talking about affordability is like Bonnie and Clyde preaching about public safety.”

    Democrats started criticizing the price of eggs when Trump was in office for less than a week, Vance said.

    A woman asked Trump about it, and according to Vance, the president responded, “’Lady, we’ve been here for three days. It takes a little bit of time to fix something that was so fundamentally broken.’”

    Every “single affordability crisis” in the United States — food, housing, medicine, gas — is because we “inherited a nightmare of an economy from Joe Biden,” Vance told the crowd.

    In an unusual explanation of how Biden sent housing costs soaring, for example, Vance explained that the previous administration’s immigration policies were to blame.

    Vance said “20 million illegal immigrants … took homes that, by all rights, go to American citizens, and to the people of this great state.”

    It’s a line that he’s used before, which fact-checkers have flagged. Politifact pointed out that there are around 12 million to 14 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. And the housing shortage comes from a lack of construction of a sufficient supply of affordable homes, experts say.

    Beyond that, Politifact said, immigrants often share housing with friends or relatives, making their average housing consumption “far smaller than is typical.”

    Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is up for reelection next year, hit back at Vance on social media and made the case that Trump’s policies, including cuts to Medicaid and tariffs, are exacerbating the cost-of-living headaches for Pennsylvanians.

    “Donald Trump and JD Vance’s economic policies are hurting Pennsylvania. They have raised prices at the grocery store, screwed over our farmers, and gutted healthcare funding,” Shapiro said on X. “I know this Administration thinks the cost of living is a ‘hoax’ — but it’s not, and Pennsylvania families know it.”

    Firing federal workers

    In his speech, Vance made much of the just-released November jobs report, delayed by the government shutdown. Around 64,000 jobs were added to the economy, an improvement over the more than 100,000 jobs lost in October.

    Putting a good face on the big October job loss, Vance told a reporter after his speech that those were federal government jobs eliminated by the Trump administration — with a plan in mind.

    “That is, in a lot of ways, what we’re trying to do under President Trump’s leadership,” Vance said. “We wanted to fire bureaucrats and hire these Americans out here,” Vance said to applause.

    As he spoke, Vance praised Mackenzie for his “dedication to American workers.”

    Asked about the 4.6% November unemployment rate, the highest since 2021 during the pandemic, Vance was able to put a good spin on that as well.

    Many of the unemployed may have lost their jobs two years ago, under Biden, and stopped looking for work, Vance said. Those people aren’t counted in the official unemployment statistics. Now, however, as we see wages rise and more investment into the United States, Vance said, the people sitting out the job search under Biden are getting “off the sidelines” and once again seeking jobs. As they do, they’re being counted as unemployed.

    The high unemployment rate, then, is “exactly what we want,” Vance said. “That is happening under President Trump’s leadership.”

    As he spoke, Vance explained Trump’s ideas to help Americans get by, including omitting taxes on tips and overtime, as well as creating a tax deduction for interest on auto loans.

    These will lead to significant tax refunds, Vance said, adding that middle-class Pennsylvanians will see “the best tax season in 2026 that you’ve ever had.” That’s a result of Americans having “a president and Congress fighting for you for a change,” Vance said.

    Vance responds to Vanity Fair article

    In a tough question from a reporter, Vance was asked about a Vanity Fair article in which Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, described some of the people in the administration in less-than-flattering ways.

    She said Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality”; Elon Musk is an ”avowed ketamine user” and an ”odd, odd duck”; Budget Director Russell Vought is “right-wing, absolute zealot”; and that Attorney General Pam Bondi ”completely whiffed” in handling the Epstein files.

    As for Vance, Wiles said he’s “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade,” and that Vance’s crossover from a Trump critic to an ally was based on political expediency.

    While Vance didn’t address the latter description, he agreed that he “sometimes” is a conspiracy theorist, but that he only believes “in conspiracies that are true.”

    As an example, he said, he believed in “this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.”

    Vance said it turns out that such conspiracy theories are just things that he discovered to be true “six months before the media admitted it.”

    He hastened to add that if anyone in the Trump administration learned a lesson from the Vanity Fair article, it’s that “we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media.”

  • Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he’s a top Trump administration contractor

    Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he’s a top Trump administration contractor

    In the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration, Palantir Technologies has secured major contracts to compile data on Americans, assist the president’s federal immigration enforcement, and play a key role at the height of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to shrink the federal government.

    But just a few years ago, it seemed unlikely that billionaire Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir — a publicly traded data software company that Karp described in 2011 as “deeply involved in supporting progressive values and causes” — would ever strike such deals with Trump.

    Karp grew up in the Philadelphia area in a politically left-leaning household and was critical of Trump during his first White House term. But over time, and catalyzed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, his opinion and habits shifted. Quickly, he went from being a major Democratic Party donor to writing a big check to Trump’s 2024 inaugural committee.

    As of May, Palantir has received more than $113 million in federal spending. The company, which builds software to analyze and integrate large data streams for major companies, including defense contractors, sees itself as a beneficial power, but critics are concerned about data being misused or people being surveilled in violation of civil liberties, according to the New York Times’ The Daily podcast.

    And some employees are opposed to the optics of Palantir carrying out the president’s controversial political agenda.

    Here’s what to know about Karp and Palantir.

    What is Palantir?

    Palantir is a publicly traded data analytics software company that was cofounded by Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Nathan Gettings, Stephen Cohen, the company’s president, and Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech investor and cofounder of PayPal. Thiel is a libertarian and is a staunch supporter of right-wing ideology.

    Palantir, based in Denver, grew out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and a desire to help improve national security.

    According to The Daily podcast guest Michael Steinberger, who spent six years interviewing Karp for a book, one of Palantir’s major contractors has been the CIA, which was also one of its early investors. Palantir’s technological products also played a key role in assisting Ukraine during the early months of Russia’s war on the country.

    The company started its partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during former President Barack Obama’s administration, but that contract did not draw controversy until Trump’s first term in the White House, when his immigration crackdown became a key priority, Steinberger, a contributing writer to the Times, said.

    This summer, it was reported that Palantir landed a $10 billion software and data contract with the U.S. Army, months after reports showed Trump tapped the company to compile data on Americans, prompting scrutiny from privacy advocates, labor rights organizations, and student unions.

    Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, has roots in Philadelphia

    Karp was born in New York but grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, he told the World Economic Forum in 2023. He went on to attend Central High School.

    As Steinberger describes it, “He’s a Philly kid. He grew up in Philadelphia. Grew up in a very left-wing household.” Karp is the son of a Jewish pediatrician and a Black artist. And he’s dyslexic, Steinberger said.

    “It’s like I have this weirdly structured brain,” Karp said in an interview with Steinberger. “The motor is just structured differently.”

    Karp and his younger brother spent time going to antiwar and antinuclear protests, and the older Karp attended Haverford College, Steinberger said. There, he closely identified with his Black heritage, getting involved with Black student affairs and organizing an antiracism conference at Yale University.

    Karp insists that he did not put much effort into his schooling at Haverford, but Steinberger, who was a classmate of Karp’s in college, appears to think otherwise.

    “I think his path in life would suggest otherwise. I think the library saw a lot more of him than it did of me, which may go some way to explaining why he became a billionaire and I did not,” Steinberger said.

    After Haverford, Karp attended Stanford Law School, where he met and became close with Thiel — whose political views were the opposite of Karp’s. Years later, Karp and Thiel reunited after 9/11. Thiel was looking for a CEO for Palantir.

    “Thiel interviews a couple of people for the CEO position, but then he and the other people involved in founding Palantir realized Karp is probably the right guy for the job,” Steinberger said.

    In an interview with Steinberger, Karp admitted that his background made him an unlikely choice for CEO.

    “I wasn’t trained in business. I didn’t know anything about start-up culture. I didn’t know anything about building a business. I didn’t know anything about financing a business,” Karp said.

    From a Philly liberal to a staunch Trump defender

    In Steinberger’s telling, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, gave rise to a political environment that would solidify Karp’s rightward shift.

    Over time, Karp had become discouraged with the left’s criticisms of Palantir, but that reached a fever pitch when Palantir offered its services to Israel as the country began its military invasion of Gaza amid protests, including internal dissent from employees, Steinberger said.

    Steinberger said Karp — once a protester himself — became increasingly troubled by college campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

    “He thinks the protests are riddled with antisemitism,” Steinberger said. “They’re very dangerous and he sees this as reflective of a broader rot in his mind on the left.”

    Karp continued to back then-President Joe Biden, who was supportive of the Israeli government, but in December 2023, Karp posed a sort of ultimatum at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California regarding liberals’ stance on Israel and a desire for the Democratic Party to denounce the college campus protests.

    “I’m one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party and, quite frankly, I’m calling it out, and I’m giving to Republicans. If you keep up with this behavior, I’m going to change. A lot of people like me are going to change. We have to really call this out. It is completely beyond the bounds,” Karp said.

    Over time, Karp started donating more “aggressively” to Republicans, Steinberger said, and made clear his support for Trump. Karp wrote a $1 million check to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee and later began publicly praising Trump on national security.

    Karp, for his part, still thinks of himself as a progressive.

    “I didn’t shift my politics,” Karp said. “The political parties have shifted their politics. The idea that what’s being called progressive is any way progressive is a complete farce.”

  • Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with 2 counts of murder in killing of his parents

    Rob Reiner’s son Nick charged with 2 counts of murder in killing of his parents

    LOS ANGELES — Rob Reiner’s son Nick Reiner was charged Tuesday with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, which stunned their communities in Hollywood and Democratic politics, where both were widely beloved.

    Nick Reiner, 32, is charged with killing Rob Reiner, the 78-year-old actor and director, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced at a news conference with Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell.

    “Their loss is beyond tragic and we will commit ourselves to bringing their murderer to justice,” Hochman said.

    Along with the two counts of first-degree murder, prosecutors added special circumstances of multiple murders and a special allegation that the defendant used a dangerous weapon: a knife. The additions could mean a greater sentence.

    Hochman said his office had not decided whether to seek the death penalty.

    “This case is heartbreaking and deeply personal, not only for the Reiner family and their loved ones but for our entire city,” McDonnell said. “We will continue to support the Reiner family and ensure that every step forward is taken with care, dignity, and resolve.”

    The announcement came two days after the couple were found dead with apparent stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles. Nick Reiner did not resist when he was arrested hours later in the Exposition Park area near the University of Southern California, about 14 miles from the crime scene, police said.

    Nick Reiner had been expected to make an initial court appearance Tuesday, but his attorney Alan Jackson said he was not brought from the jail to the courthouse for medical reasons and the appearance would not come before Wednesday.

    An email sent to Jackson seeking comment on the charges was not immediately answered. Nick Reiner has not entered a plea.

    Rob Reiner was the Emmy-winning costar of the sitcom All in the Family who went on to direct films including When Harry Met Sally … and The Princess Bride. He was an outspoken liberal activist for decades. Michele Singer Reiner was a photographer, a movie producer, and an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. They had been married for 36 years.

    Representatives for the Reiner family did not respond to requests for comment. Police have not said anything about a motive for the killings.

    Nick Reiner is being held in jail without bail. He was arrested several hours after his parents were found dead on Sunday, police said.

    Jackson is a high-profile lawyer who represented Harvey Weinstein at his Los Angeles trial and Karen Read at her trial in Massachusetts. He was a central figure in the HBO documentary on the Read case.

    Investigators believe Rob and Michele Singer Reiner died from stab wounds, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. The official, who was briefed on the investigation, could not publicly discuss the details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The killings were especially shocking given the warm comic legacy of the family. Rob Reiner was the son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, who died in 2020 at age 98.

    Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar as the star of Rob Reiner’s 1990 film Misery, was among those paying tribute to the couple.

    “I loved Rob,” Bates said in a statement. “He was brilliant and kind, a man who made films of every genre to challenge himself as an artist. He also fought courageously for his political beliefs. He changed the course of my life. Michele was a gifted photographer.”

    Former President Bill Clinton called the couple “good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better.”

    “Hillary and I are heartbroken by the tragic deaths of our friends Rob and Michele Reiner,” he said in a statement. “They inspired and uplifted millions through their work in film and television.”

    Three months ago, Nick Reiner was photographed with his parents and siblings at the premiere of his father’s film Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues.

    He had spoken publicly of his struggles with addiction, cycling in and out of treatment facilities with bouts of homelessness in between through his teen years. Rob and Nick Reiner explored — and seemed to improve — their relationship through the making of the 2016 film Being Charlie.

    Nick Reiner cowrote and Rob Reiner directed the film about the struggles of an addicted son and a famous father. It was not autobiographical but included several elements of their lives.

    “It forced us to understand ourselves better than we had,” Rob Reiner told the AP in 2016. “I told Nick while we were making it, I said, ‘You know, it doesn’t matter, whatever happens to this thing, we won already.’”

    Rob Reiner was long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work included some of the most memorable and endlessly watchable movies of the 1980s and ’90s, including This is Spinal Tap and A Few Good Men.

    He met Michele Singer Reiner on the set of When Harry Met Sally …, and their meeting would inspire the film’s shift to a happy ending, with stars Billy Crystal — one of Reiner’s closest friends for decades — and Meg Ryan ending up together on New Year’s Eve.

    The Reiners were outspoken advocates for liberal causes and major Democratic donors.

    President Donald Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to the president for the actor-director’s killing, delivering the unsubstantiated claim in a social media post that seemed intent on decrying his opponents even in the face of a tragedy.

  • Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

    Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

    WASHINGTON — Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s understated but influential chief of staff, criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and offered an unvarnished take on her boss and those in his orbit in interviews published Tuesday in Vanity Fair that sent the West Wing into damage control.

    The startlingly candid remarks from Wiles, the first woman ever to hold her current post, included describing the president as someone with “an alcoholic’s personality” and Vice President JD Vance as a calculating “conspiracy theorist.” The observations from Wiles, who rarely speaks publicly given the behind-the-scenes nature of her job running the White House, prompted questions about whether the chief of staff might be on her way out.

    Wiles pushed back after the piece’s publication, describing it as a “hit piece” that lacked context, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the “entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”

    As for Trump, he told the New York Post that he had not read the piece and, when asked if he retained confidence in Wiles, said: “Oh, she’s fantastic.”

    Trump also agreed that he does have the personality of an alcoholic, describing himself as having “a very possessive personality.”

    A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking, dismissed the notion that Wiles might leave because of the profile, saying if top staffers were rattled by negative news coverage, “none of us would work here.”

    Wiles’ candor was so unusual that Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, said that when he first saw her comments, he thought he was reading a spoof. He said he could not recall a chief of staff giving such a candid interview — at least “not while you hold the title.”

    Emanuel said the role often involves public remarks that promote the president’s agenda, but not sharing personal views about “everything, everybody” in the White House.

    His advice to Wiles: “Next time there’s a meal, bring a food taster.”

    Candor from the ‘ice maiden’ who stays behind the scenes

    The interviews with Vanity Fair were themselves uncharacteristic for Wiles, who cut her reputation as someone who brought order to the president’s chaotic style and shunned the spotlight so much that at Trump’s 2024 election night victory party, she repeatedly shook her head and avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

    “Susie likes to stay sort of in the back,” said Trump, who has repeatedly referred to her as the “ice maiden.”

    Most members of his cabinet, along with former and current White House officials, posted statements praising Wiles and criticizing the media as dishonest.

    But neither Wiles nor the members of the administration who came to her defense on Tuesday disputed any details in the two-part profile, including areas where she conceded mistakes and seemed to contradict the administration’s official reasoning for its bombing of alleged drug boats in the waters off the coast of Venezuela.

    Though the Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the U.S., Wiles appeared to confirm that the campaign is part of a push to oust Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, saying Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

    Wiles pushed back but without any denials

    After the comments were published, Wiles disparaged the Vanity Fair report as a “disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.”

    “Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” she wrote in a social media post. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.”

    Trump, in an interview with the New York Post, said he was not offended by Wiles’ remarks, including her description of him as someone with “an alcoholic’s personality,” which she said she recognizes from her father, the famous sports broadcaster Pat Summerall.

    The president, who is a teetotaler and had a brother who struggled with alcohol, said: “I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive-type personality. Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before.”

    Vance, speaking in Pennsylvania on Tuesday about the president’s economic agenda, said that he had not read the Vanity Fair piece. But he defended Wiles and joked that “I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.”

    “Susie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree, but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States, and that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for,” Vance said.

    He said his takeaway was that the administration “should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”

    The chief of staff criticizes the attorney general

    Wiles, over the series of interviews, described the president behind the scenes very much as he presents himself in public: an intense figure who thinks in broad strokes yet is often not concerned with the details of process and policy. She added, though, that he has not been as angry or temperamental as is often suggested, even as she affirmed his ruthlessness and determination to achieve retribution against those he considers his political enemies.

    Wiles described much of her job as channeling Trump’s energy, whims, and desired policy outcomes — including managing his desire for vengeance against his political opponents, anyone he blames for his 2020 electoral defeat, and those who pursued criminal cases against him after his first term.

    On Epstein, Wiles told the magazine that she had underestimated the scandal involving the disgraced financier, but she sharply criticized how Bondi managed the case and the public’s expectations.

    Wiles faulted Bondi’s handling of the matter, going back to earlier in the year when she distributed binders to a group of social media influencers that included no new information about Epstein. That led to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

    “I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said of Bondi. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”

    Bondi did not address the criticism when she released a statement supporting Wiles.

    Wiles also said at one point that Trump’s tariffs had been more painful than expected. She conceded some mistakes in Trump’s mass deportation program and suggested that the president’s retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies has gone beyond what she initially wanted.

  • Hegseth says he won’t publicly release video of boat that killed survivors in the Caribbean

    Hegseth says he won’t publicly release video of boat that killed survivors in the Caribbean

    WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Pentagon will not publicly release unedited video of a U.S. military strike that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine in the Caribbean, as questions mounted in Congress about the incident and the overall buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela.

    Hegseth said members of the Armed Services Committee in the House and Senate would have an opportunity this week to review the video, but did not say whether all members of Congress would be allowed to see it as well.

    “Of course we’re not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters as he exited a closed-door briefing with senators.

    President Donald Trump’s cabinet members overseeing national security were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend a campaign that has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Overall, they defended the campaign as a success, saying it has prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and they pushed back on concerns that it is stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the campaign is a “counter-drug mission” that is “focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans.”

    Lawmakers have been focused on the Sept. 2 attack on two survivors as they sift through the rationale for a broader U.S. military buildup in the region. On the eve of the briefings, the U.S. military said it attacked three more boats believed to have been smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing eight people.

    Lawmakers left in the dark about Trump’s goal with Venezuela

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Hegseth had come “empty-handed” to the briefing, without a pledge to more broadly release the video of the Sept. 2 strike.

    “If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean?” Schumer said.

    Senators on both sides of the aisle said the officials left them in the dark about Trump’s goals when it comes to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro or sending U.S. forces directly to the South American nation.

    “I want to address the question: Is it the goal to take him out? If it’s not the goal to take him out, you’re making a mistake,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who defended the legality of the campaign and said he wanted to see Maduro removed from power.

    The U.S. has deployed warships, flown fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace, and seized an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office. Maduro said on a weekly state television show Monday that his government still does not know the whereabouts of the tanker’s crew. He criticized the United Nations for not speaking out against what he described as an “act of piracy” against “a private ship carrying Venezuelan oil.”

    In a social media post Tuesday night, Trump said he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering and leaving Venezuela. Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to escalate the military buildup.

    Trump’s Republican administration has not sought any authorization from Congress for action against Venezuela. The go-it-alone approach has led to problematic military actions, experts say, none more so than the strike that killed two people who had climbed atop part of a boat that had been partially destroyed in an initial attack.

    “If it’s not a war against Venezuela, then we’re using armed force against civilians who are just committing crimes,” said John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor who helped craft the George W. Bush administration’s legal arguments and justification for aggressive interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Then this question, this worry, becomes really pronounced. You know, you’re shooting civilians. There’s no military purpose for it.”

    Yet for the first several months, Congress received little more than a trickle of information about why or how the U.S. military was conducting the operations. At times, lawmakers have learned of strikes from social media after the Pentagon posted videos of boats bursting into flames.

    Hegseth now faces language included in an annual military policy bill that threatens to withhold a quarter of his travel budget if the Pentagon does not provide unedited video of the strikes to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

    The demand for release of video footage

    For some, the controversy over the footage demonstrates the flawed rationale behind the entire campaign.

    “The American public ought to see it. I think shooting unarmed people floundering in the water, clinging to wreckage, is not who we are as a people,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who has been an outspoken critic of the campaign.

    But senators were told the Trump administration will not release all of the Sept. 2 attack footage because it would reveal U.S. military practices on intelligence gathering, said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. She said the reasoning ignores the fact that the military has already released footage of the initial attack.

    “They just don’t want to reveal the part that suggests war crimes,” she said.

    Some GOP lawmakers are determined to dig into the details of the Sept. 2 attack. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second strike, was expected back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for classified briefings with the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. The committees would also review video of the Sept. 2 strikes, Hegseth said.

    Still, many Republicans emerged from the briefings backing the campaign, defending their legality and praising the “exquisite intelligence” that is used to identify targets. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) called the strike in question “certainly appropriate” and “necessary to protect the United States and our interests.”

  • Zelensky says proposals to end the war in Ukraine could be presented to Russia within days

    Zelensky says proposals to end the war in Ukraine could be presented to Russia within days

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says proposals being negotiated with U.S. officials for a deal to end the fighting in Russia’s nearly four-year-old invasion of his country could be finalized within days, after which American envoys will present them to the Kremlin before possible further meetings in the U.S. next weekend.

    A draft peace plan discussed with the U.S. during talks in Berlin on Monday is “not perfect” but is “very workable,” Zelensky told reporters hours after the discussions. He cautioned, however, that some key issues — notably what happens to Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces — remain unresolved.

    U.S.-led peace efforts appear to be picking up momentum. But as the spotlight shifts to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin may balk at some of the proposals thrashed out by officials from Washington, Kyiv, and Western Europe, including postwar security guarantees for Ukraine.

    Zelensky said that after the Berlin talks, “we are very close to [a deal on] strong security guarantees.”

    The security proposal will be based on Western help in keeping the Ukrainian army strong, an official from a NATO nation said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

    “Europeans will lead a multinational and multi-domain force to strengthen those troops and to secure Ukraine from the land, sea, and air, and the U.S. will lead a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism, with international participation,” the official said.

    Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov repeated Tuesday that Russia wants a comprehensive peace deal, not a temporary truce.

    If Ukraine seeks “momentary, unsustainable solutions, we are unlikely to be ready to participate,” he said.

    “We want peace — we don’t want a truce that would give Ukraine a respite and prepare for the continuation of the war,” he told reporters. “We want to stop this war, achieve our goals, secure our interests, and guarantee peace in Europe for the future.”

    American officials said Monday there is consensus from Ukraine and Europe on about 90% of the U.S.-authored peace plan. President Donald Trump said: “I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever,” to a peace settlement.

    Plenty of potential pitfalls remain, notably the land issue.

    Zelensky reiterated that Kyiv rules out recognizing Moscow’s control over any part of the Donbas, an economically important region in eastern Ukraine made up of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia’s army does not fully control either, but Trump has previously indicated that Ukraine will have to cede territory.

    “The Americans are trying to find a compromise,” Zelensky said before visiting the Netherlands on Tuesday. “They are proposing a ‘free economic zone’ [in the Donbas]. And I want to stress once again: A ‘free economic zone’ does not mean under the control of the Russian Federation.”

    Putin wants all the areas in four key regions that his forces have seized, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory.

    Zelensky warned that if Putin rejects diplomatic efforts, Ukraine expects increased Western pressure on Moscow, including tougher sanctions and additional military support for defense, such as enhanced air defense systems and long-range weapons.

    Zelensky said that what is driving Kyiv officials in the negotiations is for Russia to be “held accountable for what it has done — for this war, for all the killings, for all the suffering.”

    Ukraine and the U.S. are preparing up to five documents related to the peace framework, several of them focused on security, Zelensky said.

    He was upbeat about the progress in the Berlin talks.

    “Overall, there was a demonstration of unity,” Zelensky said. “It was truly positive in the sense that it reflected the unity of the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine.”

  • Britain’s BBC is both beloved and maligned. Now it faces a $10 billion Trump lawsuit

    Britain’s BBC is both beloved and maligned. Now it faces a $10 billion Trump lawsuit

    LONDON — President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion over a television documentary he claims was “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious.”

    Britain’s national broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the way it edited a speech in the program, but says it will defend itself against the defamation claim.

    The BBC is not the first media organization on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the president. But its position is complicated by its status as a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster and its stature as a closely scrutinized national institution.

    A pioneering broadcaster

    The BBC was founded in 1922 as a radio service to “inform, educate and entertain,” a mantra still central to its self-image.

    It launched the world’s first regularly scheduled television service in 1936, and helped make TV a mass medium when many Britons bought a TV set specifically to watch the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

    It operates 15 U.K. national and regional TV channels, several international channels, 10 national radio stations, dozens of local radio stations, the globe-spanning World Service radio and copious digital output including the iPlayer streaming service.

    As well as its news output it has a huge global viewership for entertainment shows including “Doctor Who,” “EastEnders,” “The Traitors” and “Strictly Come Dancing.”

    The BBC is funded from the public purse

    The broadcaster is funded by an annual license fee, currently set at 174.50 pounds ($230), paid by all U.K. households who watch live TV or any BBC content.

    The license fee has long had opponents, not least rival commercial broadcasters, and they have grown louder in an era of digital streaming when many people no longer have television sets or follow traditional TV schedules.

    The BBC’s governing charter, which sets the license fee, is reviewed once a decade, and the latest round of the process kicked off Tuesday. The center-left Labour government says it will ensure the BBC has “sustainable and fair” funding but has not ruled out replacing the license fee with another funding model.

    Managing the broadcaster has become a political football

    The broadcaster is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output. It is not a state broadcaster beholden to the U.K government, but is overseen by a board that includes both BBC staff and political appointees.

    It’s frequently a political football, with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news programs and some liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias.

    It has repeatedly battled British governments over editorial independence, from the 1926 general strike, when Cabinet minister Winston Churchill tried to seize control of the airwaves, to a battle with Tony Blair’s administration over the intelligence used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

    Recently it has been criticized for its coverage of trans issues and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. In February, the BBC removed a documentary about Gaza from its streaming service after it emerged that the child narrator was the son of an official in the Hamas-led government.

    Documentary that riled Trump

    The lawsuit stems from an edition of the BBC’s “Panorama” current affairs series titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” that was broadcast days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The film, made by a third-party production company, spliced together two sections of a speech given by Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”

    By doing so, it made it look like Trump was giving the green light to his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.

    The BBC apologized last month and two of its top executives resigned.

    Trump’s lawyers say the program falsely portrayed the president as a “violent insurrectionist,” caused “massive economic damage to his brand value” and was a “brazen attempt” to interfere in the U.S. election.

    The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.

    Legal jeopardy

    The BBC said in a statement that “we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

    Media attorney Mark Stephens said Trump and his lawyers face several hurdles. They must prove that the BBC program was shown in Florida and that people in that state thought less of him as a consequence. Trump’s lawyers argue that U.S. subscribers to BritBox and people using virtual private networks could have watched it, but they must prove it definitively, said Stephens, a consultant at the firm Howard Kennedy.

    “Allegations of libel are cheap, but proof is dear,’’ Stephens said.

    Stephens said Trump’s lawyers also have to deal with the fact that public figures have “to put up with the slings and arrows of incorrect reporting,’’ which are protected under the First Amendment.

    While many legal experts have dismissed the president’s claims against the media as having little merit, he has won some lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies and he could try to leverage the BBC mistake for a payout, potentially to a charity of his choice.

    The BBC’s position is complicated by the fact that any money it pays out in legal fees or a settlement comes from British taxpayers’ pocket.

    “I think President Trump is banking on the fact that the British public will not want to spend the money to defend the claim, nor will they want to pay any money in damages to him,’’ Stephens said. “So it allows him to continue a narrative of fake news and all of those other things at fairly little cost in the global scheme of things.”

  • Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

    Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

    Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

    If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

    Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which had not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

    Hegseth’s team said in a statement that it would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

    Pete Hegseth faces deepening scrutiny from Congress over boat strikes

    The Pentagon has shared few, if any, details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services Committees, according to two people familiar with how the panels have prepared for the proposal. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

    The plan also calls for realigning U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as U.S. Americas Command, or Americom, people familiar with the matter said. That concept was reported earlier this year by NBC News.

    Pentagon officials also discussed creating a U.S. Arctic Command that would report to Americom, but that idea appears to have been abandoned, people familiar with the matter said.

    Combined, the moves would reduce the number of top military headquarters — known as combatant commands — from 11 to eight while cutting the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to Hegseth. Other remaining combatant commands would be U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.

    Those familiar with the plan said it aligns with the Trump administration’s national security strategy, released this month, which declares that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”

    ‘Baghdad Pete’ tries to prevent fact-based press from covering dire changes to U.S. security doctrine | Trudy Rubin

    The proposal was organized by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff under the supervision of Caine, and is due to be shared with Hegseth as soon as this week as the preferred course of action among senior military officials. It grew from a request made by Hegseth in the spring to look for ways to improve how troops are commanded and controlled, a senior defense official familiar with the discussion said, adding that Hegseth has kept in touch with Caine about the issue over the last several months.

    Any changes would need the approval of Hegseth and President Donald Trump. The moves would come in the Pentagon’s Unified Command Plan, which lays out the roles of the military’s major headquarters.

    Lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of requiring the Pentagon to submit a detailed blueprint that describes the realignment’s potential costs and impacts on America’s alliances. The measure, included in Congress’ annual defense policy bill, would withhold money to enact the effort until at least 60 days after the Pentagon provides lawmakers with those materials.

    The bill has cleared the House and is expected to pass the Senate this week.

    The senior defense official said the proposed realignment is meant to speed decision-making and adaptation among military commanders. “Decay” had been observed in how the U.S. military commands and controls troops, he added, suggesting that the need for sweeping change is urgent.

    “Time ain’t on our side, man,” the senior defense official said, describing internal conversations around the plan. “The saying here is, ‘If not us, who, and if not now, when?’”

    The potential reorganization comes as Hegseth has begun broader efforts to cull the number of generals and admirals across the military. He also has fired or otherwise forced out more than 20 senior officers, threatened others with polygraph tests to determine whether they have leaked information to the news media, and told those remaining that if they do not like the administration’s policies they should “do the honorable thing and resign.”

    Chuck Hagel, who served as defense secretary during the Obama administration and as a Republican member of the Senate before that, expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s ambitions. There are different dynamics, needs, and security threats throughout the globe, he said.

    “The world isn’t getting any less complicated,” Hagel said in an interview. “You want commands that have the capability of heading off problems before they become big problems, and I think you lose some of that when you unify or consolidate too many.”

    Senior military officials considered about two dozen other concepts, the senior defense official said. At least one discussion called for a reduction to six total combatant commands. Under that plan, Special Operations Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command would be downgraded and placed under the control of a new U.S. Global Command, said other officials familiar with the discussion.

    Caine is expected to share at least two other courses of action with Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said. One concept calls for creating two commands to house all of the others, with all major geographic organizations such as Central Command and European Command placed under the control of an entity that would be called Operational Command. Other major headquarters, such as Transportation Command and Space Command, would fall under an organization called Support Command.

    One proposal suggested the creation of a new headquarters unit, Joint Task Force War, to be based at the Pentagon. It would focus on planning and strategy when the United States was not at war, and be capable of controlling forces anywhere in the world when there was a conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

    The idea didn’t “test well” in exercises with military officials and appears unlikely to be adopted, the senior defense official said. Top military officials expressed concerns that such an organization would not possess the same regional expertise and relationships inherent to the military’s current construct.

    Even if you have “some of your best people” in such a task force, the senior official said, “you don’t have a fingertip feel” for what is occurring in a region. A second official said it seemed “very confusing” to have top commanders in a region prepare for a conflict there, only to hand those plans over to another commander when something occurred.

    Another plan sought to reorganize the military by domain, with operations organized and led by whether they occurred on land or in air, sea, space, or cyberspace, people familiar with the matter said. The idea had supporters in the Space Force but had few other proponents, people familiar with the matter said. It also limited the Marine Corps’ influence, with it falling under the control of the Navy Department even as the other branches of service were elevated.

    Military officials involved in the reorganization effort also considered whether to elevate the chairman’s role to allow him to command forces, rather than serving as the senior military adviser to both the president and the defense secretary. That could have occurred through the Joint Task Force War framework, two officials said, but the concept seemed murky.

    The idea also could have been complicated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, landmark legislation that reorganized the military and defined the chairman’s role. Under the law, the chairman is considered the “principal” military adviser to the president, the defense secretary, and other senior officials. Operations are controlled through a chain of command that runs from combatant commanders to the defense secretary and then to the president.