Senate begins voting on bill to fund ICE, Border Patrol as Democrats try to derail it

• June 4, 2026

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and JOEY CAPPELLETTI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.

The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments that Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

“The thing we’re trying to do here is to keep the focus on funding for ICE and CBP,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday evening, after the Senate voted to start debating the legislation. “This was narrow and targeted from the very beginning and clean, and we’re trying to maintain it that way.”

But it’s unclear if Republicans will have enough votes to fend off the Democratic amendments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday that they were satisfied with his remarks.

Yet Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future on Wednesday afternoon when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

Democrats, Republicans plan to force votes on settlement

To pass legislation through the budget process called reconciliation, the Senate must first hold a long series of votes. Democrats are using that process to try and ban the settlement by law — and also kill the immigration spending bill.

After Trump’s comments about the fund, Schumer posted on X that “this is EXACTLY why” Democrats would be forcing votes to ban it.

Some Republicans also planned to try and put Blanche’s promise in writing. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he will offer an amendment to block any attempt at resurrecting the fund.

“We’ve got a sufficient number of Republicans who have been very clear they’ve got concerns there,” said Tillis.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.

Security money for Trump’s ballroom dropped

Work on the legislation was also delayed by Republican opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released on Wednesday.

Thune said he was working with his GOP conference to try and fight off any amendments and ensure he has enough votes for a simple majority to pass the bill in the 53-47 Senate.

“Keep in mind, we’ve got to keep them all together, make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” he said.

Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to clear the legislation before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about the schedule.

“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.

​ Orange County Register 

Is Mexico safe? World Cup fans are about to find out

• June 4, 2026

By Maya Averbuch, Bloomberg

The iconic sticker book of soccer stars playing in the upcoming World Cup has taken on a dark meaning in parts of Mexico, where families of disappeared crime victims are filling in a symbolic virtual album to draw attention to their fight to find them.

That’s not the image that tourism operators and businesses in the Mexican state of Jalisco want to convey as millions of fans flock in for the premier sports event that kicks off this month. After the military fatally shot a notorious drug-trafficker outside the state capital of Guadalajara in February, tourists have started to return to the historic city. The World Cup now offers a chance to leave behind the episode and its brutal aftermath. But many residents worry that the festive mood and infrastructure works risk papering over the security crisis that still affects their daily lives.

ALSO SEE: Amtrak Pacific Surfliner adds trains, urges early reservations for LA World Cup

Mexico is hosting the games alongside Canada and the US in the first-ever tri-national World Cup. In 13 matches to be held in three Mexican tournament cities, nearly $2 billion in public and private money is pouring in to prepare for one of the world’s biggest sports events. That includes Jalisco, the birthplace of tequila, home to Mexico’s Silicon Valley and a major beach destination for US and Canadian tourists.

Giant screens are going up in the renovated city center and picturesque nearby towns. At Akron Stadium in Zapopan just outside Guadalajara, new grass has been rolled out to meet FIFA standards. It now has new VIP areas too. The stadium has been renamed after Guadalajara for the duration of the games. In late May, one pitch-side lounge seat was going for more than $5,000, 10 times Mexico’s minimum monthly salary.

For local businesses, the World Cup is an opportunity for renewal after organized crime affiliates torched businesses and vehicles across more than 20 states in response to the killing of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the powerful boss of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel. For weeks afterward, foreign visits to the resort town of Puerto Vallarta on Jalisco’s coast fell by more than 30% compared to 2025, while hotel occupancy and restaurant sales plummeted.

In a government survey published in April, nine out of 10 Guadalajara residents said they felt unsafe.

Ernesto Sánchez Proal, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guadalajara, said his tour company had to cancel a trip in March to photograph wildlife near Puerto Vallarta. “People were very afraid,” he said.

Many Mexicans still are. Given the heightened security, soccer fans will likely feel safe, but locals caught up in the violence are still disappearing. With buckets of glue in hand, families and friends have taken to pasting images of the victims across the city to make sure they’re not forgotten.

“They’re giving so much attention to the World Cup,” said Hilda Villalobos Tinoco, 49, whose son never came home after a dawn motorcycle ride in March. “How long does it take for them to pay attention to us?”

Anti-World Cup protesters say the security crisis is afflicting working-class Mexicans who won’t be in the stands. Instead of repairing stadiums, remodeling airports and adorning public squares with decorative soccer balls, they say the government should channel scarce resources into addressing the country’s social plight.

The World Cup is no stranger to protests. In Brazil in 2014, residents turned out ahead of the games demanding an end to corruption after what they saw as lavish spending on stadiums. South Africa’s 2010 tournament was preceded by the police’s use of rubber bullets and tear gas to put down labor strikes after a similar public outcry.

Asked at a recent press conference whether police would block protests outside stadiums during the tournament, Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said, “In Mexico, there’s freedom of expression.”

Beefed-Up Security

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, whose administration has made security a government priority, assured tourists in February there’s “no risk.”

The federal government has designated some 99,000 security forces for Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey, where the games will be played. Jalisco has upgraded its camera systems to better track players and fans. A one-mile perimeter around the stadium is designed to keep out anyone without a ticket. Expanded private security will patrol inside to quell any stadium brawls.

“We know there are fans coming from all over Mexico. We also know there are Spaniards, Colombians, Americans. There are also Uruguayans,” said Alfonso Briseño Torres, a Jalisco official on a 2026 World Cup security committee that has sought to reassure foreign diplomats. “We met with consuls and ambassadors, and they left convinced that, in Jalisco, we’re doing the right things to guarantee security.”

That confident assertion will be tested in Guadalajara, a bustling metropolitan area that hosts Michelin-starred restaurants, famous stained-glass churches and affluent gated communities. Zapopan alone includes some of the wealthiest zip codes in Mexico. It’s also a landscape dotted with unmarked graves — and the people looking for them.

Villalobos realized something was wrong when her 31-year-old son, Giovanni Luna Villalobos, didn’t show up to eat pozole corn soup at her birthday party. Security cameras showed him wheeling his motorbike to a fuel station. Cellphone records later located his phone a few blocks from an upscale mall in Zapopan.

With the help of other parents and Jalisco’s official search commission, Villalobos has glued posters near the mall and along an avenue closer to home – noting her son’s 5’ 10” athletic build, the freckles on his nose and the ‘only God can judge me’  tattoo inked in green on his neck. But she hasn’t received any news and blames authorities for neglecting the case.

“I called him again and again, and it just went to voicemail,” she said. “The days pass, the hours pass, but I don’t believe that my son is dead.”

Grassroots associations have made sure the posters of the disappeared are visible even at tourist sites, including outside a 17th century cathedral and on bollards at a central roundabout featuring a Roman goddess statue where Mexican soccer fans often celebrate. A call by local lawmakers to take down the posters has gone unheeded.

In Mexico, the last large-scale security mobilization occurred in 2025, after the murder of a mayor in another state. That year, the association to which Villalobos now belongs, Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco, ignited a national scandal after they found backpacks, shoes and bone fragments at a ranch outside the city, signs of forced recruitment and assassinations.

Since then, the group has found more mass grave sites, including some they say are only around 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the stadium.

Awaiting the Windfall

Zapopan Mayor Juan José Frangie Saade, a businessman and former head of the beloved Chivas soccer team that usually plays in the local stadium, believes the games will bring the state a windfall of some 30 billion pesos ($1.7 billion).

Infrastructure works have accelerated, he said. Airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, for example, has pledged to invest 26 billion pesos in the Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta airports through 2029. Throngs of fans are expected to turn out at festivals that include pop-rock band Maná and Mexican crooner Alejandro Fernández, allowing money to trickle through to small businesses.

“Soccer is a sport that brings us together,” Frangie said. “We say Jalisco is the most Mexican location because, what are we known for in the world? Tequila, mariachi, folklore, charrería horse riding and gastronomy.”

But the games are likely to profit criminal organizations too. Jalisco Nueva Generación has an economic incentive to serve tourists, said Victor Manuel Sánchez Valdés, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Coahuila.

“There’s a fear that there could be violent actions at the World Cup, and while we can’t completely ignore such a scenario, the economic incentive is greater than the desire to generate violence,” Sánchez said. “Organized crime wants a chunk of the economic benefit that’s going to come to the legal economy. Tourist areas have the big-ticket spenders.”

Fernando García de Llano Valenzuela, a developer who opened a nine-story hotel with panoramic views in the Guadalajara area in December, had a single guest for days after the killing of the cartel boss earlier this year. His high-end boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta also stood empty in March. By April, he finally saw signs of a comeback.

“There’s a perception that there might be danger, but nothing’s going to happen in this city,” he said in April, sitting at his hotel’s rooftop bar in Zapopan. “It’s like anywhere else in the world. There are parts of the city that are dangerous, but you’d have to go to them – and a tourist doesn’t have any reason to.”

If the World Cup goes smoothly, García de Llano envisions Guadalajara emerging as one of the world’s top tourist destinations, similar to Barcelona’s transformation after the 1992 Summer Olympics.

“People’s passion for soccer is huge. I’d like to think that whoever was afraid in February or March, wasn’t by April,” he said, adding that as the games approach, they were looking for a way to get to the city.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

​ Orange County Register 

President Trump says he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

• June 4, 2026

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who has aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche sought quickly to position himself as the favorite for the permanent job after Pam Bondi’s firing in April, accelerating investigations into Trump foes and announcing a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate the president’s allies for alleged political persecution. The proposed fund created a bipartisan firestorm that forced the Justice Department to scrap the idea earlier this week in an extraordinary about-face.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

Blanche’s actions have outraged Democrats and other critics who accuse him of still acting like Trump’s personal lawyer to carry out the president’s campaign of retribution. The $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” also prompted backlash from Republicans in the Senate whose support Blanche will now need in order to be confirmed as attorney general.

While Blanche has maintained he feels no pressure from the president, the Justice Department under his watch has advanced its pursuits of longtime Trump foes. Blanche has strongly rejected accusations that the Trump administration has politicized the Justice Department and has said he is focused on correcting what he contends were past abuses by the Biden administration.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in April over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat the president. Comey, who has slammed the case as politically motivated, has said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments against him.

Blanche separately appointed Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

He came under intense scrutiny last month over the proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which the administration said was meant to compensate people who feel they’ve been unjustly investigated and prosecuted under past administrations. The fund sparked outrage over the possibility that violent offenders who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot could be considered for payments — which Blanche refused to publicly rule out.

Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday the Justice Department would not move forward with the plan after the political blowback stalled legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump’s defense team, including during the Republican’s hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Should we sympathize with Canada over its Stanley Cup drought?

• June 4, 2026

The world according to Jim:

• It is now 33 seasons since a team from Canada last won the Stanley Cup, and while in the past we’ve snarkily noted that drought in This Space every year in which the drought was extended, somehow I don’t feel nearly so much like rubbing it in this year. I mean, hasn’t that country suffered enough? …

• There is this: The country’s seven NHL teams continue to go without, but the Cup remains in the permanent possession of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, located in the one city that can certainly speak to Cup droughts. The Maple Leafs are 59 years removed from not only their last Cup but their last trip to the championship round, and 22 years since they’ve even gotten to a conference semifinal. …

Today’s quiz, then, Part I: Why is Kerry Fraser still memorable in Toronto? Answer below. …

• The latest evidence that legalized gambling is a stain on the sports industry (and certain segments of social media, with its anonymity and lack of filter, might not be that far behind): The online abuse that Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott’s wife received after her husband blew a save on Saturday night, including a threat against their baby. It’s not the first instance, and his isn’t the first baseball family to deal with this.

Suggestion to those cretins who feel emboldened to act out this way: If you lose a bet, that’s on you, not the athlete. Grow up and deal with it. …

• Along those lines, an NCAA survey last fall revealed that 36% of Division I men’s basketball players “reported experiencing social media abuse related to sports betting within the last year.” …

• The sports industry’s coziness with the gambling business resembles the way a snake’s embrace gets tighter and tighter until it squeezes the life out of you. In retrospect, the Supreme Court decision that opened the widespread legalization of sports betting was a terrible, terrible mistake. …

• Oh, and have we forgotten fifth-year senior Brendan Sorsby, the quarterback suing the NCAA to regain his eligibility after transferring to Texas Tech? A response to his lawsuit claimed that Sorsby bet “at least $90,000 on more than 9,000 bets over the course of his college career.”

Shouldn’t that get you barred or at least suspended, rather than being able to profit from the transfer portal? …

• Quiz I answer: Fraser missed what should have been a high-sticking penalty on Wayne Gretzky in Game 6 of the Kings-Maple Leafs Western Conference final series on May 27, 1993. The Kings won that Game 6 at home on Gretzky’s power-play goal 1:41 into overtime and then won Game 7 in Toronto to advance to their first Stanley Cup Final, where they would lose in five games to Montréal. That was Canada’s last Cup victory.

Fraser acknowledged that he missed it in a 2016 first-person story in the Players’ Tribune. I’m guessing longtime Leafs fans still haven’t forgiven him. …

• That leads us to Quiz II: How many games in that Kings-Canadiens series were decided in overtime, and who decided them? Answer below. …

• The College Football Playoff schedule lists the Rose Bowl, a national quarterfinal, as time TBA on Jan. 1. The guess is that it will start either at 1 p.m. or 5 p.m., so we can at least guarantee that the colorful sunset that traditionally reflects off the mountains will not come at the traditional end of the third quarter. …

• The CFP championship game in Las Vegas will take place on Jan. 25. That is way, way too late. Maybe instead of trying to copy the NFL, the college game should lean into what makes it special, move up the playoffs and crown its champion on New Year’s Day.

But that would require thought, effort and leadership. Anyone in college football capable of those traits? Didn’t think so. …

• I’m not surprised that MLB owners have attempted to tie the end of streaming blackouts to the implementation of a salary cap, using the pooling and equal sharing of all TV revenue as a wedge. How better for the billionaires to get the sympathy of working class fans? …

• Those issues are not inseparable. MLB could have ended geographically-driven blackouts on its streaming platform long ago but chose not to. And the TV revenue could be pooled and shared equally – and a salary floor established – without a hard salary cap. (If the TV revenues are shared, wouldn’t that be less for big market teams such as the Dodgers to spend anyway?)

Reminder, folks: The salary cap issue is not really about competitive balance, but rather pumping up franchise valuations. And the billionaire owners don’t really care about you. …

• I love that Dave Roberts came right out and said it in a conversation with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale: “My honest opinion is the majority of takes about the Dodgers couldn’t be more lazy, that it’s just about the payroll. … I actually think it’s a competitive advantage in the sense that people feel that way, and not look at themselves in the mirror and see how they can operate things better. So that’s beneficial for us.”

If you’re going to be baseball’s villain anyway, no reason not to fire back. …

• Quiz II answer: Three of Montréal’s four victories in the 1993 Final were achieved on overtime goals. Éric Desjardins won Game 2, 51 seconds into overtime after tying the game at 18:47 of the third period following Marty McSorley’s illegal stick penalty. (Pause here for Kings fans to direct one more muttered insult at Jacques Demers, the Canadiens coach who called for the stick measurement.)

John LeClair then won Games 3 and 4 in overtime for the Canadiens in Inglewood, 34 seconds in to decide Game 3 and 14:37 into OT in Game 4. …

• I know, Kings fans. Just think of those 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup banners in your own rafters and you’ll feel better. …

• Today’s Father’s Day shopping suggestions, especially if Dad (or Grandpa) likes sports books:

“Earned: The True Cost Of Greatness from One of Hockey’s Fiercest Competitors” by Chris Pronger (with the foreword by Teemu Selanne, which is a story in itself); “Landon: A Memoir,” by Landon Donovan; “Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original,” a biography of Nolan Ryan by Tim Brown; “Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life” by Dusty Baker, which will be released Tuesday, and “Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love,” by Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur, with the foreword by Tom Hanks.

Hint to relatives: I’ve already read the first two. The rest? There’s your shopping list.

jalexander@scng.com

​ Orange County Register 

Some Republican governors are rebranding June with conservative alternatives to Pride

• June 4, 2026

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, GEOFF MULVIHILL and MARC LEVY

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — June is widely recognized as Pride Month, but a handful of Republican governors have also bestowed non-LGBTQ titles on it that advocates on both sides view as counterprogramming.

Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”

In Alabama, it’s Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father’s Day. Gov. Kay Ivey’s proclamation says fathers are “the head of the household” and “homes led by a father and mother provide children with the structure and discipline necessary to succeed throughout life.”

The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.

Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ X account posted a link to an article about her proclamation that declared, “Another Red State is Counter-Programming Pride Month.”

She and the other governors haven’t answered questions from The Associated Press about why their proclamations are all set in June.

The family focus for June has come on strong this year

Republican lawmakers in at least four other GOP-controlled states have introduced legislation this year calling for June to be Fidelity Month.

An organization pushing that concept was founded by Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence who has long been a leader on conservative thought. His group did not respond to interview requests.

He told the National Catholic Register about the idea in 2023, saying “nobody gets a monopoly on a particular day or a particular month.”

June Pride celebrations, which often include parade, festivals and performances, began in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, and have since expanded to cities worldwide.

“You can call it whatever you want, but one thing you’re not going to do is take away our pride or take away our joy,” said Jordan Braxton co-president of USA Prides.

Every Democratic president since Bill Clinton in 1999 has signed a Pride proclamation each year — and no Republican president has.

One of the few GOP governors who has proclaimed Pride is Utah’s Spencer Cox, who did so in 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2024, he deemed June a “Month of Bridge Building” before switching to Fidelity Month this year.

A poll released this week found that a two decade-long increase in acceptance of same-sex marriages and relationships has flattened — largely because more Republicans oppose them.

Conservatives say they’re ‘reclaiming the culture’

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, introduced a resolution to make June Family Month — and to unrecognize Pride Month, saying “Americans are inundated with perverse Pride Month displays and events throughout the month of June that denigrate the nuclear family.” It never got a vote.

Some backers view the state measures as an opportunity for a cultural reset.

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in an interview that it’s good to have the conservative recognitions because Pride celebrations “were going so far as to make it difficult to celebrate traditional marriage.”

The resolution approved by Tennessee’s Legislature and governor does not mention Pride Month specifically, while saying the “nuclear family is under attack in our beloved State and nation.”

But Lakie Derrick, a conservative activist who authored the measure with a friend, said she did indeed target it to June to counter Pride Month, which she said “goes against” American values.

“We’re just reclaiming the culture, and there’s no better month to do that than in a month where the culture says we’re gonna celebrate something so opposite to what we know to be right,” Derrick said.

Marina Lowe, who leads legal and legislative affairs for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Utah, said that Pride Month is not the antithesis of other values-based recognitions. Many LGBTQ people also value faith and family, she said, so “I don’t think that these positions need to be in conflict with one another.”

In Wenatchee, Washington, a school’s Turning Point USA chapter was able to get Family Month banners posted on light poles that in the past had displayed rainbow flags during June. A local gay rights group, Out NCW, struck back by buying two billboards and passing out yard signs supporting Pride, its president, AJ Soto, said.

For some, this is why Pride Month exists

Josh Coleman, president of Central Alabama Pride, which has 42 events planned over two weeks, said the celebrations, which culminate with a parade on June 13 and festival June 14, won’t be affected by the proclamation.

“It’s not lost upon LGBTQ people when elected leaders don’t recognize or value the visibility of the community,” he said. “That’s why Pride started in the first place — to make sure the community had a community.”

Alex Richardson, chair of the board of directors at Indy Pride in Indianapolis, said he sees the governor’s proclamation there as a “swipe.” But he also believes the events there this month are celebrating some of the things the governor supports.

“Sure, the governor’s right, the nuclear family is worth celebrating,” Richardson said. “But I think so is the grandmother who raises her grandchildren, or the chosen family that shows up when a blended family can’t, or won’t, … or the weird blended households that are held together by love and effort.”

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Mulvihill from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

​ Orange County Register 

Beach safety event in Huntington Beach highlights preparations ahead of busy summer

• June 4, 2026

The child was helpless against the power of the surging surf, injured while tossed by the waves.

The scene that unfolded on the south side of the Huntington Beach was just a mock simulation, but it’s a scenario that can happen in a split second on any stretch of coastline.

And rescuers and medical teams want to be prepared.

A water safety drill was held at Huntington Beach on Wednesday, June 3, simulating the lifesaving processes that happen when a young child suffers a cervical spine injury while riding a bodyboard — everything from lifeguards and fire department first response to paramedics who initiate transport to the UCI Health medical team ready to treat the injured patient.

UCI Health, which participated in the drill, is a Level 1 trauma center that treats about 7,000 patients a year, but also has a Level 2 pediatrics unit that treats about 200 kids a year. It is one of four trauma hospitals in Orange County, with three of those — Rady Children’s Hospital Orange County, Mission Hospital and UCI Health — having pediatric units, said Michael LeKawa, UCI Health emergency and acute care surgeon.

A few years ago, the team started doing first-response simulations every other month, covering everything from search and rescue response for a hiker who had fallen on a mountain to mass casualty events such as earthquakes or mass shootings, LeKawa said.

At the beach event, lifeguards first responded to the mock incident of a surf break injury, helping bring the “victim” to shore. The child was then transported to the hospital, with paramedic and fire department responders doing their part as a way to create “muscle memory” when preparing for such injuries.

“Really critical injury is not all that common with kids, you want to make sure everything is ready for it,” LeKawa said.

The simulation was not only meant as an exercise for lifesaving responders, but also a way to inform the public about drowning dangers both in the ocean or a pool ahead of the busy summer season.

“Hopefully, we’ll get some awareness of the risk of summer trauma,” LeKawa said. “For the summer, we obviously have a lot more people on the beach surfing and bodysurfing. Between the ocean, boating and swimming pools, drowning is the most common cause of traumatic events in children.”

While adults can also suffer such injuries or dangers around water, it’s especially important that children are watched at all times around bodies of water, he said.

“It sounds un-fun, everybody wants to have a good time while they are boating and on the water. But there’s nothing worse than an unexpected drowning,” LeKawa said. “This extends to swimming pools as well, adding someone to have oversight of the pool.”

Other dangers to be aware of as the Fourth of July nears include firework injuries, as well as fire pit burns when a person steps on hot coals or wood left smoldering overnight, he noted.

Orange County beaches are popular places each summer.

The HB Fire Department’s Marine Safety Division’s 2025 end-of-summer statistics reported more than 125,000 calls for service between Jan. 1 and Oct. 16.

That total includes 4,428 rescues, 84,676 preventative actions, 34,723 enforcement contacts, and 1,807 medical aids.

​ Orange County Register 

Lawsuits challenging embryo disposal could hinder IVF

• June 4, 2026

By Sofia Resnick, Stateline.org

An anti-abortion group last month sued seven Utah fertility clinics, claiming their disposal of embryos as part of the in vitro fertilization process violates the state’s wrongful death law.

The ministry Voice for the Voiceless believes it has a strong case because Utah is one of four states — Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri are the others — that have both a “fetal personhood” law and a civil wrongful death law that, the group contends, might apply to frozen embryos.

Other states offer opportunity for similar lawsuits: At least 10 have either a fetal personhood law — giving a fetus, embryo or fertilized egg the same legal rights as a person who has been born — or a wrongful death statute that might include frozen embryos, according to Pregnancy Justice, a group that tracks the issue and advocates for the rights of pregnant women, including the right to abortion.

“There’s a number of states that have laws like Utah’s that find that a person exists at a certain point, and that is conception,” said Frank Mylar, the attorney representing Voice for the Voiceless. He also represents another plaintiff, an anonymous woman from Ogden, Utah, who alleges in the lawsuit that she underwent an IVF procedure at one of the seven fertility clinics and was not informed that unused embryos would be discarded or about options to put her embryos up for adoption.

“Once that egg is fertilized, it actually at that point becomes a human being that’s entitled to rights,” Mylar said in an interview. “So every state that has that as a law, what we’re doing in this lawsuit would be very much applicable.”

The lawsuit illustrates the divide among many in the anti-abortion movement. Followers of a conservative philosophy known as “pronatalism” believe it’s imperative for Americans to have more babies. They want easier access to IVF, and President Donald Trump campaigned on making IVF more affordable.

So far, he has negotiated steep discounts on three IVF drugs and proposed allowing employers to provide separate health insurance coverage for fertility benefits, including lab tests, medications, genetic testing and IVF.

But the IVF process often involves discarding embryos, creating a conundrum for people who support IVF but believe that life begins at fertilization and oppose abortion. For anti-abortion purists, those embryos are unborn children, so disposing of them is no different from abortion.

The split on the political right drew attention in February 2024, when the Alabama Supreme Court, which consists of nine Republicans, ruled 8-1 that the state’s wrongful death statute applied to embryos. That decision cleared the way for couples to pursue lawsuits if their frozen embryos were destroyed. It temporarily halted IVF at Alabama clinics. It also ignited a national uproar and prompted the Republican-led Alabama legislature to immediately step in to protect IVF providers from legal liability.

But court cases and legislative efforts in multiple states show that the IVF debate is ongoing.

In Indiana and Ohio, courts have weighed whether frozen embryos are people or property in cases involving former partners who disagreed on what to do with their embryos when they separated.

In Kentucky, a judge earlier this month struck down language in the state’s abortion ban defining human life as beginning at conception, handing a victory to a Jewish woman who argued that the ban violated her religious freedom by putting her at risk of prosecution if she pursued IVF. The state has appealed the case.

In Kansas, a proposed bill this year would have made it illegal to destroy a fertilized embryo, though it died in committee. And Tennessee last year became the first state in the South to enact a law explicitly affirming the right to access IVF and birth control.

Kulsoom Ijaz, a senior policy counsel for Pregnancy Justice, predicted that IVF opponents will continue to use fetal personhood language to challenge the fertility procedure. Ijaz said that when fetal personhood language appears in one area of state law, “it inspires legislators to align their laws across the board, with these equal-protection-for-the- unborn bills.”

Then, she said, “courts use these definitions to then make case law in other areas of the law.”

Risa Cromer, an anthropology associate professor at Purdue University who focuses on medicine and reproductive politics, described personhood language as “a threat for broad swaths of reproductive health care needs that remain highly popular, IVF being one of them.”

“Personhood doesn’t explicitly implicate abortion miscarriage management, treatment for ectopic pregnancy, contraception, or IVF. In judicial interpretation, it absolutely is proving to be a threat,” Cromer said.

Utah lawsuit

IVF involves retrieving a woman’s eggs from her body and then fertilizing them with sperm in a laboratory. Any embryos that result can then be either transferred to her uterus or frozen for future use. Unused embryos can also be adopted, but many are discarded. And storing frozen embryos can be costly, from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year.

Louisiana is the only state that bans the destruction of IVF embryos. But fertility clinics have gotten around the 1986 law by shipping unused embryos out of state for storage.

The lawsuit says Voice for the Voiceless is morally opposed to IVF. But it also claims the clinics could perform IVF without discarding embryos by only creating as many embryos as will be implanted into their clients.

Mylar, the attorney, said defendants could change their clinic policies to comply with the state’s wrongful death statute “if they basically said, ‘Our intent is that you have every one of these fertilized eggs, and we’re not going to willingly or negligently or intentionally let them die.’”

Voice for the Voiceless President Kriss Martenson, named as a plaintiff, said in an interview that he does not believe IVF could be practiced without violating the law. He said the lawsuit is a strategic effort to apply fetal personhood language to IVF and to abortion at all stages. The lawsuit says the organization, which it describes as a nonprofit, has legal standing because of its efforts opposing abortion in Utah.

Martenson said he was inspired to file the Utah lawsuit by the 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision and by the combination of Utah’s fetal personhood and wrongful death laws.

A victory in the lawsuit “could strengthen the legal arguments that the state has a constitutional obligation to protect human life from the moment of fertilization,” Martenson said. “So that’s what I’m showing in Utah, and I think that could affect other states.”

Discarding embryos

Disposal of embryos is common in IVF because for each single fertilization effort, multiple embryos are created to maximize the chance of success. Typically only one or two are transferred to a patient’s uterus, however, to prevent high-risk pregnancies of multiple fetuses. Some embryos are discarded because of chromosomal issues or genetic diseases, discovered during genetic screening in the lab. The Utah lawsuit charges that this is “akin to eugenics.”

Stateline contacted all of the clinics named in the lawsuit, but one declined to comment and the others did not respond in time for publication. The defendants have not yet filed written responses to the lawsuit. The seven clinics are: Conceptions Fertility Center, East Bay Fertility Center, Reproductive Care Center, Utah Center for Reproductive Medicine, Utah Fertility Center, Utah Fertility Specialists and Wellnest Fertility Clinic.

Susan Crockin, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center who teaches assisted reproductive technology law, said it is standard practice to inform IVF patients about their options around unused embryos. If the lawsuit is successful, Crockin said, it could severely curtail patient choice.

“The one thing that I think gets lost in this debate often is that a number of embryos that are not used for procreation … because they potentially have a genetic anomaly that is incompatible with life,” Crockin said. “So if every IVF embryo is considered a legally recognized person, I don’t understand what these anti-abortion, anti-IVF advocates would have us do with these embryos that will be sitting in cryopreservation tanks, or will not be making a viable human being.”

She added that “conflating every attempt to have a family with ‘every embryo in a freezer deserves to be put into a deserving womb’ feels very dangerous.”

Cromer, of Purdue University, noted that “the vast majority of religious Americans are supportive of access to IVF.” Cromer is a fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute, which found in a 2024 survey that majorities of white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints both oppose laws that would make IVF illegal and strongly support laws declaring that human life begins at fertilization.

“So, these kinds of lawsuits, while there might be political opportunity for particular jurisdictions, such as the state of Utah, (are) completely out of step with what most Americans — religious Americans — want for themselves, their families and their neighbors,” Cromer said.

Stateline reporter Sofia Resnick can be reached a sresnick@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

I made $500 at my first garage sale. Here are a few tips you can take to the bank

• June 4, 2026

At 7:30 a.m. on a recent Saturday, my driveway was filled with tables. We had kids’ clothes, baby gear and long-forgotten household items — each item priced to sell.

I set a goal of $500 in sales. That would make it all “worth it” for me after spending roughly 12 hours prepping (more on that later) and about $24 in supplies.

By the end of the day, we met our goal and turned that pile into extra cash. We also learned that a successful garage sale is part decluttering project, part side hustle.

Sort and organize before sale day

I knew that to be successful, we were going to have to do some work in advance. In our case, we spent about 12 hours sorting, organizing, pricing and advertising in the week leading up to the sale.

We cleared out nearly every corner of our house — from the basement and playroom to the random closet under the stairs we’d been avoiding for months.

We’re out of the baby phase, so the crib sheets, baby gates, high chair, baby monitors — it all had to go. We kept a few favorites (just in case we become grandparents one day) and set the rest aside to sell.

Closets were less sentimental. Then came the cabinets: platters, vases, picture frames, curtains — relics from when we combined our lives together more than 10 years ago.

Price strategically, but price to sell

As we decluttered, I staged our stuff in the garage, grouping similar things together to make pricing easier.

I used $1.25 pre-made price tags from Dollar Tree and priced items in batches whenever I had a few spare minutes. Most things were between $1 and $5, but for bigger ticket items I checked Facebook Marketplace for the local going rate, then undercut those prices by $10-$20. It is a yard sale, after all.

For anything I wasn’t sure about, like an old jewelry box that played music, I added a “make me an offer” sticker — and people did. (That jewelry box went for 50 cents, by the way.)

Get the word out

I was worried people might not show, so I got my phone out.

I posted in neighborhood and community Facebook groups, sharing not just the time and date, but also pictures and descriptions of what we were selling.

We also put up signs at the entrance to our neighborhood and added balloons to make them easier to spot.

Timing helped, too. We chose a spring weekend — before the Southern heat kicks in and before summer travel season.

Make Marketplace your Plan B

The early birds showed up quickly on sale day. By mid-morning, we were in a lull that had me panicking. We still had a lot of stuff to sell.

So, I opened the Facebook app and started posting big ticket items to Marketplace. Facebook has more than three billion users, and 40% of them regularly shop on Facebook Marketplace, according to research from Capital One. So, I knew my listings would be seen.

To save time, I used Facebook’s AI feature to help write product descriptions. I was impressed by the accuracy (I cross-checked the dimensions with the product website to make sure they were correct).

Within minutes, I had interest from buyers and felt more hopeful about meeting our sales goal.

Set a shared financial goal — and keep it top of mind

What made these decisions easier was having shared financial goals.

Rising grocery and gas prices have eaten into our savings in recent months, and we have some big plans in the coming months: We’re saving for a big family trip, a 10,000-mile car service and a weekend getaway.

“Higher gas prices are straining Americans’ wallets, which means every bit of extra cash helps right now,” says Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. “Side-hustles can help bridge the gap between spending and income.”

Also, we were sick and tired of all the stuff.

Yard sale earnings and learnings

We packed up around 3:30 in the afternoon, once traffic slowed, and we counted the results.

$497 earned from the combined garage sale and Facebook Marketplace sales. We took cash but also gave shoppers QR codes for digital payments like Venmo and Zelle.

$31 earned from selling higher-quality items at a kids’ consignment shop.

~$200 tax deduction from donating leftover items to Goodwill. We itemize our deductions, so I set aside the receipt to use when we itemize our deductions next year.

That’s more than $500 in value from items we no longer use — plus a potential tax break.

After reflecting on my first garage sale, here’s what surprised me most:

• Garage sale shoppers and Facebook Marketplace buyers are different: Marketplace buyers are searching for specific brands (e.g. “Guardian bike” vs “kids bike”) and are more willing to pay a higher price to get exactly what they want. On the other hand, garage sale shoppers are there for deals — and the thrill of the hunt.
• Price matters most: Looking up comparable items on Facebook Marketplace helped me price fairly for my area while still making sales quickly. For the stuff I sold in my driveway, it was bottom-dollar or bust.
• Not everything will sell: Don’t put those unsold items back in the basement or closet. Plan ahead to sell, donate or haul away what’s left. You might even have to borrow a bigger car like I did (thanks, Dad!).
• It’s a good experience for kids: We let our kids keep the money from anything they sold, which turned decluttering into a mini lesson in earning and saving.

A garage sale takes real work. You have to plan, price and probably give up a weekend day. It helps to have a clear financial goal ahead of time to keep you motivated. Every dollar you earn goes toward making that goal a reality — and that will hopefully motivate you to see it through.

The article I Made $500 at My First Garage Sale — Here Are a Few Tips You Can Take to the Bank originally appeared on NerdWallet.

​ Orange County Register