Billionaire Elon Musk said Saturday he is forming a third political party, after a dramatic falling out with Donald Trump, indicating he will make good on threats he made if the president’s domestic policy bill became law.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Trump’s former “first buddy” said on his social media platform, X. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Musk, the largest individual donor to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and, until recently, a close adviser to the president who spearheaded his administration’s push to cut government waste, had criticized Trump’s “big beautiful bill” because of estimates that it would add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit.
Musk’s criticism of the bill was the catalyst for a major falling out between the two men last month. That feud seemingly cooled after Musk expressed regret and deleted the most incendiary social media posts he made about Trump, but it reignited in the last several days as the bill neared passage. Trump signed the bill into law on Friday.
It’s unclear to what extent Musk has taken steps to legally form the party, which would be required to register with the Federal Election Commission. The most recent FEC filings showed no indication that has happened.
The world’s richest man has indicated he wants a party that is fiscally conservative and reins in spending but has offered few other details about what the party’s platform would be.
Musk and Trump hold similar views on contemporary social issues. But Musk has argued the Republican policy agenda will increase the debt, calling it “debt slavery.”
The two-party system in the United States has long been criticized by both registered Democrats and registered Republicans, but efforts in the last century to form a third party have shown little success. Billionaire Ross Perot ran for president as an independent in 1992, winning nearly a fifth of the popular vote, but carried no states in the election, which was won by Bill Clinton.
As CNN previously reported, experts in campaign finance and political science say it is financially and legally difficult to create a new party, and voters and candidates are hesitant to join.
Musk said in other posts to social media this week that his party would become an active political force during next year’s midterm elections and that it would initially focus on supporting candidates in just a handful of House and Senate races.
Trump, in turn, has made his own threats against the man who at one point was his most visible adviser. The president said earlier this week the government may reconsider its massive contracts with Musk’s companies and described the Department of Government Efficiency, which the billionaire previously helmed,as a monster that may “go back and eat Elon.”
Orlando Magic star Paolo Banchero agreed to a five-year, $239 million maximum rookie contract extension that could reach $287 million, Mike Miller of LIFT Sports Management told ESPN on Monday.
Miller said Banchero’s new deal includes triggers to elevate the base salary to the supermax should the Magic franchise cornerstone make either an All-NBA team or earn MVP or Defensive Player of the Year honors next season.
The deal also has a player option for Banchero in 2030-31 — the first time a rookie max extension has had a player option since 2021, when Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks) and Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks) completed their rookie max contracts.
Magic president Jeff Weltman said after last season that the franchise would take an aggressive approach this offseason, and after the acquisition of Bane and signing of veteran guard Tyus Jones, the team is well-positioned to be a contender in the Eastern Conference.
Orlando’s selection of Banchero with the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft triggered a turnaround for the franchise that has led to two postseason appearances in the past two seasons.
Despite an oblique injury that sidelined him for 34 games over the first two months of 2024-25, Banchero went on to have a career season, setting high averages of 25.9 points and 7.5 rebounds to go with 4.8 assists.
He’s only the eighth player in NBA history to average at least 25, 7 and 4 at age 22 or younger. And he joined Tracy McGrady and Shaquille O’Neal as the only Magic players to average more than 25 points in a season.
Banchero took his game to another level after the All-Star break, averaging 29.0 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.5 assists. In the playoffs, he put together seven straight games with 25 points or more spanning the 2024 and 2025 seasons, tying the longest streak in Magic history.
He has the third-most career points through three seasons in Magic history with 4,432, behind only O’Neal and Penny Hardaway.
The 2022-23 NBA Rookie of the Year, who earned his first All-Star selection in 2024, has averaged 22.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists in his three NBA seasons.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dozens of federal officers in tactical gear and about 90 members of the California National Guard were deployed for about an hour Monday to a mostly empty park in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a large immigrant population. It wasn’t immediately known if any arrests were made.
Defense officials had said the troops and over a dozen military vehicles would help protect immigration officers as they carried out a raid in MacArthur Park.
Federal agents ride on horseback at MacArthur Park, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. Their uniforms read “Police U.S. Border Patrol,” and “HSI,” which stands for Homeland Security Investigations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Federal agents ride on horseback at MacArthur Park, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. Their uniforms read “Police U.S. Border Patrol,” and “HSI,” which stands for Homeland Security Investigations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
“What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation,” said Mayor Karen Bass, who called it a “political stunt.”
She said there were children attending a day camp in the park who were quickly ushered inside to avoid seeing the troops. Still, Bass said an 8-year-old boy told her that “he was fearful of ICE.”
Bass showed video of officers on horseback sweeping across an empty soccer field.
Federal officers descend on MacArthur Park
The operation occurred at a park in a neighborhood with large Mexican, Central American and other immigrant populations and is lined by businesses with signs in Spanish and other languages that has been dubbed by local officials as the “Ellis Island of the West Coast.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass talks on her mobile phone next to a border patrol federal agent at MacArthur Park Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass talks on her mobile phone next to a border patrol federal agent at MacArthur Park Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Among those who spoke with Bass were health care outreach workers who were working with homeless residents Monday when troops pointed guns at them and told them to get out of the park.
Sprawling MacArthur Park has a murky lake ringed by palm trees, an amphitheater that hosts summer concerts and sports fields where immigrant families line up to play soccer in the evenings and on weekends. A thoroughfare on the east side is often crammed with unlicensed food stands selling tacos and other delicacies, along with vendors speaking multiple languages and hawking cheap T-shirts, toys, knickknacks and household items.
“The world needs to see the troop formation on horses walking through the park, in search of what? In search of what? They’re walking through the area where the children play,” Bass said.
Eunisses Hernandez, a council member whose district includes MacArthur Park said “it was chosen as this administration’s latest target precisely because of who lives there and what it represents.”
Operation escalates Trump’s immigration crackdown
The operation in the large park about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of downtown LA included 17 Humvees, four tactical vehicles, two ambulances and the armed soldiers, defense officials said. It came after President Donald Trump deployed thousands of Guard members and active duty Marines to the city last month following protests over previous immigration raids.
Federal agents stage at MacArthur Park Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Federal agents stage at MacArthur Park Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Trump has stepped up efforts to realize his campaign pledge of deporting millions of immigrants in the United States illegally and shown a willingness to use the nation’s military might in ways other U.S. presidents have typically avoided.
In response to questions about the operation in MacArthur Park, the Department of Homeland Security said in an email that the agency would not comment on “ongoing enforcement operations.”
More than 4,000 California National Guard and hundreds of U.S. Marines have been deployed in Los Angeles since June — against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Last week, the military announced about 200 of those troops would be returned to their units to fight wildfires.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the events at the park “a spectacle.”
“This is not about going after dangerous criminals,” Newsom said of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. “This is about destroying the fabric of this state.”
LA raid ends abruptly
The defense officials told reporters that it was not a military operation but acknowledged that the size and scope of the Guard’s participation could make it look like one to the public. That is why the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the raid that were not announced publicly.
“It’s just going to be more overt and larger than we usually participate in,” one of the officials said before the raid ended abruptly with no explanation.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass arrives at MacArthur Park, where federal agents were staging, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass arrives at MacArthur Park, where federal agents were staging, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
The primary role of the service members would be to protect the immigration enforcement officers in case a hostile crowd gathered, that official said. They are not participating in any law enforcement activities such as arrests, but service members can temporarily detain citizens if necessary before handing them over to law enforcement, the official said.
Local officials say feds are sowing fear
“This morning looked like a staging for a TikTok video,” said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president of the Los Angeles City Council, adding if Border Patrol wants to film in LA, “you should apply for a film permit like everybody else. And stop trying to scare the bejesus out of everybody who lives in this great city and disrupt our economy every day.”
Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said he received a credible tip about the operation Monday.
“It was a demonstration of escalation,” Newman said. “This was a reality TV spectacle much more so than an actual enforcement operation.”
Since federal agents have been making arrests at Home Depot parking lots and elsewhere in Los Angeles, Newman said fewer people have been going to the park and immigrant neighborhoods near the city’s downtown.
“The ghost town-ification of LA is haunting, to say the very least,” he said.
Betsy Bolte, who lives nearby, came to the park after seeing a military-style helicopter circling overhead.
She said it was “gut-wrenching” to witness what appeared to be a federal show of force on the streets of a U.S. city. “It’s terror and, you know, it’s ripping the heart and soul out of Los Angeles,” she said. “I am still in shock, disbelief, and so angry and terrified and heartbroken.”
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Copp reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Damian Dovarganes and Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles; Julie Watson in San Diego; Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California; and Amy Taxin in Orange County, California, contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — A coalition of doctors’ groups and public health organizations sued the U.S. government on Monday over the decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association and four other groups — along with an unnamed pregnant doctor who works in a hospital — filed the lawsuit in federal court in Boston.
U.S. health officials, following infectious disease experts’ guidance, previously had urged annual COVID-19 shots for all Americans ages 6 months and older. But in late May, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he was removing COVID-19 shots from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women.
Many health experts decried the move as confusing and accused Kennedy of disregarding the scientific review process that has been in place for decades — in which experts publicly review current medical evidence and hash out the pros and cons of policy changes.
The new lawsuit repeats those concerns, alleging that Kennedy and other political appointees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have flouted federal procedures and systematically attempted to mislead the public.
The lawsuit also notes recent changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy, a leading antivaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel this month and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
Doctors say Kennedy’s actions are making their jobs harder — with some patients raising doubts about all kinds of vaccines and others worried they will lose access to shots for themselves and their children.
“This is causing uncertainty and anxiety at almost every pediatric visit that involves vaccines,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
And it’s happening after U.S. pediatric flu deaths hit their highest mark in 15 years and as the nation is poised to have its worst year of measles in more than three decades, she added.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said Kennedy “stands by his CDC reforms.”
Also joining the suit are the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
The pregnant doctor, who is listed in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe,” works at a Massachusetts hospital. She had difficulty getting a COVID-19 vaccination at a pharmacy and other sites and is concerned the lack of protection will endanger her unborn child, according to the lawsuit.
The suit was filed in Boston because the unnamed doctor and some others in Massachusetts are among those have been affected by Kennedy’s change, said Richard H. Hughes IV, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
The state has figured repeatedly in U.S. public health history.
In 1721, some Boston leaders advocated for an early version of inoculation during a smallpox outbreak. Paul Revere was the first leader of Boston’s health commission. And a legal dispute in Cambridge led to a landmark 1905 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld states’ rights to compel vaccinations.
“We think it is significant and very meaningful” that the case is happening there, Hughes said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
