Politics
Health groups call for suspending state plan on maternal deaths, saying it burdens patients
Dozens of maternal health organizations and advocates are urging the California surgeon general to suspend the rollout of a plan aimed at reducing maternal mortality, saying that the recently announced initiative won’t effectively address the crisis and “risks exacerbating existing inequities.”
In a letter shared with The Times, representatives of organizations including the California Black Women’s Health Project, Black Women for Wellness and the California Nurse-Midwives Assn. faulted the plan for “placing undue burden on individuals” and failing to “explicitly name and address racism as a root cause of maternal health inequities.”
The California Maternal Health Blueprint unveiled in September sets out strategies to try to bring down maternal deaths. Among them: Getting Californians of child-bearing age to fill out a new questionnaire to assess their risk of pregnancy complications, even before they become pregnant.
In their Oct. 21 letter to state surgeon general Dr. Diana Ramos, the advocacy groups said that the maternal health blueprint acknowledged racial inequities in maternal mortality rates, but didn’t “ground these disparities in the evidence showing systemic racism as the driving factor.”
Asked for comment on the letter, the state surgeon general’s office issued a statement saying it “is committed to working together with partners across the state … to improve maternal health outcomes, reduce maternal mortality, and save the lives of California moms and pregnant people.”
Black women have suffered a maternal mortality rate more than three times that of white women in California, state data show. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has faulted many factors, including differences in healthcare and underlying chronic conditions as well as structural racism and implicit bias.
Studies have shown disparities exist even for Black women who are affluent, spurring maternal health researchers to increasingly focus on racial inequities in healthcare, bias and discrimination experienced by patients, and the physical effects of chronic stress from enduring racism over time.
In an interview in September, Ramos said California had focused primarily on “the healthcare setting” in its previous efforts to prevent maternal deaths, helping it to achieve “the lowest maternal mortality rate in the country.”
As it stands, California has had a much lower rate of deaths related to pregnancy, birth and its aftermath than other parts of the U.S., although maternal mortality surged in recent years amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The state has been held up as a model for its system of reviewing maternal deaths.
“If we keep on doing the same thing — just focusing on the healthcare team — we’re going to get the same results,” Ramos said in September, explaining why the newly announced plan emphasized patients knowing their risk level. “That’s why we’re bringing in the patient.”
The Maternal Health Blueprint sets a goal of having at least 50% of “reproductive age individuals” across the state complete a questionnaire on their risk of pregnancy complications by December 2026.
In the letter objecting to the plan, the coalition of groups said that calling for people to fill out such a questionnaire “gives the impression of personal fault and/or that individual behavior is to blame, burdening the user and discrediting the system’s role in creating this crisis.”
The groups said they knew of no research to back up “personal risk assessment” as a way to improve outcomes for birthing people. Nor does the blueprint clearly spell out the next steps or what will happen to the data, their letter argued.
Dana Sherrod, cofounder and executive director of the California Coalition for Black Birth Justice, said that “by omitting the mention of systemic racism, it is putting the blame back onto patients.” The only time the phrase “systemic racism” appears in the blueprint is in reference to the findings of another state report.
Sherrod said that even when accounting for other factors, “Black women still have worse outcomes.” For instance, one analysis of maternal deaths in California found that Black mothers with the highest incomes had worse rates of pregnancy-related mortality than white mothers with the lowest incomes.
A much earlier study found that Black women didn’t have significantly higher rates of preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage and other major complications than white women, yet Black women who had such complications were two to three times more likely to die of them than white women with such conditions.
Even if “they’re a healthy weight, they’re educated, they’re married — the things that are supposed to be protective — even when they do all of these things, we still are seeing poor outcomes,” Sherrod said.
The California plan also calls for medical facilities to use an existing screening tool to gauge the risk levels of pregnant patients. Ramos told The Times that such screening could help guide where patients go for births, ensuring that people at higher risk go to the facilities that are best equipped to support them.
The coalition warned, however, that doing so could “further marginalize high-risk populations and divert resources from struggling facilities while simultaneously overburdening higher-level facilities.” California is already facing “critical shortages in maternity care” as labor and delivery wards have closed, they pointed out.
“It is already very difficult for many individuals to navigate the healthcare system and to understand where to go to receive the best care,” Sherrod said, “and this potentially further complicates that.”
Coalition leaders are seeking a meeting with Ramos and with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who joined Ramos in announcing the plan in September.
Ramos’ office said in its statement Monday that since their initiative had launched, “Dr. Diana Ramos has met with several partners in the maternal health space and will continue to meet with others, including members of the coalition, to find opportunities to work together.”
Politics
Trump Cabinet member scraps Obama-era gender identity housing rule, cites ‘biological reality’
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Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner has ordered an immediate halt to enforcement of a key Obama-era housing rule tied to gender identity, directing the agency to operate programs based on biological sex.
The directive stops any pending or future enforcement of HUD’s 2016 Equal Access Rule, which expanded gender identity as formally recognized in federally-funded housing programs and shelters.
The move marks a significant shift in how shelters and HUD-funded providers operate, particularly those serving women fleeing domestic violence, and implements President Donald Trump’s executive order to restore what the administration calls “biological truth” across the federal government.
“I am directing HUD staff to halt any pending or future enforcement actions related to HUD’s 2016 Equal Access Rule, which, in essence, tied housing programs, shelters and other facilities funded by HUD to far-left gender ideology,” Turner said.
TRUMP STOPPED BIDEN’S PLAN TO FORCE DEI ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES
President Donald Trump stands with HUD Secretary Scott Turner at an event. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“We, at this agency, are carrying out the mission laid out by President Trump on Jan. 20 … to restore biological truth to the federal government,” he added.
“This means recognizing there are only two sexes: male and female. It means getting government out of the way of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in His own image.”
The 2016 rule allowed people to self-identify for gender when accessing certain housing services, limiting the ability of shelters to challenge that identification.
Critics of the rule argued it restricted the rights of shelters, particularly those serving women impacted by trauma, domestic abuse and violence, by requiring them to admit individuals based on gender identity rather than biological sex.
JUDGE FORCES CA HOSPITAL TO KEEP TRANS TREATMENTS FOR MINORS DESPITE TRUMP FUNDING THREAT
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development nominee Scott Turner testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Jan. 16, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
Turner framed the move as part of a broader overhaul of HUD policy and spending.
“Moreover, this is just the first of many examples of how, starting on day one, HUD is going back to work for the American people and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars,” he said. “There will be more where this came from.”
The Equal Access Rule was first introduced in 2012, prohibiting discrimination in HUD-funded programs based on sexual orientation, gender identity and marital status. A 2016 update expanded those protections by requiring programs to recognize gender identity as well.
President Donald Trump and HUD Secretary Scott Turner attend a reception with Republican members of Congress in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg)
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Turner’s order does not repeal the rule but halts enforcement tied to the 2016 expansion.
“As I have said before, we are going to take inventory of HUD’s programs and ensure every dollar that goes out the door is advancing HUD’s mission, which is to provide quality, affordable homes for communities across the country — urban, rural and tribal — and promote economic investment to build stronger communities and a brighter future for all Americans,” Turner said.
WASHINGTON — The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee said some members would support a presidential pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her assistance in the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
But good luck getting any of them to admit it.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Politico on Wednesday that “a lot of people” support the idea of Maxwell receiving a pardon from President Trump in exchange for her cooperation in the committee’s investigation.
Although Comer said he opposed a pardon himself — “other than Epstein, the worst person in this whole investigation is Maxwell” — he offered that his committee was “split” on the issue.
Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on his committee, condemned the idea of a Maxwell pardon and said Democrats on the committee uniformly oppose it.
“It’s outrageous that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are considering a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell,” Garcia said in a statement. “She is a sexual abuser who facilitated the rape of women and children.”
The Times reached out to all 26 Republicans on the committee to see who, if anyone, supported the idea of a pardon.
Although most didn’t respond, the few who did expressed outrage at the idea.
“I am absolutely not supporting a pardon for her nor have I heard that from anyone else,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said.
“Never in a thousand years,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said.
Maxwell declined to answer the committee’s questions during a video deposition in February from the Texas federal prison where she is serving her 20-year sentence.
She still is challenging her 2021 conviction on five counts related to the sex trafficking of minors for her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. She was accused at trial of also participating in the abuse of one victim.
At the time of her February deposition, Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus said she would offer the “unfiltered truth” if granted clemency by Trump.
Attorneys who have represented victims abused by Epstein and Maxwell strongly opposed the idea of a pardon.
“This is a woman who belongs behind bars for the rest of her life for what she did to women,” said Spencer Kuvin, who has represented numerous Epstein victims.
Sigrid McCawley, a managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, questioned the value of information Maxwell could provide.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a proven self-serving liar,” McCawley said in a statement. “There is nothing credible that she will offer the government, and the assertion that she would provide information is simply a smoke screen.”
Trump has not said he is considering a pardon, but when asked by reporters he has declined to rule it out.
Epstein abused more than 1,000 girls and young women over the span of decades. He negotiated a lenient deal nearly two decades ago with federal prosecutors in south Florida that allowed him to serve 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail, where he was allowed to come and go freely, to settle claims that he had abused dozens of high school girls.
Following investigative reporting on that deal by the Miami Herald, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York brought new sex charges against Epstein in July 2019. He died in federal custody one month later.
Epstein and Maxwell counted members of the British royal family, multiple presidents and business titans among their friends. They have been accused of forcing victims to have sex with some of those men. Maxwell is the only other person who has been charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes.
The committee has deposed numerous people who knew Epstein, including Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who hired Epstein to manage his finances, and former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The committee has not, however, deposed Trump, who once famously called Epstein a “terrific guy” and said “I just wish her well” when told of Maxwell’s arrest in 2020.
The Department of Justice has released millions of pages of documents from its investigations in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last year.
The release led to criminal inquiries in the United Kingdom into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States, over allegations that they provided secret government information to Epstein.
So far, the files have not led to any publicly known criminal investigations in the United States.
U.S. military forces stopped and boarded a second sanctioned tanker carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Thursday, ramping up pressure on Tehran as the Trump administration seeks to resume negotiations to end the war.
A naval boarding team roped down from hovering helicopters and fanned out on the vessel, the M/T Majestic X, according to a Pentagon statement that included a 17-second video of the operation.
The military said the boarding was part of a “global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
Earlier this week, Navy SEALS boarded another ship in the Indian Ocean, the M/T Tifani, after the Pentagon said it was carrying oil from Iran.
Navy destroyers are also shadowing several other Iranian vessels, including the Dorena and Sevin, which had left from the Iranian port of Chabahar before the U.S.-imposed blockade began on April 13, a U.S. military official said. The Navy is directing those ships to return to an Iranian port, the official said.
With the M/T Tifani and M/T Majestic X now at least temporarily in the custody of the military, a U.S. military official said it was up to the White House to decide what to do with the sanctioned vessels and their cargo. The administration previously seized several tankers carrying illicit oil from Venezuela after a U.S. commando raid there in January that seized Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president.
“International waters cannot be used as a shield by sanctioned actors,” the Pentagon said in its statement on Thursday, adding that the department would “continue to deny illicit actors and their vessels freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.”
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted last week that the U.S. military would likely commence boarding operations like the ones this week. He said that U.S. military commanders elsewhere in the world, and especially in the Indo-Pacific region, would “actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”
The U.S. Navy has turned back at least 31 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since an American blockade outside the contested Strait of Hormuz began about a week ago, U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday.
Last Sunday, a Navy destroyer disabled and seized the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship, after it tried to evade the blockade. It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week.
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