Politics
Your guide to the L.A. City Council District 5 race: Katy Yaroslavsky faces two challengers
Katy Young Yaroslavsky is running for L.A. City Council District 5.
(Campaign of Katy Young Yaroslavsky for City Council)
Yaroslavsky, 45, was named the council’s budget committee chair at the beginning of last year, a job that carries immense influence over city spending and that requires her to balance lofty political expectations with fiscal reality.
Yaroslavsky began her career as a land use attorney and lobbyist and later worked as a top aide to former Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl for more than six years. She is the daughter-in-law of former Fifth District City Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky, who later served on the county board of supervisors.
“We need people in office who are interested in problem solving, not focused on gotcha politics. Who are not super ideological but are just really there to solve problems. And that’s what I’m there for,” Yaroslavsky said.
Henry Mantel is running for L.A. City Council District 5.
(Handout from Matt Mantel)
Mantel, 33, has worked on a handful of political campaigns, according to his campaign website, including Carolyn Ramsay’s unsuccessful campaign for the 4th District council seat in 2015. Mantel graduated from the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 2020. As a lawyer, he says he has represented tenants in disputes with landlords, including contesting evictions.
“The extent of the crisis really weighed on me, and watching the City Council continue to refuse to do nothing was just unbearable,” Mantel said.
Morgan Oyler is running for L.A. City Council District 5.
( Cory Aycock)
Oyler, 42, is a longtime accountant for Haus of Portraiture, a fine art portrait studio in Santa Monica. He was born and raised in L.A., attending high school in Santa Monica, and returned to live in Westwood about a decade ago. He sought election to the Washington statehouse in 2010 and 2012, running as a Republican and losing both times. He says he became a Democrat a decade ago, after becoming uneasy with President Trump’s influence on the GOP.
Oyler felt compelled to run because he sees Yaroslavsky’s policies as a barrier to sustainable housing growth.
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The legal battle over abortion pills escalated to the Supreme Court on Saturday, as two manufacturers of mifepristone filed an emergency request warning a lower court ruling is already causing “immediate confusion and upheaval” across the country.
Danco Laboratories is asking the high court to quickly block a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that blocked mail-order access and reinstated in-person requirements for the drug, arguing the ruling is disrupting access and creating nationwide uncertainty about legality.
A second manufacturer, GenBioPro, which produces a generic version of mifepristone, also filed an emergency request Saturday with the Supreme Court raising similar concerns.
The ruling directly affects the distribution of mifepristone, Danco’s primary product. Mifepristone is one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions.
The application was directed to Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency matters from the 5th Circuit and can either act on his own or refer the request to the full court. The Supreme Court could act at any time.
ABORTION PILL MIFEPRISTONE SPARKS NEW PRO-LIFE DEBATE AS SOME DOCTORS STRESS SAFETY CONCERNS
Boxes of mifepristone, a pill used for medical abortions. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters, File)
In its filing, Danco warned the appeals court’s order is already creating “chaos” in real-world medical settings.
“The panel’s ruling injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions,” the company wrote, adding it is forcing “providers, patients, and pharmacies all to guess at what is allowed and what is not.”
The filing raises immediate questions, including what happens to existing abortion pill prescriptions, pharmacy dispensing and access to in-person visits.
GenBioPro similarly warned the ruling would disrupt access nationwide, arguing in its filing that the order “eliminates nationwide access to mifepristone from certified pharmacies and by mail,” and upends a system that providers and pharmacies have relied on for years.
PRO-LIFE GROUP FINDS BIDEN-ERA FDA POLICY IS DRIVING 500 ABORTIONS PER DAY, SAYS TRUMP HAS POWER TO END IT
Pro-life demonstrators hold a banner in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building during the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters, File)
“What happens when patients arrive for scheduled appointments this weekend… or walk into pharmacies… to obtain [the drug] that was prescribed… yesterday?” the filing states.
Danco is asking the court to immediately pause the ruling through an administrative stay, then block it for a longer term while litigation continues. The company also suggested the justices could take up the case on an expedited schedule before the end of the term, a move that could reshape the court’s already packed 2026 docket.
GenBioPro is also seeking a stay of the decision, asking the justices to pause the ruling while the case continues through the courts.
The emergency appeal comes just one day after the 5th Circuit issued its ruling, which blocked the mailing of mifepristone and effectively barred pharmacy distribution under the challenged FDA rules, requiring women to obtain the drug in-person from a medical provider.
PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT CONFRONTS HIGH ABORTION RATES THREE YEARS AFTER DOBBS
An advertisement promoting the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol in Florida. (40 Days for Life)
“Of course they filed an emergency petition. Big Pharma has gotten extremely rich after the unprecedented and radical deregulation of these dangerous abortion pills,” 40 Days for Life President Shawn Carney told Fox News Digital.
“No abortion advocate or anyone from Big Pharma was pushing to send these drugs through the mail just a few years ago, and now they act as if they’re entitled to do so with zero regulation and zero oversight,” Carney added. “This is more evidence the FDA needs to reevaluate how these drugs were approved after years of ER visits from women who take them.”
Abortion-rights advocates said the ruling has “upended” access to care nationwide, particularly for patients relying on telemedicine, while legal groups warned it is creating confusion for providers trying to comply with rapidly changing rules.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the decision is “yet another cruel attack on abortion access,” adding that “mifepristone is safe, effective, and essential.”
Mifepristone tablets at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
The underlying case is still ongoing in lower courts, but the emergency filing now places the dispute squarely before the Supreme Court in what could become the next major legal showdown over abortion policy.
The justices could choose to pause the ruling immediately, allowing the current system to remain in place while the case proceeds, or let the restrictions take effect nationwide.
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“The Supreme Court must reject this unfounded and baseless attack on an essential medication,” said GenBioPro CEO Evan Masingill in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “GenBioPro firmly believes all people have a right to access safe, affordable, evidence-based health care, and we remain concerned that anti-abortion special interests are attempting to undermine the US Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority. This is why we are bringing our fight to the Supreme Court.”
Danco Laboratories did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Spirit Airlines reshaped aviation in the United States by stripping down flying to its essentials and selling what were often the cheapest tickets around. But the airline shut down for good on Saturday, a victim of the rising costs it once excelled at controlling.
In a statement just after 2 a.m., Spirit said it had canceled all flights and told passengers not to go to the airport. On the airline’s homepage, a bright yellow banner declared that the airline was “winding down all operations.”
The budget airline had lost billions of dollars in recent years as it struggled with intense competition at its most important airports — Las Vegas, Florida and New York among them — along with rising labor costs and aircraft maintenance needs.
As a result, Spirit filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and again in 2025. It had aimed to emerge from the second bankruptcy this summer as a smaller company, but those plans fell apart as jet fuel prices rose dramatically in recent weeks, a consequence of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran.
The Trump administration started an 11th-hour effort to provide Spirit a $500 million lifeline, but government officials and the airline’s creditors could not reach a deal in time to save the company.
The proposed bailout faced resistance from investors in part because the Trump administration had demanded that the government have the first claim to Spirit’s assets if the airline ultimately failed. That would have left other investors that had lent money to the airline with little or nothing.
The airline’s lenders had put forward their own counterproposal that would have given the lenders better terms in a government deal, according to people familiar with the situation. But the parties could not reach an agreement.
In a letter on Thursday to Spirit Airlines, the creditors said they did not see how the company could survive and urged Spirit’s board to begin winding down its business, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.
The shutdown leaves 17,000 full- and part-time Spirit employees without work and tens of thousands of customers without flights. Spirit said it would automatically issue refunds for tickets purchased on credit or debit cards and was working to get more than 1,300 flight crew members home.
Many other airlines said they would offer affected travelers discounted prices on flights to and from the airports that Spirit served. Some said that they would help stranded Spirit employees get home and United Airlines also invited them to apply for jobs.
Spirit said it safely flew more than 50,000 passengers on Friday. Spirit flight 1833, the airline’s last, departed from Detroit late in the evening and landed in Dallas after midnight, local time.
The airline’s check-in counters were deserted at airports in Chicago, New York and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., near Spirit’s headquarters. But some customers continued to stream in on Saturday, unaware of the airline’s fate.
On Friday night, Eustaquio Mendez, had packed his bags, including his trumpet, eager to celebrate his birthday with family in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and play in a series of festivals, including one with the popular merengue star Juan Luis Guerra.
But when Mr. Mendez, his wife, Maria, and their young son showed up to Chicago O’Hare International Airport for their Saturday morning Spirit flight, they found the ticketing area eerily empty.
Mr. Mendez checked his email and discovered a message from Spirit announcing the end of service. He said he had heard rumblings late last year that budget airlines were in financial trouble, but he didn’t think Spirit would shut down so fast.
“When we booked this flight in March, maybe they should have said, ‘don’t,’” he said of Expedia, the third-party bookings site, where he purchased the tickets.
Mr. Mendez booked a new one-way flight out of Chicago Midway International Airport, which cost more than their original round-trip fare, which included a return flight on American. More disappointing to Mr. Mendez, who plays trumpet in the band Chicago Merengue All-Stars, he will miss a day of shows, including the gig with Mr. Guerra.
“All I could do is laugh it off,” Mr. Mendez said, adding that it did no one any good to kick the kiosk and pout. “We have to stay in high spirits.”
Spirit has been widely credited with democratizing air travel in the United States by keeping costs and ticket prices very low. The approach served Spirit well for years, generating huge profits. But competition from larger airlines and rising costs, particularly for pilots and other professionals, hobbled the company after the pandemic. It also suffered disproportionately from industrywide engine problems.
“Spirit Airlines played an important role in expanding access to affordable travel and bringing more low fares to more people,” Bobby Schroeter, the chief commercial officer of a rival, Frontier Airlines, said in a statement announcing discounted fares for affected travelers.
In an interview this past week, Scott Kirby, the chief executive of United Airlines, said Spirit’s problems predated the current rise in fuel prices. “They were in trouble well before this, and well-run airlines are able to be profitable even in this environment,” he said. He also criticized Spirit’s business model, saying it was fundamentally flawed because it was based on treating customers poorly.
While Spirit was particularly affected by rising competition and costs, other budget airlines have also struggled financially in recent years. This past week, the Association of Value Airlines, a trade group representing low-cost airlines including Spirit and Frontier, asked the Trump administration for $2.5 billion in aid to offset higher jet fuel costs, which have risen by about 65 percent since the war in Iran began.
Airlines for America, which represents larger carriers, said in a statement that such aid “would punish other airlines that have engaged in self-help.”
Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, said on Saturday that he did not believe that the aid was necessary, at least not yet. The government would be “a lender of last resort,” he said, but the airlines can raise money, if needed, through private markets.
“Are there some financial issues with some of the low-cost carriers? Yes,” he said at a news conference at Newark Liberty International Airport. “But they have access to capital and many of them are well-run businesses.”
Spirit was founded in Michigan in the 1960s as a trucking company. In the 1990s, it started offering charter flights. Then, in the next decade, it started to upend the airline business.
In 2006, Indigo Partners, a private equity fund that specializes in budget airlines, acquired a majority stake in Spirit. The airline adopted the business model made famous by Ryanair, the European carrier, and focused on reducing costs, selling cheap tickets and offering bare-bones services. The industry calls airlines that use that business model “ultra-low-cost carriers” to distinguish them from an earlier generation of low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines.
One of the main proponents of that strategy was Ben Baldanza, who spent a decade as Spirit’s chief executive. During his tenure, the airline generated big profits. Mr. Baldanza, who died in 2024, was proud of Spirit’s no-frills approach, which the airline highlighted in sometimes provocative advertising.
Spirit became the subject of jokes on late-night talk shows and frustrated many travelers by charging fees for services that other airlines provided for free, such as printed boarding passes, carry-on bags and the ability to choose a seat. But Spirit’s approach worked and forced other airlines to make big changes.
Experts in aviation and economics say Spirit’s low fares helped to make air travel accessible to more people. Its decision to fly to an airport often prompted other carriers operating there to quickly lower prices.
The loss of Spirit could be devastating for its home airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. But it could present an opportunity to other airlines, too. About 25 percent of flights at the airport were operated by Spirit in the past year, while JetBlue Airways operated a similar share, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm. Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines each operated about 10 percent of flights.
“This is really going to hurt the airport,” said Bernard Burawski, 66, who works as a volunteer there.
“Even though it’s a budget airline, a lot of people use it,” he said of Spirit. “It’s the Greyhound of the skies. The shutdown went so fast, they didn’t even have to take down their signs.”
Spirit’s ability to pressure other airlines to lower fares was one of the main reasons that a federal judge sided with the Biden administration’s Justice Department in blocking the airline’s plan to merge with JetBlue Airways in 2024.
“In eliminating Spirit from the marketplace, the proposed transaction would, by definition, dampen Spirit’s disruptive force,” the judge, William G. Young, wrote in his ruling.
Trump administration officials have repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for thwarting the merger. But JetBlue has also struggled to turn a profit for years, and aviation experts say there is no guarantee that a combination of the two airlines would have been profitable. Airline mergers are hard to pull off well and are often marred by major problems. Even successful combinations can lose money for years before the benefits of merging begin to surface.
As Spirit grew, it expanded into airports served by major airlines, which, in turn, adopted some of Spirit’s tactics to compete with it.
In 2012, Delta Air Lines introduced lower but restrictive “basic economy” fares that were in the same ballpark as the fares that Spirit and other budget airlines offered. Later, United Airlines and American Airlines rolled out similar basic tickets.
As a result, many people who previously flew on Spirit began to book tickets on larger airlines, which could also lure them with more frequent service, shorter waits between connecting flights and more alternatives if flights were canceled.
Gabe Castro-Root, Kim Bellware and Lauren Hirsch contributed reporting.
Politics
Trump troop cuts in Europe could be blocked by Congress — here’s how he might get around it
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President Donald Trump’s effort to broadly pull U.S. troops from key NATO allies over resistance to the Iran war could run into new limits imposed by Congress, but the administration may have a way around them.
Trump ordered the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany Friday, a drawdown which will happen over the next six to 12 months, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.
Lawmakers have restricted large-scale troop reductions in Europe below 76,000.
But Trump still retains broad authority as commander in chief to move forces between countries, opening the door to shifting troops away from allies like Germany, Spain or Italy without reducing the overall U.S. presence.
Pentagon orders withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany as Trump escalates feud with Merz
The warning follows pushback from allies including Spain and Italy, which have limited how U.S. forces can use key bases for Iran-related missions, highlighting tensions inside NATO as Washington presses partners for support during the escalating conflict.
Trump said Wednesday the U.S. is “studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops” in Germany, comments that came after Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. was “being humiliated” by Iran.
Merz downplayed the spat between Washington and Berlin in a statement Thursday.
“On all these issues, we maintain close and trusting contact with our partners, including — and especially — those in Washington. We do so in the shared transatlantic interest. We do so with mutual respect and a fair sharing of burdens.”
German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said in his own statement: “The Ramstein Air Base serves an irreplaceable function for both the US and us.”
President Donald Trump’s effort to broadly pull U.S. troops from key NATO allies over resistance to the Iran war could run into new limits imposed by Congress, but the administration may have a way around them. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Asked on Thursday whether he’d consider pulling troops out of Italy and Spain, Trump said, “Yeah, probably… Why shouldn’t I?”
The comments come as both countries have resisted U.S. requests tied to operations in Iran.
“Italy has not been of any help to us,” the president said, adding that Spain has been “horrible, absolutely horrible” and citing their refusal to allow the U.S. to use jointly operated bases for missions related to the conflict.
Any major withdrawal, however, would face hurdles in Congress.
Under the latest defense bill, the Pentagon cannot reduce U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000 without submitting an assessment and certifying to lawmakers that the move would not harm U.S. or NATO security interests.
“The provision does not prohibit the administration from going below 76,000, but it does establish hurdles it would have to clear,” Jeff Rathke, president of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University and a former State Department official, told Fox News Digital.
Key US ally blocks airspace to military flights over Iran, escalating standoff with Trump
Congress cannot directly veto a troop withdrawal, but lawmakers can impose conditions and restrict funding, effectively slowing or blocking any significant drawdown if those requirements are not met.
The provision reflects recent concern in Congress over potential troop reductions, rather than a long-standing requirement in defense legislation. The restriction applies to total U.S. troop levels in Europe, not deployments in individual countries.
President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2026, to discuss issues including recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
NATO itself does not have veto power over U.S. troop deployments, which remain a national decision, though basing agreements depend on cooperation with host countries.
The U.S. currently has about 36,000 troops in Germany, about 13,000 in Italy and around 4,000 in Spain — three of the largest American military footprints in Europe.
Germany and Italy host key U.S. bases that serve as logistics hubs for operations in the Middle East, meaning any significant drawdown could complicate efforts tied to the Iran conflict itself.
That has raised the stakes for how Trump responds to allied resistance.
Seth Jones, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the president likely has the authority to reposition or even withdraw forces, but warned that doing so raises broader questions about military strategy during an ongoing conflict.
“My issue is less the legal authority, but rather the strategic rationale behind a withdrawal — especially if it is done for political, rather than strategic, reasons,” Jones said.
He pointed to the role of key bases in Europe, including Rota in Spain, which supports rapid-response operations into North Africa, and Germany, which serves as a hub for deployments across both European and African theaters.
“The Russian threat to Eastern Europe remains serious,” Jones added, noting that some U.S. bases in Germany are positioned outside the range of certain Russian missiles and drones.
Jones also warned that relocating forces could carry significant costs and logistical challenges, adding to the complexity of any decision to scale back the U.S. presence.
The administration has pressed European allies to provide more direct support for operations tied to the Iran conflict, including broader access to bases and participation in efforts to secure key waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz.
But several countries have stopped short. Spain has imposed restrictions on how U.S. forces can use jointly operated bases, while Italy has allowed American troops to continue operating from its territory but limited how those facilities can be used for certain missions.
Germany has taken a more mixed approach, allowing operations from bases like Ramstein while publicly criticizing the administration’s strategy.
That dynamic has raised the possibility of alternatives to a full withdrawal, including shifting troops within Europe rather than reducing overall force levels.
Rathke said such a shift could avoid triggering the congressional threshold, since it applies to overall troop levels rather than deployments in specific countries.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks during a joint statement at the conclusion of Italian-German government consultations in Rome on Jan. 23, 2026. (Remo Casilli/Reuters)
But he cautioned that major relocations would be difficult in practice, noting that key infrastructure — including Ramstein Air Base and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center — cannot easily be replicated elsewhere.
“Even the most willing European country would not be able to offer that in the short term,” he said.
Even if troop levels remain above 76,000, major relocations would likely require funding and infrastructure changes that would bring Congress back into the process.
Lawmakers have stepped in before to block troop withdrawals from Europe, and a new push could trigger scrutiny on Capitol Hill, especially if it’s seen as weakening U.S. positioning during an ongoing conflict.
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A similar clash played out during Trump’s first term, when he ordered the withdrawal of roughly 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany in 2020, arguing that Berlin was not contributing enough to NATO defense. Congress imposed conditions through the annual defense bill, requiring the Pentagon to certify that any drawdown would not undermine NATO or U.S. operations. The effort ultimately stalled and was never fully implemented.
Lawmakers have not yet publicly responded to Trump’s latest comments. The White House did not return a request for comment.
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Spirit Airlines prepares to shut down without a government bailout
