Thought of the Day
“Great work comes from loving what you do.” – Steve Jobs
August 3rd 2025
Appeals court keeps order blocking Trump administration from indiscriminate immigration sweeps
By JAIMIE DING Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday night to uphold a lower court’s temporary order blocking the Trump administration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in Southern California.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing Monday afternoon at which the federal government asked the court to overturn a temporary restraining order issued July 12 by Judge Maame E. Frimpong, arguing it hindered their enforcement of immigration law.
Immigrant advocacy groups filed suit last month accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California during the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The lawsuit included three detained immigrants and two U.S. citizens as plaintiffs.
In her order, Frimpong said there was a “mountain of evidence” that federal immigration enforcement tactics were violating the Constitution. She wrote the government cannot use factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone’s occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion to detain someone.
The appeals court panel agreed and questioned the government’s need to oppose an order preventing them from violating the constitution.
“If, as Defendants suggest, they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion, they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion,” the judges wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security said being in the country illegally is what makes someone a target of immigration officers, not their skin color, race or ethnicity.
“Unelected judges are undermining the will of the American people,” department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Saturday in an emailed statement. “President Trump and Secretary Noem are putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities.”
A hearing for a preliminary injunction, which would be a more substantial court order as the lawsuit proceeds, is scheduled for September.
Los Angeles a battleground over immigration policy
The Los Angeles region has been a battleground with the Trump administration over its aggressive immigration strategy that spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guards and Marines for several weeks. Federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the U.S. from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops, and farms, many who have lived in the country for decades.
Among the plaintiffs is Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia, who was shown in a video taken by a friend June 13 being seized by federal agents as he yells, “I was born here in the states, East LA bro!”
They want to “send us back to a world where a U.S. citizen … can be grabbed, slammed against a fence and have his phone and ID taken from him just because he was working at a tow yard in a Latino neighborhood,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Mohammad Tajsar told the court Monday.
The federal government argued that it hadn’t been given enough time to collect and present evidence in the lawsuit, given that it was filed shortly before the July 4 holiday and a hearing was held the following week.
“It’s a very serious thing to say that multiple federal government agencies have a policy of violating the Constitution,” attorney Jacob Roth said.
He also argued that the lower court’s order was too broad, and that immigrant advocates did not present enough evidence to prove that the government had an official policy of stopping people without reasonable suspicion.
He referred to the four factors of race, language, presence at a location, and occupation that were listed in the temporary restraining order, saying the court should not be able to ban the government from using them at all. He also argued that the order was unclear on what exactly is permissible under law.
“Legally, I think it’s appropriate to use the factors for reasonable suspicion,” Roth said
The judges sharply questioned the government over their arguments.
“No one has suggested that you cannot consider these factors at all,” Judge Jennifer Sung said.
However, those factors alone only form a “broad profile” and don’t satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard to stop someone, she said.
Sung, a Biden appointee, said that in an area like Los Angeles, where Latinos make up as much as half the population, those factors “cannot possibly weed out those who have undocumented status and those who have documented legal status.”
She also asked: “What is the harm to being told not to do something that you claim you’re already not doing?”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the Friday night decision a “victory for the rule of law” and said the city will protect residents from the “racial profiling and other illegal tactics” used by federal agents.
History! Braves and Reds play the MLB Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway
By TERESA M. WALKER AP Sports Writer
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Cincinnati manager Terry Francona noticed the sheer size of Bristol Motor Speedway rising up from the mountains as the Reds arrived Saturday on their buses.
The best way to describe the speedway? Huge.
Big enough in fact to place not one, but two baseball diamonds. Francona’s Reds need only one for the MLB Speedway Classic against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday night in the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway, also called “The Last Great Colosseum.”
Francona approves of all the hard work.
“When you get outside of the field, it’s actually pretty cool,” Francona said. “The way the stands kind of all face in, the ones they’re using, it looks pretty cool.”
The MLB Speedway Classic was first announced nearly a year ago as part of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s push to take MLB to places where baseball isn’t played every day live. MLB played a game at the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, too.
Now it’s time for Tennessee, which has teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS but no MLB team even as a group chases an expansion franchise for Nashville. This game mixes the rich racing history of both Bristol, which hosts a pair of NASCAR races each year, and Tennessee.
“When you walk up to Bristol Motor Speedway, much like many of our venues, you know you’re at a big iconic sports location,” said Jeremiah Yolkut, MLB’s senior vice president of global events. “You feel it. You walk into Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, you feel it. And that’s what Bristol Motor Speedway is for NASCAR.”
Before the gates opened, fans enjoyed a party zone featuring a 110-foot Ferris wheel, race cars painted in MLB team colors with food trucks, live music, pitching tunnels and batting cages, a chance for photos with the Commissioner’s Trophy, and Clydesdales.
Inside, star Tim McGraw performed and told fans his late father, pitcher Tug McGraw, didn’t fare too well against either the Reds or Braves. Pitbull took the stage with McGraw.
Players stood in the back of pickup trucks with their numbers emblazoned on the side and rode around the half-mile bullring racetrack. Some used their phones to document the moment. For introductions, the Braves and Reds walked between a pair of cars decked out in Atlanta and Cincinnati colors.
Starting pitcher Spencer Strider, who grew up in nearby Knoxville, got a bigger ovation than Reds starter Chase Burns, who is from Hendersonville and played at the University of Tennessee.
NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott joined a pair of Hall of Famers in Johnny Bench and Chipper Jones for the ceremonial first pitch.
Then, the tarp came out as rain that had been falling around Bristol much of Saturday turned heavy and delayed the start.
“Honestly, my first thought I can’t believe they did all this for one game,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said of his first visit to Bristol. “To be able to set all this up, get a playing surface ready, set the stands up in order to have the proper viewing, it’s pretty incredible.”
The Reds, chasing an NL wild-card berth, split the first two games in this series with Atlanta. The rubber match will be a part of history as the first Major League Baseball game played in the state of Tennessee.
Pitcher Andrew Abbott showed up Saturday afternoon at Bristol wearing a cut-off version of a NASCAR race suit. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, Abbott said he wanted something to wear in for a special game.
“I grew up around NASCAR,” Abbott said. “Just went on eBay and found a couple options, and luckily that was the one that arrived in time. I had a couple of backups. I know who Rusty Wallace is too, so I actually do know the backstory behind it.”
These teams will play before the largest crowd ever to see an MLB regular-season game, too. More than 85,000 people might not create the noise the usual race cars do, but Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said there’s a big bag of ear plugs available in the Braves’ clubhouse.
”I don’t know if I’ve ever been around this many people,” Snitker said.
MLB didn’t try to sell every ticket inside the speedway that drew 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game in 2016. The track with a racing capacity of 146,000 could host 90,000 or more even with sections blocked off.
Officials announced Monday more than 85,000 tickets had been sold — topping the previous paid attendance of 84,587 set Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees.
A batter will have to clear 400 feet to hit anything out of center field, 375 in the alleys and 330 down each base line. Pulling a ball down the line raises the prospect of a ball bouncing off the racetrack beyond the outfield wall. Olson wouldn’t mind that being a first for him.
“We want to win the game, but it’d be cool to hit one where you’ve never hit one,” Olson said.
Cameron Young builds 5-shot lead at Wyndham Championship in search of first win
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Cameron Young ran off four straight birdies on the front nine and stretched his lead to eight shots Saturday before he settled into a series of pars for a 5-under 65, giving him a five-shot lead in the Wyndham Championship as he goes for his first PGA Tour victory.
Young capped off a bogey-free 65 in the storm-delayed second round in the morning. Then he stretched his lead with his four straight birdies, including a 30-footer on No. 4 and a two-putt birdie from 20 feet on the par-5 fifth.
“Just played some really nice golf there for about an hour,” Young said. “Had some opportunities on the back nine, too, just didn’t make as many putts. But kind of cruised along with hitting some average shots through the middle of the round, and nice to finish up the way I did.”
Nico Echavarria of Colombia cut the margin to four shots with three birdies in a four-hole stretch on the back nine. A final birdie gave him a 64.
Young, who had gone 39 straight holes without a bogey at Sedgefield Country Club until missing a 6-foot sliding par putt on the 14th hole, responded with a beautiful lag for a two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th, and a 10-foot birdie on the 17th to put the lead at five.
“I’m just going to worry about what I’m doing. As I said, try to hit the best shots I can and try to hole the putts and we’ll add it up after 18,” Echavarria said.
Young is widely considered the best player to have never won on a main tour, a runner-up seven times since his rookie season in 2021. That includes a World Golf Championship and more notably the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews.
“I finished second a bunch. I’ve gotten beat a lot. I’ve played some good golf on Sunday in really all those cases,” Young said. “So that’s all I’m trying to do tomorrow. I’m starting in a nice spot, so I’m just looking to try to beat second place by as many as I can.”
He was at 20-under 190, needing a 67 on Sunday to set the tournament scoring record. What matters to Young is a PGA Tour title, especially now with his ultimate goal of being on the Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black.
He was No. 9 in the Ryder Cup standings in 2023 and left off the team.
Young grew up in New York at Sleepy Hollow, where his father was the longtime head pro. He had this Ryder Cup circled the day the PGA of America announced it was going to the Long Island public course.
A win would only move him to No. 15, but it would certainly put him in the conversation with his power and history at Bethpage. He became the first amateur to win the New York State Open in 2017, setting a course record at the time with a 64 at Bethpage Black.
“That’s been a goal this whole year,” Young said. “I’m trying to just look at that to just take all the small stuff that happens day-to-day as it comes. In the back of my mind trying to picture myself on that team.”
Echavarria was the only player within eight shots of Young.
Defending champion Aaron Rai (69), Chris Kirk (67) and Mac Meissner (70) were tied for third.
Kirk is at No. 73 in the FedEx Cup standings. The Wyndham Championship is the final event in the regular season and determines the top 70 who advance to the lucrative PGA Tour postseason that starts next week in Memphis, Tennessee.
Davis Thompson (No. 78) was in a tie for seventh. Gary Woodland, enormously popular as he returns from brain surgery nearly two years ago, is at No. 75 in the standings. He shot 70 and was tied for ninth, leaving him right on the bubble of advancing to the FedEx Cup playoffs.
One of the biggest moves came Saturday morning. Matti Schmid is No. 70 in the FedEx Cup and was two shots over the cut line. But he played his last six holes in 5-under par for a 65 and shot 68 in the afternoon. He was in a tie for 13th.
Also still with an outside chance are Danish twins Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard, who are at No. 71 and No. 82, respectively. Both finished 36 holes at 3-under 137 and figured they would miss the cut. But the cut dropped from 4 under to 3 under.
Rasmus Hojgaard shot 41 on the back nine after teeing off at No. 10 in the third round, and then shot 29. Nicolai Hojgaard shot 38, and then had a 31 on the front nine. Both need a low one on Sunday, but they didn’t shoot themselves completely out of it.
August 2nd 2025
Thought of the Day
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” – W. Edwards Deming
Paula Deen has abruptly closed the Savannah restaurant that launched her to Food Network fame
By RUSS BYNUM Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Former Food Network star Paula Deen announced Friday the abrupt closure of the Savannah restaurant that launched her to fame with its menu of fried chicken, banana pudding and other indulgent Southern dishes.
Deen ran The Lady & Sons restaurant with her two sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen, for nearly three decades. Loyal fans visiting Savannah continued to line up for Deen’s buffet long after the Food Network canceled her show, “Paula’s Home Cooking,” in 2013.
But 78-year-old Deen said Friday that The Lady & Sons closed for good along with The Chicken Box, which sold takeout lunches behind the main restaurant. A statement posted on Deen’s website and social media accounts didn’t say why the restaurants had shut down.
“Hey, y’all, my sons and I made the heartfelt decision that Thursday, July 31st, was the last day of service for The Lady & Sons and The Chicken Box,” Deen’s statement said.
“Thank you for all the great memories and for your loyalty over the past 36 years,” she said. “We have endless love and gratitude for every customer who has walked through our doors.”
Deen said her four restaurants outside Savannah will remain open. They’re located in Nashville and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Branson, Missouri.
Windows at The Lady & Sons were covered with brown paper Friday. Signs posted at the front entrance read: “It is with heavy hearts and tremendous gratitude that we announce that we have retired and closed.”
Deen’s restaurant seemed `packed’ until it closed
Adrienne Morton and her family, visiting Savannah from Cincinatti, had made dinner reservations at Deen’s restaurant for 5:45 p.m. Friday.
Morton said she received a text message Friday morning saying her reservation had been canceled.
“I thought this must be a mistake or maybe they planned to close and we don’t live here and just weren’t up to speed, but no,” Morton said. “We wish them the best. Hopefully everything turns out.”
Martin Rowe works in a downtown office across the street from Deen’s restaurant. He said business seemed to be going strong up until it closed.
“Nobody knew anything was wrong,” Rowe said. “I walk by there two or three times a week at lunch, and it was always packed.”
Deen went from nearly broke to Food Network fame in Savannah
Deen was divorced and nearly broke when she moved to Savannah with her boys in 1989 and started a catering business called The Bag Lady. She opened her first restaurant a few years later at a local Best Western hotel, then started The Lady & Sons in downtown Savannah in 1996.
The restaurant soon had lines out the door and served roughly 1,100 diners per day at the height of Deen’s popularity. A USA Today food critic awarded The Lady & Sons his “meal of the year” in 1999.
Deen moved her Savannah restaurant to a larger building nearby the year after The Food Network debuted “Paula’s Home Cooking” in 2002. Filmed mostly in her home kitchen, Deen taped more than 200 episodes over the next decade.
The Food Network canceled Deen’s show in 2013 amid fallout from a lawsuit by a former employee. A transcript of Deen answering questions under oath in a legal deposition became public that included Deen’s awkward responses to questions about race.
Asked if she had ever used the N-word, Deen said, “Yes, of course,” though she added: “It’s been a very long time.”
Deen returned to television on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” on chef Gordon Ramsay’s Fox show “MasterChef: Legends,” and on Fox Nation, which began streaming “At Home With Paula Deen” in 2020. She also posts cooking videos to a YouTube channel that has more than 520,000 subscribers.
Trump seeks to fire official overseeing jobs data after weak employment report
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
Trump in a post on his social media platform alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created May and June than previously estimated.
Trump seeks to fire official overseeing jobs data after weak employment report
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
Trump in a post on his social media platform alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created May and June than previously estimated.
North Carolina Senate race sets up as a fight over who would be a champion for the middle class
By THOMAS BEAUMONT and GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Democrats still in the dumps over last year’s elections have found cause for optimism in North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper jumped into the race for that state’s newly open seat with a vow to address voters’ persistent concerns about making ends meet.
Even Republicans quietly note that Cooper’s candidacy makes their job of holding the seat more difficult and expensive. Cooper had raised $2.6 million for his campaign between his Monday launch and Tuesday, and more than $900,000 toward allied groups.
Republicans, meanwhile, are hardly ceding the economic populist ground. In announcing his candidacy for the Senate on Thursday, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley credited President Donald Trump with fulfilling campaign promises to working Americans and painted Cooper as a puppet of the left.
Still, Cooper’s opening message that he hears the worries of working families has given Democrats in North Carolina and beyond a sense that they can reclaim their place as the party that champions the middle class. They think it’s a message that could help them pick up a Senate seat, and possibly more, in next year’s midterm elections, which in recent years have typically favored the party out of power.
“I’m Roy Cooper. And I know that today, for too many Americans, the middle class feels like a distant dream,” the former governor said in a video announcing his candidacy. “Meanwhile, the biggest corporations and the richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth at your expense. It’s time for that to change.”
Cooper’s plainspoken appeal may represent just the latest effort by Democrats to find their way back to power, but it has some thinking they’ve finally found their footing after last year’s resounding losses.
“I think it would do us all a lot of good to take a close look at his example,” said Larry Grisolano, a Chicago-based Democratic media strategist and former adviser to President Barack Obama.
Whatley, a former North Carolina GOP chairman and close Trump ally, used his Thursday announcement that he was entering the race to hail the president as the true champion of the middle class. He said Trump had already fulfilled promises to end taxes on tips and overtime and said Cooper was out of step with North Carolinians.
“Six months in, it’s pretty clear to see, America is back,” Whatley said. “A healthy, robust economy, safe kids and communities and a strong America. These are the North Carolina values that I will champion if elected.”
Still, the decision by Cooper, who held statewide office for 24 years and has never lost an election, makes North Carolina a potential bright spot in a midterm election cycle when Democrats must net four seats to retake the majority — and when most of the 2026 Senate contests are in states Trump won comfortably last November.
State Rep. Cynthia Ball threw up a hand in excitement when asked Monday at the North Carolina Legislative Building about Cooper’s announcement.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to was really hoping that he was going to run,” said the Raleigh Democrat.
Democratic legislators hope having Cooper’s name at the top of the ballot will encourage higher turnout and help them in downballot races. While Republicans have controlled both General Assembly chambers since 2011, Democrats managed last fall to end the GOP’s veto-proof majority, if only by a single seat.
Republican strategists familiar with the national Senate landscape have said privately that Cooper poses a formidable threat.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, wasted no time in challenging Cooper’s portrayal of a common-sense advocate for working people.
“Roy Cooper masquerades as a moderate,” the narrator in the 30-second spot says. “But he’s just another radical, D.C. liberal in disguise.”
Cooper, a former state legislator who served four terms as attorney general before he became governor, has never held an office in Washington. Still, Whatley was quick to link Cooper to national progressive figures such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Whatley accused Cooper of failing to address illegal immigration and of supporting liberal gender ideology. He echoed the themes raised in the Senate Leadership Fund ad, which noted Cooper’s vetoes in the Republican-led legislature of measures popular with conservatives, such as banning gender-affirming health care for minors and requiring county sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
“Roy Cooper may pretend to be different than the radical extremists,” Whatley said. “But he is all-in on their agenda.”
Cooper first won the governorship in 2016, while Trump was carrying the state in his first White House bid. Four years later, they both carried the state again.
Cooper, who grew up in a small town roughly 50 miles or 80 kilometers east of Raleigh, has long declined requests that he seek federal office. He “understands rural North Carolina,” veteran North Carolina strategist Thomas Mills said. “And while he’s not going to win it, he knows how to talk to those folks.”
As with most Democrats, Cooper’s winning coalition includes the state’s largest cities and suburbs. But he has long made enough inroads in other areas to win.
“He actually listens to what voters are trying to tell us, instead of us trying to explain to them how they should think and feel,” said state Sen. Michael Garrett, a Greensboro Democrat.
In his video announcement, Cooper tried to turn the populist appeal Trump made to voters on checkbook issues against the party in power, casting himself as the Washington outsider. Senior Cooper strategist Morgan Jackson said the message represents a shift and will take work to drive home with voters.
“Part of the challenge Democrats had in 2024 is we were not addressing directly the issues people were concerned about today,”
Jackson said. “We have to acknowledge what people are going through right now and what they are feeling, that he hears you and understands what you feel.”
Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a group that conducts research for an initiative called the Working Class Project, said Cooper struck a tone that other Democrats should try to match.
“His focus on affordability and his outsider status really hits a lot of the notes these folks are interested in,” Dennis said. “I do think it’s a model, especially his focus on affordability.”
“We can attack Republicans all day long, but unless we have candidates who can really embody that message, we’re not going to be able to take back power.”
___
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
Almond Pound Cake
This recipe is so easy, yet so delicious. It’s light and versatile, and the perfect addition to any summer celebration.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 6 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tbsp. almond extract
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven
350 degrees f.
2. Prep a pan
Grease a tube pan with an extra tbsp. of butter and line with flour.
3. Cream butter and sugar
Beat butter and sugar until it reaches a creamy consistency.
4. Add eggs
Combine each egg into the butter and sugar mixture, one at the time.
5. Add flour and flavoring
Slowly add flour to the mixture, about 1/2 cup at the time, until fully incorporated. Then, add the almond extract and combine.
6. Bake
Pour mixture into pan and bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
7. Cool and enjoy!
Let the cake cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Then, enjoy with any toppings you’d like.