Man accused of killing Israeli Embassy staffers may face death penalty
Elias Rodriguez, 31, newly faces two counts of hate crime resulting in death and two assault counts. It adds to an original batch of charges unveiled in May.
Federal prosecutors also moved closer to pursuing the death penalty by including a notice of special findings outlining aggravating factors that could make Rodriguez eligible for execution, if convicted.
Rodriguez stands accused of gunning down a young couple who worked for the Israeli Embassy — Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26 — on May 21 just outside D.C.'s Capital Jewish Museum as they were leaving an event.
Shortly after the shooting, Rodriguez allegedly told event attendees 'I did it for Palestine' and yelled at them, 'shame on you.'
The indictment states Rodriguez one day prior authored a document saying he takes 'satisfaction' in arguing the 'perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.' He allegedly scheduled it to post on social media in the hours after the shooting.
'A perpetrator may then be a loving parent, a filial child, a generous and charitable friend, an amiable stranger…, and yet be a monster all the same. Humanity doesn't exempt one from accountability,' Rodriguez wrote, according to the indictment.
The charging documents also detail several social media posts Rodriguez made in the months leading up to the incident. It includes one in May 2024, when Rodriguez allegedly sent a direct message that said 'please please please god please vaporize every Israeli 18 and above.'
The Hill has reached out to Rodriguez's attorney for comment.
He has not yet entered a plea but is due to make his next court appearance on Friday.
The new hate crime and assault charges add to a criminal complaint that prosecutors unveiled in May. The indictment also includes those original charges of murder of foreign officials, two counts of first-degree murder and two firearms charges.
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The Hill
11 minutes ago
- The Hill
Miami-Dade is red, but Democrats aren't giving up on Florida
MIAMI — When Miami-Dade County helped elect President Trump in November, effectively taking on a conservative bent after nearly three decades of being solid blue, political operatives here had their worst fears realized: Florida was in fact a red state. The signs of a big political change in southern Florida had been seen for several cycles, including Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) 2022 win, when he flipped the metropolitan county for the first time in more than 20 years. 'There is nothing more maddening to me than the self-inflicted wounds in Dade,' said Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who is based in Florida and ran former President Obama's 2008 operation in the state. 'Too many in my party — particularly those outside of Florida — thought the Obama '12 and [Hillary] Clinton '16 numbers in Miami were signs the county had become a progressive bastion.' 'But we are talking about a place where most people came here to escape socialist authoritarian governments and crime — so when people on the extreme left tried to justify things like 'Democratic socialism,' imagine how that sounds to the ears of a family that left everything behind — or a family who came here seeking safety to hear things like 'defund the police,' Schale added. Another longtime Democratic operative in Florida said losing Miami-Dade was a 'gut punch' for Democrats. 'We could see the trainwreck coming before the crash happened, but that was a particularly painful moment for any Democrat who cares about this state,' the operative said. Florida Democrats see their problems in Florida as the result of years of neglect following Obama's win in 2012. But they say they haven't given up on trying to move the Sunshine State back into purple state territory. In fact, they say, they're doubling down on their efforts. 'We're still rebuilding, but we've had a lot of success,' said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, in an interview with The Hill. Fried pointed to an 8 percent increase in Democratic voter turnout from the 2020 election to the 2024 election. She also credited work the state party has done to generate gains on school boards and county commissions. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D) was also able to win reelection by a wide margin even as the county went in the other direction in 2024. Still, Fried acknowledged there is 'a lot of work to be done and resources we've brought into the state to do that work.' Democrats' voter affiliation in Florida has declined rapidly since 2020. Republican affiliation in the state has also increased, surpassing Democrats by a hair in 2021 and booming to almost 1,500,000 more as of late June. Political observers attribute the drastic changes in party affiliation to a number of factors, including a massive migration of Republican voters to the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump — who lives in Palm Beach — also has attracted top Republican operatives and donors during his rise to party stardom. Some Democrats don't seem convinced that there's been much movement in their direction at all. 'On the organizational, operational side of things, I don't think things are any better or any worse,' Schale said. He added there's 'still a lot of donor skepticism and donor fatigue' about the most recent cycles in the state. But Democrats can move incrementally with key wins in the next cycle, Schale said. 'Success in 2026 is showing gains and showing improvement, and if you do that you can make the case to donors that there's a trajectory you can invest in,' he said, pointing to David Jolly, the gubernatorial candidate and former Republican congressman who switched parties, and Jose Javier Rodriguez, a former state senator who is a Democratic candidate for Florida attorney general. 'You build back by fixing what you can fix and getting success,' he added, referencing work that Democrats can do to improve their standing with Hispanic voters, among other efforts. And as Trump has stumbled recently in polls and messaging, strategists say now is a good time for Democrats to pounce and try to regain momentum in the state. 'If [Republicans] continue to push for these policies that now have Trump at the lowest approval rating of any president at this point in his second term, I think it would create an environment where, for the first time in decades, Florida voters may say, 'Look, it's time for a change, and the only change now is to give the Democrats a shot at governing,' said Democratic strategist Fernand Amandi, who is based in Miami. He added that the desire for change in Florida is exacerbated by an 'unprecedented affordability crisis that is the sole responsibility' of Republicans, who have had 'total control of state government for almost three decades.' Despite the ripe moment, strategists say it will still be a heavy lift for Democrats to recapture voters — at least right away. 'I live here. I have to be an optimist … but I'm also a realist. It's f‑‑‑ing hard, and there's a lot of work to be done,' Schale said. But the efforts are underway, including the Florida Democratic Party's Pendulum initiative, a year-round organizing program that Fried said has already contributed to significant gains in two deep-red congressional districts where there were off-cycle elections. Fried also pointed to the party's Front Porch Swing initiative, which aims to listen to voters in rural Florida and meet them where they are. Even with small wins in 2024, Fried said there were lessons to be learned from the overall loss in 2024, including how to best connect with voters. While Democrats had more than $1 billion of earned media nationally, 'At the end of the cycle, most voters said, 'What is the message?' from the party,' Fried said. 'We missed the mark on breaking through to everyday Floridians that aren't watching us on the traditional news stations,' she said. Strategists say connecting with voters is especially key right now as Democrats have struggled with getting their base to the ballot boxes in recent election cycles. '[Democrats] have got to field candidates and rally around a disciplined, focused message of where the voters are, and where the voters are right now is they want solutions to this Republican politician-created affordability crisis,' Amandi said. 'If they can do those two things, then they can position themselves to surprise a lot of people next November.' Strategists say that Democrats — from operatives to donors — will have to invest time and money back into Florida if they want to see their party in power once again. 'Democrats don't have the luxury of writing off Florida because Florida is only going to continue to play a critically important role in the Electoral College math as they're only going to gain electoral seats going forward,' Amandi said. 'If you cede states like Florida and Texas, you're in essence saying you're ceding any pathway to win the White House as a Democrat.'
Los Angeles Times
11 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. passed a $30 minimum wage for tourism workers. Then came the warring ballot measures
It's the summer of the burn-it-down ballot measure in Los Angeles. For the past three months, labor unions and business groups have been locked in a protracted fight over a law, approved by the City Council in May, hiking the minimum wage for hotel employees and workers at Los Angeles International Airport to $30 per hour by 2028. Both sides, in an attempt to gain the upper hand, have proposed ballot measures that, if approved, would disrupt the city in enormous ways, leaving an impact that would go well beyond the hourly pay of housekeepers, valets and LAX skycaps. Unite Here Local 11, the politically powerful union that represents hotel and restaurant workers, is looking to put four ballot proposals before voters that, according to critics, would wreak havoc on the city's economy. Business leaders, in turn, are under fire for filing a ballot petition to repeal the city's $800 million business tax — a move denounced by city officials, who say it would gut funding for police and other essential services. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said the arms race between business and labor is spinning out of control, in large part due to a lack of leadership at City Hall. As the battle intensifies, no one has been willing to broker a compromise between the two sides, said Rodriguez, who voted against the $30 minimum wage. 'We've entered this War of the Roses because we don't have anyone bringing the parties into a room to negotiate a balance that works for everybody, that can help sustain business and address the needs of the workers,' she said. 'In the absence of that, everyone is taking matters into their own hands — and that is reckless, sloppy and dangerous.' Asked about those assertions, aides to Mayor Karen Bass said she has 'brought new business investments' to L.A. and 'is in discussion with labor and business groups on a wide range of issues.' 'Maybe [Rodriguez] is referring to her own lack of leadership to move her council colleagues towards a legislative outcome,' said Zach Seidl, a Bass spokesperson. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson was more diplomatic, saying in a brief statement: 'People are working hard to figure out solutions, stay tuned.' The ballot battle began with little fanfare in May, when a group representing airlines and the hotel industry filed paperwork for a voter referendum on the $30 per hour hotel and airport minimum wage, a few weeks after it was passed by the City Council. Business leaders had argued that the minimum wage hike, along with a healthcare payment that is expected to exceed $8 per hour next year, would trigger layoffs and the closure of restaurants, hotels and airport concessions. Organizers with Unite Here Local 11, who had fought for at least two years to secure the higher wage, responded with their own package of ballot proposals, including a plan to require a citywide election on the development or expansion of large hotels, concert halls, museums, sports facilities, convention center space and — according to city leaders — some 2028 Olympic venues. Unite Here, which has a history of knocking on doors for its ballot measures and favored candidates, also submitted a voter petition to expand the $30 minimum wage to every worker in L.A. And it filed two measures targeting outsize executive pay. One would require companies with a pay disparity of more than 100 to 1 between CEOs and their median worker in L.A. to secure voter approval to use space at the harbor, airport, convention center and other city agencies. The other would hike the city business tax on such companies. After Unite Here filed its four petitions, business leaders raised the stakes even further, turning in a proposed measure to repeal the city's business tax. That effort, if approved by voters, would provide financial relief for businesses but also strip more than $800 million from the city budget, or about 10% of the general fund, which pays for police and fire protection. Bass warned that the measure would eviscerate funding for public safety and other services. David Green, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, called the move 'irresponsible' and 'retaliatory' — and said it would hit a city already reeling from a $1 billion budget shortfall. 'If you're part of this community ... why would you go to the voters on something that's going to hurt anybody that lives in and around the city of Los Angeles?' he asked. Business leaders have defended their efforts, saying a repeal would spur economic activity and generate income for the city. Christopher Thornberg, whose L.A.-based research firm produces economic studies for industry groups and government agencies, voiced skepticism about the repeal effort, saying there are other, much bigger issues holding the city's economy back. Still, he wasn't surprised to see business leaders start playing hardball. At City Hall, he said, they have been effectively locked out of the conversation for years — and desperately need a way to gain 'some sort of leverage' with elected officials. 'Perhaps the [business tax] is that leverage, to get someone on the council to pay attention to them,' the economist said. 'Because they're not. They're just not at the table.' Thornberg, whose firm has issued critical assessments of minimum wage hikes, voiced concern about each of the Unite Here proposals. He warned that the plan to force hotels, sports arenas and other projects to go before voters would hurt the city's ability to carry out 'basic economic development.' He predicted that the proposed citywide minimum wage hike would drive businesses and their customers to other parts of Los Angeles County. On top of that, Thornberg said, the proposal targeting exorbitant CEO pay would likely shut down location shoots in L.A., since it would apply to companies seeking film permits on city property. 'Unite Here has built a reputation on the idea that they are the most ... crazy people in the room and will blow up everything to get their way,' he said. 'What they're doing is clearly living up to that reputation.' Maria Hernandez, a spokesperson for Unite Here, pushed back on claims that the union is being reckless. With workers struggling to pay for food and housing and demoralized over President Trump's sweeping immigration crackdown, the fight to preserve the $30 per hour tourism minimum wage has received a groundswell of public support at a bleak time, she said. 'People might say it's crazy or insane, but it's actually courageous and bold, and it should be inspiring to people more than anything,' she said, adding: 'The community ... is looking to feel hopeful, to win something, when everything just feels like it's going to hell.' Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who championed the $30 tourism minimum wage, disagreed with the assertion that the ballot measure battle is out of control. A former Unite Here organizer, he said he is inclined to support the citywide $30 minimum wage. Soto-Martínez also voiced interest in the union's push for higher city taxes on companies with exorbitant CEO pay. He had a dim view of the push to repeal the tourism minimum wage, calling it 'despicable.' Airline companies, working alongside the hospitality industry, poured millions of dollars into its signature drive, gathering more than 140,000 signatures within 30 days, he said. 'It's just another example — and the public should know this — of corporations feeling like they can do whatever they want because they have those resources,' he said. The prospects for the repeal are uncertain. Officials with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk are still working to determine whether the measure has enough valid voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. Organizers with Unite Here, as well as Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, which represents LAX employees, led a vigorous campaign to convince voters who regretted signing the petition, saying they had been misled by signature gatherers, to withdraw their names. Last week, county officials reported that they had analyzed a sample of 7,040 signatures, or 5% of the 140,774 submitted by the airline and hotel industry group. The officials found 4,373 valid signatures, shy of the roughly 4,600 needed to avoid a full hand count. Among the invalid signatures were 853 withdrawn by voters, making union leaders more confident about keeping the referendum from reaching the ballot. 'I wouldn't want to be in their shoes today. Their numbers are not in a comfortable range,' said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11. 'The odds are better that they are struck by lightning than get [their measure] ... on the ballot.' Even if the referendum fails to qualify, Unite Here Local 11 plans to press ahead with its four ballot initiatives. Petersen said his union's members have been invigorated by the fight to protect the $30 tourism minimum wage — and will soon begin gathering signatures for the other proposals. 'We know our issues are extremely popular. People really do believe workers need to make more money and CEOs need to pay more taxes,' he said. Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said he believes voters will reject those measures, once they learn the effect will be to 'force companies to leave L.A.' The proposals from Unite Here's leaders are less about supporting workers and more about sending a message, Waldman said. 'They want to exact retribution and revenge on anyone who challenges them ... and they don't care how many jobs it costs to do it,' he said.
Los Angeles Times
11 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘A continual assault.' How UCLA's research faculty is grappling with Trump funding freeze
Their medical research focuses on potentially lifesaving breakthroughs in cancer treatment, and developing tools to more easily diagnose debilitating diseases. Their studies in mathematics could make online systems more robust and secure. But as the academic year opens, the work of UCLA's professors in these and many other fields has been imperiled by the Trump administration's suspension of $584 million in grant funding, which University of California President James B. Milliken called a 'death knell' to its transformative research. The freeze came after a July 29 U.S. Department of Justice finding that the university had violated the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students by providing an inadequate response to alleged antisemitism they faced after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The fight over the funding stoppage intensified Friday after the Trump administration demanded that UCLA pay a $1-billion fine, among other concessions, to resolve the accusations — and California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will sue, calling the proposal 'extortion.' Amid heightened tensions in Westwood, thousands of university academics are in limbo. In total, at least 800 grants, mostly from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, have been frozen. UCLA scholars described days of confusion as they struggle to understand how the loss of grants would affect their work and scramble to uncover new funding sources — or roles that would ensure their continued pay, or that of their colleagues. While professors still have jobs and paychecks to draw on, many others, including graduate students, rely on grant funding for their salaries, tuition and healthcare. At least for the moment, though, several academics told The Times that their work had not yet be interrupted. So far, no layoffs have been announced. Sydney Campbell, a pancreatic cancer researcher and postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said her work — which aims to understand how diet affects the disease — is continuing for now. She has an independent fellowship that 'hopefully will protect the majority of my salary.' But others, she said, don't have that luxury. 'It is absolutely going to affect people's livelihoods. I already know of people ... with families who are having to take pay cuts almost immediately,' said Campbell, who works for a lab that has lost two National Institutes of Health grants, including one that funds her research. Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly of cancers, but Campbell's work could lead to a better understanding of it, paving the way for more robust prophylactic programs — and treatment plans — that may ultimately help tame the scourge. 'Understanding how diet can impact cancer development could lead to preventive strategies that we can recommend to patients in the future,' she said. 'Right now we can't effectively do that because we don't have the information about the underlying biology. Our studies will help us actually be able to make recommendations based on science.' Campbell's work — and that of many others at UCLA — is potentially groundbreaking. But it could soon be put on hold. 'We have people who don't know if they're going to be able to purchase experimental materials for the rest of the month,' she said. For some, the cuts have triggered something close to an existential crisis. After professor Dino Di Carlo, chair of the UCLA Samueli Bioengineering Department, learned about 20 grants were suspended there — including four in his lab worth about $1 million — he felt a profound sadness. He said he doesn't know why his grants were frozen, and there may not be money to pay his six researchers. So Di Carlo, who is researching diagnostics for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, took to LinkedIn, where he penned a post invoking the Franz Kafka novel 'The Trial.' The unsettling tale is about a man named Josef K. who wakes up and finds himself under arrest and then on trial — with no understanding of the situation. 'Like Josef K., the people actually affected — the public, young scientists, patients waiting for better treatments and diagnostic tools — are left asking: What crime did we commit?' wrote Di Carlo. 'They are being judged by a system that no longer explains itself.' The LinkedIn post quickly attracted dozens of comments and more than 1,000 other responses. Di Carlo, who has been working to find jobs for researchers who depend on paychecks that come from now-suspended grants, said he appreciated the support. But, goodwill has its limits. 'It doesn't pay the rent for a student this month,' he said. Di Carlo's research is partly focused on developing an at-home test that would detect Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, which are on the rise. Because no such product is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he said, people who've experienced a tick bite have to wait for lab results to confirm their infection. 'This delay in diagnosis prevents timely treatment, allowing the disease to progress and potentially lead to long-term health issues,' he said. 'A rapid, point-of-care test would allow individuals to receive immediate results, enabling early treatment with antibiotics when the disease is most easily addressed, significantly reducing the risk of chronic symptoms and improving health outcomes.' Di Carlo lamented what he called 'a continual assault on the scientific community' by the Trump administration, which has canceled billions of dollars in National Institutes of Health funding for universities across the country. It 'just ... hasn't let up,' Di Carlo said. Some professors who've lost grants have spent long hours scrambling to secure new sources of funding. Di Carlo said he was in meetings all week to identity which researchers are affected by the cuts, and to try to figure out, 'Can we support those students?' He has also sought to determine whether some could be moved to other projects that still have funding, or be given teaching assistant positions, among other options. He's not alone in those efforts. Mathematics professor Terence Tao also has lost a grant worth about $750,000. But Tao said that he was more distressed by the freezing of a $25-million grant for UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics. The funding loss for the institute, where Tao is director of special projects, is 'actually quite existential,' he said, because the grant is 'needed to fund operations' there. Tao, who is the James and Carol Collins chair in the College of Letters and Sciences, said the pain goes beyond the loss of funds. 'The abruptness — and basically the lack of due process in general — just compounds the damage,' said Tao. 'We got no notice.' A luminary in his field, Tao conducts research that examines, in part, whether a group of numbers are random or structured. His work could lead to advances in cryptography that may eventually make online systems — such as those used for financial transactions — more secure. 'It is important to do this kind of research — if we don't, it's possible that an adversary, for example, could actually discover these weaknesses that we are not looking for at all,' Tao said. 'So you do need this extra theoretical confirmation that things that you think are working actually do work as intended, [and you need to] also explore the negative space of what doesn't work.' Tao said he's been heartened by donations that the mathematics institute has received from private donors in recent days — about $100,000 so far. 'We are scrambling for short-term funding because we need to just keep the lights on for the next few months,' said Tao. Rafael Jaime, president of United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 academic workers within the University of California — including about 8,000 at UCLA — said he was not aware of any workers who haven't been paid so far, but that the issue could come to a head at the end of August. He said that the UC system 'should do everything that it can to ensure that workers aren't left without pay.' A major stressor for academics: the uncertainty. Some researchers whose grants were suspended said they have not received much guidance from UCLA on a path forward. Some of that anxiety was vented on Zoom calls last week, including a UCLA-wide call attended by about 3,000 faculty members. UCLA administrators said they are exploring stopgap options, including potential emergency 'bridge' funding to grantees to pay researchers or keep up labs such as those that use rodents as subjects. Some UCLA academics worried about a brain drain. Di Carlo said that undergraduate students he advises have begun asking for his advice on relocating to universities abroad for graduate school. 'This has been the first time that I've seen undergraduate students that have asked about foreign universities for their graduate studies,' he said. 'I hear, 'What about Switzerland? ... What about University of Tokyo?' This assault on science is making the students think that this is not the place for them.' But arguably researchers' most pressing concern is continuing their work. Campbell explained that she has personally been affected by pancreatic cancer — she lost someone close to her to it. She and her peers do the research 'for the families' who've also been touched by the disease. 'That the work that's already in progress has the chance of being stopped in some way is really disappointing,' she said. 'Not just for me, but for all those patients I could potentially help.'
