Today is Thursday, Aug. 14, the 226th day of 2025. There are 139 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, ensuring income for elderly Americans and creating a federal unemployment insurance program.

Also on this date:

In 1936, in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators, Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.

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In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which detailed the post-war goals of the two nations.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced that Imperial Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.

In 1947, Pakistan gained independence from British rule.

In 1994, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” was captured by French agents in Sudan.

In 1995, Shannon Faulkner officially became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college. (However, Faulkner withdrew from the school less than a week later, citing the stress of her court fight, and her isolation among the male cadets.)

In 1997, an unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing. (McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in 2001.)

In 2009, Charles Manson follower Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, 60, convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, was released from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.

In 2016, Usain Bolt became the first athlete to win the 100m dash in three consecutive Olympics, taking gold at the Summer Games in Rio.

In 2021, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, turning thousands of structures into rubble; the quake left more than 2,200 people dead and injured more than 12,000 others.

Today’s Birthdays:

Broadway lyricist Lee Adams (“Bye Bye Birdie”) is 101.
College Football Hall of Famer and NFL quarterback John Brodie is 90.
Singer Dash Crofts is 85.
Country singer Connie Smith is 84.
Comedian-actor Steve Martin is 80.
Film director Wim Wenders is 80.
Singer-musician Larry Graham is 79.
Actor Susan Saint James is 79.
Author Danielle Steel is 78.
“Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson is 75.
Actor Carl Lumbly is 74.
Olympic gold medal swimmer Debbie Meyer is 73.
Actor Jackee Harry is 69.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace is 69.
Actor Marcia Gay Harden is 66.
Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson is 66.
Singer Sarah Brightman is 65.
Actor Susan Olsen (TV: “The Brady Bunch”) is 64.
Actor Halle Berry is 59.
Golfer Darren Clarke is 57.
Actor Catherine Bell is 57.
Actor Mila Kunis is 42.
Actor Lamorne Morris is 42.
Former NFL player Tim Tebow is 38.
Actor Marsai Martin is 21.

Canadian pop star Tate McRae may not be a household name yet, but to young women, she’s one of the hottest performers on the planet right now.

The 22-year-old Calgary native put on quite the spectacle Wednesday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center in front of a totally devoted, sold out crowd of about 15,000. In terms of shock, awe and attention to the finest of details, McRae is approaching Taylor Swift and Beyonce territory. Pity about the songs. (More on that in a bit.)

McRae started out as a dancer and began training at the age of six. By the time she was a teen, McRae was skilled enough to win awards in the North American dance scene. She also placed third on “So You Think You Can Dance” in 2016, setting a record for Canadian contestants on the show.

Soon after, she began posting original songs to her YouTube channel, which eventually led to a record deal. (At one point during Wednesday’s show, she accompanied herself on piano and played snippets of several of those early tracks.) Her career started to take off during the early days of the pandemic and she used the opportunity to perform live remotely to her advantage and landed spots on countless late night talk and award shows.

Once touring started up again, McRae hit the road and hasn’t left it. Her local history includes sets at the Basilica Block Party and KDWB Jingle Ball in 2021, followed by stops at First Avenue and the Fillmore before selling out the Armory last summer.

Given all her hard work, it’s no surprise what a polished performer she’s become. Wednesday night, she had the entire crowd focused on her every bump and grind and, given her dance background, there were plenty of them to see. She also surrounded herself with excellent dancers, including a pack of muscular young men who apparently slathered their bare torsos with baby oil.

Britney Spears is an obvious influence, from McRae’s endless hair flipping to her breathy vocals. It sounded like she was singing to a track, but then again, the crowd sang/shouted along to every song in the set, so it was sort of like she had thousands of backup vocals.

So, her songs. They, for the most part, are fine, just kind of generic. Her peppier stuff rock big beats with small hooks. The most memorable songs of her set Wednesday night included her 2020 breakthrough “You Broke Me First,” and her show-ending numbers “Sports Car” and “Greedy.” But none rise above mid-level album filler for the other performers mentioned in this review.

No matter. Given the confidence, stage presence and focus she showed Wednesday night, McRae’s not going away any time soon.

NEW YORK — A little more than two hours before Wednesday night’s game was scheduled to start, the Twins’ clubhouse emptied out, leaving just a few players remaining. There was a special speaker tapped to talk to the team’s pitchers, and even manager Rocco Baldelli wanted to listen, hustling away from his media session to attend.

But there was at least one straggler in the clubhouse who didn’t deem it necessary to listen. Kody Clemens, after all, had been receiving advice from the speaker for nearly three decades. That’s because the speaker was his father, seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.

The pitchers, unsurprisingly, were very interested in hearing what he had to say.

“He’s a legend, so any time you can learn from a legend, it’s helpful,” reliever Brooks Kriske said.

Clemens, a two-time Most Valuable Player, 11-time all-star and one of the best to ever take the mound, focused much of his talk on confidence, Kriske and fellow pitcher Thomas Hatch said. The message was to “trust your stuff, and (that) it stacks up with anybody that we play,” Hatch said.

The former pitcher, who won 354 games over the course of his 24-year major league career, has been popping up at Twins games since his son was acquired in a late-April trade for cash considerations from the Philadelphia Phillies, though this was the first time he addressed the pitching staff like that. A former Yankee, Clemens participated in the Yankees’ Old-Timers Game over the weekend and then stayed in New York to watch his son play.

“He was talking about it — everyone in today’s game’s got great stuff,” Kriske said. “It’s just trusting yourself and believing in yourself, and having that confidence that your best stuff could beat any hitter out there.”

Buxton moves in lineup

Byron Buxton was placed atop the team’s lineup in early May, and for much of the season, that’s where he remained.

It wasn’t until Tuesday night in New York that Baldelli finally made a change, moving the star center fielder down one spot in the lineup.

“(I’m) trying to just give him a little bit more of an opportunity to hit with people on base in front of him,” Baldelli said. “He has obviously been very good and very good in the leadoff spot. He was also very good before he went into the leadoff spot.”

All of that is true.

In 58 games hitting leadoff, Buxton has hit .295 with a .982 OPS this season. Those numbers have been strong, though slightly less so, when hitting lower in the order.

Buxton, Baldelli said, volunteered to hit anywhere without the manager asking him, though he said he thinks the center fielder enjoys leading off.

“He is about winning and trying to help do his part,” Baldelli said. “As a team, we also didn’t score a ton of runs when he was in the leadoff spot. He was incredible, and as a group, we didn’t really score very much. It’s just an effort to move some guys around, maybe get some people on base in front of him.”

Briefly

The Twins are scheduled to send Bailey Ober to the mound on Thursday when they return to Target Field to take on the Detroit Tigers. He is slated to face reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. … Former Twin Chris Paddack, who was traded at the deadline, is scheduled to pitch against the Twins later in the series.

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By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in San Francisco is weighing whether the Trump administration violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to accompany immigration agents on raids in Southern California.

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A three-day trial on the matter concluded Wednesday.

California has argued the troops violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits military enforcement of domestic laws. Lawyers for the administration said the law doesn’t apply because President Donald Trump called up the National Guard under an authority that allows their deployment if “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Federal and military officials were called to testify, and the trial’s third day largely focused on weedy arguments about the 1878 law and whether the court even had a role in determining the limits of presidential power.

Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard members and later 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June after protests in response to immigration raids around the city. They were originally deployed to protect federal property, including a detention center targeted by protesters. The Guard members later began guarding agents as they continued arresting people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Between 250 and 300 Guard troops remain and have been activated through November.

Wednesday’s arguments

Deputy Assistant Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton said Wednesday that the Posse Comitatus Act does not apply because the Guard was deployed under a section of U.S. Code that allows the president to call any state’s guard into federal service when the country “is invaded,” when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is unable “to execute the laws of the United States.”

He said Guard members weren’t engaged in law enforcement and were just providing backup security for federal agents.

“If the purpose is the protection of law enforcement officers, it isn’t law enforcement in the first place,” he said. “On top of that, there’s the fact that a (president’s) constitutional inherent protective power is at work. That is itself an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.”

California Deputy Attorney General Meghan Strong argued the troops’ role went beyond providing protection to federal agents and buildings. The troops, she said, had “an active, direct role” enforcing the law when they detained people at least in two occasions and set up roadblocks and perimeters blocking access to public streets.

“For all the pretense and wordsmithing defendants have tried to employ, the facts are inescapable: The activities defendants have ordered Task Force 51 troops to engage in across Southern California violate the Posse Comitatus Act,” she said. Task Force 51 was the name of the command post activated to coordinate the troops deployment deployment.

The Trump administration, she said, broke the law by using the troops to illegally enforce civilian law and operate as a single force with federal immigration officers, who often don military garb.

FILE – Members of the California National Guard and U.S. Marines, guard the entrance outside the Wilshire Federal in Los Angeles, June 13, 2025. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)

California is asking Judge Charles Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using military troops in California “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law or any civilian law enforcement functions by any federal agent or officer.”

Judge weighs whether troops crossed the line

“The question in this case is whether the troops that have been stationed in Los Angeles have or have not crossed that line,” said David Levine, a professor at UC College of the Law San Francisco. “Are they acting as military or are they acting as police? They can’t act as police. They can only act within their bounds.”

Troops deployed to Southern California received at least 60 requests for assistance from federal officials and responded to the majority of them, Hamilton told the judge.

Army Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who commanded Task Force 51, said there were some times when troops outnumbered federal officers. He said that during an immigration enforcement at an illegal marijuana growing operation in Mecca, a desert community about 140 miles east of Los Angeles, about 300 task force soldiers were present, compared to 200 federal law enforcement agents.

National Guard troops also accompanied federal immigration officers on raids at two state-licensed marijuana nurseries in Ventura County and to an operation at MacArthur Park in downtown Los Angeles intended as a show of force against people in the U.S. illegally and those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Sherman testified during the second day of the trial that he raised concerns the deployment could violate the Posse Comitatus Act.

He said soldiers were trained on the law and given materials that included a list of specific activities prohibited by the act, including doing security patrols and conducting traffic control, crowd control and riot control.

Sherman said that while the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits troops from carrying out those actions, he was told by his superiors that there was a “constitutional exception” that permitted such activities when the troops are protecting federal property or personnel.