By JAIMIE DING and DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Pentagon said Thursday it is ending the deployment of all but 250 National Guard troops that were originally sent to Los Angeles to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 1,350 National Guard members to leave this week. The rest will remain to protect federal personnel and property, according to the statement attributed to Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson.

Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines were deployed to Los Angeles in early June over the objections of state and local officials. Half of the Guard were pulled back roughly two weeks ago, and the Marines were ordered to leave a few days later.

“We greatly appreciate the support of the more than 5,000 Guardsmen and Marines who mobilized to Los Angeles to defend Federal functions against the rampant lawlessness occurring in the city,” Parnell said.

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Local leaders have contested the presence of federal troops in the city, blaming them for inflaming tensions in the region and said their presence was unnecessary. Mayor Karen Bass called the departure of more troops “another win for Los Angeles” in a post Wednesday night on X.

The presence of Guard troops in the city had been mostly limited to two locations with federal buildings in Los Angeles, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. Some soldiers have been protecting federal agents during immigration raids.

National Guard troops recently accompanied federal authorities with guns and horses at a July 7 operation at MacArthur Park, a neighborhood with large Mexican, Central American and other immigrant populations, that ended abruptly.

A vast majority of the troops remained at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos during their time in Southern California and were not seen deployed in Los Angeles. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have largely been small, scattered impromptu protests around immigration arrests.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that President Donald Trump’s “political theater backfired.”

“The women and men of our military deserve more than to be used as props in the federal government’s propaganda machine,” Newsom said.

Newsom sued the federal government in June over the deployment of the National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he activated the troops without notifying him. Newsom also asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids.

While a lower court ordered Trump to return control of the Guard to California, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the judge’s order.

Klepper reported from Washington, D.C.

By LIUDAS DAPKUS

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas stepped down Thursday, following investigations into his business dealings that prompted protests calling for his resignation.

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Paluckas, a newly established leader of the center-left Social Democrats, ascended to the role late last year after a three-party coalition formed following a parliamentary election in October in Lithuania. His entire Cabinet is also expected to resign, potentially leaving the Baltic country without an effective government weeks before Russia holds joint military exercises with neighboring Belarus.

“Seeing how the scandals are hindering the work of the government, I believe that I cannot allow our ruling coalition and the Cabinet to become hostages to these scandals,” Paluckas wrote in a letter to Social Democratic party members. “Therefore, I have decided to take a quick and decisive decision.

“I never cling to any position in life — and so I am open to all scenarios and decisions.”

President Gitanas Nausėda announced Paluckas’ resignation to the media on Thursday morning.

Lithuanian foreign policy is unlikely to change as a result of the government shake-up. Nausėda, who was elected separately, is the country’s face on the world stage and has been one of the most stalwart supporters of Ukraine’s fight against invading Russian forces.

Paluckas has recently been dogged by media investigations into his business and financial dealings. Several media outlets published investigations in July regarding Paluckas’ past and present ventures and alleged mishandlings, including ones more than a decade ago. Anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies in the country subsequently launched their own inquiries.

In a devastating blow to his reputation, the media also revealed that Paluckas never paid a significant part of a 16,500-euro (around $19,000) fine in connection with a 2012 criminal case dubbed the “rat poison scandal.”

Paluckas was convicted of mishandling the bidding process for Vilnius’ rat extermination services while serving as the capital city’s municipality administration director. In 2012, judges at Lithuania’s top court ruled that he abused his official position by illegally granting privileges to the company that offered the highest price in the bid.

He was also sentenced to two years behind bars, but the sentence was suspended for one year and he ultimately was never imprisoned.

The Social Democratic party leader denied any wrongdoing regarding his business affairs, labeling the criticism as part of a “coordinated attack” by political opponents.

He resigned before the opposition could formally launch impeachment proceedings. New coalition talks are expected to start shortly to form a new Cabinet.

By ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press

Sean “Diddy” Combs has asked a judge to throw out his guilty verdicts on prostitution-related counts or grant him a new trial, saying such convictions are without precedent.

“This conviction stands alone, but it shouldn’t stand at all,” the Wednesday filing said.

Combs’ lawyers argue that his two felony convictions were a unique misapplication of the federal Mann Act, which bars interstate commerce related to prostitution.

“To our knowledge, Mr. Combs is the only person ever convicted of violating the statute for conduct anything like this,” a Wednesday filing from Combs legal team said.

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Combs, 55, was convicted in a New York federal court of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution for flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, for sexual encounters, while he was acquitted of more serious charges. He could get up to a decade in prison at his sentencing set for Oct. 3.

His lawyers argued that none of the elements normally used for Mann Act convictions, including profiting from sex work or coercion, were present here.

“It is undisputed that he had no commercial motive and that all involved were adults,” The filing said. “The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily. The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted.”

The lawyers said that Combs, “at most, paid to engage in voyeurism as part of a ‘swingers’ lifestyle” and argued that “does not constitute ‘prostitution’ under a properly limited definition of the statutory term.”

Combs was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, charges could have put one of hip-hop’s celebrated figures in prison for life.

The new motion asks Judge Arun Subramanian to vacate the jury’s verdict, or to order a new trial whose evidence is limited to matters related to the Mann Act counts, because of “severe spillover prejudice from reams of inflammatory evidence” related to the more serious counts.

Prosecutors insisted during the eight-week trial that Combs had coerced, threatened and sometimes viciously forced two ex-girlfriends to have sex with male sex workers to satisfy his sexual urges. They cited multiple acts of violence he carried out against them as proof that they had no say.

A day earlier, Combs’ team asked the judge to free him on a $50 million bond while he awaits sentencing in October after a jury found him not guilty of the most serious federal charges he faced earlier this month.

His lawyer argued that conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn are dangerous, noting that others convicted of similar prostitution-related offenses were typically released before sentencing.

Subramanian previously denied a request that Combs be released on bail while he awaits sentencing, citing a now-infamous video of Combs beating a former girlfriend and photographs showing injuries to another ex-girlfriend.

The judge has not yet ruled on either of this week’s motions.

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV decided Thursday to declare St. John Henry Newman a “doctor” of the church, bestowing one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors on the deeply influential 19th century Anglican convert who remains a unifying figure among conservatives and progressives.

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The Vatican said Leo confirmed the opinion of the Vatican’s saint-making office during an audience with its prefect, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, and would make the decision official soon.

The designation, which has been in the works for years, is one of the most significant decisions of Leo’s young papacy and also carries a personal meaning. Newman was strongly influenced by St. Augustine of Hippo, the inspiration of the pope’s Augustinian religious order, and Leo’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, made Newman a Catholic cardinal in 1879 after his conversion.

A theologian and poet, Newman is best known for his writings and sermons on the development of doctrine, truth and the nature of a university. He is admired by Catholics and Anglicans alike because he followed his conscience at great personal cost. When he defected from the Church of England to the Catholic Church in 1845, he lost friends, work and even family ties, believing the truth he was searching for could only be found in the Catholic faith.

“Newman was one of the great theologians of the 19th century,” said the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island, Rt. Rev. R. William Franklin. “He was unique in having shaped both Anglicans and Roman Catholics. No one in recent history can match that achievement.”

The title of doctor is reserved for people whose writings have greatly served the universal Catholic Church. Only three-dozen people have been given the title, including the 5th century St. Augustine, St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa of Avila.

Unifying figure

Newman experts said the decision to add the British theologian to their ranks was deeply significant, given Newman’s contribution to Christian understanding of conscience and education — and his near-universal appeal to progressives and conservatives alike.

Jack Valero, who was spokesman for Newman’s 2010 beatification and 2019 canonization ceremonies, said he had never come across anyone who had a problem with him. If back then Newman was the perfect unifying figure for a polarized church, he is even more so now, for a new pope who has made unity a core priority of his pontificate, Valero said.

“You know, I look at Pope Leo and I hear him say, ‘We need unity, we need peace,’ and so on and I think, ‘Here’s the man who’s going to make it happen,’” he said.

The first American pope vowed during his May 18 installation Mass that he would work to heal divisions in the church so that it could become a force for peace.

Leo has also repeatedly affirmed his identity as an Augustinian. Many scholars have long considered Newman to be the Augustine of the modern era, no easy feat considering the tough Vatican criteria for declaring a church doctor.

The Vatican considers among other things the candidate’s holiness in life, the eminence of his or her doctrinal and theological teaching and their enduring influence on the church. That has has meant that there have been only 37 doctors, and only one other (St. Teresa of Avila) who lived in the last 600 years, noted Mike Moreland, professor of law and religion at Leo’s alma mater, Villanova University.

But Newman “kind of meets these criteria that the doctors of the church are held to represent,” he said in an interview.

Newman’s conversion

Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. In the centuries that followed, Catholics were fined, discriminated against and killed for their faith.

Newman was one of the founders of the so-called Oxford Movement of the 1830s, which sought to revive certain Roman Catholic doctrines in the Church of England by looking back to the traditions of the earliest Christian church.

But he gave up a brilliant academic career at Oxford University and the pulpit of the university church to convert to Catholicism. As a Catholic, he became one of the most influential theologians of the era, bringing elements of the Anglican church into his new faith tradition. He died in Britain in 1890.

Newman’s path to being declared a doctor in the Catholic Church has been exceptionally quick. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him during a visit to Britain in 2010 and Pope Francis made him a saint in 2019, with then-Prince Charles in attendance.

Francis was then on the receiving end of a concerted push by English-speaking bishops, in particular, to make him a doctor.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.