Borden Dairy Co. filed for bankruptcy protection, the second major U.S. dairy to do so in two months. Borden produces nearly 500 million gallons of milk each year for groceries, schools and others. It employs 3,300 people and runs 12 plants across the U.S.

American refrigerators are increasingly stocked with juice, soda and milk substitutes made from soy or almonds. At the same time, protein bars, yogurts and other on-the-go breakfasts have replaced a morning bowl of cereal. That has hammered traditional milk producers like Borden, which was founded in 1857.

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The amount of liquid milk consumed per capita in the U.S. has tumbled more than 40% since 1975. Americans drank about 24 gallons a year in 1996, according to government data. That dropped to 17 gallons in 2018.

As milk consumption has fallen, dairy farms have closed their doors. In court filings, Borden says 2,730 U.S. dairy farms have gone out of business in the last 18 months alone. The remaining farms can command higher prices, but that pinches Borden, which can’t charge consumers more because of pressure from big competitors like Walmart. Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Indiana in 2018.

“Despite our numerous achievements during the past 18 months, the company continues to be impacted by the rising cost of raw milk and market challenges facing the dairy industry,” Borden CEO Tony Sarsam said in a statement late Sunday. “These challenges have contributed to making our current level of debt unsustainable.“

Borden tried to revive sales last year by relaunching its iconic mascot Elsie, the smiling cow that first appeared on milk cartons in the 1930s. It also released new products like gingerbread-flavored eggnog and Kid Builder, a children’s milk with higher levels of protein and calcium designed to compete with Fairlife, a trendy milk brand made by Coca-Cola Co. Borden said sales rose, but not enough to offset broader trends in the industry.

Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk producer, filed for bankruptcy protection in November. Both dairies are based in Dallas. The two companies controlled about 13.5% of U.S. milk sales last year, according to Euromonitor, a consulting firm.

Like Dean, Borden says it will continue to operate during its restructuring.

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Johnson & Johnson resolved a woman’s claims that asbestos-laced baby powder caused her cancer before a California jury got a chance to consider the allegations in one of dozens of cases to go to trial.

Jurors in state court in Oakland heard more than two weeks’ worth of testimony in Linda O’Hagan’s case before Superior Court Judge Stephen Kaus announced the deal Monday. The terms of the settlement were not made public.

It’s unusual for J&J to settle a case mid-trial in the sprawling nationwide litigation over its talc-based product.

J&J scored a big win last month in a talc case in St. Louis, where in 2018 it was hit with a $4.7-billion verdict on behalf of more than 20 women blaming their cancers on its baby powder. In the December case, jurors rejected a woman’s claim that her ovarian cancer was tied to use of J&J’s talc-based powder.

“In litigation of every nature there are one-off situations where settlement is a reasonable alternative,” J&J spokeswoman Kim Montagnino said in an emailed statement. “The decision to resolve any particular case in no way changes our overall position that our talc is safe, is asbestos-free and does not cause cancer.”

The company, which faces nearly 17,000 lawsuits accusing it of hiding that its baby powder was contaminated with asbestos, has been on a roll at trial, racking up eight defense verdicts last year while losing five.

O’Hagan was diagnosed with mesothelioma — a cancer linked to asbestos exposure — in August 2018 and underwent treatment for the disease, her lawyers told jurors in opening arguments. Doctors had told her she probably had less than two years to live, the lawyer added.

Another defendant in O’Hagan’s case, a unit of London-based Rio Tinto Minerals, also settled during the trial for an undisclosed sum. O’Hagan alleged that the company mined the talc used in J&J’s baby powder.

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SACRAMENTO — 

A federal judge will not temporarily exempt freelance journalists and photographers from a broad new California labor law, saying they waited too long to challenge restrictions that they fear could put some of them out of business.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez in Los Angeles denied the temporary restraining order sought by two freelancers’ organizations while he takes more time to consider their objections to the law requiring that many be treated as employees instead of independent contractors.

A hearing on their request isn’t scheduled until March. An attorney who sued on behalf of the groups said Monday that the harm to their profession is immediate from the law that took effect with the new year.

“Freelance journalists in California are losing work each day AB 5 remains in effect,” Jim Manley, an attorney for the nonprofit libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, said in an email. However, he said the judge’s decision to wait for a full hearing “is understandable given the gravity of the issues.”

The judge said the groups waited three months to sue after the bill was signed into law, and just two weeks before it took effect. They sought the temporary restraining order just a day before it became effective.

“Plaintiffs’ delay belies their claim that there is an emergency,” Gutierrez said in his ruling Friday. There would have been time for a full hearing had they “promptly filed” their objections, he wrote.

Most attention has been on the law’s attempt to give wage and benefit protections to people who work for ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Assn. contend that the law would unconstitutionally affect free speech and the media by imposing what their lawsuit calls an “irrational and arbitrary” limit of 35 submissions annually to each media outlet.

The digital sports media company SB Nation, owned by Vox Media, announced even before the law took effect that it was ending its use of more than 200 California freelancers, switching instead to using a much smaller number of new employees.

The law establishes the nation’s strictest test for which workers must be considered employees and could set a precedent for other states.

But a different federal judge temporarily blocked it from affecting more than 70,000 independent truckers, ruling the state law is preempted by federal law when it comes to their profession.

A separate lawsuit by Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates argues that the law violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. They want their objections linked to the freelancers’ lawsuit and considered by the same judge.

LAS VEGAS — 

After a big year for its plant-based burger, Impossible Foods has something new on its plate.

The California-based company unveiled Impossible Pork and Impossible Sausage on Monday evening at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas.

It’s Impossible Foods’ first foray beyond fake beef. The Impossible Burger, which went on sale in 2016, has been a key player in the growing category of vegan meats. Like the burger, Impossible Foods’ pork and sausage are made from soy but mimic the taste and texture of ground meat.

Impossible Pork will be rolled out to restaurants first. The company isn’t yet saying when it will come to groceries. Impossible Foods only recently began selling its burgers in grocery stores, although they’re available at more than 17,000 restaurants in the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao.

Burger King will give consumers their first taste of Impossible Sausage. Later this month, 139 Burger King restaurants in five U.S. cities will offer the Impossible Croissan’wich, made with plant-based sausage coupled with the traditional egg and cheese. Burger King did a similar test of the Impossible Whopper last year before expanding sales nationwide.

The pork products and the Impossible Burger are made in a similar way. Impossible Foods gets heme — the protein that gives meat its flavor and texture — from soy leghemoglobin, which is found in the roots of soy plants. To make heme in high volume, it inserts the DNA from soy into yeast and ferments it. That mixture is then combined with other ingredients, such as coconut oil.

The company tweaked the ingredients to mimic pork’s springy texture and mild flavor. For the sausage, it added spices.

Impossible Pork has 220 calories in a four-ounce serving. That’s not much less than a serving of Smithfield 80% lean ground pork, which has 260 calories. Smithfield’s animal-derived pork has more total fat, at 20 grams, than Impossible Pork, which has 13 grams. But Impossible Pork has far more sodium, at 420 milligrams. Smithfield has 70 milligrams.

But health concerns are only part of the reason consumers are eating more plant-based meats. Animal welfare and environmental concerns are also a factor. Nearly 1.5 billion pigs are killed for food each year, a number that has tripled in the last 50 years, according to the World Economic Forum. Raising those pigs depletes natural resources and increases greenhouse gas emissions.

“Everything that we’re doing is trying to avert the biggest threat that the world is facing,” Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown told the Associated Press.

Brown said the company decided pork should be its next product because customers were frequently requesting it. Impossible Foods started working on the new products about 18 months ago and accelerated development in the second half of 2019.

Brown said ground pork is also critical to meeting the company’s international expansion goals. While Americans eat more beef and chicken, pork is the most widely consumed meat worldwide, according to the National Pork Board. Chinese consumers eat more than 88 pounds of pork per year, compared to 65 pounds for Americans.

Brown said he believes a product such as Impossible Pork is critical in China, which has limited arable land and relies heavily on imported meat. Last year, Chinese pork prices surged after African swine fever wiped out millions of pigs.

Brown said Impossible Foods is talking to Chinese regulators and potential partners that could make Impossible Pork — as well as plant-based burgers — in China.

“This is a huge opportunity for China in terms of its food security,” Brown said.

Impossible Foods is also waiting for approval from European regulators to sell its products there.

In the U.S., 2019 was a breakout year for plant-based meat. U.S. sales jumped 10% last year to nearly $1 billion; traditional meat sales rose 2% to $95 billion in that same time, according to Nielsen.

Impossible Foods rival Beyond Meat — which already sells plant-based sausage links — had a successful public stock offering in the spring. Impossible Foods ran short of burgers in the first half of the year thanks to the buzz from Burger King. After partnering with OSI Group, a food service company, Brown said Impossible Foods produced twice as much of its plant-based meat in the last quarter of 2019 as it sold in all of 2018.

“We have to keep scaling up as fast as we possibly can,” Brown said.

Brown said he welcomes new competitors in the space, including deep-pocketed rivals such as Nestle and Tyson Foods. The meat industry is vast, he said, and plant-based meats are still only around 1% of sales.

His only concern is that plant-based products taste good enough to convince meat eaters to switch.

“A crappy product won’t win over meat lovers,” Brown said.

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Toward the end of the Golden Globes telecast on Sunday, Michelle Williams, her statuette in hand, headed into the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s viewing and after-party in the Wilshire Garden at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The evening’s outstanding actress winner in the limited series or TV movie category for “Fosse/Verdon” stopped into the party, also the site of the engraving station, to have her name inscribed on her award.

For the record:

3:53 PM, Jan. 06, 2020
A photo caption in a previous version of this story incorrectly identified director-writer Lulu Wang.

Another winner, Awkwafina, soon followed, having been named outstanding actress in a comedy for “The Farewell,” making her the first woman of Asian descent to win the award. Spotting her arrival, several party guests applauded the actress — some shouting, “We love you!” All smiles, the actress turned and waved as her well-wishers snapped pictures with their cellphones.

With the end of the show, famous faces began to appear in quick succession. Ramy Youssef, Stellan Skarsgård, Olivia Colman, Laura Dern and Quentin Tarantino all brought their statuettes to be engraved. As they waited for their inscriptions, Bong Joon-ho and Renee Zellweger shook hands and then hugged. Taron Egerton took a moment to pose for photographs with his family.

Arriving to the party with her mother, Joey King of “The Act” acknowledged that this Golden Globes nomination had been her first. Never mind that she didn’t win. “I’m so excited to be here,” said King as her mom concurred.

Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman and Desean Terry of the Apple TV+ series “The Morning Show” settled into a sofa, plunking down their gift packs of Lindt chocolates, the only nonvegan edibles available to the stars in the main ballroom. In this room, however, an after-party station offered lasagna bolognese, while another featured turkey burgers and barbecued pork as well as vegan sliders.

Terry said he and Pittman took a walk around the ballroom early in the evening, naming Billy Porter, Meryl Streep, Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes among the stars they met. “Billy Porter gave me a blessing,” he said. “When does that happen? It’s been an amazing, full-circle moment — getting to meet our icons.”

Given the music blasting through the room, several guests took the opportunity to designate an impromptu dance floor between the photo booth and the front entry. Prominent among the dancers was Hendrix Yancey, 8, of “Unbelievable.”

Others moved on to the other parties, among them Olympians Kristi Yamaguchi, Ian Thorpe, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ibtihaj Muhammad and Mallory Weggemann.

Before midnight at the Oasis

Sarah Hyland of “Modern Family” passed by en route to the Warner Bros. and InStyle Golden Globes after-party in the Oasis Courtyard of the Beverly Hilton about an hour after the telecast ended.

Golden Globes winner Joaquin Phoenix, Rami Malek, Jason Momoa, Zoë Kravitz and Yara Shahidi had already come and gone, but party organizers said Dern, Salma Hayek Pinault and Golden Globes winner Patricia Arquette were still on scene. Sure enough, Arquette, a supporting actress winner for “The Act,” could be seen inside the courtyard wearing a Viking helmet.

More actors arriving included Rachel Brosnahan of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Tom Payne of “The Walking Dead” and Jon Voight of “Ray Donovan.”

Colin Hanks talked with friends just outside the party venue as Keegan-Michael Key and his wife Elisa made their exit. “Dolemite Is My Name,” in which Key appeared, didn’t win the best picture award. However, Key remained optimistic. “Maybe next time,” he said.

Shannon McIntosh, producer of “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” strode along — with her trophy held high — as did producer Arianne Sutner and writer-director Chris Butler of “The Missing Link” as they joined the party.

Just after 10 p.m., Tom Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson headed out of the hotel. Earlier in the evening, Hanks of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award. Wilson called his acceptance speech “beautiful,” adding, “It brought me to tears.”

Despite the time, the parties certainly weren’t over. Kate Beckinsale was spotted shortly after that, passing through security to enter the hotel.

Farewell finger waves and long voluminous pageant curls. So long spider lashes, intense smokey eye makeup and cakey crimson lips (or a combination of all of these). Old Hollywood hair and makeup proved rightfully to be a thing of the past at the 77th Golden Globe Awards on Sunday.

This year, red-carpet beauty followed suit of how women wear makeup in a street-style shot or on the runway — or a version of it anyway.

Red-carpet beauty is officially more aligned with the fashion world than a Hollywood glam bubble. And that’s a good thing.

Hair on the 2020 Golden Globes red carpet was sleek and minimal. Makeup offered modern takes on classic techniques, and the outcome heightened the fashion-forward designer looks worn by many of the celebrities in attendance.

Here are our Top 6 takeaway beauty and hair trends from the Golden Globes that easily can be adopted for an everyday look.

A neat, sleek bob

Beloved by fashion insiders, bloggers and celebrities, the ear lobe-grazing bob was a ubiquitous hair trend at the Golden Globes. Zoey Deutch, Greta Gerwig, Tiffany Haddish, Kerry Washington, Michelle Williams and Reese Witherspoon all wore their hair short and stick straight and with a clean and deliberate deep side part that resulted in an angular and almost sculptural finish.

A pared-down smokey eye

Kate McKinnon and Phoebe Waller-Bridge had a modern take on the traditional smokey eye. Deep, dark and with full sets of lashes, the technique used here was more angular and shaded to make the eyes look wide and open.

The bun factor

Jennifer Lopez wore an ornate top knot in the way only she could. It consisted of multiple rows of braids piled atop her head in a neat bun. Scarlett Johansson chose a more understated version in the form of a traditional bun that was perfectly clean, sleek and pulled away from her face.

The dressy headband

Headbands have been the hair accessory of the season and they managed to make it onto the Golden Globes’ red carpet. “Booksmart’s” Beanie Feldstein wore a navy-blue braided headband that matched her navy-blue off-the-shoulder gown. This is a sign that the hair accessory is likely to continue as a trend for casual and dressy occasions.

The perfect cat eye

A classic look that always comes with a lot of charm, the cat eye that appeared at the Golden Globes was neat and dainty, unlike the thick ones seen on the face of Sophia Loren decades ago. Charlize Theron’s cat-eye eyeliner was a subtle but statement-making flick and proves the modern take doesn’t have to be over-the-top to be effective.

Brad Pitt’s hair

It wasn’t so much a trend as it was an homage. Not quite overly slicked back but more wind-swept perfection, Brad Pitt’s hair was a gravity-defying coif that was quintessential movie star and solidifies his place as a Hollywood heartthrob.

Netflix just unveiled the poster for Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Goop documentary, and it looks a lot like a certain female body part. Yes, that female body part.

And as if a giant pink vagina weren’t already enough to send Twitter over the edge, it also features a provocative tagline: “Reach new depths.” You know, just in case the reference wasn’t clear.

The streaming giant released the vag-tastic key art and trailer Monday for “The Goop Lab,” an unscripted project offering a glimpse into the inner workings of Paltrow’s divisive lifestyle empire.

Naturally, Twitter had a field day with its in-your-face, sex-positive marketing campaign, with reactions ranging from respect for the actress’ undeniable dedication to her brand to disapproval of her “pseudoscientific” practices — a running criticism of the 12-year-old company.

While the “Politician” star herself has not commented on the social-media explosion, the preview certainly leans into Goop’s polarizing reputation, featuring interviews with Paltrow and her free-spirited team.

“What we try to do at Goop is to explore ideas that may seem out there or too scary,” says one Goop staffer in the preview clip.

The trailer sees Goop participants explore several alternative wellness practices, including energy healing, psychedelics, “cold therapy,” psychic mediums and, of course, orgasms.

“We’re here one time, one life. How can we really milk the [crap] out of this?” Paltrow says — though it’s unclear if she’s referring to Goop’s actual methods or the millions of dollars she stands to make from them.

Here’s a sampling of the shocked, horrified and hilarious social-media reactions to “The Goop Lab,” coming to Netflix Jan. 24.

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If the traditional trappings of men’s formalwear — specifically the black-and-white color combination and silhouette of the tuxedo — were the biggest trend takeaways of the 2020 Golden Globes for women (and they were), what Sunday night’s most memorable menswear had in common was an emphasis on color (the sole exception being Billy Porter’s custom all-white Alex Vinash tuxedo with its focus-pulling feather train) and texture (think rich velvets and corduroy).

Velvet looks

Jason Momoa turned heads by donning (and later doffing) a dark green, velvet shawl-collar Tom Ford tuxedo jacket for the festivities. His was barely the beginning of the evening’s peacock parade of color and texture, which included, in no particular order, Roman Griffin Davis (“Jojo Rabbit”) in a burnt-orange velvet tuxedo jacket, Chris Evans in a burgundy corduroy peak-lapel Isaia tux (styled by Ilaria Urbinati) tuxedo and “Dolemite Is My Name” co-stars Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes, both of whom opted for shades of burgundy.

Murphy turned out to be one of the evening’s most dapper dudes in a burgundy shawl-collar jacket paired with black pants and a black turtleneck, and Snipes wasn’t far behind, opting for a three-piece ensemble with contrasting black peak lapels wide enough to threaten putting an eye out.

Blue man group

In the menswear arena, blue is a traditional safe haven for guys who want to fly below the radar wardrobe-wise. Sunday evening, though, shades of blue made for some standout style on the red carpet. Among the night’s eye-catching blues brothers were Sacha Baron Cohen in an electric blue, double-breasted, peak-lapel Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo, Tony Shalhoub in a midnight blue velvet double-breasted peak-lapel tuxedo jacket paired with black trousers, and Nicholas Braun (better known to fans of HBO’s “Succession” as cousin Greg) whose blue Prada tux with contrasting black lapels made even more of an impression thanks to the tone-on-tone addition of a black bow tie and black shirt.

Men in black (and white)

In addition to Porter, there were a few other fellows who made a strong sartorial statement in black and/or white on the red carpet Sunday night. Among them were director Barry Jenkins in Thom Browne (the designer behind Cynthia Erivo’s hand-beaded black-and-white gown), Brad Pitt in a classic Brioni three-piece tuxedo (he’s a brand ambassador for the Italian label and is set to appear in Brioni ads unveiled this month, according to fashion industry trade paper WWD) and “Jojo Rabbit” director Taika Waititi, who hit the red carpet in a cream-colored, shawl-collar dinner jacket and black trousers by Ermenegildo Zegna XXX without looking like a waiter thanks to the tone-on-tone black bow tie and shirt.

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NEW DELHI — 

The masked mob tore through dormitories inside one of India’s leading universities, beating students and teachers with sticks and rods, as horrified students captured the rampage on their cellphones.

When the violence ended with more than 30 people wounded, the questions only deepened: Who were the assailants and why didn’t police — who have lately been accused of using extreme force against demonstrators — stop the attack?

The incident late Sunday at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi was the latest violent turn in weeks of unrest across much of India after the passage of a controversial citizenship law championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Although the attack was not directly linked to protests over the law, which many say discriminates against Muslim immigrants, it comes at a time of intense polarization over Modi’s efforts to abandon India’s constitutionally enshrined secularism and make it a more overtly Hindu nation.

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The attack is widely believed to have been carried out by members of the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, or ABVP, the youth arm of a Hindu nationalist organization that is closely linked to Modi’s party and opposes what it describes as liberal ideologies on India’s college campuses.

Multiple Indian media outlets Monday reported that the attack appeared to have been planned in WhatsApp message groups and traced some numbers in those groups to ABVP members.

Messages called for “communists” to be beaten up and bragged about attacking students after entering campus dorms, the news website Scroll reported.

The group denied involvement, blaming the attack on “leftist” students. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party condemned the violence but called it a “desperate” move by “forces of anarchy.”

The university, named for India’s first prime minister and located next to a vast forest in the southern part of the Indian capital, has long been a target of right-wing ire because of its history of producing left-leaning scholars and activists. In 2016, the student body president was arrested and charged with chanting “anti-national” slogans at a meeting he organized to mark the anniversary of the execution of a convicted terrorist.

Among those injured Sunday was the current student body president, Aishe Ghosh, who was seen bleeding severely from the head in a video that went viral online.

“I have been brutally attacked by goons who were masked,” she said. “I’ve been bleeding. I’m not even in a condition to talk.”

Shwetank Tewari, a 31-year-old doctoral student, was in a friend’s dorm room when members of the mob tried to break in and attack them, he said. Tewari and a group of about 15 other students and one professor blocked the attackers from getting in.

But 24 hours later, he still hadn’t left campus, fearing members of the mob were still in the area.

“There are rumors flying all over the place,” he said. “Everyone is terrorized, everyone is in a state of panic.”

Tewari and other students said attackers were going through dorm rooms, picking targets based on the occupants’ religion or perceived ideology.

“They selectively targeted the rooms of the students who are Muslims and are from a different political opinion or party,” he said. “We were able to hear [them say] …’Go to this room, go to that room — this room is ours, that room theirs.’”

The accounts and the university’s history of activism led many to reject the ABVP’s assertions that left-wing students carried out the attack. The group, which claims millions of members across thousands of chapters nationwide, has a history of disrupting campus events and clashing with rivals.

“Why would [the] left attack their own student activists?” tweeted Rajdeep Sardesai, a prominent news anchor.

Witnesses said police allowed the mob to go after students and their defenders. Yogendra Yadav, a prominent activist and alumnus, said a police inspector and a group of ABVP activists together beat him outside the university. Later, in a separate incident, the mob pushed Yadav to the ground and kicked him in the face while calling him a “Naxalite,” a term associated with India’s extreme left-wing movements and used disparagingly by the Hindu right.

In several cities in India, student groups gathered Monday to protest the attack and question how the mob was allowed into the campus. Some asked why police, who have been accused of using excessive force to quell anti-citizenship law protests in which 26 have been killed since last month, appeared to stand by while students were beaten.

It was a particularly sharp contrast with a Dec. 15 incident in Delhi when police stormed the library at Jamia Millia Islamia — a university with a predominantly Muslim student body — even though many students inside were not involved in a nearby anti-citizenship law protest.

“Delhi police can enter Jamia campus to beat up students but has no interest to enter JNU campus to protect students from heavily armed goons,” tweeted Vivek Tankha, a lawyer and lawmaker.

Delhi police said they had opened an investigation into the incident and charged some individuals with rioting, but declined to offer details. Calls to the police were not returned.

At the university, many students now say they lack faith in authorities to prevent mobs from returning.

“We do not trust the police, because the police has failed to provide us protection,” Tewari said. “We do not know who to trust.”

Malhotra is a Times special correspondent.

WASHINGTON — 

The Pentagon moved Monday to send an additional 2,500 U.S. Marines to the Middle East, the latest fallout from President Trump’s order to kill a powerful Iranian general last week, but one that could increase the risk of the kind of grinding conflict that the president has vowed to avoid.

The reinforcements, now aboard ships headed to the Persian Gulf, were disclosed on a day of confusing signals and fast-moving events after a U.S. commander in Baghdad wrote to the Iraqi military saying preparations would be made to withdraw U.S. forces following a nonbinding decision by the Iraqi parliament to expel American troops.

Although the letter from Marine Brig. Gen. William H. Seely III was authentic, the Pentagon later said it was a draft that should not have been released, insisting that no final decision had been made.

Adding to the sense of disarray in policy, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sought to defuse a growing international furor over Trump’s threats to attack Iranian cultural sites, saying U.S. forces would not do so.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Esper said cultural heritage sites with no military value are protected by international rules of war, and deliberately targeting them would be a war crime.

“We will follow the rules of armed conflict,” Esper said. Asked if that ruled out targeting cultural sites, Esper agreed, saying, “That’s the law of armed conflict.”

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Esper pushed back against Trump’s threats a day after the Pentagon announced it was suspending offensive operations against the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq — the chief justification for keeping 5,200 combat troops and contractors in the country — to focus on protecting its bases from potential Iranian attacks.

Although the president has bragged about eliminating Islamic State, which once controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria, the latest clash with Iran may create new openings for a resurgence of the extremist militant group.

The uncertainty over the prospect of a U.S. withdrawal — and the parameters of a possible U.S. attack — did little to reassure U.S. national security and foreign policy experts, who worry that Trump and his small group of hawkish advisors may miscalculate and blunder into another war — despite the president’s eagerness to disengage from the Middle East.

“The process so far has seemed pretty ragged,” said Eric Edelman, a former undersecretary of Defense under President George W. Bush.

The Iraqi parliament voted Sunday to expel U.S. forces in a mostly symbolic decision, leading to the Marine general’s letter saying that U.S. forces would be relocated “to prepare for onward movement” and that “we respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.”

Esper told reporters that the U.S. is not pulling troops out of Iraq, although he said some have been repositioned.

“There’s been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq,” he said, adding, “there’s no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave.” He said the U.S. remains committed to the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group in Iraq and the region.

After the parliament’s vote, Trump threatened to impose stiff sanctions on Iraq if it actually expelled U.S. troops, even though he’s often talked about pulling out of the country that a U.S.-led force invaded in 2003.

“He’s just reacting; he’s not thinking deeply about any of this,” Edelman said. “And this is where the hollow structure of the Trump administration is coming back to haunt them, and it makes you a little nervous about whether they’ve prepared for the consequences.”

Vast throngs of Iranians have poured into the streets to mourn the death of Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who led Iran’s elite Quds Force and was the architect of Tehran’s support for Shiite Muslim militias across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Suleimani, who was arguably the second most powerful figure in Iran, was killed in a U.S. drone strike early Friday in Iraq as he was departing Baghdad’s airport with the leader of a local Iranian-backed militia.

Senior administration officials — including Esper, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and CIA Director Gina Haspel — will brief the heads of congressional intelligence and armed services committees on Tuesday, and the full House on Wednesday about the intelligence and policy considerations that convinced Trump to authorize the drone strike.

“He should have been taken out a long time ago,” Trump told Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, on Monday. “And we had a shot at it, and we took him out. We’re a lot safer now because of it.”

The 2,500 Marines are part of an amphibious readiness group that includes an assault ship resembling a small aircraft carrier, according to defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. Two other Navy vessels, an amphibious transport dock ship and a dock landing ship, are part of the flotilla.

The warships are headed toward the Persian Gulf and could transit the Suez Canal within days, the officials said, entering a region where the Pentagon has already dispatched a 4,000-soldier brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division.

An unknown number of special operations troops are there in case Iran or its proxies launch attacks or violent protests against U.S. bases or interests.

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) pushed a resolution that would limit Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran. If it passes, it would force the administration to cease hostilities within 30 days unless Congress authorized more action.

The resolution is certain to pass the Democratic-controlled House, but it’s unclear whether the Republican-controlled Senate would agree to limit the president’s options in a foreign policy crisis.

“Last week, the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials,” Pelosi said in a letter to House colleagues Sunday. “This action endangered our service members, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran.”

Iran is vowing to strike back at the United States, although it’s unclear when or how.

“God the Almighty has promised to take martyr Suleimani’s revenge. Certainly actions will be taken,” said Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the new commander of the Quds Force, according to Reuters.

Although Trump initially said he had targeted Suleimani to prevent a war, Trump vowed in a tweet Sunday to “quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner” if Iran attacks U.S. personnel. He said the U.S. had targeted 52 Iranian sites “some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture, and those targets and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and very hard.”

Analysts said attacks on cultural sites could be considered war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, and questioned his strategy of ratcheting up his rhetoric if the goal is to lower the risk of war.

“It’s a delicate thing when you’re trying to deter an adversary,” said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “You want to leave them a pathway to do what you want them to do.”

Recent history has shown that Tehran has tended to respond to U.S. military attacks in a calibrated, measured way, given the obvious power imbalance between the two countries.

“If you are the world’s most powerful country, your leader has more room to make mistakes,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm. “Trump makes plenty of mistakes, but people are going to give him a wider berth because if the U.S. gets it wrong, it doesn’t affect us all that much. If Iran gets it wrong, it could be the end of their country.”

Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, said he does not expect the increase in tensions to lead to war.

“Americans don’t want it. Trump doesn’t want it. The Iranians definitely don’t want it,” he said.

Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire contributed from Washington, and Times staff writer Nabih Bulos contributed from Baghdad.