Politics Desk

Nov. 12, 2026 7:06 PM PT

MINNEAPOLIS — Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and deported more people during the last fiscal year than at any time in its 23-year history, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday, as President Trump followed through on promises of mass deportations that helped win back the White House but also fueled the political blowback that led to Democrats’ overwhelming victory in last week’s midterm elections.

ICE said it deported 483,200 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the highest number since 2014, when 405,090 people were deported under then-President Obama, and some activists labeled him the “deporter in chief.”

The 2026 numbers were up 9% from its previous high of 442,640 in the same period a year earlier and up 78% from 271,480 in 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

ICE had not released such counts since Trump returned to the White House, including for 2025.

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, ICE has been unleashed to target and remove illegal aliens so that we can save American lives,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Yet much remained unsaid in the Homeland Security news release, including how many deportees had criminal histories and a detailed breakdown of the statistics. In addition, deportation numbers can be notoriously fuzzy, with totals counted in different ways in different years.

“It is accurate that ICE is making record numbers of arrests,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, a visiting fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a former top official overseeing statistics at the Department of Homeland Security. “They have record resources. They’ve doubled their staffing. They’re getting a lot of support from other law enforcement agencies.”

But the sparse data in Wednesday’s announcement means “we can’t really see what’s going on in any kind of detailed way.”

Trump had campaigned on ridding America of criminal migrants, saying he’d be targeting the “worst of the worst.”

But that is rarely the case. In July, for instance, only roughly one-quarter of deportees had criminal convictions, according to the Deportation Data Project. More than half weren’t even facing charges.

The numbers released Wednesday also fell well short of the White House goal of 1 million deportations annually, a promise it made when it received billions in additional funding from Congress, supercharging the government’s immigration bureaucracy.

Trump returned to power last year promising to end illegal crossings at the southern border. His administration has pushed through restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and sped up deportations. Immigration crackdown operations are often purposefully high-profile, in part to frighten migrants into leaving of their own accord.

But the crackdown hasn’t always gone as planned.

The biggest shift came this year in Minneapolis, when more than 2,000 federal officers were deployed to the city and thousands of protesters turned out to confront masked and often heavily armed agents spilling from convoys of unmarked vehicles.

Two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 — were killed in confrontations with agents, and the administration quickly backed away from high-profile operations.

Although arrests dropped after the killings, they quickly returned to record numbers, albeit in quieter immigration sweeps.

By last week’s elections the White House’s immigration message had splintered, with even some deeply Republican rural areas voting Democratic after people saw longtime migrant neighbors, many of them key workers on farms, ranches and meat-processing facilities, taken in arrests.

The highest recorded number of deportations came during President Eisenhower’s crackdown on illegal immigrants from Mexico. The often-chaotic policy saw deportation numbers spike dramatically in the early 1950s, cresting at 1.1 million in 1954.

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Andy Soma, 24, doesn’t identify with either political party, and he’s been skipping elections since he became old enough to vote. But this year, disappointed with the economy and President Trump’s war with Iran, he cast his midterm ballot for Roy Cooper, the North Carolina Democrat now headed to the Senate.

“I would describe it as the first time that I’ve truly felt the need to vote,” said Soma, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at North Carolina State University. He said he wanted to “kind of take a stand, if you will.”

Young voters overwhelmingly turned their backs on Republicans on Tuesday, erasing the gains Trump had made in the 2024 presidential election. Voters under age 30 moved left by double digits in nearly all the major Senate races compared with two years earlier.

It was a similar story in House campaigns across the country. The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters, showed that about three-quarters of voters under 30 supported their local Democratic candidate, while about one-quarter voted for the Republican.

The support for Democrats outpaces even 2018, when Trump’s Republican Party suffered midterm losses during his first term, and is a dramatic shift from 2024, when young voters were roughly split between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters that year.

For Soma, the tipping point was Trump’s broken pledge that he would keep the U.S. out of Middle East conflicts, a sentiment that student after student echoed in interviews on the university’s Raleigh campus the day after the election.

Other young voters who broke for Democrats this year said their choices were motivated by personal experiences, including working multiple jobs to get by and watching artificial intelligence data center projects advance into their communities.

“I’m trying to save money and buy a house and all that, but it’s difficult right now,” said Corey Herzog, 28, an independent-turned-Democrat in the traditionally conservative town of Celina, Ohio. Herzog works at Walmart during the day and bartends at night, all while building out a small side business selling house plants.

John Della Volpe, a pollster who regularly surveys U.S. youth for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, said the whiplash over the past two elections suggests that young voters aren’t a generation of Democrats or Republicans.

“They’re up for grabs,” he said. “Especially given the state of the economy and their concerns about the future.”

In 2024, Trump won over young men. This year, many sat out or backed Democrats

To win back the presidency two years ago, Trump courted young men who felt disillusioned by economic stagnation, interventionist foreign policy and the government’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. He attended football games and UFC matches and appeared on podcasts with comedians who rebuffed “cancel culture.”

More than half of male voters under 30 supported him in 2024, according to AP VoteCast.

But once in office, Trump started the war with Iran and rammed through tariff policies that continued to drive up inflation. He also resisted releasing documents about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and launched an immigration crackdown that faced widespread criticism.

“This was the perfect cocktail for disaster,” said Charlie Sabgir, director of the Washington-based Young Men Research Project.

Young voters’ unhappiness on every major issue in the midterm election was palpable. Voters under 30 were more likely than older age groups to say the cost of living was crucial for their vote for Congress, and to say the U.S. was wrong to take military action against Iran.

About half of young voters said they were angry about the way things were going in the U.S. today, compared with only about one-third of voters 65 and older.

The anti-Trump backlash was particularly strong among young voters

Even in a year when anti-Trump backlash was one of the major themes, young voters stood out.

Only about one-quarter of voters under 30 said Trump is a strong leader or has the mental capacity to serve effectively as president, according to The AP Voter Poll. That’s a sharp contrast with 2024, when about half of voters under 30 felt Trump was a strong leader and mentally fit. The decline was larger than in any other age group.

“This cultural coalition and cultural cache that Trump had behind him going into 2024 — they’ve clearly soured on him,” Sabgir said.

About 6 in 10 voters under 30 said one reason for their House vote was to express opposition to Trump.

A national consortium of college Republican groups put out a statement making their dissatisfaction clear, writing that young Republicans “were not given what they were promised.”

“In the wake of last night’s election results, the College Republican Patriot Coalition unequivocally lays the blame for the greatest Republican defeat by Democrats since 1974 at the feet of the Trump administration and the Republican Party,” the group said in a statement.

Kidus Girma, campaigns director for the left-leaning Sunrise Movement, said that while he was knocking on doors in Michigan, he met young men who may not typically turn out in a midterm election but did this time because they were disappointed by Trump.

He recalled one person who complained that he was struggling to find a job even though Trump was insisting the economy is going great.

“It’s like this deep disillusionment with the statements the president makes versus the material impacts people are facing in their everyday lives,” Girma said.

Gen Z voters get their ‘millennial optimism’ moment. But to keep them, Democrats must deliver

Sarah Stull, an 18-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin, thought it was funny that so many of her classmates spent Halloween dressed up as “millennial optimism,” wearing skinny jeans and infinity scarves with grins on their faces to satirize the elder generation for being unabashedly hopeful.

Stull got the joke. Like others her age, she described herself as “very sarcastic, very jaded — and do sometimes expect the worst.”

But Tuesday night, sitting in a dorm room with friends watching election results stream in, that all went out the window.

“We were freaking out, all of us were crying,” said the young Democrat, who voted for James Talarico for Senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor. “I just felt this sense of community that I had never felt before.”

She posted a video of herself and friends on TikTok, literally jumping for joy outside the Texas Capitol, captioning it “millennial optimism cause texas went blue.”

Young adults like Stull — who was 7 when Trump rode down the escalator in New York’s Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his first presidential campaign — have only ever known “the Trumpification of politics,” said Katherine Haenschen, a political science and communication professor at Northeastern University. Now that era seems to be coming to a close, bringing hope for the first time to left-leaning young people.

But it’s a fragile moment.

Dakota Hall, executive director of the progressive youth political organization Alliance for Youth Action, said he thinks young voters could shift to the right again if Democrats leading Congress don’t do enough to lower the cost of living, regulate AI and address government corruption.

“Young people have a very short leash,” Hall said. “If you do not deliver, ’28 will be a rough road ahead.”

Swenson, Rankin and Thomson-Deveaux write for the Associated Press. Rankin reported from Raleigh, N.C.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will induct former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, retired San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, the musician Joni Mitchell, the band Metallica and actors Edward Asner and Robin Williams to the California Hall of Fame next month.

The list includes a total of 18 Californians selected by the governor and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, for their contributions to film, viticulture, sports, dining, art, literature, music, education, politics and business.

“This historic class reflects the very best of California and what’s possible when people have the courage to think big and make a difference,” Newsom said in a statement. “Their legacy will inspire the next generation to keep pushing boundaries and showing the world what Californians can do.”

The California Hall of Fame began in 2006 under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over 180 inductees, who are required to live in California for at least five years, have been recognized over the last 20 years.

This year’s inductees include:

• The late Edward Asner, the first actor to win Emmys for playing the same role, Lou Grant, in both a comedy and a drama and a former president of the Screen Actors Guild.
• Andy Beckstoffer, a vineyard owner and leader in American viticulture, whom the governor is honoring for “pioneering precision farming technologies and advancing farm worker equity, he helped reshape vineyard stewardship and the industry’s economics.”

  

  Barry Bonds attends the 2025 BBWAA Dinner at New York Hilton Midtown.

  (Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)

• Barry Bonds, the left fielder who played 15 seasons with the San Francisco Giants. Bonds holds MLB records for career and single season home runs, and the most National League MVP Awards, among other baseball accolades.
• The late Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time National Park Service ranger who retired at age 100 and “inspired generations by bringing history to life through her own experiences of segregation and resilience.”
• Dominique Crenn, the celebrated chef and co-owner of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco and the first woman chef in the United States to earn three Michelin stars.
• Guillermo del Toro, the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
• Shepard Fairey, the street and graphic artist best known for his 2008 portrait of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
• Maxine Hong Kingston, an author and the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award, National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts.
• The late Diane Ladd, a three-time Academy Award nominated actress, the mother of actor Laura Dern and a 30-year member of the SAG-AFTRA National Board.

  

  Rock star Huey Lewis.

  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

• Huey Lewis, the musican and frontman of the Grammy Award-winning band Huey Lewis and the News.
• The late Felicitas Méndez, an advocate for public education who challenged Mexican American student segregation.
• Metallica, the San Francisco rock band that has sold 125 million albums worldwide and is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• Joni Mitchell, the acclaimed singer and songwriter and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

  

  Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks to the media Tuesday in Washington.

  (Aaron Schwartz / Getty Images)

• Nancy Pelosi, the Bay Area politician who served nearly four decades in Congress and became the first woman elected speaker of the House.
• Bonnie Raitt, the 13-time Grammy Award winner and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• The late Rob and Michele Reiner, who the governor’s office said “built careers in entertainment while collaborating on public education and civil rights initiatives in California.”
• Susie Tompkins Buell, the co-founder of the brands Esprit and the North Face, who is being recognized for her work that “challenged the notion that business success and social responsibility were separate pursuits, pairing extraordinary growth with progressive workplace practices and socially conscious marketing.”
• Robin Williams, the late actor, comedian, Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy winner.

NEW YORK — Two Democratic senators are launching an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress about his reason for a 2019 trip to Samoa after the Associated Press and the Guardian published documents in August refuting his testimony.

The new inquiry is one of a vast array of investigations planned into the Trump administration after Democrats regained control of the House and the Senate from Republicans in the midterm elections.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said in a letter Wednesday to Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group known for anti-vaccine activism that was formerly chaired by Kennedy, that they were starting an investigation.

The lawmakers asked the group for a broad range of documents related to Kennedy’s Samoa travel, his 2024 presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process. The letter also requested all communications between the group and federal government officials since President Trump’s second term began in January 2025. The senators gave the group a deadline of Dec. 4 to comply.

AP and Guardian reporting in August showed that while Kennedy repeatedly told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation last year that his visit to Samoa before a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines,” a letter he sent to the Samoan prime minister ahead of the trip on Children’s Health Defense letterhead showed otherwise. In the letter, Kennedy used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

“We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children,” Wyden and Alsobrooks wrote in their letter. “We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the Senate’s ability to fulfill its constitutional duties.”

The Department of Health and Human Services has maintained that the Samoa visit “was unrelated to vaccines.” In response to an AP inquiry in August, it said “any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”

Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing. Knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence regardless of whether a person is under oath, though it is rarely prosecuted.

Spokespeople for Children’s Health Defense and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Wyden is expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee, which has oversight into Kennedy’s health department, when Democrats retake Congress in January. Alsobrooks serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which also oversees the department.

The same senators on Wednesday announced a separate investigation into hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts reportedly given last year to Kennedy by a donor and former employee.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

Credit agency Fitch Ratings has dealt another blow to the troubled Skylink people mover train at Los Angeles International Airport, downgrading the project’s debt deeper into junk bond territory over the continued inability of the contractor and city’s airport department to complete the project.

The downgrade — to B-, from BB four months ago — “reflects the near certainty” that contractor LINXS won’t have the 2.25-mile train running by Dec. 8, leading to a “technical event of default and could give rights to either LINXS or Los Angeles World Airports … to issue project termination notices,” Fitch said in a report this week.

“It’s an uncommon action of severity,” Fitch analyst Seth Lehman told The Times. “We were under the view that there was a fair amount of cushion for LAWA and LINXS to settle on disputes, or for LINXS to show that they can have the trains run safely per this reliability test.”

The contractor has already said the train won’t be ready until February 2027 — or even later. In a statement to The Times Thursday, a spokesperson said that “LINXS remains committed to working with LAWA to successfully deliver the Automated People Mover and provide a world-class transportation system for the Los Angeles region.”

LINXS, an acronym for LAX Integrated Express Solutions, is a consortium that includes Fluor, Balfour Beatty, Alstom Transport USA, ACS Infrastructure Development, HNTB, Dragaos USA. LINXS declined comment beyond the statement.

LAWA officials had no immediate comment on the latest bond downgrade.

The deadline for the train’s completion is Dec. 8. While the airport or the contractor could technically terminate the contract at that time, Lehman noted that there’s a 120-day buffering period to allow for additional time to settle issues.

“After you get past that date, then the question becomes: Will both sides still want to work with each other, or just decide to find a path toward separation?” Lehman said about the months-long grace period.

The contractor and city airport officials have long been at odds.

LINXS filed a complaint against the city over the summer blaming the airport for the delays. Last month, the airport disputed multiple claims that the contractor made in its monthly brief on the project. And meetings between chief executives for the contractor, airport officials and others that began last year stopped in August.

Though officials say the project is 99% done, there are multiple unresolved issues. Agreements to implement solar energy on the project have not been signed with the city’s water and power departments, and the cause of technical problems with the train are still under investigation, according to a recent report from the contractor’s technical advisor.

In order for the train to run, it must undergo 30-days of consecutive testing without substantial issues and get sign-off from the airport and an outside assessor. That month-long testing period has continued to restart.

The $3.3 billion train is the most-anticipated feature of the airport’s $30 billion overhaul. It was initially slated to open in 2023 — before the World Cup and the Super Bowl and long before the 2028 Olympics. It’s now three years behind schedule and more than $1 billion beyond its original construction budget. When it does open, the airport said it will shuttle travelers between terminals, parking lots, the LAX/Metro Transit Center and a new rideshare lot.

Lehman noted that the train is hardly a novel project as many major airports have one, making the delays at LAX all the more confounding.

“Each time there’s a path towards opening, there’s a setback,” he said.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that she views her defeat in the Nov. 3 election as part of a much larger political phenomenon, with voters across the nation demanding change at every level of government.

Bass, 73, said Mayor-elect Nithya Raman’s win was, at least in part, the result of “a wave that took place around the country.”

“This happens every five or six years, that voters get in a space where they just want everything new,” she said. “And I think that what happened here was part of that.”

Bass made her remarks while appearing at the opening of a new 140-bed interim housing facility in North Hills, which will provide homeless people with medical referrals, job counseling and help with finding an apartment.

It was the first open-press public event scheduled by the mayor’s office since Bass called Raman, a city councilmember and onetime ally, to concede the race.

Raman, who takes office on Dec. 14, won with nearly 55% of the vote, compared to about 45% for Bass, according to the most recent results.

Her victory dealt Bass, a former state Assembly Speaker and six-term member of Congress, her first election defeat in a political career that spanned more than two decades.

“Obviously I was disappointed in the results,” Bass said after the event. “But the results are the results.”

Bass became mayor in 2022 and immediately made the fight against homelessness a cornerstone of her administration. She declared a local emergency on homelessness on her first day in office and soon afterward launched Inside Safe, which moves homeless people into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing.

Although Raman supported those efforts for much of Bass’ tenure, she criticized the program on the campaign trail, calling it expensive and ineffective.

Although Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people indoors, nearly 43% of the program’s participants had returned to the street by Sept. 1, according to figures issued by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

Despite those setbacks, Bass told reporters in North Hills that she feels good about her administration’s progress in addressing the crisis, saying her office established L.A.’s first citywide strategy for addressing homeless encampments.

During Thursday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, San Fernando Valley civic leaders thanked Bass for putting a priority on homelessness.

“It’s a hard, hard issue to solve, and we’re going to be working on it for awhile,” said Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, while addressing the mayor. “But you have moved it forward leaps and bounds.”

Bass, a Democrat, did express delight with the election results in other parts of the country, particularly in Mississippi, where voters elected the first Black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction.

“I was very happy for the election nationally. Obviously, I’d prefer different results here,” she said. “But you know, the fact that now Democrats are in control of both the Senate and the House means that we’ll be able to put a check on the president, which is something that has been needed.”

Asked what she intends to do next, Bass said she has “so many ideas.”

Another run for political office isn’t one of them.

“You understand never to say never,” she added. “Right now, I can’t imagine it.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday pulled Vice President JD Vance away from negotiations with Iran, suggesting that the United States no longer needs to pursue a deal to end the Middle East conflict and instead directing Vance to turn his attention to corruption in states run by Democrats.

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got the Strait!”

In the same post, Trump said he asked Vance, who has played a central role in talks with Tehran, to “focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States.” He singled out California, Minnesota and Illinois, calling them “poorly run, corrupt disasters.”

The reassignment came as Vance and other Republicans have blamed the Iran war for the party’s sweeping losses in last week’s midterm elections. The morning after the election, Vance wrote in a lengthy social media post that “the reason we lost is the war.”

“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was worthwhile cost to pay,” Vance wrote. “Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost.”

Trump insisted the post had not damaged their relationship, telling reporters last week that “a lot of people didn’t like his comments,” but that he didn’t mind them.

A White House official on Thursday said the United States remains in a “very strong position” in negotiations with Iran, citing a naval blockade and control of the Strait of Hormuz — even though there is evidence that struggles continue over the key oil route.

“President Trump holds all the cards, will do what is best for the United States, and will make sure that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” the official said.

Trump’s decision to pull away Vance from the talks was among a flurry of social media posts he fired off early Thursday morning that conveyed the president has little appetite for changing course nine days after voters rebuked his policies, in large part due to economic struggles triggered by the war.

President Trump speaks during an event Wednesday to mark Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

In a series of posts that began around 6 a.m., Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on Mexico, called for the prosecution of Democratic lawmakers he has previously threatened, declared that Democrats were “CORRUPT AND EVIL” and claimed without evidence that they had won the midterms by cheating.

Trump also claimed an “invasion” of migrants was coming from Mexico in “huge CARAVANS,” returning to language he used to rally his base shortly after taking office. And at one point, he even cast doubt over this year’s election results, calling it a “perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms.”

It was yet another sign that Trump wanted to double down on the very issues that exit polls showed voters rejected on election day. His posts were a departure from a more reflective tone Trump had struck in the hours after the midterms, when he congratulated Democrats for their victories and conceded that his immigration policies and the war had played a role in his party’s losses.

“Congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years and they finally got it,” the president told Fox News on the night of the election.

But, he added: “I don’t view it as a hit on me. I think we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the president in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.”

Democrats won at least 55 seats in the Senate and are projected to have control of at least 255 seats in the House, flipping seats in Republican strongholds like Kansas and Mississippi — a stunning sweep that Republicans have warned could take years to recover from.

In the days since the election, Trump has taken an aggressive approach to fighting the new Democratic majorities.

The White House’s top lawyers on Wednesday warned of the possibility of criminal inquiries into House Democrats who investigate Trump when they assume power next year.

He also attacked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is expected to lead Democrats in the Senate, for saying he wants to address corruption in the United States. Schumer has said this in reference to dealings within the Trump administration.

“I assume he is referring to Democrat run Blue States such as California, Minnesota, Illinois, Maine and New York,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully his words will ring true! It will be an honor to work with him on this very big Democrat problem that, when solved, will literally balance the Budget of the U.S.”

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given a top award to the service member who scolded him and his staff at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier following a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

On social media Thursday, Hegseth posted photos that show him pinning the award and shaking hands with a soldier. His post says, “We love soldiers. We love standards. Well done, Specialist.”

Hegseth welcomed to the Pentagon the Army unit that guards the tomb and awarded Spc. Thomas Iglesias with the Joint Service Commendation Medal “for the execution of his duties at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on November 11, 2026,” the Pentagon said.

Iglesias reprimanded Hegseth and a group of his staffers when a loud laugh was heard after they took photos at the site following a ceremony that included President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Video showed Hegseth taking photos on the empty steps in front of the tomb on Wednesday with his wife, Jennifer, chief of staff Ricky Buria, deputy chief of staff Patrick Weaver and senior adviser Tami Radabaugh.

The tomb is considered to be one of the most solemn and revered war memorials in the U.S., being the final resting place of unidentified soldiers from World War I, World War II and the Korean War. It has been guarded around the clock — rain or shine — by a soldier from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Old Guard,” since 1948.

The Joint Service Commendation Medal is considered to be one of the higher awards in the military and is not typically issued to junior enlisted service members.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, said soon after video of the reprimand emerged that the soldier “correctly and respectfully reminded everyone to maintain decorum.”

The scolding drew attention once more to the embattled defense secretary, who had survived an impeachment attempt the day before.

The effort was led by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and backed by Democrats. While Hegseth’s critics were not successful in Tuesday’s vote, Republicans may have only delayed a bid to impeach him. With Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate in January, those efforts are likely to be renewed.

Hegseth rebuked the move Tuesday in his first news conference in months, arguing that he had committed none of the high crimes required in the Constitution for his removal and framing the effort as an indictment against the nation’s service members and their successes.

“This is not patriotism,” Hegseth argued. “This is sabotage.”

Toropin writes for the Associated Press.

FORT RUCKER, Ala. — There’s a scene in Melania Trump’s documentary in which she enters the room as Donald Trump is rehearsing his inaugural address.

When he says the line about how “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” she offers a quick, verbal edit.

“Peacemaker and unifier,” she tells her husband to say instead.

But Melania is the Trump who is credited with recently bringing peace, if only for six days, to one war-torn city in southern Ukraine — an unusual intervention into an active war by an American first lady. Two days after Republican losses in the midterm elections knocked the president out of the spotlight, Melania Trump hosted Russian and Ukrainian officials at the White House to celebrate the temporary ceasefire.

It’s part of a burst of public activity by a first lady regarded as among the most private women to hold the role, and it comes just before the Nov. 20 release by Prime Video of “Melania: The Series,” a follow-up to the first lady’s documentary from January.

On Thursday, the first lady headed to Alabama to address U.S. troops — her third big event since the election. It follows a trip to Louisiana last weekend to announce a multimillion-dollar private endowment to fund scholarships for college students once in foster care.

Military families are a focus for Melania Trump

The first lady has made support for military families part of her portfolio. Her latest trip has taken her to Fort Rucker, an Army post in southern Alabama, with Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, a former Marine.

Before a backdrop that included a duo of Apache and Blackhawk helicopters, both women during the early Thanksgiving visit on Thursday thanked an assembly of hundreds of soldiers and their families for their service to the nation.

“The sacrifices of military families don’t make the headlines, but you are the foundation for the world’s most capable military,” Melania Trump said, urging Americans who will spend the holidays with loved ones to “take a moment to think of America’s service people.”

After their remarks, both women spoke with members of the crowd, pausing to shake hands and take photos.

Later, they would spend time with elementary students attending school on the base. Last year, both women marked the Thanksgiving season with a similar visit to Marine Corps members in North Carolina, thanking them for their service and recognizing the sacrifices their families make.

On Wednesday, they both accompanied their husbands to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, for the annual Veterans Day observance.

Melania Trump says she was involved in the plans for Oleshky

The White House announced in late October that the first lady had brokered a temporary ceasefire in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine as it faced a starvation crisis. The pause gave time for about 800 people to leave the city and allowed for deliveries of humanitarian aid to those who chose to stay.

On Thursday, Usha Vance called the first lady “a powerful voice for peace.” Last week, Melania Trump brought together at the White House officials from Russia and Ukraine who helped implement the ceasefire and talked about her role.

“I was involved in every stage of the planning,” she said. “I reviewed demining plans, aerial images, assessed roadways and discussed evacuation routes, hospital access, vehicles and medical resources. I was made aware of the preferred dates and timing of the operation.”

She thanked the Russian and Ukrainian presidents for their cooperation and said Oleshky could be the model for peace between their countries.

“Let Oleshky be the modest spark that grows into a lasting flame of peace,” she said. This week U.S. officials held talks with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in the United Arab Emirates, but there was no breakthrough.

After the White House announced her role, President Trump said his wife is “doing better than the professionals” on his team whose shuttle diplomacy between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has yet to bring the nearly 5-year-old war to a close.

Her work on Oleshky followed her outreach to Putin last year as she took on the matter of helping reunite children and families separated by the war. She so far has helped return nearly three dozen children to their families.

She’ll be on the red carpet for a premiere of the Melania series

The first lady will head to New York City next week for the world premiere at Lincoln Center of “Melania: The Series.” The two new Prime Video episodes are billed as showing new aspects of her roles as wife, mother and first lady that weren’t in her documentary.

The first lady described the episodes in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” as having “more conversation, one-on-one, with me.”

The episodes, which begin streaming Nov. 20, are supposed to include some surprises, too.

“There are some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before,” she said in the interview. “So it’s kind of exciting.”

Superville writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Meg Kinnard contributed from Columbia, S.C.

Los Angeles is going to get more expensive next year thanks to a half-cent sales tax hike approved by voters last week, but city officials say the benefit will be a stronger fire department and faster response times.

Measure FD will generate about $345 million annually for the city Fire Department by raising the city’s retail sales tax from 10.25% to 10.75%, which is about 5 cents more for every $10 spent.

That means filling up the gas tank, eating out and shopping for clothes will all get more expensive — to the tune of roughly $86 per person on average, according to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which opposed the measure.

The ordinance requires a 110-day waiting period after the votes are certified on Nov. 27, and won’t kick in until the first day of the next calendar quarter, so the earliest people could see the increase would be April 1.

The sales tax hike was spearheaded by the city’s firefighters union and Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the Pacific Palisades community devastated by fire in January 2025.

The measure passed by roughly a 54% to 46% margin, according to the latest tally, although some mail-in ballots are still being counted.

L.A. firefighters had warned their department was in crisis long before the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire in Altadena cast a brighter light on the issue, Park said.

“These matters were urgent before, but the Palisades fire laid bare how urgent it was that this investment be made,” Park said. “The reality that it was not going to be solved inside the four walls of the city budget or by politicians inside City Hall.”

The sales tax is an unprecedented move by the city, and vital for the department to hire more personnel, open more stations and lower the department’s response times, said Doug Coates, the fire union president.

The Fire Department says its response time averages just under eight minutes — nearly double the national standards set by the National Fire Protection Assn., an international nonprofit that creates and maintains fire safety standards.

The number of firefighters in the department has stayed largely stagnant since the 1960s, according to the fire department, even as the city’s population grew. City officials say some fire stations have leaky roofs and broken HVAC systems. Broken rigs have sat unused because there was no money to fix them, Park said.

Coates said the union pushed for the sales tax as a last resort, following years of pleas to the City Council for more money, even though it would be the third sales tax hike affecting Los Angeles since 2024 (the other two sales tax hikes were countywide).

“When they call, we show up,” Coates said. “Now it appears that, really, they’ve answered our call for help.”

The Police Protective League, the union representing L.A. police officers, opposed Measure FD, objecting to the permanency of the tax and that the revenue is limited to one department. The PPL expressed concern that the extra funding would be used to spike firefighter pensions. Voters were misled into believing the tax would focus on revamping the fire department’s infrastructure, said Sgt. Chris Wecker, the union’s vice president.

The union pointed to a motion written by Councilmember Heather Hutt and Councilmember Park in May, which sought to explore giving firefighters extra pension credit for mandatory overtime.

“We would support the exploration of a tax repeal measure on a future ballot that would allow enough time for voters to be educated about this bait-and-switch pension spiking scheme and give them an opportunity to cut their taxes,” Wecker said.

Coates said that motion had nothing to do with Measure FD and asked only for a study into what additional costs the city would undertake if extra shifts firefighters are forced to take on were pensionable.

“The attacks on this motion and Measure FD were misguided and just flat out incorrect,” Coates said. “It will not spike pension benefits in any way, shape or form.”

The sales tax revenue from Measure FD will be in addition to the money the department already receives from the city’s general fund, which Coates said was a crucial factor in winning voter support. The sales tax will continue unless it’s repealed by voters, according to the ordinance.

The fire union hopes city residents will notice a change in the department within a year, Coates said.

L.A. Fire Chief Jaime Moore said the department will prioritize recruiting and hiring more firefighters, repairing existing equipment — a task that could exceed $9 million — and undergoing critical station repairs. The new pool of money will also be used to expand dispatch centers and eventually build more fire stations, Moore said in a presentation to the City Council last month.

Another critical issue the department hopes to address is hiring more personnel to reduce delays in hiring and training new firefighters, Moore said.

The department will also begin a process to identify where new stations are needed. With the 106 active stations, firefighters can reach just under half the city within four minutes. The department will utilize operational data to determine where new stations fit best.

The funds must be used for eligible core fire department services. The department will separately track Measure FD revenue, create dashboards to monitor all expenditures and provide quarterly reports to the City Council to ensure transparency, Moore said.

The measure also requires a citizen oversight committee that will review the department’s spending of this money.

“This is the biggest deal in the Los Angeles Fire Department. We couldn’t be more grateful to the citizens of L.A. for helping us pass this,” Coates said. “The men and women in the field are ecstatic that change is coming, and we’re going to be able to better respond to the residents of L.A.”

Measure FD was one of eight measures on the Nov. 3 Los Angeles city ballot, all of which were approved by voters. Other measures will allow the City Council to meet once a week and allow it to disband the Board of Public Works, and allocate more money to the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Voters also approved a measure that exempts Palisades fire victims from paying the so-called mansion tax if they sell their properties within five years of the disaster.

Seriously, one week, Democrats?

You couldn’t have kept our hope for a revived democracy alive a little longer? You couldn’t pretend to have a spine, or leadership, respect for voters, or even just a plan — for more than seven days?

On the first Tuesday after the blue tsunami supposedly restored the checks and balances of our government, barely 170 hours into this shift of power, a vote to stop Republicans from burying an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was tanked by … Democrats. Eleven of them, to be precise, who didn’t show up to cast their vote in the House, thereby letting the impeachment effort be rolled into an early grave in the committee process.

New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, one of the Absent 11, had this to say about getting stuck in traffic on her way back from a Democratic cocktail party and missing the vote: “There is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me that I was not here that the moment that gavel dropped.”

Actually, Mel, there is.

In fact, there are millions of folks more disappointed in you than you are — in all Democrats, for that matter. Not only are they disappointed, they’re rightfully angry, which is a major, magical feat when seven days ago, America was embracing the Democratic Party in a way it hasn’t in more than a decade. It’s actually impressive Democrats could screw up so badly, so quickly.

So what really went wrong? Were Republicans just too organized? Democrats sloppy? Should the 11 be held responsible, or is it a larger Democrat mess?

Or did, as Stansbury explained, a slow-rolling bus really just destroy the Democrats’ comeback?

The California 3

Three of the Absent 11 were Californians, so let’s take a look at that. Santa Ana’s Lou Correa knew in advance he wouldn’t be at the vote for medical reasons. On Monday, he told media that he was having a surgery and couldn’t travel — but he didn’t think he would be missing much.

“Other than the [Pete] Hegseth impeachment, there’s nothing else,” Correa said in an interview, adding that he supported impeachment of the Defense secretary.

But it turned out he had a heart attack and Tuesday needed emergency open-heart surgery, so fair. Correa gets a pass.

Democratic standard-bearer Nancy Pelosi was also in California instead of Congress, having flown back that day. Surely, this lioness of the left must have a good reason?

“Speaker Emerita Pelosi returned to San Francisco to join and honor local veterans at Swords to Plowshares’ 30th Annual Veterans Day Celebration tonight, an important and longstanding district tradition she regularly attends and will mark for the last time as a Member of Congress by receiving the Lifetime Advocate for Veterans Award,” her spokesperson told SFGate.

“We could never do enough” to honor veterans, she said at that event.

Sure, great, OK. Like you know, protecting them from an amateurish “secretary of War” who has decimated the leadership ranks of the military and is being accused of perhaps ordering extrajudicial killings?

And what about Julia Brownley, the soon-to-retire Westlake Village congresswoman who was also absent?

She posted on Facebook that “Hegseth is one of the most incompetent, corrupt, and underqualified Secretaries of Defense in the history of our nation.”

But, as she “and many of my colleagues were rushing to the floor to support Hegseth’s impeachment, [Speaker] Mike Johnson closed the vote before we could.”

D’oh!

I sent multiple emails to her office asking why she was so late, but didn’t receive a response. Other outlets have indicated she was stuck in traffic too.

Regardless of gridlock, as another Californian — Los Angeles Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove — put it, it was “shameful” to miss the vote.

“We knew that this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote,” she said. “There is no reason why we should have lost this vote because of attendance issues.”

But was it really the Absent 11’s fault?

Leadership vacuum

Multiple news outlets have reported that the postelection celebration that pulled so many party members away from Congress and into traffic was also attended by Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts. The whip, for those who don’t know, is the party member elected to herd the rest into voting.

The Wall Street Journal reported Clark left the party early because she heard about the logjam and didn’t want to miss the vote — but apparently didn’t tell her colleagues?

At a Wednesday morning meeting, Clark apparently expressed her disappointment that her fellow Congress members didn’t show up, which, again, is her responsibility to ensure that they do. One job, Madame Whip, one job.

But maybe it wasn’t Clark’s fault either?

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who would very much like to become House speaker and probably will, had earlier declared himself a “hard yes” on impeaching Hegseth.

But critics, especially on the progressive left, are attacking him for failing to round up support on this vote — there was, apparently, no be-there-or-face-consequences message.

Jeffries has been criticized in the past for seemingly failing to understand just how anxious the Democratic base is for action, and failing to keep his party on track. He’s also been criticized as a less-than-dynamic communicator.

It’s more than possible that Democrats didn’t think this was the right time to impeach Hegseth, with the articles introduced by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. The impeachment effort was somewhat doomed in the House from the start, and the Senate, where an impeachment trial would be held, is for now still Republican dominated.

Maybe Jeffries is playing chess, opting for strategy over optics.

The real lesson

But it’s irrelevant whether this was strategy or screw-up — it’s a sour start. The Democrats just proved in short order that they do not understand this moment in American politics, and they are really, really bad at communicating.

Both of those are politically deadly. If Democrats, or the leadership under Jeffries, thought that this vote didn’t matter to the public or that it wasn’t the best way to go, they were wrong.

Whether this impeachment was going to be successful or just symbolic, it was the symbol voters wanted. It was an easy way for Democrats to show they heard the message from this election and were taking voters seriously.

If there was indeed a masterful backroom political strategy to not voting, Democrats needed to communicate that in advance. Before they put a knife in Massie’s back and ours, there needed to be solid, clear messaging about why the blade was for the greater good. Because, seriously, Hegseth is unqualified and dangerous.

This debacle does not bode well for what comes in the next session of Congress. Voters didn’t elect Democrats to play secretive games, to plot and plan in the dark for future moves, or worse — to continue the status quo of wandering around in disarray as Republicans stay in lockstep.

Seven days, Democrats. I’ve bought fish that lasted longer.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: She claimed to be a rich L.A. aerospace heiress. Now she’s hiding from police in Dubai, FBI says
The California angle: What Becerra’s historic win says about Latino political power in California
The L.A. Times Special: Xavier Becerra makes history as California’s first elected Latino governor

Stay Golden,

Anita Chabria

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Stephen Miller was already one of the most powerful people in Washington when he stepped in to replace Susie Wiles as President Trump’s chief of staff on Monday, a position that expands his extraordinary influence over the hard-charging executive.

But whether the bellicose former Santa Monica High School Viking can make good on his muscular threats as Trump’s new right-hand man remains an open question — one the courts have begun to answer, even as pundits disagree.

“The single biggest takeaway of this whole announcement is what it symbolizes and the message it sends to Democrats,” said Josh Hammer, senior counsel for the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy organization that promises to “bring brass knuckles to fight leftist lawfare.”

Miller has long sought to jail journalists, undermine the authority of judges, surge armed soldiers into American streets and suspend the writ of habeas corpus, a legal process that allows immigrants to challenge their detention.

But despite his “Darth Vader Sith lord persona,” Hammer said, the new White House chief of staff may find himself hemmed in by the role of a bureaucrat.

“I can’t imagine anything like that is remotely under consideration,” Hammer said. “He’d be the first to admit that he’s essentially there as an operative.”

Many critics echoed that assessment, with caveats.

“Stephen Miller has been calling a lot of the shots already,” said Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The combination of his elevation and the shake-up in the national security division at the Justice Department suggests that we might be in for a rocky ride in the remaining two years of the administration.”

Still, Miller’s power to avenge the president may be limited after his party was pummeled in the midterms.

The drubbing has already put the pair at odds over Miller’s much-maligned mass deportation program, which Trump acknowledged “was too tough,” in an interview Sunday with Ross Douthat on “60 Minutes.”

“I’d love to do something on immigration,” Trump said. “I think that’s something that’s actually doable.”

That could inflame Miller, the effort’s architect.

“This is his baby,” Hammer said. “I’m sure he’ll be poring over the data to try to talk the president out of” walking it back.

Miller also faces growing opposition from the courts to his wish list, with recent appellate decisions on press leaks and military deployments breaking in his opponents’ favor.

In October, one of Trump’s 9th Circuit Court nominees joined a Biden pick in quashing any future attempt to federalize National Guard troops without invoking the Insurrection Act — a move the president has regularly threatened but never yet followed through on.

Then, on Tuesday, a 4th Circuit panel ruled the Justice Department could not compel LinkedIn to hand over a trove of records that the department hoped would help it ferret out leaks, noting that “press freedom is among those things viewed by autocrats worldwide as a threat to their grip on power.”

“This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area,” Brown said. “The court recognized that confidential sources are the ‘lifeblood’ of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law.”

Miller has also floated removing “crazy communist” federal judges or suspending the right of habeas corpus, which has increasingly been used by immigrants held in federal detention facilities to petition judges to order their release.

President Lincoln took the extraordinary step of suspending habeas corpus in order to detain Confederate sympathizers, spies and saboteurs during the U.S. Civil War — a move that earned him the epithet “King Lincoln” and spurred bitter court fights and ugly battles in Congress.

Miller has argued that Trump has the authority to suspend the law because immigrants arriving at the border constitute an “invasion” — a legally dubious claim, especially as the president likes to boast that the border is more secure than ever.

Miller would face almost insurmountable opposition from both the Supreme Court and a newly Democratic Congress, both of which are likely to argue the power to impeach judges or suspend basic rights belong to Capitol Hill, experts said.

“You can’t just fire a federal judge because you don’t like what they’re doing,” said retired U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of Keep Our Republic’s Article III Coalition. “One of the reasons we went to war with Britain is because the king kept firing judges because he didn’t like their rulings.”

Sowing distrust in the judiciary and sweeping judges off the bench have become a go-to play for autocrats in countries such as Turkey and Hungary, he said. Similar attempts have sparked widespread street protests in Israel and Mexico in recent years.

“It’s not like we’re the only country where these kinds of conflicts come up, but what’s unique about us is we probably have stronger guardrails,” Fogel said.

He and others worried the rough-and-tumble rhetorical style Miller helped define could continue to cause problems, even if legal efforts to remove judges or muzzle journalists fail.

“When judges are called rogues or radicals, not long after that you start seeing memes on social media saying that person should be dead,” Fogel said.

“I’m sure the debasement of journalists will continue,” Brown agreed. “That threat continues to be the highest priority.”

Despite Miller’s pugnacious pronouncements, his best bet may be quiet backroom dealing to consolidate what remains of Republican power — including efforts to push through confirmation of Trump’s pending judicial nominees before the end of the year.

“At a bare minimum, the pending lower court nominations have to be confirmed — it should be the lowest of the low-hanging fruit,” Hammer said. “Now’s really the time. This is the race.”

There are currently 11 District Court nominees pending, and more than a dozen additional vacancies Trump could struggle to fill once the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

After that, pundits predict a flurry of official inquiries that could sweep up many top administration officials, including Miller himself.

“Stephen Miller is at the center of the major policy decisions happening in the administration,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who will head the House Oversight Committee next year. “We believe he’s been at the center of actions that are unconstitutional, unjust and possibly illegal, so we’re of course going to investigate that.”

Ahead of the November elections, candidates in Arizona seized on one issue like never before: water.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ran ads touting her record, saying: “Those before me didn’t protect our water, so I tackled the problem.” She handily won reelection.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs share the stage during a Democratic rally in Phoenix.

(Rebecca Noble / Getty Images)

Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes also made water a central issue, saying in a campaign ad: “If it’s Arizona’s water, I’ll always fight to protect it.” She similarly trounced her Republican challenger.

The surge in water-focused campaigning reflects growing concerns among voters about the shrinking Colorado River and chronic overpumping of groundwater.

“Water is now among the very top issues,” said Christopher Kuzdas, the Environmental Defense Fund’s water program director in Arizona. “People increasingly relate water to their ability to make choices about their future — the opportunity to stay in a place and build a life.”

The subject has become top-of-mind for many as the desert state braces for more cuts to its allotment of Colorado River water. Arizona recently joined a lawsuit by Nevada against the Trump administration to challenge its plan for mandatory cutbacks, arguing it would harm the state’s economy.

In California, in contrast, water was less prominent in most political campaigns.

One exception was Republican gubernatorial contender Steve Hilton, who sought to woo voters with his calls for delivering more water to farms and cities. In the Central Valley, some of his campaign signs declared: “For Water & Jobs.”

But ultimately Hilton’s calls seemed to gain little traction. Democrat Xavier Becerra won by a large margin.

Some Arizona voters have become alarmed about how out-of-state companies and investors have set up large farms in the desert where they can pump unlimited groundwater from wells, with some exporting alfalfa overseas.

Both Hobbs and Mayes have targeted a giant Saudi-owned hay farm in western Arizona, and campaigned on their efforts to rein in its heavy water use.

The governor terminated the company’s leases of state land, a deal that had included below-market rates. And Mayes is suing the company, arguing it’s causing harm by pulling up excessive amounts of water on its remaining farmland.

An irrigation system sprays an alfalfa field in December 2025 near Vicksburg, Ariz. The Saudi-owned company Fondomonte Arizona LLC has been growing alfalfa on desert farmland.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“It takes about 12 gallons of water to grow just one alfalfa plant. But there’s a Saudi-owned mega-farm in Arizona growing millions of them,” the attorney general said in one commercial. “That’s why I sued, just like I’ve sued other companies abusing Arizona’s water supply.”

The company, Fondomonte, also owns land in California. It recently said it is “committed to progressive, efficient agricultural practices,” and has invested in “the latest technology to conserve water” on its farms.

A survey earlier this year by the Center for the Future of Arizona confirmed that water has risen to the top of voters’ concerns, and that 69% do not believe the state will have enough over the long term to support people, agriculture and economic growth. The survey also found 78% want stronger protections for groundwater in rural areas — which Hobbs’ administration has begun to adopt.

Over the last four years, state officials have established three new regulated areas to limit pumping by farms where groundwater levels are dropping. Hobbs has tailored her message to indicate she isn’t anti-farming but will prioritize solutions where large farms are taking too much groundwater. In one ad, farmer Ed Curry endorsed Hobbs as a leader who is helping to address his area’s water problem.

In a post on the Environmental Defense Fund’s website, Kuzdas wrote that concerns about water have gone “from obscurity to the mainstream,” thanks in part to extensive journalism examining the subject. (He credited a 2019 Arizona Republic investigation that I wrote with then-colleague Rob O’Dell for helping to put the groundwater crisis on the agenda.)

He also credited residents who have organized and spoken out to demand change in areas where wells have run dry.

At the same time, the constant news coverage of the Colorado River’s low reservoirs over the last year has more people concerned about the state’s water future as climate change intensifies drought. By this summer, Kuzdas said he was seeing political ads on water almost every day.

He said unlike issues such as the economy or education, water tends to be a nonpartisan issue, and that makes him hopeful the state’s leaders can take bigger, more creative steps toward solutions.

“I do think that water has some traction and legs for a while as a top electoral issue,” he said, “because the challenges we face are so significant.”

A 2014 aerial view of the valley where the proposed Sites Reservoir is slated to be built near Maxwell, Calif.

(Risa Johnson / California Department of Water Resources)

More water news

California water regulators have cleared the way for construction of Sites Reservoir, the state’s first large reservoir in decades. I reported for The Times on the decision by the State Water Resources Control Board after a heated debate. Gov. Gavin Newsom and leaders of water agencies say the reservoir is vital to a modern California water system. Tribes say it will destroy sacred sites, and others argue the $7-billion project is too costly and will harm fish and the environment.

The decision followed another vote by the same board approving controversial changes to how the state controls water pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the heart of the state water system.

My L.A. Times colleague Susanne Rust wrote about alarming new research on plastic pollution. A scientist skied into remote wilderness areas of the Sierra Nevada to take samples of freshly fallen snow. Everywhere she looked, she found microplastics.

A deckhand holds a dorado aboard the sportfishing boat Dana Pride in September.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

More climate and environment news

The extremely warm ocean waters along the California coast, fueled by climate change and the strong El Niño, continue to set records and drive extraordinary shifts in fish and other marine life. Joshua Partlow writes in the Atlantic that El Niño, which has pushed the ocean temperature to 11 degrees higher than average, has brought entire tropical ecosystems north, including whale sharks, giant manta rays and reef fish.

The superheated ocean waters have been bringing dramatic transformations for months. Fedor Zarkhin reported for The Times that anglers on sportfishing boats have been catching tuna, mahi-mahi and wahoo, which aren’t usually found off Southern California. Last week, my colleague Corinne Purtill covered the news when a third olive ridley sea turtle laid its eggs in Southern California. The shifts in the ocean are also leaving victims, as thousands of emaciated seabirds have washed up dead on beaches.

Sen. Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma pushed for a provision in a permitting reform bill that would limit states’ power to block gas pipelines. As Nicholas Kusnetz and Lauren Dalban report for Inside Climate News, Armstrong could stand to gain financially.

As U.N. climate talks began in Turkey this week, Secretary-General António Guterres said in an interview with AP reporter Seth Borenstein that as global warming brings worsening heat waves, storms, floods and droughts, it’s time fossil fuel companies start paying taxes on their windfall profits to support countries grappling with the most severe effects.

“This is a moment of truths,” Guterres said. “We can no longer wait. … Everybody must do more, everybody must do more now.”

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

And catch the latest episode of the Boiling Point Podcast: This week hear film director Richard Ladkani talk about the documentary he has produced with Indigenous leader Juma Xipaia about her years of struggle to protect the forests and rivers of the Amazon.

For more news on water issues and climate change, follow Ian James @ianjames.bsky.social on Bluesky and @ByIanJames on X.

Is it too early to put up the Christmas tree?

I get it. We’re barely into November. You haven’t put away the Halloween décor yet, even though you finished eating all the leftover candy (even those off-brand Whoppers) days ago.

But for many of us, the most wonderful time of the year arrived early, on Nov. 3, with the midterm election rebuke of corruption, unnecessary wars, cruelty, racism, misogyny, taxpayer-funded vanity projects, and the soaring cost of just about everything.

Democrats flipped the House, the Senate, governorships and state houses in areas that were once as red as the stiff holiday dress mom forced you to wear to the school pageant.

And I did wear that dress, even though I’m an Ali. Muslims can be just as secular as any other faith. My dad, an Iraqi Shiite, bought a live tree every year. My mom, an Anglo Cali girl who was raised Protestant, taught him — and her kids — how to string the lights, space out the ornaments and delicately hang the tinsel rather than throw it on in clumps (chucking it was way more fun, of course).

Supporters of Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico cheer as they watch midterm election returns come in.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Christmas equaled happiness. It still does.

I’m the weirdo who listens to Christmas music year-round, particularly when times get tough. Suffice to say that over the last decade, there’s been a lot of yuletide listening in July, or May, or whenever it felt like the implosion of democracy and the rise of something much darker was too much to handle without the buoyant cheer of Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or the soothing calm of Burl Ives “Silent Night.”

They got me through a lot: The Muslim ban. Brett Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS hearing. The abortion ban. Gutting the Voting Rights Act. January 6th. Gaza. DOGE. Bombing a school in Iran. ICE sweeps, deportations and killings. The stupid ballroom. The stupid Melania documentary.

Vince Guaraldi’s “Skating” didn’t do much to stop the Big Lie or expose the contents of the Epstein Files, but it did offer a small dose of joy when there was little to be found.

There are others out there like me, who’ve let it slip that they were listening to the London Philharmonic’s “Carol of the Bells” deep into summer because they needed to. It was paramount to their mental health.

The irony is that over the years, angry readers and trolls have accused me of wanting to “cancel Christmas” because my writing, or mere existence, challenged their idea of what American faith is, or should be. As if there was only one, and everyone practiced it.

If only I’d sent them back a musical Christmas card. The tune would be Booker T. & the M.G.’s jaunty version of “Jingle Bells.” The message: “Peace on earth, good will toward men, women, and non-binary.”

Why do the best comebacks always arrive after the fact?

Before anyone takes offense, I’m wholly aware there is a much deeper meaning behind the holiday, and I respect that. My warm and fuzzy feelings for the C9 incandescent bulb and my Mr. Christmas magnetized skating rink are just that, feelings. They come in handy when a safe harbor is needed.

For example: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that the government plans to livestream an execution. Seek refuge in Johnny Mathis’ “Calypso Noel.”

Let’s get back to the tree.

Our 7.5-foot Vickerman White Spruce with 750 multicolored LED bulbs with an easy to assemble, snap-in trunk has been up the day after Thanksgiving every year since 2016, when President Trump won his first term, and my first assignment as a critic was to cover his inauguration. Like “Mame,” I just needed a little Christmas! Right that very minute!

To be fair, he had yet to prove himself. But there were clues to how bad things might get should he win: He initially declined to disavow an endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. He boasted on a hot mic about sexually assaulting women. He refused to publicly release his tax returns, as if there was something to hide.

With each passing year of MAGA toxicity, I kept the tree up a little longer and made Valentine’s Day a reasonable cut-off date.

My reasons are different for wanting to put the tree up now, well before Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas. It’s not about bringing me joy, but about reflecting how good it feels now that the country stands a chance of repairing the damage from a decade of Trumpism. MAGA is falling. Hegseth is headed toward impeachment. Tesla has ended production of the Cybertruck.

Cue the music. Plug in the tree. It’s never too early to celebrate.

Even before Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman won her campaign for mayor, residents in her Hollywood Hills district had begun talking about who might run to replace her after she’s sworn in to her new job next month.

But now, with the dust settled on Raman’s mayoral victory, community leaders have begun prepping for a different type of political fight: making sure the City Council moves forward with a special election for Raman’s seat.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said this week that the council won’t make a decision on the vacancy until next year. Raman, for her part, has not said whether she would want a special election for her 4th District seat, which stretches from Silver Lake to the west San Fernando Valley.

Anastasia Mann, president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council, said she has received numerous calls from people across Raman’s district worried the council will skip a special election and instead select someone to fill the seat until the end of 2028.

The council made a similar move several years ago, appointing legislative aide Heather Hutt to serve as a voting member after the indictment of then-Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas on corruption charges.

“We just want to have a voice. That’s the way the system is supposed to work,” Mann said. “It’s not like we have six months left in her term. We have half of the term left.”

On Wednesday, the Encino Property Owners Assn. voted unanimously to ask Raman, Harris-Dawson and the rest of the council to hold a special election so that voters can choose their next representative.

“Any other way is essentially backroom anointment,” said Rob Glushon, the group’s president. “We won’t accept an anointment.”

A coalition of neighborhood and business leaders from across the district is scheduled to meet on the issue this week.

The council has the power to call a special election for a vacant seat, installing a nonvoting caretaker in the interim, said Josué Marcus, a spokesperson for the city clerk’s office. The council also could appoint an interim replacement, one with voting power, to fill a seat until a special election is held and those results are finalized, he said.

The council also could appoint a voting member to fill the seat until the end of Raman’s term, which concludes in December 2028.

Harris-Dawson declined to say whether he has a preference for any of those options.

“We haven’t ruled anything out,” he said in an interview.

Raman takes office as mayor Dec. 14. The council is scheduled to go on winter recess the following day. Harris-Dawson said Tuesday that he does not plan on having the council decide how to fill Raman’s vacant seat until after the council returns from the holiday break.

Stella Stahl, a Raman spokesperson, said her office has already received a policy briefing on “potential pathways forward.” Raman, she said, believes that district residents deserve effective representation and “continuity of services.”

“She looks forward to a thoughtful process that puts their interests first,” Stahl said in an email.

In 2022, the council selected Hutt, a former state legislative staffer, to temporarily replace Ridley-Thomas as a voting council member as he fought federal corruption charges. The following year, after Ridley-Thomas had been convicted and forced from office, the council reappointed Hutt to serve out the remainder of his term.

Hutt won her own election to represent the South L.A. district in 2024.

After the abrupt resignation of Council President Nury Martinez in 2022, then-Council President Mitch O’Farrell designated the office of the chief legislative analyst, which advises the council on policy matters, to serve as the nonvoting caretaker of her vacant seat until a special election could be held. Her replacement, Imelda Padilla, was elected the following year.

Councilmember Traci Park , who represents part of the Westside, said the council shouldn’t make any decision without first hearing from Raman’s constituents.

“I strongly urge the Council President to engage directly with CD4 leaders and residents to discuss their needs and vision for the next two years,” she said in a statement. “Whether it’s an appointment, election or both, residents deserve a say in their future.”

Leo Daube, a spokesperson for Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, said his boss believes that district voters “should have the opportunity to decide who they want to represent them on the city council, and that there should be a special election as soon as possible.”

“She does not believe a candidate for that seat should be appointed by the City Council before a special election is held,” Daube said in a statement.

On the eastern end of Raman’s district, Debra Matlock, president of the Los Feliz Improvement Assn., said she too believes that a special election should be held. She recommended that the council appoint one of Raman’s staffers to serve as the district’s caretaker in the intervening six to nine months.

Meanwhile, at least two people are looking to run for Raman’s seat.

Jimmy Biblarz, who served as a senior advisor and campaign counsel to Raman’s mayoral campaign, said he is prepared to launch a campaign if a special election is called. A resident of Hollywood, he said he is focused for now on putting together next month’s mayoral inauguration ceremony.

Deputy City Atty. Ethan Weaver, who lost to Raman in 2024, said he too would run for the seat if a special election were held.

In the aftermath of widespread Republican losses in the midterm election, California GOP Chair Corrin Rankin announced Wednesday night that she would not seek reelection next year.

“The recent election results have reinforced something I have said consistently throughout my chairmanship,” she said in a statement. “We must move beyond competing organizations and disconnected efforts toward a unified, coordinated strategy that puts winning ahead of everything else.”

The party held eight seats in California’s 52-member congressional delegation and is projected to lose at least half. In the state legislature, the GOP is projected to lose 8 of their 20 seats in the Assembly and as many as three of their 10 seats in the Senate.

Such losses would result in the fewest Republicans in both state bodies since the 1875-76 session, according to Alex Vassar, communications manager at the California State Library.

Rankin, the former statewide president of the California Bail Agents Assn., was elected chair in March 2025. Her decision to not run for reelection comes amid a challenging moment for Republicans in California and nationwide with many questioning the party’s direction in the wake of election losses this month.

The state GOP has been spiraling in voter registration and financial support for years. The party that launched the careers of Presidents Reagan and Nixon last elected GOP candidates to statewide office two decades ago. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 20 points, according to the secretary of state’s office as of Oct. 19.

State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-Valley Center) questioned Rankin’s competence for the leadership role, saying in an interview with The Times that the chairwoman “doesn’t know how to manage a taco stand.”

DeMaio also took aim at the state party, saying that it will take more than a new chair to fix the GOP.

“What we first need to do is get a plan to fundamentally restructure the entire party,” he said.

He said that the “new California Republican Party has to have clearly defined roles, and they have to cut their budget down to the bare minimum with 100% of the remaining resources going to candidate support.”

Rankin followed in the footsteps of two state party leaders who were able to raise significant funds because of their relationships — Jessica Millan Patterson, a close ally of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and powerful former legislative leader Jim Brulte.

Rankin didn’t have such relationships, and fundraising suffered.

The state Democratic Party received nearly $40.9 million in contributions this year through Oct. 17. The state GOP raised nearly $3.3 million in the same stretch, during a time when Republicans were swamping Democrats nationwide in fundraising, according to the secretary of state’s office.

State Sen. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach, who conceded his race for reelection this week, is the name most prominently mentioned as a potential successor to Rankin. Others include Rep. James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) and 2026 GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, both of whom also lost their bids last week.

Former state GOP Chair Ron Nehring pointed to Rankin’s roots as a GOP volunteer who rose through the ranks to become a party leader at an incredibly challenging time for Republicans.

“She got baptism by boiling oil in this election cycle,” he said.

After President Trump’s unfounded claim that California’s slow vote count during the June primary indicated cheating by Democrats, state and local elections officials made changes to speed things up — in part to dispel any questions about this month’s crucial midterm elections.

The state of California allocated $29 million for new equipment, election staffing and voter awareness campaigns statewide, about $6 million of which went to Los Angeles County. The county, which opened a massive new ballot processing center in 2024, announced it would shift to around-the-clock ballot counting in the days after the Nov. 3 election and used some of its state funding to purchase a third mail ballot processing machine.

A full analysis of the impacts of those efforts statewide has not been completed, and ballot counting is still underway. But one week after the polls closed, officials in L.A. County and independent election observers say the efforts clearly paid off.

A statewide report on unprocessed ballots as of 5:41 p.m. Tuesday found that L.A. County had processed about 99% of nearly 3.2 million ballots cast in the county, with just 37,800 ballots still to process. That’s well ahead of where it was at the same point after other recent elections.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which has for years tracked ballot processing, said that compared to L.A. County having processed 96.9% of ballots a week after the 2024 general election and just 73.3% of ballots a week after the 2022 general election. She said a similar 99.3% of ballots had been counted by the county a week after the June primary — but nearly a million fewer people voted in that election.

Alexander said L.A. County was also well ahead of the state average for ballots processed seven days after an election, which stood at 92.8% processed a week after the June primary, 84.2% processed a week after the 2024 general election, and 71.6% processed a week after the 2022 general election.

On Tuesday, L.A. County, the most populous county in the state, was outpacing other big counties, such as San Diego and Orange counties, which had both processed over 1 million ballots but had 185,000 and 116,660 left to count late Tuesday, respectively. It was also outpacing some of state’s smaller counties, such as Humboldt, which had counted more than 25,000 ballots but had nearly the same amount left to process.

L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said the success of this election was a result of the state funding, which “came very late in the process,” but also years of support from the county — especially for the new $10 million, 144,000-square-feet processing facility.

Before the new facility was opened, the county processed ballots in multiple different locations. “And even on election day, we had to stop processing vote by mail ballots so that we could process the ballots coming in from the vote centers,” Logan said. “Now we have a space that is designed and — provided we have the resources to staff it — we can keep those operations going on simultaneously.”

The county’s purchase of a third mail sorting machine, Logan said, also helped workers to more quickly process the massive influx of ballot envelopes that voters drop off at vote centers or in drop boxes on election day.

Logan said the count this election also may have been quickened slightly by more voters returning their ballots earlier in the process and voting in person.

Alexander called the quickened count, during an election with high turnout and a long and complicated state ballot, “remarkable” — and all the more so given the tremendous amount of pressure the Trump administration was putting on L.A. County.

“I feel this vote count in L.A. and across the state is remarkable in that it appears to be going smoothly and in L.A. clearly very efficiently, but it’s also remarkable given all of the hurdles that we had to overcome to conduct this election,” Alexander said.

The day after California’s primary election in June, President Trump took to social media to allege — with zero evidence — that Democrats were “trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.”

“Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles,” Trump wrote. “Why the vote counting DELAY???”

While dismissing such claims as baseless and a threat to democracy, Gov. Gavin Newsom in May acknowledged that the longer it takes to count votes, the “more mis- and disinformation spreads.” That’s why, he said, state lawmakers passed legislation in 2025 to speed up the process.

“We must do all that we can to tabulate votes quickly and accurately,” Newsom said in a letter to elections officials. “Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold.”

Other states do count votes and call elections faster than California, though California officials say that is for several reasons.

California counts far more ballots than any other state, provides voters with more options for voting than other states, provides a grace period for counting ballots postmarked by election day but received in the days that follow, and provides opportunities for voters whose ballots have an issue — such a signature discrepancy — to cure them in the days after an election.

None of those explanations have convinced Trump, however. And his comments criticizing California were not just bluster.

Instead, they were part of a much larger, highly-coordinated effort by his administration to wrest control over voting processes in the state to institute stricter rules and new federal oversight for mail ballots, stricter requirements around voter ID and proof of citizenship and stricter rules for when ballots must arrive to county officials in order to be counted, Alexander said.

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, shot down all of those efforts. The Supreme Court also rejected federal demands that California and L.A. County halt the counting of 20,000 ballots the Trump administration alleged could be from noncitizens — but not before Justice Department officials sent letters to county elections officials across the state, threatening them with criminal prosecution if they counted those ballots. Litigation was playing out right up until election day.

Logan said the judicial branch played a pivotal role in defending California’s elections from the Trump administration, and prevented an election disaster. He and other county officials said in court filings that, had they been forced to begin segregating the 20,000 flagged ballots in the midst of the election, “chaos” would have ensued.

Logan also said that the success of this election “is not guaranteed going forward,” and should be understood by state and county officials as further proof that investments in elections in L.A. County and across the state are not only beneficial but critical moving forward — particularly ahead of 2028, when the Trump administration can be expected to target California once more.

“We will continue to be a target of the administration,” he said.

JACKSON, Miss. — Democratic nominee Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.

Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations, and it will echo through the country as well. The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.

The Associated Press called the contest Wednesday in Colom’s favor after local elections officials spent several days processing absentee and provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots in Mississippi.

The last time Mississippi chose a new Democratic senator was 1947, and the winner then was a staunch segregationist. Colom, a 43-year-old local prosecutor, capitalized on the state’s large Black population, discontent with the economy and Hyde-Smith’s missteps as she sought a second full term.

“They actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually cares about what they think, actually cares about what they’re going through,” Colom said in the campaign’s closing stretch.

Colom said during the campaign that he could represent all of Mississippi, a state where racial divisions have long defined its politics and society.

“It’s got to be about having a party that represents rural America again, suburban America, urban America — a party that makes sure we actually deliver for voters in ways that make their lives better, and we don’t come up with excuses as to why we can’t do it,” he said.

A race Washington once viewed as a longshot

The contest was a latecomer to the national spotlight, drawing attention from Democrats who belatedly infused cash into Colom’s candidacy. The son of a onetime Republican who worked for President Reagan, Colom garnered attention for his aggressive campaign as Democrats widened the Senate battleground map and Hyde-Smith’s vulnerabilities crystallized.

Colom attracted particular notice for some of the year’s most widely circulated ads. After Hyde-Smith, 67, seemed to brush off high beef prices by saying consumers could choose other proteins, Colom cut a 30-second spot depicting incredulous voters saying they’d “pick another senator instead.”

When Trump went to Corinth, Miss., in late October for a rally with Hyde-Smith, Colom walked the line of Trump supporters as they waited outside the gates. He introduced himself, asked about their concerns and explained his priorities.

Later that evening, when Trump called Hyde-Smith to the stage, she said nine words in six seconds: “Is this not the best president in our lifetime?”

Then she stepped away.

“I love that,” Trump replied when he continued his 80-plus minutes at the microphone. “Sometimes they get up and they talk for 10 minutes.”

The appearance tracked Colom’s tactic of criticizing Trump’s policies — especially the Iran war and tariffs that he said were especially hard on Mississippi farmers — without taking personal jabs at the president or people who voted for him.

Instead, he consistently put the onus on Hyde-Smith, framing her as a non-entity in Washington — a critique that resonated in a state that has been accustomed to long-serving senators like Thad Cochran, Trent Lott and John Stennis, who all rose to powerful posts and routed federal money back to Mississippi.

There is some irony to Hyde-Smith finding herself flat-footed against Colom. In 2022, then-President Biden nominated Colom to be a U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Mississippi. Mississippi’s senior Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and former Gov. Haley Barbour, who is also a former national Republican chairman, backed the nomination.

Hyde-Smith, however, blocked Colom’s confirmation under the Senate tradition that members can spike a president’s choices for federal judicial positions in their home state.

Colom said his Senate bid was never about getting even with Hyde-Smith.

Colom called on Mississippi’s history

The senator-elect concluded his campaign with an ad that featured him at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who, in 1963, was gunned down in his driveway by a white supremacist and died in front of his family.

“In Mississippi, no one is above the law, and no one should be outside its protection,” Colom said, telling the story of Evers’ military service at Normandy in World War II, his voter registration efforts in Mississippi, his assassination and the three decades it took to win a conviction.

“He was killed for helping Mississippians vote,” Colom said. “On Tuesday, use your vote and honor everyone who died for that right.”

Black Democrats, including Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, highlighted Colom’s bid early. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer helped Colom raise money, and he drew financial support from other outside players, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire and potential presidential candidate.

Former President Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on Colom’s behalf in the campaign’s closing weeks.

Despite Republicans’ domination, the path was always there

With the largest share of Black voters of any state, Mississippi’s general elections have been closer for years than its immediate Southern neighbors. Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential contests, but in 2023, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves managed to win reelection by a margin of just 3 percentage points.

Colom and other Black party leaders and strategists insisted throughout 2026 that he could narrow the gap with strong Black turnout, Republican voter discontent and an uptick in Democrats’ usual share of the white vote in Mississippi.

Results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta and its concentration of majority Black counties. But nearly all of the state moved leftward from the 2024 election, when Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points.

Then-Gov. Phil Bryant first appointed Hyde-Smith, who was state agriculture commissioner, to the Senate in 2018 when Cochran resigned. She won a special election runoff in 2018 and a full term in 2020. Both times she defeated Democrat Mike Espy, a former U.S. agriculture secretary who’d also been Mississippi’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction.

During the extended vote count, Colom acknowledged the historic nature of doing what Espy could not. But he said he sees his place more in terms of other Mississippians, especially its youngest residents, than his individual story.

“My job is to do well enough as the next United States senator that the next time some young black boy or girl has the work ethic, the vision, and the values,” he said, “and they want to be United States senator, that nobody says because of anything I’ve done that they shouldn’t get a chance.”

Barrow and Bates write for the Associated Press.

It’s business as usual for President Trump’s deportation offensive despite the Republican wipeout in the midterm elections.

In Los Angeles, masked immigration officers in body armor blocked a hospital emergency room driveway in a heavily Latino neighborhood early Saturday. In central Alabama, twin 19-year-old brothers from Venezuela were arrested while driving back to college a day after the election.

Advocates reported arrests from California to Michigan to Massachusetts. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not released numbers.

After Democrats trounced the GOP and won control of the next Congress, Trump said his immigration crackdown may have been “too tough” and suggested it was time to sit down with the rival party.

“I’d love to do something on immigration,” he said in an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” recorded Friday.

Hours later, he named Stephen Miller, the architect of his hard-line immigration agenda, as his new chief of staff. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, meanwhile, said his orders had not changed.

“Deportations will continue,” Mullin wrote in an online post the day after the election, warning that ICE takes no days off and that “this includes on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Election Day.”

María Bilbao, a campaign coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee in Miami, said she has received at least one call a day from someone detained in South Florida since the election.

“Everything remains exactly the same. The arrests have not ceased at all,” Bilbao said.

Florida Highway Patrol officers and ICE agents have detained people in their cars, as well as places including supermarkets, pharmacies and gas stations. Immigrants under supervision have also been arrested when they showed up at ICE’s Miami office for their appointments.

Officers assembled outside a Los Angeles hospital

Erick Gasca, 31, got home Friday night after an evening playing board games with friends. He lives near Adventist Health White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.

An “unprecedented” number of vehicles with tinted windows and no license plates were parked near the hospital’s emergency room entrance, he said.

“I thought they were going to raid the hospital or something,” he recalled.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to explain the officers’ presence there, though Bill Essayli, the top Justice Department prosecutor in Los Angeles, said they were bringing a detainee for medical treatment. Essayli said two people were arrested for assaulting federal agents.

“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The agents’ presence attracted some 30 residents and passersby. Footage shot by Gasca’s cousin, Michelle Rivera, shows protesters shouting and officers pinning someone down.

The hospital said it wasn’t involved.

“White Memorial does not participate in immigration enforcement,” hospital president Daniel Fontoura said in a statement, adding it would not let such activities “compromise our commitment to patient care and safety.”

A couple is arrested at the Phoenix airport

A married couple from Orlando, Fla., was arrested Saturday at the airport in Phoenix while traveling to a funeral.

Gustavo Romanello and Agustin Baccega, both from Argentina, have work permits while they seek asylum after entering the United States about six years ago, according to Jonathan Batchelor, a family friend.

Batchelor was on the phone with them at the time. A mutual friend died Friday and the couple was visiting for the funeral Saturday. As the couple left the airport, two casually dressed officers asked if one was Agustin Baccega. Batchelor heard the officer say, “Asylum seekers are not in the United States legally.”

Batchelor said he could hear Romanello walking alongside his husband during the arrest and asking the officers how to collect his things. Batchelor said they then asked what his name was, “and then the guard said, ‘Oh, do you have another set of handcuffs? This is another one.’”

The voices grew distant, and the call then ended.

Both men remain in detention centers. They worked as acrobats in Florida and had no criminal record, Batchelor said.

“This is just taking good people who have been following the rules out of their lives and out of the lives of those who rely upon them and care about them,” Batchelor said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the arrests.

Twin brothers seized while driving back to college

The brothers were headed back to college after visiting their parents when they were stopped in a small city in central Alabama.

Luis and Carlos Orta-Santoro, 19-year-olds born in Venezuela and living in the U.S. for four years, are soccer players at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, Ala.

Relatives say they have pending asylum applications, valid work permits, and no criminal records. Both are now in an immigration detention facility.

“Our family is devastated,” said their aunt, Carolina Orta.

Homeland Security said that while they had entered the country legally, they had “overstayed in defiance of our laws,” and their case would be heard by an immigration judge. It said pending asylum applications do not confer legal status in the U.S.

The school said in a statement, “Both young men are valued members of the Wallace State community, and our thoughts are with them during this difficult time. We sincerely hope for a positive resolution to their situation.”

A Haitian boy is taken into custody, drawing protests in San Diego

An 8-year-old Haitian boy had been living with his uncle in San Diego since his father was deported last year. The uncle, who is not a legal guardian, took him to an ICE office when the boy was summoned Nov. 4 and taken into custody.

That left the boy “without the support of their family, community and their school,” according to a letter to top administration officials from San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Fabi Bagula and school board members.

“Children should not lose access to education simply because of circumstances unfolding around them,” they wrote.

ICE has defended its actions.

Johny Oxeda, pastor of the Fairmount Haitian Community Church, which helped get legal representation for the boy, said he’ll ultimately benefit by going through legal channels.

Activists, though, were furious.

“This is not child protection,” said Guerline Jozef of Haitian Bridge Alliance, adding, “this is state-inflicted trauma.”

Gonzalez and Sullivan write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Gisela Salomon in Miami and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

Nine family members of the Kennedy political dynasty asked a judge Tuesday to block President Trump’s plan to build a towering memorial arch, saying the 250-foot structure would cast a shadow over their relatives’ gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.

The shadow would “fundamentally alter the experience of visiting the gravesites,” the relatives argued. They filed a motion to intervene in two existing lawsuits seeking to block construction of the arch.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last week prohibited the Trump administration from breaking ground on the structure for 14 days.

The nine Kennedy family members who filed suit are children and grandchildren of Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, brothers of the slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy, both of whom served in the U.S. Senate. They are buried close to the eternal flame that marks JFK’s gravesite, a trio of memorials that are a major draw for the millions of people who visit the Arlington cemetery each year.

Building the arch would be a “permanent denigration” of the gravesites, and the Kennedy offspring “would never again be able to appreciate both sites as they always have before, and as the Kennedy family always intended,” lawyers for the relatives wrote. They are represented by veteran Washington lawyer Norm Eisen and Democracy Defenders Fund.

“It is unfortunate to see that some members of the Kennedy family have joined the litigation against the Arch as the project is intended to honor our heroes who rest in Arlington Cemetery,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. “The judiciary should not be abused to politicize a structure designed to unite our nation.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health and human services secretary who has a fractured relationship with many of his relatives, did not join the lawsuit.

The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections.

The White House last week unveiled a glitzy new website to showcase the arch, which is slated to rise in a mass of gold ornamentation and stately gray granite between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

President Trump’s $10 billion defamation case against the BBC remains on track, for the moment.

A federal judge in Florida ruled on Tuesday that Trump’s defamation claim could go forward, though he did not rule on the merits. The publicly funded British broadcaster had sought to dismiss the case.

Judge Jeffrey Kuntz did dismiss part of the case, tossing out a Trump claim that the BBC’s actions violated a Florida law concerning unfair business practices.

Trump filed his lawsuit against the BBC in December. The Republican president accused the BBC of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?”

The BBC acknowledged that filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, to make it seem that Trump was directly urging violence.

The broadcaster apologized over the editing, and that was something the judge made note of in his ruling Wednesday. The head of the BBC and its top news executive both resigned. The BBC has denied Trump’s claims that it defamed him.

In October, a different judge in Florida ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the case by Dec. 11. Lawyers for the BBC had complained that Trump was delaying his appearance in his own lawsuit. Charles Tobin, an attorney for the BBC, said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.” The deposition deadline could yet be extended.

Trump called Kuntz’s latest ruling a major victory.

“A Huge Victory against Fake News BBC, a terrible abuser of the truth, just handed down by highly respected District Court Judge, Jeffrey T. Kuntz, of the Southern District of Florida,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

“We will continue fighting against, and defeating, all of those who try to deceive the American People!” Trump wrote Tuesday evening.

ATLANTA — Joe Biden says he did not know he had cancer while he was president and would not have sought a second term if he already had been diagnosed.

The former Democratic president’s comments came in an interview with People magazine before the release of his White House memoir on Tuesday.

“If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer,” said Biden, who turns 84 on Nov. 20, “I would’ve not gone forward” with a 2024 reelection bid that ended after a disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

Biden was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer months after leaving office in 2025.

“I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running” for president, Biden said in the interview.

Still, he argued that the June 2024 debate, less than five months before Election Day, was not a seismic event even if it accelerated Democrats’ concerns about his age — he was 81 at the time — and his ability to defeat Trump.

“First of all, I thought there’d be another debate, which there wasn’t,” Biden said. “But notwithstanding the fact that there wasn’t another debate, it didn’t disturb me because it wasn’t consequential.”

Within weeks, Biden announced he was ending his campaign and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, who secured the nomination and lost to Trump in the general election.

Biden insisted he was able to perform his duties while he was in office. He said age itself was not disqualifying and meant he had experience and deep personal relationships with world leaders.

“I believe that on an objective basis, I was the best-equipped person to do the job,” he said.

His son Hunter told the BBC in August that the cancer had spread and was causing his father pain. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating in many respects,” he said.

Since Joe Biden left office, his son has become a higher profile public presence, sparring with Republicans on social media, posting lengthy thoughts on the nation’s direction and launching his own cryptocurrency.

Joe Biden defended his son’s public persona and his decision to pardon Hunter Biden after the younger Biden’s 2024 conviction on federal felony gun charges and his guilty plea to federal tax charges. Hunter Biden also had faced years of scrutiny and withering Republican attacks over his international business dealings.

Hunter Biden has said the pardon damaged his father’s legacy, but the former president said Trump’s penchant for vengeance made it necessary.

“He goes after people without any basis, whether they’re viewed as an enemy. I knew what he would do,” Joe Biden said. “If I hadn’t pardoned — not just some of my family members, anyone who’s dealt with me — he would go back and try to do harm to them.”

Biden called his son “one of the brightest men I know,” adding, “I’m really proud of him.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.