Politics Desk

Re “Film and Election Politics Cross in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ ” June 11: Unconcerned about public reaction to Michael Moore’s admittedly biased movie “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel is quoted as saying, “Voters know fact from fiction coming from Hollywood.” The question is, come November, will they know fact from fiction coming from Washington?

Rick Mittleman

Palm Desert

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday prepared for a showdown over whether noncitizens held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to question the legality of their imprisonment.

A measure passed by the chamber last week on a 49-42 vote would effectively overturn a Supreme Court decision granting detainees the right to challenge their detention in federal court. A final vote on adding that language to a defense spending bill was expected today.

But two proposed amendments would slightly ease that prohibition; one of them was proposed by the author of the original language, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

If adopted by the Senate, the detainee amendment would need to be accepted by the House of Representatives to be sent to President Bush.

Graham sponsored the amendment to ban foreign captives at Guantanamo — who number about 500 — from challenging their detention with a writ of habeas corpus, a provision that dates from English common law.

In an effort to soften the prohibition, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) on Monday introduced a competing amendment that would permit prisoners to question the rationale for their incarceration but exclude petitions over other matters, including conditions of confinement.

“It is reasonable to insist that when the government deprives a person of his or her liberty, and in this case for an indefinite period of time, that the individual have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention,” Bingaman said on the Senate floor. “This is not a radical proposition that I’ve just enunciated. It is enshrined in our Constitution.”

But Graham, a military lawyer before he began his political career, argued that since the Supreme Court granted Guantanamo prisoners access to federal court in 2004, the system has been swamped with frivolous complaints.

“Does the United States Senate want [to give] enemy terrorists, Al Qaeda members being detained at Guantanamo Bay, unlimited access to our federal courts to sue our troops?” Graham asked. “Never in the midst of warfare has an [enemy] prisoner been allowed” such judicial rights.

In response to concerns raised by some senators, Graham was offering to amend his initial provision to give Guantanamo prisoners some legal rights to appeal findings by the military that they are enemy combatants. In addition, detainees sentenced to 10 years or more would receive an automatic appeal; those who received a lesser sentence could ask for a hearing.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he hoped his colleagues would adopt Bingaman’s more permissive language. But if not, he added, he hoped the Senate would accept Graham’s revisions to his amendment as an improvement over the measure adopted last week.

“All of us really believe that we must operate according to our Constitution and our laws,” Levin said.

Reporting from Washington — Numbers released by the Trump administration Friday show an 80% drop in some penalties levied against polluters, the latest sign that the Environmental Protection Agency has become a less aggressive watchdog.

Injunctive relief — the amount of money polluters commit to pay to correct problems and prevent them from reoccurring — fell from $20.6 billion in fiscal 2017 to $3.95 billion in fiscal 2018. That represents a 15-year low for the agency.

Civil penalties in 2018 declined to $69 million. That was far less than the $1.68 billion in 2017, but that year’s figure was impacted by fines negotiated during the Obama administration.

Volkswagen agreed in 2016 to a $1.45-billion penalty as punishment for its diesel emissions scandal.

In releasing the figures, EPA officials said they were focused in 2018 on ensuring that facilities were in compliance and expediting site cleanup.

The latest from Washington »

“A strong enforcement and compliance assurance program is essential to achieving positive public health and environmental outcomes,” Susan Bodine, assistant administrator of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a statement.

The EPA’s data span fiscal year 2018, which ended Sept. 30. For the most part, the figures reflect enforcement activity — cases that were settled, fines that were assessed — that took place under the Trump administration.

Civil penalties are at their lowest since 1994, when the enforcement office was created, said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the EPA’s enforcement office during the Obama administration.

“EPA is trying to convince media and the public that EPA is still doing its job on enforcement, despite all of the reports showing that isn’t the case,” Giles said in a statement. “Not only are the Trump EPA’s enforcement numbers at historic lows, they are on track to get worse.”

Some of the numbers in Friday’s report suggest that future declines in enforcement are in store. For example, federal inspections and evaluations conducted by the EPA have continued to drop. Last year, the agency conducted about half as many inspections as it did in 2010.

David Coursen, who was an attorney in the EPA’s office of general counsel until 2015, said that the danger of drastically lowering penalties is that it removes the incentive for corporations to follow environmental laws.

“Anytime there’s a reduction, there’s going to be a suggestion that there’s a free pass,” Coursen said. “So the requirement to follow the law is going to be less compelling.”

Last month, the Department of Justice released numbers showing that the EPA had hit a 30-year low in 2018 in the number of pollution cases it referred for criminal prosecution.

More stories from Anna M. Phillips »

CONCORD, N.H. — A college freshman trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan International Airport on Nov. 20 when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days, sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age 7.

“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau said. “Her college dream has just been shattered.”

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza to be deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn’t aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he’s found indicates her case was closed in 2017.

“They’re holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago that she’s completely unaware of and not showing any of the proof,” the lawyer said.

The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the United States for at least 72 hours. ICE did not respond to an email Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told the Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business.

“That was my dream,” she said. “I’m losing everything.”

Ramer writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Charges against the man accused of shooting two National Guard members have been upgraded to first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia announced Friday.

Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were hospitalized in critical condition after the Wednesday afternoon shooting near the White House. President Trump announced Thursday evening that Beckstrom had died.

U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office said the charges against Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, now include one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard as part of Trump’s mission in the nation’s capital that federalized the D.C. police force, which he says is a crime-fighting campaign. The president has deployed National Guard members to many Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles, to assist with his mass deportation efforts.

Trump called the shooting a “terrorist attack” and criticized the Biden administration for allowing Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the U.S. The president has said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and expel millions of immigrants from the country.

In an interview on Fox News, Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge. She said her heart goes out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington, D.C., by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree.”

Pirro, a former Fox News host, declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question. Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in Washington state, where Lakanwal lived, and other parts of the country, she said.

Wolfe remains in “very critical condition,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. He ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in recognition of Beckstrom’s death.

“These two West Virginia heroes were serving our country and protecting our nation’s capital when they were maliciously attacked,” Morrisey said. “Their courage and commitment to duty represent the very best of our state.”

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement. #AfghanEvac is a nonprofit organization that has worked with the U.S. government to resettle more than 195,000 Afghan evacuees, according to its website.

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Wash., about 80 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

Mohammad Sherzad, a neighbor of Lakanwal’s in Bellingham, told the Associated Press in a phone interview Friday that Lakanwal was polite, quiet and spoke very little English.

Sherzad said he attended the same mosque as Lakanwal and had heard from other members that Lakanwal was struggling to find work. Some of his children attended the same school as Lakanwal’s children, Sherzad said.

“He was so quiet and the kids were so polite, they were so playful. But we didn’t see anything bad about him. He was looking OK,” Sherzad said. Sherzad said Lakanwal “disappeared” about two weeks ago.

In his address to the troops Thursday, Trump said that Lakanwal “went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts.”

People who knew Lakanwal say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit before immigrating to the United States. Lakanwal worked in one of the special Zero Units in the southern province of Kandahar, according to a resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as Lakanwal’s cousin. He said Lakanwal was originally from the province and his brother had worked in the unit as well.

The cousin spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said Lakanwal had started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012 and was later promoted to a team leader and a GPS specialist. A former official from the unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal’s brother was a platoon leader.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans and backed by the CIA that also served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers. Activists had attributed abuses to the units. They played a key role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021, providing security around Kabul International Airport as the Americans and Afghan evacuees withdrew from the country.

Beckstrom is remembered

Beckstrom enlisted in 2023, the same year she graduated high school, and served with distinction as a military police officer with the 863rd Military Police Company, the West Virginia National Guard said in a statement.

“She exemplified leadership, dedication, and professionalism,” the statement said, adding that Beckstrom “volunteered to serve as part of Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful, helping to ensure the safety and security of our nation’s capital.”

The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration initiative that brought roughly 76,000 people to the country, many of whom had worked as interpreters and translators.

The program has faced intense scrutiny from Trump and others over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow didn’t name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

Binkley and Finley write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Sarah Brumfield, Siddiqullah Alizai, Elena Becatoros and Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.

Reporting from Sacramento — Want to be safe from earthquakes in California? You’d need to endure summer scorchers, winter flood threats and full-time politicians. But temblors don’t threaten people living in Sacramento.

In the state capital — River City, Sacratomato, City of Trees — earthquakes are seen only on TV. Here, you’ll escape the Big One.

“Sacramento is one of the safer places,” acting State Geologist Tim McCrink says. “We don’t have that many active faults in the area.”

In fact, Sacramento — based on historical records and fault maps — is unquestionably the safest earthquake refuge among all of California’s major metropolitan areas.

The most unsafe? You already know.

“The worst places are the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles,” McCrink says. “They’ve got most of the faults.”

Is there any pocket of L.A. that’s reasonably safe?

“There are so many faults down there in such complicated geology, I’d be hesitant to say one area is better than the other,” McCrink says.

The 9 earthquake hazards lurking in your home »

As a native Californian, I’ve long been curious about this. Fear of the Big One long ago was compartmentalized in a far corner of my mind but always has lurked there, making me a tad nervous. I suspect millions of other Californians share that anxiety.

Growing up in Ventura County, I was bounced around frequently by quakes. In 1971, I covered Gov. Ronald Reagan inspecting devastation from the magnitude 6.6 Sylmar quake in the San Fernando Valley that killed 65. In 1994, I tagged along as Gov. Pete Wilson looked over damage from the magnitude 6.7 Northridge quake that killed 57 — and destroyed my sister’s condo.

I worked at the L.A. Times downtown for a few years, always wondering if that old monolith might suddenly crumble in a quake.

But bad quakes aren’t inevitable everywhere in California.

Eastern San Diego County is relatively safe, but downtown San Diego has a dangerous fault.

A large swath of northeastern California and the western Sierra is fairly quake-proof. But those people face scary wildfire threats.

The North Coast from Oregon down into Monterey County is riddled with faults. So is the South Coast from Santa Barbara through Orange County.

In other words, if you can see the sun set over the Pacific, it’s risky.

Earthquake preparedness tips — for your pets: How to keep them safe »

Not so much along the Central Coast, however.

“The Big Sur coast is pretty good in terms of shaking, but there are massive landslides along there,” McCrink says. “So pick your poison.”

Anyway, there was a magnitude 6.6 San Simeon quake in 2003 that killed two and injured 40. So the Central Coast isn’t immune.

“All that faulting over the millennia has produced some beautiful mountains along the coast,” McCrink says. “The benefit of the tectonics is we have beautiful scenery. And the downside is we have to live with earthquakes.”

On New Year’s Day, when viewers watch the Rose Bowl and marvel at the snowcapped San Gabriel Mountains in the backdrop, they’re looking at the product of earthquakes.

Why is Sacramento practically quake-proof?

“For the same reason it’s pretty flat,” UC Davis geology professor Michael Oskin says. “Topography and earthquakes pretty well correlate in California.”

So if it’s flat and unspectacular — like the Midwest — it’s normally good shelter from earthquakes.

But not from floods. There have been horrific, deadly floods in the Sacramento Valley. During really wet winters with heavy Sierra snowfall, valley people fret about flooding.

Ridgecrest earthquake mystery: Why so little destruction from huge temblors? »

Sacramento residents may not need to consider earthquake insurance, but they should buy a flood policy. I have and sleep easier, living four houses from the Sacramento River.

Neither quakes nor floods are covered by ordinary homeowner insurance. Wildfires are — if you can find a policy. They’re becoming increasingly hard to buy in high-risk fire zones. Consumer complaints have increased nearly 600% in the last decade, says Michael Soller, spokesman for the state Insurance Department.

“They’ve surged in the last couple of years.”

So there’s no escaping some category of potential calamity in California.

They can even be linked.

On Christmas Eve in 1955, a Feather River levee collapsed north of Sacramento, flooding 90% of Yuba City and drowning 37 people. That provided momentum for eventually building Gov. Pat Brown’s State Water Project because the central feature was a flood control dam upriver near Oroville.

Gigantic Oroville Dam was completed in 1968. And when the reservoir was filled with 3.5 million acre-feet of water, the earth crunched underneath, triggering a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in 1975. That’s the scientists’ theory.

The Oroville quake had lots of repercussions. It killed another big dam project near Auburn northeast of Sacramento. Opponents found a risky fault under the site.

And it prompted legislators to close the state Capitol for a few years so the historic old structure could be retrofitted at a cost of $68 million — even though there’d never been a significant quake in Sacramento’s history.

One upshot of the Capitol restoration: The press offices were demolished and replaced with very fancy, ornate hangouts for the two top legislative leaders. All because there was a fluke earthquake 70 miles away that was barely felt around the Capitol.

There’s at least one refreshing thing about earthquakes: They can’t be blamed on either political party. Neither President Trump nor Gov. Gavin Newsom had anything to do with those quakes in Ridgecrest.

More from George Skelton »

[email protected]

Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter

HEALDSBURG, Calif. — Luxury sedans and SUVs decanted well-heeled passengers into two Alexander Valley vineyards on a recent evening for fund-raisers that reaped promises of about $300,000 for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign.

“We feel that he’s got a lot of guts, a lot of courage to step away from the lucrative movie career,” said Kevin Barr, 46, a Healdsburg grape farmer and one of 100 guests at a $1,000-a-head event at Hoot Owl Creek Vineyards. Another 40 supporters showed up the same night at nearby Jordan Winery for a $5,000-a-plate dinner with the actor-cum-politician.

Although Schwarzenegger enjoys support in this bucolic corner of Sonoma County known for prestigious wines and Republican politics, much bigger players in the state’s wine industry — including E.& J. Gallo, Robert Mondavi Corp. and the California Wine Institute — are actively opposing the recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Gallo, the nation’s second-biggest winemaker, has pumped $100,000 into a committee dedicated to keeping Davis in office.

“We are very concerned about the recall process and what it means for good governance in California,” said Milo Shelly, Gallo’s vice president.

“There are always two wine industries represented in Sacramento,” said Mark Murray, spokesman for Citizens Against Waste, a recycling lobby group that regularly butts heads with wine interests, most of whose bottles are exempt from California’s recycling law.

“There’s all the picturesque Napa and Sonoma wineries who are mildly influential in the Legislature. And there is Gallo, which is as significant a major power player as anyone in Sacramento. Sometimes the two work together; sometimes they are apart.”

“Vintners are a very independent group,” agreed Mondavi’s vice president, Herb Schmidt. “Half the time we can’t even decide which way the sun will come up in the morning.”

Whatever their political differences, the men and women who run California’s wine industry have some common interests in the outcome of the Oct. 7 election: They don’t want higher taxes on their products, and some, particularly here, don’t want Indian casinos in their midst. And so far, they have given $297,000 to candidates and committees in the recall campaign, state records show.

Healdsburg is one of the few Republican strongholds in wine country, said Sonoma State political science professor Donald Dixon. “In terms of voting, it is the most conservative area.”

Both Russ Green, who hosted the Hoot Owl Creek event, and Tom Jordan, host of the $5,000-a-plate dinner, made their money in the oil business before buying wine properties.

Green has previously hosted fund-raisers for former Gov. Pete Wilson and 1998 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren. Jordan bankrolled his son’s unsuccessful GOP race for a state Senate seat.

But potential tinkering with regulations that affect the wine business gets everyone’s attention here.

Davis never proposed raising liquor taxes to help solve the state’s fiscal problems. But three of the candidates to replace him if he is recalled — Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, independent Arianna Huffington and Green Party member Peter Camejo — have liquor tax increases in their budget plans.

Bustamante proposes raising the tax on wine from 20 cents a gallon to 45 cents to bring in about $210 million.

The industry is also concerned, said Michael Falasco, lobbyist for the California Wine Institute, that a new governor might seek to grant local authorities the right to set liquor taxes. Such a policy once was pushed, but subsequently withdrawn, by Wilson, co-chairman of the Schwarzenegger campaign. The Wine Institute gave $45,000 to anti-recall efforts.

A nightmare scenario, said Falasco, is a proposal by the California Medical Assn. that a nickel-a-drink charge be added to bar tabs to fund the state’s beleaguered trauma centers.

That is contained in a bill by state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) and, argued Falasco, could open the beer, wine and liquor industry to the same kinds of lawsuits currently plaguing the tobacco industry.

Then there is the local distaste for casinos, the crowds they attract and the traffic they bring. Veronica Citti, 37, is a bartender from Healdsburg whose family has grown grapes for generations. Since last year’s building of the new River Rock Casino on a hill overlooking the Alexander Valley, Citti said, she has been run off the road five times by reckless drivers.

“Because of the casino … “ Citti said as she served drinks at the Alexander Valley Store and Bar, “we are getting all kinds of undesirable people.”

Healdsburg Police Chief Susan Jones said that although auto theft and home burglary rates are up, she could not say how many such crimes, if any, were due to the presence of the casino.

Citti said that Bustamante’s acceptance of casino contributions and his advocacy of higher liquor taxes have turned her against him. “I’m for Arnold,” she announced.

She’s not alone in her alienation from Bustamante. “I do not accept the fact that sovereign Indian nations can give donations to U.S. politicians,” said Hank Wetzel, proprietor of the 600-acre Alexander Valley Vineyards.

Wetzel, 52, supports Schwarzenegger, who has labeled tribes as special interests and criticized candidates who accept their money. Wetzel’s father, a former Los Angeles aerospace executive, bought the vineyards in 1962, and his mother, Margaret, attended one of Schwarzenegger’s recent fund-raisers.

Still, with the California wine industry suffering from the slow economy and a grape glut, some here find any potential change in the status quo suspect.

“I think there is a rising tide against the recall,” Schmidt said, “because of the chaos that will ensue if it is successful.

“The message is getting through even to Republicans that it is not a panacea for the state’s problems to just switch the governor.”

Sonoma State political science professor Andy Merrifield said that despite the casino issue and the strong pocket of Schwarzenegger support in Healdsburg, he expects the recall effort to fail in Sonoma County. More than 50% of voters there register as Democrats, fewer than 30% as Republicans.

“With typical voter turnout,” Merrifield said, “the ‘no on recall’ side should be successful. Among the candidates, Bustamante should still come out first, with Schwarzenegger second.”

Meanwhile, folks are fairly low-key about their political differences. As guests pulled into the Schwarzenegger fund-raisers, several of them exchanged friendly jibes with protesters standing outside.

One of the demonstrators, Mario Lopez, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Guatemala, said he worked for years in the Alexander Valley grape fields before landing a job at a local food bank.

Lopez said he feels the recall effort is unfair. “They are blaming the governor for things that were out of his power,” he said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status.

Trump is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of what he calls “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”

His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to resettle those who had helped American troops.

Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.

Since Wednesday’s shooting near the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America’s societal ills.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, and raids and deportations undertaken by his administration have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.

There are roughly 50 million foreign-born residents in the U.S., and multiple studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than are people who were born in the country.

The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.

“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States,” it said.

A study by economists initially released in 2023 found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been imprisoned at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to past research undermining Trump’s claims.

Trump seemed to have little interest in a policy debate in his post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.”

He pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions to the country made during the term of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. He also wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for those who are not U.S. citizens, denaturalize people “who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport foreign nationals deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

Trump claimed immigrants from Somalia were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for intellectually disabled people to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration. On Thursday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

The shooting of the two National Guard members appeared to trigger Trump’s anger over immigrants, yet he did not specifically refer to the event in his social media post.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country to the District of Columbia and shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday; Wolfe is in critical condition.

Lakanwal, currently in custody, was also shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening.

Trump was asked by a reporter Thursday if he blamed the shootings on all Afghans who came to the U.S.

“No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans,” the president said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

Regarding the bills in front of our legislators and the last line of your June 17 editorial, “A Break for Joe Consumer”: “Surely lawmakers care more about protecting consumers against major fraud than about maximizing these companies’ revenue. Surely.”

I have but one thing to say. I’ll see it; then I’ll believe it.

Eden Rosen

Burbank

Richard Rider would love to have Gov. Pete Wilson’s job. He dreams of hacking away at bureaucracy, crushing all new tax legislation under a huge rubber stamp that reads “VETO.” He’s even imagined the sound this would make: whoooomp!

Rider, the Libertarian candidate for governor, is a realist, however. The 49-year-old stockbroker from San Diego knows that a minor party candidate such as himself has no hope of being elected governor Nov. 8. Still, he thinks he can help defeat Wilson (whom Rider deems a “wimp” and a “Benedict Arnold” masquerading as a Republican), which is why, not long ago, he wrote Democrat Kathleen Brown a letter asking for $500,000.

“I’m the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate. Normally that might elicit nothing more from you than a yawn. But I can get you elected,” Rider wrote. “What you need is a third candidate to drain votes from Wilson. I can do that. . . . Dollar for dollar, there is no better use for your campaign funds than in my race for governor.”

Rider’s pitch must have sounded presumptuous coming from a man unknown to most Californians. Like the other minor party candidates for governor–Jerome McCready of the American Independent Party and Gloria La Riva of the Peace & Freedom Party–Rider was not invited to participate in the recent televised debate between Wilson and Brown. He lacks money, exposure and governmental experience.

But Rider has one very powerful thing going for him: a dissatisfied electorate. A recent Times poll shows that California voters are unhappy with Brown and Wilson and that three out of every five are planning to vote for the “lesser of two evils” for governor. If just a tiny fraction of those people vote for a so-called third party candidate, political analysts say, it could alter the race.

“In this state, where elections are won or lost by 1 or 2 points, third party candidates can decide elections,” said Bill Press, chairman of the California Democratic Party, who has followed Rider’s candidacy with interest. “If I had an extra $500,000, I would give it to Richard Rider and it would be money well spent. . . . Every vote he gets is one vote Pete Wilson doesn’t.”

Taken together, the four minor parties that have qualified to appear on the California ballot–American Independent, Green, Libertarian, and Peace & Freedom–represent 456,000 voters, or about 3% of the state’s electorate.

The American Independent and Libertarian parties, though they differ on many principles, are both committed to strictly limiting the power of government and to cutting taxes. Conventional wisdom says that to vote for one of these parties’ candidates is to take a vote away from a Republican candidate.

The Green and the Peace & Freedom parties, though also very different from one another, both seek social justice and equality. These parties are more likely to appeal to voters who might otherwise cast ballots for Democrats.

These minor parties’ candidates face an uphill battle. Virtually ignored by the press and by their more mainstream rivals, they have trouble raising the money needed for expensive broadcast advertising and direct mail flyers. As a result, minor party candidates can campaign tirelessly, making speeches and walking precincts, and still remain largely unknown.

La Riva, the Peace & Freedom candidate for governor, is a printer and labor organizer in San Francisco. McCready, the American Independent nominee, runs a shop that sells pre-hung doors and other construction materials in Castroville. Rider, who closed his financial planning business at the end of last year, is the only minor party candidate who has campaigned for governor full time.

Nevertheless, Press, the Democratic Party chairman, believes that politicians who ignore these alternative candidates do so at their own peril. This year, he has gone so far as to donate his own money to keep a Green Party gubernatorial candidate from competing with Brown.

Leading up to the June primary election, three candidates were vying for the Green gubernatorial nomination–despite widespread concern within the party that a Green nominee would siphon votes from Brown in the general election. Then, one Green leader launched a campaign urging Greens to vote for “None of the Above”–an option that allows Greens to choose no candidate.

Eager to safeguard Brown voters, Press sent a $500 donation to the none-of-the-above campaign, dubbed Friends of Nobody. Then he sent letters to his friends asking them to do the same.

“I raised $5,000 to $6,000 or more for their campaign,” Press said proudly, recalling that the effort to gain more votes for no one than for any of the candidates was successful. “Nobody won. Which I considered a victory.”

Third party candidates are familiar with this kind of circular reasoning. They see no shame in losing, as long as they have introduced new ideas into the race. And they believe that every vote cast for a minor party candidate puts a little more pressure on the major parties to shape up.

That is why a conservative such as Rider is working so hard to help a Democrat such as Brown. Rider is probably the only Brown supporter who wants to do away with state income taxes, abolish the workers’ compensation system and phase out all welfare payments. He wants to repeal the law that requires motorcyclists to wear helmets. He believes the Endangered Species Act will result in the nationalization of all property. And he supports the death penalty–which Brown opposes, though she pledges to enforce it as governor.

“Obviously, I’m no fan of the Democrats’ pipe dream of a socialist utopia. . . . Kathleen Brown would make a terrible governor,” Rider said.

But Brown would do less damage than Wilson, Rider added, and a Brown victory would send a clear signal to the GOP. If he could do that, Rider said, he would feel like a winner no matter how badly he lost.

And, he said, Wilson is not a true Republican.

“Brown is a very ineffective Democrat. Wilson is a very effective Democrat. It’s time the Republican Party stopped running stealth Democrats for governor,” Rider said. “If I pull enough conservative votes to cause Wilson to lose, then Republicans will have to start running real limited-government candidates such as Ron Unz.”

Rider is a big fan of Unz, the 32-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur who challenged Wilson for the Republican gubernatorial nomination last spring. Before the primary, Rider endorsed Unz, knowing full well it might cost him some votes. Then after Unz lost, while winning 34% of the Republican vote, Rider began presenting himself as the next best thing.

Unz recently wrote letters that were published in the state’s major newspapers urging his supporters not to launch an Unz write-in campaign Nov. 8. Although he stopped short of endorsing Rider, Unz asked the 700,000 people who voted for him to support “candidates up and down the ticket who are true to the core values of the Republican Party–smaller government, lower taxes and fewer regulations.”

Rider said that is as good as an Unz endorsement. After all, Rider proposes cutting 90% of all state regulations. And he so abhors taxes that he closed his financial planning office in large part to avoid paying them.

“I was working until July 19 for the government,” he said. “For a Libertarian, that’s unacceptable.”

Rider has made sacrifices to run for governor. To enable him to afford campaigning full time, Rider and his wife pulled their two sons out of private school. (“May God forgive me for that,” he said.) The campaign, headquartered in one of his spare bedrooms with a “Rider for Governor” bumper sticker taped to the door, is truly no-frills.

His phones are answered by two volunteers–retirees who refer to Rider as “Guv.” When Rider is on the road, he often sleeps on supporters’ couches. Recently, when he heard about a promotion for a time-share condominium, he and his wife went and sat through the pitch. The reason: In exchange for their time, they received free plane tickets to San Francisco, a city where Rider wanted to campaign.

Most of the $40,000 Rider has been able to raise has gone to buy cable television time for his lone commercial, which features the candidate in a butcher’s smock, whacking a sausage with a meat cleaver and exclaiming, “Wilson won’t cut taxes, but I will!” By Nov. 8 this spot will have aired in the state’s five major media markets, and Rider hopes that combined with his frequent talk-radio appearances, it will get people’s attention.

Wilson campaign officials do not appear worried. With the latest Times poll showing the incumbent 9 points ahead of Brown among likely voters, Rider is barely a blip on the radar screen.

But against all odds, Rider perseveres. He knows that some people see voting for him as a waste.

“We’ve been taught since childhood that third parties are dangerous or crazy or both,” he said, recalling that when he first heard about the Libertarian Party in the 1970s he thought it was a “left-wing, commie group.”

“And yeah, sure, we’re not going to win,” he said. “But the success of a third party is in changing the direction of the country. . . . You vote to send a message to whoever’s in power that this is the direction you want to go.”

Meanwhile, the fund-raising message Rider sent Brown has yet to yield a single penny. Brown campaign spokesman John Whitehurst said he was unaware of the letter asking for $500,000.

Rider is not bitter. If Brown is not farsighted enough to see that a hefty donation to Rider for Governor could result in her own election, he said, it is her loss.

“I keep checking the mail,” he said. “Without my effort, they’re dead meat.”

YORBA LINDA — In the shadow of her husband’s boyhood home, former First Lady Patricia Ryan Nixon was remembered Saturday by relatives and friends as a woman whose uncommon emotional strength and enduring devotion will mark her place in history.

The hour-long morning funeral service, set on the grassy outdoor amphitheater of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, brought together an extended political family that included former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan.

“This is a time for tears, but also a time of smiles and happiness in our hearts,” the Rev. Billy Graham said as he opened the service under ashen clouds.

Graham, a close Nixon family friend and confidant, joined Gov. Pete Wilson, Sen. Bob Dole and family friends in eulogies emphasizing Mrs. Nixon’s tenderness at home and on the many campaign trails of the “Dick and Pat partnership.”

The 372 invited guests sat in silence on white lawn chairs facing the library’s reflection pool. They included family, colleagues and opponents who ran against Nixon. Among them was former Sen. George S. McGovern, whom Nixon defeated for the presidency in 1972.

Figures from the Watergate era and the Nixon Administration included Maurice Stans, Charles Colson, Rosemary Woods, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, Ron Ziegler and Alexander Haig.

Just outside the library grounds, an estimated 200 others gathered on the parking lot to hear the funeral service broadcast from loudspeakers. The onlookers, many of whom were among the 5,000 to attend a public viewing Friday evening, broke into soft applause as luminaries–among them Bob Hope and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger–arrived by limousine.

Many of the guests took their places more than an hour before the 10 a.m. start, when Graham led former President Nixon and the immediate family to their seats near the former First Lady’s rose garden. After seeing the crowd, Nixon drew a handkerchief over his mouth and began to sob.

The audience then stood quietly as six U.S. Marine honor guards carried Mrs. Nixon’s mahogany casket to a white canopy, where a pedestal was decorated with flower arrangements. In the background, the Master Chorale of Orange County performed “My Country ‘tis of Thee.”

Graham and four eulogists took turns at a podium to praise Mrs. Nixon, who died Tuesday of lung cancer at age 81. The speakers referred to the personal hardships Mrs. Nixon endured in childhood and as wife of a political figure who knew triumph and profound tragedy.

“Few women in public life have suffered as she has suffered and done it with such grace,” Graham said. “In all the years I knew her, I never heard her say anything unkind about anyone.”

Cynthia Hardin Milligan, close family friend and daughter of President Nixon’s Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin, said the former First Lady’s appetite for adventure helped carry her through difficult times.

“It was that sense of adventure which led her to become half of the Dick and Pat partnership that began in California 53 years ago and brought them to heights of fame, power, turmoil, frustration and peace that few have experienced.”

Milligan also spoke of “a woman of substance,” who exuded warmth in her family life, where she spent hours playing with her grandchildren. Mrs. Nixon, Milligan said, was a perfect fit for the code name given to her by the Secret Service: “Starlight.”

“I came to know and appreciate Mrs. Nixon in her roles as mother, grandmother, wife and friend,” she said. “She always created an atmosphere of love and beauty in every Nixon home, including the White House.”

Milligan’s tribute was preceded by a eulogy from retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James D. (Don) Hughes, who served as a Nixon military aide and accompanied Mrs. Nixon in Venezuela in 1958, when Nixon was vice president and their cars were attacked by anti-American rioters.

During that trip, Hughes told the audience, he was bowled over at Mrs. Nixon’s display of courage. He said she was met by an angry mob that had been “whipped into a frenzy,” roaring insults and spitting on the motorcade.

“Throughout the ride, I never saw her flinch when the car was hit with various missiles and clubs,” Hughes said. “She remained totally composed and that alone made it easier for me and the Secret Service. . . . We left Caracas the next day through a tear gas mist . . . but we left in the Nixon style, with heads up and all flags flying.”

Wilson said that as a young Nixon political advance man in 1962, he was introduced to a woman whose fragile physical appearance belied an inner strength that radiated composure on the campaign trail, where Nixon waged an unsuccessful challenge to unseat Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.

“Pat Nixon was a far bigger draw than the incumbent governor they were running against,” Wilson said. “Thousands lined up waiting for her. Children everywhere were drawn to her, whether it was in Africa, California or Moscow. She radiated dignity, quiet strength and wholesome charm.”

Wilson said the demands of Mrs. Nixon’s personal life, in which she nursed her parents through final illnesses and worked as a telephone operator and Hollywood extra to fund her education, prepared her for the rigors of public life.

“But in that fragile body,” the governor said, “beat a great Irish fighting heart.”

Many common themes connected the words of each eulogist, but it was Dole, the nation’s highest-ranking Republican, who spoke of Mrs. Nixon as one who “never forgot where she came from.”

“Washington, D.C., is a town where the monuments are tall, and the egos even taller,” Dole said. “Every once in a while, however, there comes along a rare spirit like Pat who dispels the cynicism and reminds us that compassion need not be legislated, it need only be . . . expressed by hugging a child, comforting a victim of a natural disaster or just personally answering a letter from one of the countless real people who turn to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when all other avenues seem closed.”

At some Washington events, Dole said Mrs. Nixon would stand in receiving lines for hours, knowing that for some it would be their only White House evening.

“As a friend of hers told me this week: ‘Pat Nixon treated everyone like a head of state,’ ” the senator from Kansas said. “In an age saturated with the false values of celebrity, Pat Nixon was as genuine as those signatures she insisted on signing on her letters.”

After the ceremony, Nixon and his family gathered in the library’s lobby with those who attended the memorial. The former President called his political friends forward and thanked all of them.

As they stood near him, Nixon began to talk of the strong-willed woman who had stood by him and assuaged his fears.

One time was during his 1952 vice presidential campaign, before making the “Checkers speech,” in which Nixon defended himself on national TV after his acceptance of an $18,000 fund for political expenses.

Just before going on the air, he said he turned to Pat. “I don’t know how I can get through this,” Nixon said he told his wife.

She responded firmly: “Yes you will.”

Twenty-two years later, just two months after he resigned the presidency, Nixon was admitted to Long Beach Memorial Hospital for treatment of a serious case of phlebitis, which nearly took his life. At one point, after being in shock for several days, he opened his eyes and saw Pat.

“Honey, I may not make it,” he said to his wife.

She responded the same way as she had in 1952: “Yes you will.”

Nixon’s remembrances touched the crowd.

“It was very, very beautiful and all about Pat,” said Rep. Robert K. Dornan. “She was just a great lady.”

Nixon insisted on shaking hands with everyone and soon, a long receiving line formed. One of the first to leave the reception was comedian Hope and his wife, Delores, followed by actor Buddy Ebsen and his wife.

The Reagans and Fords left through the basement and 80 minutes after the reception began, the Nixon family walked to the burial site, where Graham conducted a short service and said a prayer before the interment.

A stone marker notes the spot where Mrs. Nixon is buried. It reads: “Patricia Ryan Nixon: 1912-1993.”

Visitors will be able to see the grave site beginning today at 11 a.m., when the library reopens. Admission is free through Tuesday.

Times staff writer Lily Dizon contributed to this report.

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — In their last joint appearance before Tuesday’s high-stakes New Hampshire primary, the five major Democratic presidential candidates Sunday coasted through a generally desultory debate enlivened only by attacks on former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas for his support of nuclear power.

Tsongas, who leads in state polls, repeatedly came under attack for his staunch backing of nuclear power–a controversial position in a state where many Democratic activists have long opposed the Seabrook nuclear power plant. Each of Tsongas’ four rivals said they would decrease the nation’s reliance on nuclear energy.

“We’re not all trying to gang up on you, we’re not trying to say you’re wrong all the time,” Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey said to Tsongas at one point. “But on this particular issue I think you are. . . . Nuclear power, it seems to me, is fatally flawed.”

The focus on nuclear power–an issue that until recently has played virtually no role in the campaign–underlined the shift in Tsongas’ position from a long-shot who had been gently patronized to a front-runner worthy of pummeling. But other than the criticism of his energy policy–an issue that has not been high on the list of voter concerns here in recent years–Tsongas ran this last gantlet before the vote virtually unscathed.

Early in the debate, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.–who later grilled Tsongas most aggressively on his support for nuclear power–even embraced him as a fellow outsider committed to “the politics of the future” as compared to the three current officeholders in the race.

Brown then mildly distanced himself from Tsongas, saying the former senator “represents a more conservative, business-oriented view of the future.”

In fact, the tone of the debate was strikingly low-key, with all of the candidates focusing more of their fire on President Bush than their rivals. Tsongas took the lead, employing the front-runner strategy used earlier by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. At every opportunity Tsongas stressed his agreements with his rivals and his differences with Bush.

In the debate, sponsored by Cable News Network and the League of Women Voters, the candidates were hampered by a format so disjointed and at times unstructured that twice Clinton felt compelled to suggest questions to moderator Bernard Shaw.

After weeks of focusing on the bread-and-butter concerns of voters in this economically ravaged state, the candidates Sunday found themselves exploring international population control, the destruction of the rain forests, utility pricing reform and whether the nation needs a better class of light bulb.

In this alternately esoteric and disengaged atmosphere, the only energy was generated by the issue of nuclear power.

One by one, each of Tsongas’ rivals insisted they would reduce reliance on nuclear power. Harkin declared that a program “of developing solar . . . for the future” would allow the nation to avoid “going to the nuclear option that Paul Tsongas wants to move to.”

Brown said he would move to phase out all nuclear power plants over the next decade.

Clinton said: “I do not favor anything that will accelerate the building of nuclear power plants. If you have major incentives to the utilities to engage in conservation, if you have a major attempt to convert to natural gas wherever you can. . . . I do not think you are going to see a need for new nuclear power plants.”

Tsongas–after characterizing nuclear power as part of “the third tier” of his preferred energy options for the country–argued in response to the persistent jabs that a reduction in reliance on nuclear power would require greater use of fossil fuels, raising the threat of global warming through the greenhouse effect.

“If you take out all of your nuclear power plants by definition, you are going to have more fossil fuel burning and add to the greenhouse effect,” Tsongas said. “I take the position that the threat long term is global warming.”

Though Tsongas forcefully held his ground, he bristled under the attacks–which were among the most pointed he has endured. “If I could, I would like . . . to characterize my positions myself and not have others do it,” he said.

After the debate, aides to the other candidates maintained that Tsongas had been weakened by the focus on an issue. “I don’t think his position has been laid out before as it was here tonight, so I think it will hurt him,” said Frank Greer, Clinton’s media adviser.

Thaleia Schlesinger, Tsongas’ sister, countered: “People understand his position was based on his fear of global warming.”

When not arguing over whether to split atoms for energy, the candidates managed to make some points about the economy. To a greater degree than usual, Tsongas declared that his approach–which relies heavily on increasing capital incentives for business and rejects a tax cut for the middle class–offered struggle as well as reward.

“There are two roads,” he said in closing remarks. “One is easy, one is comfortable, but it is downhill. The other is the road to economic prosperity. . . . That road is steeper and it’s harder, but it’s more noble and it’s more worthy.”

Harkin reiterated his support for cutting the defense budget in half over 10 years to support infrastructure investments and other programs at home. And he took a harsh line on trade issues, promising to stand up to Japan and prevent former government trade negotiators from lobbying for foreign governments. “I’m saying trade has to be a two-way street, not a one-way bridge,” he said.

As he has in recent days, Clinton sought to differentiate himself from Tsongas by emphasizing his experience as chief executive in Arkansas and his plans to reform government. “I think we have to have a more activist government,” he said, “but it also has to be more community-based, less bureaucratic and provide more citizen choice.”

Like Harkin, Kerrey insisted that America needed to get tougher with Japan on trade. But he called for the establishment of “new trading structures so that we can expand trade into the rest of the world, trying to convert . . . old enemies into new customers.”

Tsongas, who has taken the strongest free-trade position, urged voluntary protectionism, saying that as President he would ask Americans to shun Japanese imports if Japan doesn’t open its markets. “If the Japanese are not willing to be reasonable,” he said, “you have to play hardball.”

For most of this encounter, though, hardball was apparently the last thing on the minds of the five Democrats chasing the White House. With Tuesday’s pivotal vote in sight, they seemed less like contenders stepping into the ring than weary fighters embracing at the end of a bruising match.

Times political writer Robert Shogan contributed to this story.

Screech! Crunch!

You’ve just been involved in an automobile accident. And the next sound you hear–even before the wailing of the ambulance–will very likely be the raised voices of the drivers involved arguing over whose fault it is.

Sure, there are a few level-headed types out there who calmly and quietly follow the prescribed procedure, exchanging names and policy numbers without further comment. But even those civilized drivers have arguments over fault–they just don’t begin the fight until the insurance claims are filed.

Last week, I told you about my own experience as an auto accident victim, and the tortuous 3-year process I had to go through just to get a marginal out-of-court settlement for my injuries. Forty percent of the money went to my attorney. If I had insisted on seeing my case through to trial, the ordeal would probably have lasted 2 more years, at least.

That’s because the courts are so clogged with auto accident cases. They increased 81% from 1982 to 1986, according to the Judicial Council of California. And according to the RAND Corp., they now account for 43% of all civil cases in the state.

It seems to me there ought to be a better way.

And it seems that way to some other people as well–people such as state Assemblyman Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton), and Judith Bell, director of special projects for the San Francisco-based Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine.

I don’t have any specifics to offer on what I think that better way might be. But they do. The California Trial Lawyers Assn. also has some suggestions for improvements, although the attorneys’ group would prefer to keep the current system intact and so far has not proposed legislation.

Johnston, who chairs the assembly’s Committee on Finance and Insurance, and Consumers Union have drafted a bill that would set up a no-fault insurance system modeled after a successful system in New York State.

We all heard the term “no-fault” bandied about ad nauseam last fall during the insurance industry’s $70-million campaign for Proposition 104, the so-called No-Fault Initiative. And our response at the polls was a resounding “No way!”–Proposition 104 lost by a 3-1 ratio.

Instead, we approved the Ralph Nader-backed Proposition 103–now only partially in effect while undergoing review by the California Supreme Court.

Proposition 103, however, makes no changes in the current tort system, which is based on the concept of fault.

Jeff Shelton, an aide to Johnston, says the new no-fault bill, AB 354, is designed to complement, not contradict, Proposition 103. And it has nothing to do with Proposition 104.

“AB 354 is to Proposition 104 what the Constitution of the United States is to the constitution of Russia,” Shelton says.

“Proposition 104 had 80 pages that had nothing to do with no-fault,” says Bell.

To understand how no-fault compares to the at-fault system, Shelton says, you first have to know a little history.

“The legacy of tort actions is that people should be required to compensate others when they’ve caused others harm through negligence. It began to develop during the Industrial Revolution as a defense against those who are hurt,” he says.

Wait a minute. A defense against victims?

That’s right, Shelton says. “The old English common law wasn’t so interested in negligence. The tort system requires not just that you prove I was the cause of your injury, but that I caused it as a result of a negligent act.”

In AB 354’s no-fault system, neither fault nor negligence would be a factor. If you’re injured in an auto accident, you file a claim with your own insurance company, “just like you would do now with your health insurance if you were sick, or with your homeowner’s insurance if your house burned down,” Shelton says.

“We think it would speed up the process. In New York when this system went into effect, the amount of time people waited to be paid was reduced from 2 years to 2 months, on the average.”

The Johnston no-fault bill also would require insurance companies to settle claims promptly or pay a 2% per month penalty for delays, along with attorney fees if their clients sue them as a result.

Because the insurance companies involved will never argue about who’s at fault in an accident, Shelton says, “many of the frictional costs we have now will be reduced.”

As with any no-fault system, some injured people will not be allowed to sue. But the Johnston bill’s claim limit is double that of Proposition 104–$50,000 total versus $10,000 for medical expenses and $15,000 for work loss. And its definition of what constitutes a serious injury, in which a victim can sue for pain and suffering damages, is much broader than under Proposition 104.

Still, the bill would remove about 80% of current cases from the court system, Bell says.

But wouldn’t an insurance company be inclined to cancel your policy if you make large claims against it? Mine did in 1986, after I filed a $6,000 collision damage claim.

That’s where Proposition 103 comes in, say Shelton and Bell, with its strict rules about the circumstances under which a policy can be canceled or not renewed.

A no-fault system might also reduce insurance premiums, Bell says. In New York, rates have increased only 4% a year since no-fault was instituted. In California, however, rates have gone up 42% since 1985.

But Gary Chambers, president-elect of the Orange County Trial Lawyers Assn. and a member of the state association’s governing board, says insurance companies don’t need cost-saving measures to reduce rates.

“I would like to see Proposition 103 go into effect before we start legislative efforts to help the insurance companies,” Chambers says. Proposition 103 mandates a 20% rate rollback, although that provision has been stayed pending the court’s review.

“No-fault was rejected overwhelmingly by the voters last fall,” Chambers says. “They don’t want it.”

But Chambers agrees that the system needs help. He thinks the first step in speeding things along is “more courtrooms. Statistically there are no more lawsuits per capita in California than in 1915, but there are one-third as many courtrooms available (per capita). The legal system has not kept pace.”

Chambers is also an advocate of mandatory arbitration and other efforts to streamline the process, as have been made in some counties. “In Riverside and San Diego counties they have an accelerated trial program, in which a case is put on a computer system to make it move and avoid the delays,” he says.

It’s Got 12 Gold-Plated Cylinders

We see cars on the road in Orange County that cost more than houses do in many parts of the country–Ferraris, Maseratis, Rolls-Royces. They’re not exactly a dime a dozen here, but status cars are common enough that most of us barely take notice when they pull up next to us. But what’s the ultimate county status car? We would like your opinion, whether it’s in your garage or merely in your dreams. Be as specific as possible when it comes to model, year, color, options, etc.

The Road to Romance

Sure, you’ve heard of life in the fast lane, but how about love in the fast lane? How many of you indulge in a little freeway flirting now and then? And how many have actually dated that attractive stranger one lane over. We’d like to hear.

Send your comments to Life on Wheels, Orange County Life, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626. Please include your phone number so that we can contact you. To protect your privacy, Life on Wheels does not publish correspondents’ last names when the subject is sensitive.

Along the road to the airport as President Trump ended his holiday in Florida, people greeted the presidential motorcade with waving American flags, and signs reading “Puppies for Trump,” “Fire McMaster,” “Hillary for prison,” and “Trump Strong.” Then there were the others: “President Trump is fake news,” “Go away and don’t come back,” “Mr. Mueller is coming for [you]” and “Resign.”

Such is the moment in this divided nation.

Trump returned to Washington on Sunday for what will be a critical week for his legislative agenda. In the coming days, Congress must address immigration issues, children’s healthcare and continued funding for the government.

That’s not to mention the GOP tax cut plan that cleared the House and faces an uncertain future in the Senate. (Trump over the weekend said he hoped the Senate would “come through” and approve the plan.)

The bigger question will be how the storylines of sexual misconduct and harassment overshadow any policy discussion.

HARASSMENT STORIES CONTINUE

The long holiday weekend brought plenty of news on this topic.

Under pressure from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others, senior Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr., the No. 2 on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday he would step down from his post as he faces an ethics investigation into allegations he sexually harassed female staffers.

Conyers, 88, the Dean of the House elected last fall to his 27th full term, has denied the allegations. But he said the investigation and the allegations are a distraction to the “important” work of the committee, which he noted handles civil rights cases and voters’ access to the ballot box.

Sen. Al Franken issued another apology after new allegations from women.

We’ll be closely tracking what happens here in California when the Assembly begins its sexual harassment hearings Tuesday. The moment comes as one of its lawmakers has opted against reelection in the wake of accusations from six women. The Times’ report about Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra last week could become part of that legislative discussion. Likelier still is that the hearing will examine the process for people to come forward.

To that end, the California Legislature again denied records requests from The Times on sexual harassment complaints.

The issue has gotten attention locally as well. Despite its size, the city of Los Angeles has no centralized method for tracking sexual harassment complaints lodged against its workers. Nor are managers required to report such claims to the city’s Personnel Department. Dakota Smith reports that with dozens of different departments and a fragmented reporting system, two members of the Los Angeles City Council want to examine the city’s process for reporting abusive and inappropriate behavior.

SPOTLIGHT ON AN INVESTIGATION

At 73, Robert Mueller has a record that includes plenty of accolades. But it also shows a man of fallible judgment who can be slow to alter his chosen course. At times, he has intimidated or provoked resentment among subordinates, David Willman reports.

Mueller’s tenacious yet linear approach to evaluating evidence led him to fumble the biggest U.S. terrorism investigation since 9/11, Willman writes, and now, as he leads a sprawling investigation aimed at the White House, Mueller’s prosecutorial discretion looms over the Trump presidency.

Trump tweeted over the weekend that the Russia investigation is “phony.”

NATIONAL POLITICS LIGHTNING ROUND

The Senate Republican plan to use tax legislation to repeal the federal requirement that Americans have health coverage threatens to derail insurance markets in conservative, rural swaths of the country, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis. Noam Levey writes that the measure could leave consumers in these regions — including most or all of Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming, as well as parts of many other states — with either no options for coverage or health plans that are prohibitively expensive.

Voters just don’t seem to be that interested in the plan, either. Polls show most Americans view it as benefiting the wealthy and corporations, skeptical it will do much for middle-class taxpayers.

White House officials said Saturday that Trump was on solid legal ground in naming Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the battle over control of the CFPB escalated Sunday as the deputy director sued to stop Trump. Leandra English requested a temporary restraining order to block Mulvaney from taking the position.

Mark Z. Barabak looks at why the Alabama Senate race is far from over, even with all of the allegations against Roy Moore.

Trump, whose “he denies it” remarks kept cable news busy all last week, reiterated his support for Moore over the weekend.

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether corporate whistle-blowers are protected from being fired if they disclose wrongdoing to company officials rather than to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Catch up quickly on the president’s feud with LaVar Ball.

A Texas Republican congressman apologized for sending a nude selfie during the course of a consensual relationship. The image was posted on Twitter.

From the “you can’t make it up” files, we bring you Piegate.

Get the latest about these storylines, the tax plan developments and what’s happening in the nation’s capital on Essential Washington.

VILLARAIGOSA CAME OUT AHEAD

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the final top Democrat running for governor to release his tax returns, allowed reporters to view six years of filings the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The man who famously proclaimed that he left office with nothing has been busy making millions ever since then, Seema Mehta and Patrick McGreevy report.

LONGSHOT WITH A LONG LIST OF FRIENDS

Omar Navarro lost badly to Rep. Maxine Waters last fall, but he’s trying again, and he has a cadre of famous far-right friends to help him: Trump confidant Roger Stone, former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Plus, a group of major Republican donors plans to take on the long-serving Los Angeles congresswoman. As Sarah Wire reports, either Trump supporters see a GOP path to victory in a district that’s overwhelmingly Democratic or they just want to punish one of Trump’s most vocal detractors.

FORMER CLINTON AIDE FACES LOCAL CONTENDERS IN EAST BAY RACE

Buffy Wicks, who last year helped steer Hillary Clinton’s victory in California, started out as an antiwar community organizer in the Bay Area more than a decade ago before going to work on Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008. She eventually rose through the ranks to become one of his senior White House staffers.

Now, she is running for office herself — in the crowded race for Assembly District 15 in one of the state’s most diverse and politically progressive regions, covering Berkeley, Richmond and parts of Oakland. She says she jumped into the competition at an energetic time for Democrats, and with a desire to apply all she learned in Washington. But she is facing some popular local contenders who say they see her as an outsider trying to parachute in.

A reminder you can keep up with this and other important races in the moment via our Essential Politics news feed on California politics.

POLITICAL ROAD MAP: A PRIVACY BATTLE BREWS

If headlines about private information stolen or data bought and sold worry you, then a California ballot measure will catch your attention next year.

John Myers writes in this week’s Political Road Map column about a possible 2018 proposition that could fundamentally alter the balance of power over consumer privacy rights — a change that, if it makes the ballot and voters approve, would undoubtedly set a national precedent.

TODAY’S ESSENTIALS

— During his 39 years behind bars, Craig Coley maintained his innocence. Now, authorities say they agree with him. Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned Coley, 70, last week. Evidence once thought destroyed helped free him.

— California’s cap-and-trade program saw strong results from its most recent permit auction, raising more than $800 million to help combat climate change.

— California business leaders urged Congress to reauthorize the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program without a government shutdown.

— California’s Republican candidates for governor will meet for their first debate in January in San Bernardino County, Mehta reports.

— In cycling-obsessed Colombia, he dreamed of glory. But first he needed a bike. Read Jazmine Ulloa’s story from Tunja, Colombia, produced as part of a fellowship with the International Center for Journalists. The exchange program centered on digital media institutions and is geared to allow journalists to gain insights into digital practices outside the U.S.

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CARTHAGE, Tenn. — Vice President Al Gore’s father, Albert Gore Sr., who served in Congress for three decades and was a leading opponent of the Vietnam War and a key force behind the interstate highway system, died Saturday. He was 90.

Gore died of natural causes at his home, a statement from the vice president’s office said. The vice president and his wife, Tipper, were at his bedside.

A leader among Democrats, Gore served in the Senate from 1953 to 1970. Gore was a key opponent of the Vietnam War as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His son, however, enlisted in the Army after his graduation from Harvard and spent two years in Vietnam as an Army journalist.

An unabashed liberal who made few concessions to the will of Tennessee voters, Gore voted against two of President Nixon’s Southern Supreme Court nominees: Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and G. Harrold Carswell. His votes earned him then-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew’s famous epithet, “Southern regional chairman of the Eastern Liberal Establishment.”

His opposition to the war and his liberal positions were blamed for his defeat in 1970 by Republican Bill Brock, scion of a wealthy candy-making family. Gore retired from public life after his defeat.

Six years later, his son was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, then to the Senate in 1984. After a failed presidential try in 1988, the younger Gore was elected vice president as Bill Clinton’s running mate in 1992.

President Clinton paid tribute Saturday night to the senior Gore, calling him a valuable public servant “who helped connect the South with the rest of America.”

Gore himself had briefly been a vice presidential candidate to Adlai E. Stevenson III during the 1956 Democratic national convention. He withdrew in favor of fellow Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver, who won the nomination. The Democratic ticket lost to the Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower.

When Gore was first elected to the Senate, in 1952, he had already served 14 years in the U.S. House, taking time out for Army service during World War II.

In the 1950s, the elder Gore introduced legislation to create the interstate highway system, promoting it as a national defense network modeled on the German autobahn that he had seen during World War II service. The bill was passed in 1956.

“The multiplication of automobiles and trucks made our narrow, free-access highways completely out of date,” Gore said. The interstate system now totals 44,000 miles.

After his defeat in the Senate, the onetime schoolteacher-farmer was named to the board of Island Creek Coal Co., a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp., by Armand Hammer. Gore’s farm at Carthage also contains extensive copper, zinc and germanium ore.

The former senator’s life was not always comfortable. Born Dec. 26, 1907, in the mountain community of Granville, Gore moved with his family to the Carthage area when he was 2.

He received his early education in the one-room Possum Hollow school and later became a teacher in one-room schools himself. That gave him the money to put himself through Middle Tennessee State College, from where he graduated in 1932.

His first elective office was Smith County school superintendent. While serving in that job, he studied law at Nashville’s YMCA Law School and operated a tobacco-grading barn.

Gore and his wife, Pauline LaFon Gore, were married in 1937. Besides their son, the vice president, they also had a daughter, Nancy, who died of lung cancer at age 45 in 1984.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traveled to Delaware last weekend to meet with Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s first known in-person session with a potential running mate as he nears a decision.

Whitmer visited Biden on Sunday, according to two high-ranking Michigan Democrats who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The first-term governor of the battleground state has long been on his short list of possible running mates.

Flight records show a chartered plane left Lansing’s Capital Region International Airport for Delaware Coastal Airport at 5:33 p.m. and returned at 11:16 p.m.

The governor’s office declined to confirm or deny the trip.

“We don’t discuss her personal schedule,” spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said.

Biden’s campaign declined to comment.

He has spent months weighing who would serve alongside him if he wins in November. Biden has pledged to select a woman and has conducted an expansive search, with finalists including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, California Rep. Karen Bass and former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice.

Biden is facing calls to select a Black woman to acknowledge the crucial role of Black women in Democratic politics and in response to the nation’s reckoning with systemic racism.

Whitmer has sought to address racism and racial inequity. In April, she created a task force to address the pandemic’s racial disparities and later proposed police reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. On Wednesday — days after visiting Biden — she declared racism a public health crisis, created an advisory council of Black leaders and required implicit bias training for all state employees.

If Whitmer is chosen to join the ticket and Biden wins, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II would become the country’s only Black governor.

Biden and Whitmer formed a bond after he campaigned for her in the 2018 gubernatorial election. She is a co-chair on his campaign.

Her profile has grown since delivering the Democrats’ response to President Trump’s State of the Union address in February and especially amid the pandemic. She has taken aggressive steps to curb the coronavirus in a state that was a hot spot nationally early on and — after she criticized the federal response — has drawn criticism from Trump, who in March urged Vice President Mike Pence not to call “the woman in Michigan.”

NAPA, Calif. — The Buena Vista tasting room is not just another downtown Napa wine bar.

It is a conspicuously indulgent place, where epicureans can fill their glasses with cabernet and sink into the carefully restored mezzanine’s dark velvet lounges for a tasting of fine caviar and artisan chocolates resembling museum pieces.

One vibe this nook of luxury does not give off is that of a community in distress. Its neighbor in the ornate 1920s Italianate edifice known as the Gordon Building is an Anthropologie store.

The redevelopment of the building, damaged in an earthquake, was bankrolled using a tax shelter created in 2017 for the wealthiest Americans on the promise it would bring opportunity to the most downtrodden places.

Billions of dollars’ worth of tax breaks for the wealthy are being generated by the Opportunity Zone program, often in pursuit of luxury high-rises, high-end hotels and swank office space. It has subsidized hulking self-storage units nestled alongside freeways and upmarket apartments for employees of the hottest Bay Area tech firms.

One thing the tax break has fallen short on: creating opportunities in low-income communities.

Opportunity zones were supposed to encourage investment in low-income communities. But billionaires are building luxury hotels and high-rises, instead.

“This has been perverted into a huge gift for people who did not need it,” said Aaron Seybert, managing director of social investment at the Kresge Foundation, which has found it difficult to put the tax break to work toward its effort to bring opportunity to America’s struggling communities.

“They are spending my money and yours. They said they would do that because these low-income areas are falling behind and they want to help people who live there,” Seybert said.

“The places I work in every day have raised virtually nothing” through the program, he said.

The same grievance can be heard from mayors of struggling towns throughout the nation. Among those declaring the program a bust is the East Baltimore pastor who went to the White House in 2018 to help President Trump unveil it. His community has been passed over as investors chase the double-digit returns that accompany the tax shelter in upscale markets.

The story of how this all happened has deep California roots, sprouting from the vision of a Silicon Valley billionaire who inserted himself into the machinations of federal policymaking.

The Opportunity Zone program was the vision of Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker, shown here in 2018.

(Michael Brochstein / Getty Images)

Sean Parker — founder of Napster, Facebook’s first president and the Silicon Valley bad boy depicted in the film “The Social Network” — seemed a stretch for this role.

Parker began working the Washington circuit late in the Obama era, when it was still hospitable to super-rich tech innovators but few had the patience or humility to navigate it. Washington is not about moving quickly and breaking things. Long, slow insider games of horse-trading precede almost every big new federal policy.

Yet Parker’s plan had bipartisan appeal. It focused on the wealth of Americans loath to reinvest their stock market, real estate and other capital gains profits because of the hefty tax bills that come when that money is moved. The idea was to give them a break on those taxes if they steered the money to communities desperate for investment.

“He really went to school on how Washington works,” said David Wessel, author of “Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age,” which chronicles Parker’s quest and what became of the program he championed. “He hired a couple of Washington insiders, one a Democrat and one a Republican, and they created this think tank with the goal of getting Opportunity Zones into law…. They laid the foundation by making the case that we have a problem with geographic inequality in the United States, and it is not just incremental.”

Parker held private dinners with lawmakers of competing ideological loyalties, and he donated generously across the aisle.

“The idea initially sounded great,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat who had been approached by Parker to run the think tank, called the Economic Innovation Group. “I was quite enthusiastic about it.” Khanna passed on the job offer, as he was gearing up for a congressional run at the time, but once elected, he would join the push behind the tax break.

Downtown Napa’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The historic Franklin Station postal building, a site proposed for a boutique hotel, is in downtown Napa’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

It allows investors to park their capital gains in Opportunity Zone projects. When they do, they can put off paying taxes on those gains for years, and cut that tax bill by as much as 15% when it does come due. The bigger draw: If they keep their money in the Opportunity Zone project for a decade, they don’t pay any taxes at all on the potentially large profits they make off that investment. The cumulative cost of the incentive is $1.6 billion in foregone tax revenue per year, which the Urban Institute says makes it one of the largest federal programs for steering investment into distressed places.

It seemed a price worth paying for even some progressive Democrats like Khanna if the end result was a flourishing of opportunity in the nation’s economic deserts.

But the California dreaming was disrupted by Washington deal-making. There was no hearing or any public vetting of the measure by lawmakers before it got quietly tucked into the Trump tax cut package of 2017. The final regulations were astoundingly permissive, full of provisions that allowed census districts in some of the nation’s wealthiest places to qualify as Opportunity Zones.

“It has not been used in ways that actually ended up creating jobs,” Khanna said. “It has been gamed.”

The money often has flowed to projects promising big financial returns that analysts — including those on then-President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors — conclude would have happened without the tax break.

While Parker and his think tank remain bullish that with some tweaks Opportunity Zones will be the “Marshall Plan for the heartland” they promised, many erstwhile backers are angry about what the program has become.

Angel Barajas, a Yolo County supervisor, walks through an Opportunity Zone in Woodland, west of Sacramento, that he says has been left behind by the program.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“Woodland needs housing, it needs infill development,” said Enrique Fernandez, the former mayor of the heavily Latino city west of Sacramento, which persuaded the state to designate two of its census tracts as Opportunity Zones. The tax break has drawn none of it.

“I am really skeptical about the true intentions of this law and how it was implemented,” Fernandez said.

The city of Woodland’s Opportunity Zone district is only an hour’s drive from Napa’s Gordon Building but is in a different universe economically, riddled with vacant lots and litter. It could be a ripe canvas for development as the nearby main street comes alive with new small businesses bolstered by home buyers and renters moving to the town in search of a cheaper alternative to Sacramento, but the tax break is doing nothing to speed that transition.

Jose Ahumada Ruelas gathers recyclables to help his daughter, who collects them for income, at Yolano Village, a low-income housing development in Woodland’s Opportunity Zone.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On a recent tour of the area, local officials said the investment needed to revitalize the blighted swaths of their community might have come if lawmakers had made good on their promise to steer the incentives only to struggling communities.

There are 8,764 census tracts designated as Opportunity Zones nationwide. Only 16% of them attracted any projects in the gold rush for rich investors in the program’s first year, when the tax breaks were most lucrative, according to an April 2021 UC Berkeley report based on aggregate data from the IRS.

Nearly half the cash invested went to the richest 1% of Opportunity Zones — places that rarely fit the conventional definition of distressed. Data from the consulting firm Novogradac reveal California cities are getting more of that cash than anyplace else.

In Oakland, Opportunity Zone tax breaks are being used to build high-rise apartments on the waterfront; they’ll rent at market rate, far out of reach for most locals. The situation is the same in downtown Long Beach and in Los Angeles neighborhoods like Koreatown and Little Tokyo. In Portland, Ore., the tax break was used to build a Ritz Carlton hotel.

In January, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an investigation into several of these projects, including one in Palm Beach, Fla., where the incentive is being used to build a marina for “super-yachts.”

Todd Zapolski used the Opportunity Zone program to draw investors to his renovation of the Gordon Building in downtown Napa, which is now home to an Anthropologie store and a wine bar.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The Gordon Building developer said its renovation was possible because downtown Napa qualified as economically distressed under the Opportunity Zone program.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Back in Napa, the developer of the Gordon Building said the project will spur growth in a part of Northern California where underlying challenges of joblessness and housing affordability are obscured by the influx of wine vacationers. “We have some of the wealthiest in the country, and we have some of the poorest in the country,” Todd Zapolski said.

The landmark building was badly damaged in the 2014 South Napa earthquake, and Zapolski said repairing it was possible only because of the Opportunity Zone sweetener.

“We couldn’t make it work unless we had that incentive,” he said. “That gave us the extra oomph for investors to say, all right … we’ll take the risk.”

Parker declined to be interviewed, but the leader of the think tank he created took issue with scathing reviews of the program from community leaders, advocates and lawmakers who once saw promise in it. John Lettieri, president and chief executive of the Economic Innovation Group, said layering too many rules and restrictions onto the incentive would chase away investors.

“The trick is to get them to redeploy their capital without having to jump through bureaucratic hoops that would make it hard to access and leave communities in the same place they have been,” he said. “We were trying to create an incentive that can be relevant enough to a wide array of communities nationwide.”

States had broad authority on where to locate their Opportunity Zones, Lettieri said, and some were not judicious in drawing the maps. He said California, which drew the zones into some of the nation’s most wealthy enclaves, was one of the worst offenders.

California officials were not particularly invested in the federal program, which the Trump administration gave states scant time to shape or vet before they had to draw maps. The administration of then-Gov. Jerry Brown initially proposed an expedient process involving an algorithm. The federal rules were so permissive that the state’s draft maps included the campus of Stanford as an Opportunity Zone.

The downtown San Jose Opportunity Zone sits adjacent to the mega campus Google is building in the city.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Stanford and some others were removed from the program, but other pricey ZIP Codes stayed in amid lobbying by local politicians, economic development agencies and builders.

But the state’s ambivalence about Opportunity Zones is clear in its refusal to match the federal tax break with a credit investors in the projects can also claim on their state taxes. Officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration signaled to developers they believe the tax break is a giveaway. New York lawmakers gave their own vote of no confidence after the tax break was put to use for luxury projects in some of New York City’s most expensive ZIP Codes. The tax shelter last year was stripped from New York’s tax code.

Even so, there are cases of truly distressed communities making use of the credit.

An organization called SoLa Impact says it is leveraging the incentive to buy run-down residential properties in underserved neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and rehabilitate them for low-income tenants.

No state has had a bigger impact on the direction of the United States than California, a prolific incubator and exporter of outside-the-box policies and ideas. This occasional series examines what that has meant for the state and the country, and how far Washington is willing to go to spread California’s agenda as the state’s own struggles threaten its standing as the nation’s think tank.

Before he was slain, Los Angeles rap star Nipsey Hussle had plans to use it to invest in businesses in Crenshaw. The Central Valley city of Merced is looking to the tax break to bring its downtown back to life.

The place boosters point to most often is across the country in Erie, Pa., a city that is emblematic of the Rust Belt’s economic collapse. Community leaders say the incentive is crucial to the development of 12 residential and retail projects that will reshape the downtown.

But for every dollar the federal government is investing in Erie through the tax break, it is spending several more in downtown San Jose, a place hardly hurting for capital. The Opportunity Zone there sits adjacent to the future home of a sprawling Google campus that is so big it will reshape the footprint of the downtown, bringing in thousands of highly paid tech workers.

They will be able to stroll to a glistening residential tower getting built with the incentive, where 1,000-square-foot apartments will rent for $4,250 per month. The developer, Urban Catalyst, is not required to set aside anything for affordable housing beyond what the city requires for any other project. The building will have an infinity pool.

The Fountain Alley development in downtown San Jose’s Opportunity Zone will feature “the largest rooftop restaurant and bar in Silicon Valley.”

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Erik Hayden, founder, of Urban Catalyst.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On a tour of San Jose’s Opportunity Zone building boom, Urban Catalyst founder Erik Hayden walked journalists through the construction of another stylish structure getting renovated with the tax break, with soaring ceilings and windows the size of movie screens. It will be home to a swank indoor miniature golf course and cocktail bar inspired by Burning Man. The complex will also house a venue for ax throwing and craft beer drinking.

Asked how such projects fit into the program’s goal of uplifting left-behind communities, Hayden points to properties downtown that remain vacant and boarded up, as the rapid gentrification and flood of investment in this community hopscotches across blocks. “It feels to me like a left-behind community,” he said. “We’re building a variety of different things, all of which are needed by downtown.”

It is hard to reconcile these luxury buildings in San Jose with the stated vision of Parker and that of the lawmaker who was the lead champion for the tax break, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only Black Republican.

When Scott was invited to the White House in 2017 and asked by Trump how to make amends for the president’s remark that “there were very fine people on both sides” of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Scott secured Trump’s endorsement for Opportunity Zones.

The senator recounts in his book, “Opportunity Knocks,” how he made the pitch, telling Trump “that we must find fresh ways to alleviate the terrible poverty that is the source of so many of our ills — including the plague of racism.” Scott remains a proponent of the program, saying in a House hearing in November that the tens of billions invested in Opportunity Zone projects are, by the program’s definition, going to “low-income, high-poverty, racially diverse areas.”

The Paseo, a tech office space and retail building in downtown San Jose’s Opportunity Zone, will feature an indoor miniature golf course inspired by Burning Man.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

He pointed to new businesses in Columbia, S.C., an affordable housing development in Rockhill, N.C., and local enthusiasm for the program in Stockton. He acknowledged, though, that accurately measuring the tax shelter’s success is impossible, because there are no disclosure rules that allow taxpayers to learn “exactly what people are doing with the resources and the benefits and the incentives.” Scott says he wants more disclosure.

Those who have soured on the tax break say they have seen enough to know it is doing little to bring the country closer to Scott’s lofty goal of alleviating poverty and racism. But it is, they say, helping a lot of wealthy investors and developers of luxury properties.

One need only peruse the Lake Tahoe real estate ads for evidence.

Among the listings is an 8-acre property directly across the street from Heavenly Mountain Resort ski area. The price tag is $52 million. One selling point: The city has already greenlighted the property for a hotel or condos, shops and a large event space.

Another selling point: It is in an Opportunity Zone.

WASHINGTON — Russia stood alone Friday to veto a U.N. resolution condemning its “brutal” invasion of Ukraine, killing the measure — for now. But all other members in the solemn session of the U.N. Security Council either voted in favor or abstained, testament to rounds of intensive diplomatic pleas by the Biden administration.

The U.S.-drafted measure, which demands the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Russian troops battering Ukraine, was approved by 11 members. Most notably, China, thought to be in Moscow’s corner, abstained. So did two U.S. allies, India and the United Arab Emirates, in a disappointment for the U.S. Russia, as one of five permanent members, holds veto power, which it exercised.

That Russia’s “isolation” was so starkly drawn was hailed as a major victory by U.S. diplomats. And they vowed they will carry a similar resolution to the full 193-member General Assembly, where there are no vetoes and only a simple majority is needed to pass.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that she was not surprised by the Russian veto but that it would not deter efforts to rebuke and stop Moscow’s aggression.

“Russia, you can veto this resolution, but you cannot veto our voices,” she said, looking directly at the Russian representative, Vasily Nebenzya, who, in one of the peculiarities of U.N. politics, was chairing the session as rotating president of the council.

“You cannot veto the truth,” Thomas-Greenfield continued. “You cannot veto our principles. You cannot veto the Ukrainian people. You cannot veto the U.N. Charter. And you will not veto accountability.”

Nebenzya, after the vote but with the council still in session, took Thomas-Greenfield and several other Western representatives to task for what they had condemned as egregious abuses and attacks on civilians by Russian forces.

“Who are you to moralize?” he said. Thomas-Greenfield looked back at him, stone-faced.

He and the Ukrainian ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, also had testy exchanges. Nebenzya called his Ukrainian counterpart “boorish,” while Kyslytsya said Nebenzya and his comments accusing Ukraine of repression earned him a special “seat in hell.”

Friday’s vote followed senior U.S. diplomats’ intense lobbying of their counterparts from dozens of countries to back the resolution at the Security Council or at a possible later meeting of the full United Nations, where a similar condemnation could be brought.

Russia “will be shown to be isolated on the world stage,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said a couple of hours ahead of the vote.

Although the Americans were disappointed that India and the UAE did not join in the “yes” column, it was China’s decision to abstain that gave them particular relief.

Before Friday’s meeting, U.S. diplomats expressed the likelihood that Beijing would side with Moscow. They saw glimmers of hope, however: President Xi Jinping has been publicly measured in support for the invasion. Although he values a growing relationship with Moscow, he may also be reluctant to pick too bitter a fight with the U.S. and NATO.

The Chinese representative to the Security Council, Zhang Jun, explained his country’s vote saying that although China did not support violating the sovereignty of another nation, as Russia has done, the resolution might add “fuel to the fire” rather than contributing to a diplomatic path to peace. He also said Russia’s “legitimate security aspirations” had to be addressed.

“Ukraine should become a bridge between East and West, not an outpost for confrontation among major powers,” Zhang said.

Similarly, the UAE and India said that although they abhorred Russia’s actions, they feared the resolution would shut the door to diplomacy and dialogue. Both countries, especially India, also have strong ties to Russia.

The Security Council vote came after increased economic sanctions the Biden administration imposed on Russia on Thursday — and on Putin himself on Friday — which had been augmented by a series of measures by the European Union.

Rallying broader support for a condemnation of Russia, however, had been a surprisingly difficult task for U.S. diplomats.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his deputy, Wendy R. Sherman, as well as other officials, had been on the phone to counterparts from a host of nations, including Portugal, Turkey, Moldova, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those efforts followed months of in-person and virtual consultations and warnings among allies about Russia’s designs on Ukraine.

India had been an especially prickly case. In addition to historical ties with Moscow, New Delhi in recent years has built a defense and diplomatic partnership with Washington.

But India was tepid in its initial response to Russia’s aggression. During a Security Council session that unfolded in New York on Wednesday night as President Vladimir Putin unleashed Russian troops on Ukraine, India’s representative called for de-escalation but did not condemn Moscow. So, while not a “yes,” India’s abstention Friday could have been worse, diplomats said.

A Biden administration official who briefed reporters on the U.S. strategy for the Security Council rejected any suggestion that the difficulty in putting together a united front reflected the impotence of consensus-based global organizations like the United Nations and especially the Security Council, where Russia and China are permanent members, along with the United States, France and Britain. Russia currently holds the rotating president’s seat on the council.

“It’s important that we send a message to Ukraine, to Russia and to the world that the Security Council will not look away,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes deliberations. “The council was established to respond to precisely this scenario: a stronger country waging war against a weaker neighbor in violation of the U.N. Charter and the principles of the U.N. Charter.”

But U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who spoke to reporters after the Security Council meeting, was clearly disappointed.

The United Nations “was born out of war, to end war,” he said. “Today that objective was not achieved.”

By the time Juul’s co-creator stood before a tech audience in April 2016, ads for the e-cigarette aimed to distance the product from a toxic past: “Our company has its roots in Silicon Valley, not in fields of tobacco.”

But when James Monsees, a soon-to-be billionaire, projected a 30-year-old tobacco document on the screen behind him, he grinned. It was an internal memo from the research troves of R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes. It was stamped “SECRET.”

“We also had another leg up,” Monsees said.

A review by the Los Angeles Times of more than 3,000 pages of internal Juul records, obtained by the Food and Drug Administration and released to a researcher through the Freedom of Information Act, found that the concept behind the formula that makes Juul so palatable and addictive dates back more than four decades — to Reynolds’ laboratories.

The key ingredient: nicotine salts.

Juul’s salts contain up to three times the amount of nicotine found in previous e-cigarettes. They use softening chemicals to allow people to take deeper drags without vomiting or burning their throats. And they were developed based on research conducted by the tobacco companies Juul claimed to be leaving behind.

In addition to the internal documents, The Times consulted more than a dozen tobacco researchers, policy experts and historians, and reviewed patent applications and publicly available videos of Juul’s founders discussing their product over the course of a decade. One of those videos has since been removed from YouTube.

Taken together, the evidence depicts a Silicon Valley start-up that purported to “deconstruct” Big Tobacco even as it emulated it, harvesting the industry’s technical savvy to launch a 21st century nicotine arms race.

In multiple conversations with The Times, Juul did not directly address assertions that the company embraced the very industry it sought to dismantle. A spokesperson for Juul acknowledged that the product intentionally “mimicked” the nicotine experience of a traditional cigarette, but explained that the formula was designed that way in order to satisfy the cravings of adult smokers, not children.

“We never designed our product to appeal to youth and do not want any non-nicotine users to try our products,” a spokesperson for Juul said in a statement to The Times. “We are working to urgently address underage use of vapor products, including Juul products, and earn the trust of regulators, policymakers, and other stakeholders.”

After extensive lobbying by the vaping industry and its allies, President Trump this month missed the deadline he set to ban vaping flavors, despite mounting public complaints over their attractiveness to teenagers, and it’s now unclear whether the administration will take any action. On Monday, California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and Los Angeles officials announced a lawsuit against Juul, alleging it engaged in deceptive practices with kid-friendly advertising and a failure to issue health warnings.

But a new generation of nicotine addicts has already been established, and health experts warn that millions of teenagers who currently vape could ultimately turn to other products like cigarettes for their fix.

“Reynolds successfully engineered this formula, but it was Juul that ultimately vaporized it — and achieved what Big Tobacco never could,” said Robert Jackler, a Stanford University researcher focused on teenage e-cigarette use. “They studied Reynolds literature, took advantage of it, and addicted a new generation of American youth.”

Making nicotine more palatable

In February 1973, a researcher at Reynolds saw a conundrum: While cigarettes had wide appeal to adults, they would never become “the ‘in’ products” among youths.

For a teenager, the physical effects of smoking were “actually quite unpleasant,” Claude E. Teague Jr., who is now deceased, wrote in a confidential internal memo.

“Realistically, if our company is to survive and prosper, over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market,” he wrote. “There is certainly nothing immoral or unethical about our company attempting to attract those smokers.”

Reynolds had known for two decades that its product caused cancer. Still, one of the company’s top researchers, Frank G. Colby, pitched a design late in 1973 that would secure “a larger segment of the youth market” by packing “more ‘enjoyment’ or ‘kicks’ (nicotine)” and softening the chemical’s harsh effect on the throats of young smokers.

By boosting nicotine, the addictive chemical, the company could generate faster and more intense addictions among the youngest clients, securing decades of business. But a key challenge was to make nicotine palatable: The chemical had been used as an insecticide since colonial times, and three drops on the tongue could be lethal, according to Robert Proctor, a cigarette historian at Stanford. People couldn’t inhale hefty doses without vomiting.

Reynolds scientists eventually found a solution: Combine the high-pH nicotine with a low-pH acid. The result was a neutralized compound called a salt — nicotine salt.

To perfect the technique, the company enlisted one of its chemists, Thomas Perfetti, a 25-year-old with a newly minted PhD.

Perfetti got to work on a six-month investigation into nicotine salts. According to his laboratory notes, he stirred round-bottom flasks of various acids, then added nicotine, watching as the ingredients condensed into thick yellow oils. All were odorless except one, he wrote, which smelled like “green apples.”

Perfetti synthesized 30 different nicotine salt concoctions, then heated them — like a smoker would — in pursuit of the “maximum release of nicotine.” He also tested the salts’ ability to dissolve into a liquid — a trait that would decades later become central to vaping products like Juul.

On Jan. 18, 1979, Perfetti scribbled his signature on a 17-page final report. The results were stamped “CONFIDENTIAL.” He was soon promoted.

Ten years later, Reynolds was granted a patent for its salts, with Perfetti’s name listed among three inventors. Perfetti would go on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tobacco Science Research Conference.

Perfetti, who has since retired from the company, confirmed the details of his research to The Times in a LinkedIn message, but declined to comment further.

Kaelan Hollon, a spokesperson for Reynolds, told The Times that the nicotine salts research was conducted as the company aimed to “reduce the risks” of smoking while “maintaining nicotine delivery.” Although the salts were patented, they were ultimately never used in a traditional Reynolds cigarette, she added.

Premier. The early heat-not-burn cigarette was introduced by R.J. Reynolds.

(Fairfax Media)

About the same time, in 1988, Reynolds introduced one of the first-ever aerosol cigarettes: Premier. After five months, it was pulled from the market because of low sales, records show.

“It made me nauseous for the rest of the day,” one tobacco distributor told The Times in 1989, saying he was sending back thousands of dollars’ worth of the aerosol cigarettes to Reynolds.

At the time, the company was facing another obstacle to using its new research: the FDA’s mounting outrage over what health experts called its “deceptive” past. In 1998, Reynolds, along with three other companies, agreed to begin paying billions of dollars to compensate states for having knowingly propelled a smoking epidemic, which by then had led to the deaths of about 20 million Americans. According to Proctor, Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes have killed about 4 million.

Within this climate, the company was unable to combine its two technical triumphs — palatable salts and early vaping equipment.

“Reynolds succeeded in developing the technology, but never really succeeded in turning it into a transformative breakthrough,” said Matthew Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington, D.C.

“Juul did that.”

‘Addiction is central to the business model’

In June 2005, two product design students at Stanford moseyed in front of a classroom to present their graduate thesis, titled “The Rational Future of Smoking.” It was, in a way, the birth of an industry.

As the lights dimmed, the students, Adam Bowen and Monsees, projected an image onto a screen of a man puffing an early prototype of a vape pen — a precursor to Juul.

A video of the event shows the two students pitching their audience for 17 minutes on a device called Ploom, a vaporizer that would provide “a lot more effective way of releasing nicotine.” They illustrated the stigma of traditional cigarettes — using a South Park cartoon clip that called a smoker “Dirty Lung” and “Tar Breath.” They likened their nicotine pods to sleek Nespresso cartridges that were “a big hit in Europe.”

“We can take tobacco back to being a luxury good — and not so much a sort of drug-delivery device,” said Bowen, who went on to become Juul’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

Monsees said the pair had scrutinized the research behind Reynolds’ failed Premier model before designing their own. He projected a snapshot of chemistry charts from the company’s internal records.

“They’ve realized that they’re killing off their own client base, so they sunk several billion dollars into this already,” Monsees said.

Adam Bowen, left, and James Monsees, co-founders of Juul, in 2018.

(Francois Guillot / Getty Images)

When Bowen clicked to the final slide, a video began to play: A man peering into a video camera lens gave a testimonial, gripping the vaporizer prototype in his hand.

“This product is the greatest thing I have ever encountered in my life,” he said. “I will smoke this with enthusiasm, and develop a nicotine habit that will follow me to my grave.”

The class howled with laughter and broke into applause, launching Monsees and Bowen into a decade of product development. The Ploom device entered the market and would evolve into Pax, and in 2015, Juul.

A Juul vaping system with accessory pods.

(Washington Post)

Monsees would use a TEDx talk in Brussels to explain their effort to “deconstruct” smoking, and early Juul advertisements used a catchy drum beat to assure consumers: “We threw away everything we knew about cigarettes.”

Juul records show the start-up collected research done by tobacco experts about nicotine — work on using salts to control harshness, written by a former top scientist at Reynolds, as well as methods to maximize nicotine delivery, and piles of literature on nicotine’s impact on adolescent brains.

“Certainly, the nicotine salt chemistry was one of the big breakthroughs,” Monsees said onstage at a 2018 tech start-up conference called Disrupt.

Three days before Christmas in 2015, the maker of Juul, Pax Labs, patented its own nicotine salt recipe — making reference to U.S. Patent 4,830,028A, the Reynolds salts from 1989.

On page 15 of the patent, Pax said it had “unexpectedly discovered” the “efficient transfer of nicotine to the lungs of an individual and a rapid rise of nicotine absorption in the [blood] plasma.” The company’s patent used graphics to show that its effects surpassed that of Pall Mall — a popular Reynolds cigarette — as users’ blood nicotine levels spiked dramatically, then fell by almost half within 15 minutes.

The compound would later become trademarked: JUULSALTS™.

“Addiction is central to the business model,” said David Kessler, a pediatrician who headed the FDA from 1990 to 1997, during the agency’s tobacco investigation. “With their nicotine salts, Juul has found the Holy Grail.”

In response, Juul did not directly address that accusation, but said its product offered a “public health and commercial opportunity of historic proportions” for the millions of adult smokers who die each year from cigarettes.

The patent also detailed the role of pH-neutralizing acids in the formula — including at least four of the chemical compounds that Perfetti had created in the Reynolds lab 37 years earlier.

And included in the cache of files that the FDA obtained from Juul was a copy of the confidential Reynolds nicotine salts investigation.

Monsees and Bowen did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A Juul spokesperson said: “RJ Reynolds’ old work in the field of traditional burn cigarettes was widely known,” noting that Juul followed routine disclosure procedures, such as citing Reynolds’ patents and publications, as required by the U.S. Patent Office.

The spokesperson also said that research shows that nicotine is absorbed more slowly from Juul pods than from traditional cigarettes.

Before Juul, most vaping fluids contained 1% to 3% nicotine, the latter described as “super high” and intended for two-packs-a-day smokers, according to Jackler, the Stanford researcher. Juul offers pods that contain 5% nicotine, according to the company’s website.

Juul disputed Jackler’s characterization, saying that there were higher nicotine concentrations in other brands, and said assertions that Juul’s pods had two to three times the nicotine strength of a cigarette were “false.”

From 2016 to 2017, Juul’s sales skyrocketed by more than 640%. Its cartridges were so palatable that teenagers sometimes raced one another to finish inhaling them. Many said they didn’t know the pods contained nicotine. Each 5% cartridge contained the nicotine equivalent of about 20 cigarettes.

“Juul mimics the evil genius of the cigarette — but does it even better,” said Myers, the president of Tobacco-Free Kids. “They also pulled it off without any of the historical baggage, giving the deceptive illusion that it was safe.”

Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Congress during a hearing in September that doctors believe nicotine salts allow the addictive chemical to “cross the blood-brain barrier and lead to potentially more effect on the developing brain in adolescents.”

In a statement to The Times, Schuchat echoed her concern and said the salts “allow particularly high levels of nicotine to be inhaled more easily and with less irritation” than ingredients in previous e-cigarettes, and could enable nicotine dependence among youth.

Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies before Congress on nicotine salts.

(Zach Gibson / Getty Images)

On April 24, 2018, the FDA ordered Juul to submit documents related to its product design and marketing practices following reports of rampant use among youths who may not have understood Juul’s debilitating effects on the brain.

Later that year, FDA agents arrived at Juul’s headquarters and seized additional records. The FDA has released less than 10% of the requested documents, including Perfetti’s laboratory records, to a researcher at UC San Francisco. The agency said it withheld the remaining files to protect trade secrets and other material. As such, the records provide only a glimpse into the chemical research that Juul kept on hand as the company designed its product.

Today, Juul comprises about two-thirds of the vaping market.

In 2018, the largest tobacco company in the U.S., Altria — the parent company of Philip Morris USA, which makes Marlboro cigarettes — purchased a 35% stake in Juul.

After the purchase, several of the tobacco company’s employees also started working at Juul: Altria’s former head of regulatory affairs, Joe Murillo, as well as senior scientists and sales managers.

In September, Altria’s former chief growth officer, K.C. Crosthwaite, became Juul’s CEO.