POLITICS

Curren Price’s political career appears destined to end before his criminal trial.

Prosecutors first charged the L.A. City Council member in 2023 with embezzlement, perjury and having a conflict of interest in votes on City Council matters in which his wife stood to benefit.

A long-delayed preliminary hearing began this week, where more evidence against Price will be put forth and a judge must decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed. If it moves forward at the current rate, Price’s case is almost certain to drag on after he is forced from office by term limits at the end of 2026.

Price, 75, is unlikely to face prison time even if convicted — and he is expected to retire from public service at the end of the year after decades as an elected official in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Some of his colleagues have questioned whether his alleged impropriety should be addressed by the city’s ethics commission rather than a jury.

But with his preliminary hearing expected to last several more days, more evidence against Price is becoming public — meaning the consequences of the case may echo beyond the courtroom.

There are seven candidates running to replace Price in November, including his deputy chief of staff, Jose Ugarte. The crowd trying to upset Ugarte — Price’s handpicked successor and the current favorite to win — could seize the moment to shake up the primary field. Ugarte has also faced allegations of unethical behavior for failing to disclose income he made through lobbying and consulting work outside of City Hall.

Ugarte — who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article — has defended Price’s record as a legislator and denied that the council member committed any crimes. Ugarte recalled joining Price when he had his fingerprints taken for the criminal case.

“I was just heartbroken,” Ugarte said in November on the podcast “What’s Next, Los Angeles?”

“They’re going to find him not guilty and he’s going to be exonerated of everything,” Ugarte added.

Jose Ugarte is running for Los Angeles City Council District 9.

(Jose Ugarte)

The case could also complicate Price’s legacy.

He has survived a tumultuous and scandal-ridden time in City Hall, marked by colleagues getting marched out of office following federal prosecutions, a leaked racist recording and the continued success of young and progressive challengers unseating politicians of his generation. A conviction could see his name forever associated with peers taken down by allegations of graft.

The veteran politician, who served as a member of the Inglewood City Council and in the state Senate and Assembly, has called himself a “progressive, positive, inclusive” leader. He has supported higher wages for low-income workers in the city and has close ties to organized labor.

In an interview this week, Price reiterated that he never intended to do anything wrong and questioned the fairness of a prosecution over what he said was essentially a paperwork error.

“These offenses are built around the intent to do wrong and I had no intent, no knowledge of us doing anything wrong at the time,” he said.

No matter what happens in court, Price believes city residents will remember him for bringing jobs and affordable housing to the district, rather than the corruption charges.

“I’ve got a sophisticated constituency. They certainly know the work we’ve been doing around housing, around economic development… I think I’m going to be judged on how those programs have changed the atmosphere and the temperature in the district,” he said, referencing his work on green space initiatives, boosting wages and the construction of BMO Stadium during his time in office.

Curren Price speaks at a news conference on the L.A. Convention Center expansion along with local union members in Los Angeles in September 2025.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Price, who grew up in South Los Angeles before attending Stanford, faces 12 counts of violating state conflict of interest laws by voting on city matters in which he had a financial interest, perjury and embezzlement.

Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted on items before the City Council that benefited agencies and companies that had previously done business with his wife, Del Richardson, and her consulting company, Del Richardson & Associates.

Richardson’s company received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from LA Metro, the city housing authority and land developers before Price voted to approve projects, grants and funding for those businesses and agencies, prosecutors allege.

The perjury charges stem from Price’s alleged failure to disclose Richardson’s income on state forms. Prosecutors say he committed embezzlement by claiming Richardson as a dependent on his city-funded healthcare plan despite them not being legally married at the time. The insurance flub cost taxpayers roughly $30,000.

Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, has maintained Price had no knowledge of the conflict and the payments to Richardson had no effect on his votes. All of the votes cited in the complaint passed by wide margins, meaning Price did not swing any council decisions.

In court this week, Schafler continually tried to paint his client’s alleged crimes as little more than clerical errors.

While cross-examining the top attorney for California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, Schafler pointed to disclosure forms where Price declared he’d received income from a developer in the same exact amount he’s alleged to have failed to disclose in one of the perjury counts.

The count, Schafler argued, related to income from a business that the developer, Thomas Safran, owns.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman dismissed Schafler’s attempts to downplay the charges in an interview earlier this week, noting Price was made acutely aware of the conflicts when The Times published a 2019 investigation into his record of voting on matters related to Richardson.

“His brazen conduct, even after the L.A. Times brings this to public light, is that he keeps doing it. His explanations might be to blame his staff, to blame Del Richardson’s staff, to blame lawyers, to blame basically everyone but himself,” he said. “But when you have these myriad criminal violations, all roads lead to just one person who is responsible.”

Witnesses in the preliminary hearing — which began on Tuesday and is expected to end next week — included former members of Richardson’s company and Price’s City Hall staff.

On Wednesday, longtime Richardson employee Maritsa Garcia and Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Higgins sparred on the witness stand over what information the consulting firm provided to the councilman’s office about possible conflicts. At one point, Higgins noted that Garcia had an attorney in the room, paid for by Richardson, and suggested her testimony might be “biased.” The attorney, Michael Freedman, declined to speak with a Times reporter.

Mike Bonin, a former city councilman, said he believed Price’s alleged malfeasance should be handled by the city’s Ethics Commission — not criminal prosecutors. One of the votes at issue was about a project in Bonin’s district that sailed through the council, with Price’s vote unimportant to the project’s outcome.

“Unlike every other homeless or affordable housing project in my district, this one had no objection. It went straight through. There was absolutely no controversy,” Bonin said.

Bonin said the criminal case never “passed the smell test” to him, and that it didn’t seem as serious as crimes committed by other city councilmembers like Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar.

Englander pled guilty in 2021 to obstructing a federal investigation into whether he improperly received gifts from developers while in office. Huizar pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion two years later, after federal prosecutors accused him of taking in millions in bribes and perks in what they described as a pay-to-play scheme.

“I felt like for whatever reason they wanted to find something against Curren,” Bonin said.

An employee from the L.A. City Ethics Commission — which accused Price of a litany of violations in 2024 — testified this week that Price would still have a conflict of interest even in votes that passed by wide margins.

After former Dist. Atty. George Gascón quietly charged Price in 2023, Hochman added two charges against Price last year and has pursued the case aggressively. His prosecutors have also tried to force Richardson, who has attended court every day this week in support of her husband, to testify against him. Richardson was described as a “suspect” in the initial investigation in 2022, according to documents made public last year, but she was never charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing.

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at the Loyola Law School, said Hochman should continue pursuing cases involving political corruption, especially given the recent history at City Hall.

But with Price’s career winding down and the charges not indicating a major financial loss to taxpayers, she questioned if the case has lost value over the years.

“The importance of this case can very much change over time,” she said. “He’s not in the same political space as when [Gascón] first brought the charges, and there might have been a lot of incentive to do it then.”

Hochman confirmed attempts were made to resolve the case through a plea deal, but they were not successful. He declined to elaborate on the potential terms. Schafler also declined to detail those conversations.

Price has no intention of stepping down before his term.

The race to replace Price is likely to be one of the more competitive in June, with numerous well-funded candidates. Estuardo Mazariegos is running to Ugarte’s left and has been endorsed by Controller Kenneth Mejia and the Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles. Also running is Elmer Roldan, a nonprofit leader who works to keep students from dropping out of schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Roldan was endorsed by Mayor Karen Bass on Thursday.

A dedicated group of supporters has flanked Price at nearly every court hearing. In the past, he’s held miniature rallies and prayer circles in the courthouse hallways.

Rose Rios, 80, who is the head of a homeless outreach group in South L.A., said she believes prosecutors are unfairly maligning Price and expressed concern the charges will overshadow his legacy of “building up South-Central.”

Rios said she will never accept a guilty verdict in the case, and neither will many of Price’s constituents.

“I trust him. I trust him with my life. He’s loved through all the district,” she said. “That many people wouldn’t love you if you weren’t doing the right thing.”

SACRAMENTO — Pro-business conservatives and environmentalist liberals joined forces in the Assembly on Monday to engineer the surprise defeat of two forest protection measures that had the backing of Gov. Pete Wilson and a powerful coalition of timber companies and conservation organizations.

Swayed by arguments that the measures could lead to the destruction of ancient forests as well as the loss of hundreds of logging jobs, a bitterly divided Assembly voted against the bills that had been designed to stop overcutting in the state’s 7.1 million acres of privately owned timberlands.

A similar alliance in the Senate failed, however, to stop two other measures in the four-bill package, and they passed easily by separate 22-14 votes.

Buoyed by the Senate action, the bills’ Assembly authors said they would bring the defeated measures up again for another vote, possibly as early as today, but they acknowledged it would be difficult to win passage. Both bills need 41 votes to garner Assembly approval and they drew just 28 and 31 votes Monday.

The legislation, which was the result of a compromise reached after months of negotiations between environmental organizations and timber companies, would ban clear-cutting in ancient and old-growth forests, limit its use in other types of forests, provide protections for forest watersheds and wildlife and place restrictions on timber harvesting that are designed to prevent loggers from cutting more than they can grow.

Although the measures had support from environmental organizations like the National Audubon Society and the Planning and Conservation League, Assembly sponsors blamed a heavy lobbying attack from the Sierra Club for siphoning off key Democratic votes and leading to the unexpected defeat.

“I think the Democratic side bought the Sierra Club argument,” said Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), a sponsor of the package.

Sher said pro-environment lawmakers were drawn to the Sierra Club argument that last-minute fine-tuning of the legislation had led to changes that would exempt 30,000 acres of old-growth forest owned by Pacific Lumber Co. from some of the new restrictions on harvesting.

While he insisted there was no such exemption in the bills, Sher said it may be necessary to make changes to satisfy Sierra Club objections in order for the measures to pass the Assembly.

But in the Senate, Republicans who had backed the bills after winning assurances from Wilson that there would be no changes insisted they would withdraw their support if the legislation was altered in anyway.

“If it takes an amendment to line up Democratic votes, that amendment will cause me and I’m sure many other Republicans to drop their support,” Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Auburn) said firmly.

Insisting the defeat had been motivated by partisan politics, Assemblyman Chris Chandler (R-Yuba City) predicted the measures would eventually pass without any changes with more support from Republicans.

“I think the issue will come together quite nicely (Tuesday),” he said, adding that he expected at least two more Republicans to vote yes.

Other lawmakers agreed, saying that many Democrats had not voted on the measures, preferring first to wait and see how much Republican support they would garner. Some grumbled privately that even though Wilson was backing the measure, only 10 Republicans had voted for the bills while 18 had voted against them.

On the Assembly floor, however, the debate avoided politics and focused on the issues of jobs and ancient forests.

Conservative Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) said the new restrictions would put 17,000 families on the North Coast out of work as timber companies were forced to cut back on harvesting and reduce saw mill production.

“Is it possible that even now, this Administration and this Legislature does not understand the enormous damage which they have done to our economy?” McClintock said. “That even now, while the governor postures about his concern for the economy, he is waging unrelenting war against the remaining job base of our state?”

On the Democratic side, Assemblyman Tom Hayden, (D-Santa Monica), objected to the measures on environmental grounds, arguing that while they banned clear-cutting in ancient forests they also allowed a schedule of harvesting that permitted those forests to be decimated in the next two decades.

“It’s a legalized schedule for their destruction,” Hayden said, “with the possibility held out that a few (trees) will be retained like animals in the zoo.”

SACRAMENTO — Over opposition from the Wilson Administration, a legislative committee Thursday approved fast-track legislation authored by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown that would impose a $1.5-billion sales tax increase to help repair damage from the Northridge earthquake. Similar to a law enacted after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the new bill would add a tax of one-quarter of a cent on the dollar starting March 1. It would expire April 30, 1996.

The Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee approved the proposal by a 6-1 margin over Republican opposition, but it faces a rough road ahead without Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s support. It needs a two-thirds favorable vote of both the Senate and Assembly, which can occur only with GOP backing.

Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) indicated, however, that a compromise likely would evolve. Each said he would vote for virtually any plan that could win two-thirds approval.

Other options under discussion include submitting a major bond issue to voters, a gasoline tax increase for highway repairs, or possibly some combination of all three. Brown said he wants a sales tax because it would produce extra revenue immediately for reconstruction.

The action represented the first significant step that the Legislature has taken to help finance the recovery efforts. Statewide, the sales tax currently varies from a low of 7.25% to a high of 8.5%, depending on local sales tax rates.

Wilson, who is running for reelection, has refused to commit himself to a state earthquake recovery program because firm government estimates of the massive damage have not been completed and it is unknown how much emergency aid the federal government will provide.

In Washington on Thursday, the House approved $8.6 billion in federal earthquake aid for California. Funds from the Brown bill would augment the federal assistance and be spent on a variety of services, ranging from housing and transit facilities to public schools and colleges.

Steve Olsen, deputy director of the state Department of Finance, reiterated Wilson’s position to the Democratic-dominated committee Thursday. He said it would be premature to approve the tax bill.

Brown disagreed, saying the Legislature must move swiftly to get a recovery program ready for implementation when damage estimates are final.

In an indirect criticism of Wilson, he told reporters, “It makes no sense 17 days after the quake for the state government to have done nothing except accept photo ops.”

Recalling the cooperation in 1989 between the Legislature and GOP Gov. George Deukmejian in quickly enacting a sales tax increase after the Loma Prieta disaster in Northern California, Brown said Deukmejian “just responded as human beings would respond. He did not weigh the political ups or downs.

“Gov. Wilson is probably more sensitive to the politics than George Deukmejian was,” Brown said, noting that Deukmejian was not running for reelection at the time.

Brown’s bill, hastily fashioned Monday from another bill that dealt with bank and corporation taxes, had proposed a half-cent increase in the sales tax for 13 months. But the committee reduced it to a quarter-cent for 26 months, chiefly because a new poll shows the public is more favorable to a smaller increase that would be spread over a longer period.

Freshman Sen. Tom Campbell (R-Stanford) argued for delaying action until there are more definitive damage estimates and until decisions are made on whether certain labor-backed laws should be relaxed during the rebuilding process.

Campbell told Brown, “I might support the bill and I might not support the bill . . . I have not yet heard from the governor’s office.”

The remark infuriated Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), whose constituents suffered heavy losses. “To say that you are not for it, but want to be clear you are not against any of these measures is not a profile in the kind of leadership we need,” Hayden scolded Campbell. “To say you want to wait for him into another week is to beg the question of leadership.”

All five of the committee’s Democrats and an independent, Sen. Quentin Kopp of San Francisco, voted for the bill. Campbell abstained while Republican Sen. Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove voted against it. Hurtt said he favored cutting the state budget rather than raising the tax.

A hike of a quarter-cent would raise the sales tax in Los Angeles to 8 1/2 cents on the dollar.

President Trump’s budget office this week ordered most government agencies to compile data on the federal money that is sent to 14 mostly Democratic-controlled states and the District of Columbia in what it describes as a tool to “reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.”

The order comes a week after Trump said he intended to cut off federal funding that goes to states that are home to “sanctuary cities” that resist his immigration policies. He said that would start Feb. 1, but hasn’t unveiled further details.

A memo to federal departments and agencies did not explain why those states were targeted. All but one — Virginia — were either included last year on the administration’s list of sanctuary places or were home to at least one jurisdiction that was. In Virginia, one of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s first acts after taking office Saturday was to rescind a directive by Republican former Gov. Glenn Youngkin that required law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials.

There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The memo, while unusual, stops far short of suspending money.

“This is a data-gathering exercise only,” it said. “It does not involve withholding funds.”

Trump said at a White House news conference Tuesday — the same day the memo went to federal departments — that he still intended to cut off funding.

“We’re not going to pay them anymore. They are sanctuary for criminals,” he said. “They can sue us and maybe they’ll win, but we’re not giving money to sanctuary cities anymore.”

Latest way Trump has targeted Democratic-controlled states

The memo, obtained by the Associated Press, directs federal agencies to submit information by Jan. 28 to the president’s budget office.

It asks for a swath of information about money flowing to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia. All but Minnesota are controlled by Democratic legislatures and all but Vermont have Democratic governors.

The list of targets includes all fully Democratic-controlled states except Hawaii, Maryland and New Mexico. And it includes all the states with nearly all the sanctuary jurisdictions. But it does not include some other states that are home to cities or counties on the list: Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico and Pennsylvania.

Trump’s administration has been focused deeply in recent weeks on the idea that federal money is being used fraudulently in blue states.

Earlier this month, the administration tried to put on hold funds for childcare subsidies and other aid for low-income families in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, citing the possibility of fraud. A judge paused that effort.

Request is for information on most government funding streams

The memo applies to all federal departments and agencies except the Department of Defense, which the administration now refers to as the Department of War, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It asks for details about grants, loans and other federal funds provided to the states and local governments in those states, along with institutions of higher education and nonprofits in the states.

The agencies are being told not to report on the use of at least some money that goes directly to individuals, such as federal student aid.

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Olivia Diaz and Ali Swenson contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his findings that President Trump “willfully broke the law” in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, telling lawmakers that Republican efforts to discredit the probe are “false and misleading.”

“No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that [Trump] be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said during a frequently heated five-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Smith appeared at the request of Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who accused him of pursuing a politically driven investigation and “muzzling a candidate for a high office.”

“It was always about politics and to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything,” Jordan said.

Jordan called investigations into the Jan. 6 insurrection “staged and choreographed,” and said Smith would have “blown a hole in the 1st Amendment” if his charges against Trump had been allowed to proceed.

Trump has repeatedly called for Smith to face prosecution over the probe, demanding he be disbarred and suggesting that Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi look into his conduct.

“I believe they will do everything in their power to [indict me] because they have been ordered to do so by the president,” Smith said at the hearing.

Smith’s 2023 investigation found that following Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, Trump led a months-long disinformation campaign to discredit the results, evidenced by audio from a call in which he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”

Trump’s attempt to sow election discord culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, Smith said. The president caused and exploited rioters who attempted to halt the certification of the election results, he added.

In closed-door testimony to the committee last month, Smith said the Department of Justice had built a strong base of evidence of Trump’s criminal schemes to overturn the election.

A separate case alleged that the president unlawfully kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after the loss.

Trump was indicted in the documents case in June 2023, and later for the alleged election conspiracy and fraud claims. Both cases were abandoned after his victory in the 2024 election on the basis of presidential immunity.

In his opening remarks, Smith reiterated his findings.

“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” he said. “Rather than accept his defeat, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. “

Republicans asserted that Justice Department subpoenas of phone records were an abuse of prosecutorial power and constituted surveillance of top government officials.

Smith replied that obtaining such data was “common” in conspiracy investigations and that the records showed call dates and times — not content — encompassing the days around Jan. 6, 2021.

Jordan questioned the special counsel’s judgment in personnel selections, which included Department of Justice investigators who probed the Trump campaign over alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years — a decade — and we should never forget what they’ve done,” he said.

Smith, who has since left the Justice Department to open a private firm with his former deputies, was quick to defend the integrity of his team, adding that Trump has since sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff for their involvement in the cases.

“Those dedicated public servants are the best of us,” he said. “My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.”

The hearing routinely devolved into disputes between party adversaries, with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) lodging scathing accusations against Smith, butting heads with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) over procedure and yielding his time “in disgust” of the witness.

GOP committee members attempted to poke holes in Smith’s findings about the events of Jan. 6. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) accused Republicans on the committee of trying to “rewrite the history” of Jan. 6.

Midway through the hearing, Trump called Smith a “deranged animal” in a Truth Social post where he once again suggested his Department of Justice investigate the former special counsel.

“I will not be intimidated,” Smith said. “We followed the facts and we followed the law. That process resulted in proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed serious crimes. I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen because he threatened me.”

The hearing came as Trump continues to repeat false claims that he had won in 2020.

“It was a rigged election. Everybody knows that now. And by the way, numbers are coming out that show it even more plainly,” Trump said Tuesday at a White House news briefing.

In an address to a global audience in Davos, Switzerland, the following day, he said that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

NEW YORK — President Trump sued banking giant JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, for $5 billion on Thursday over allegations that JPMorgan debanked him and his businesses for political reasons after he left office in January 2021.

The lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade County court in Florida, alleges that JPMorgan abruptly closed multiple accounts in February 2021 with just 60 days’ notice and no explanation. By doing so, Trump claims JPMorgan and Dimon cut off the president and his businesses from millions of dollars, disrupted their operations and forced Trump and the businesses to urgently open bank accounts elsewhere.

“JPMC debanked [Trump and his businesses] because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the lawsuit alleges.

Debanking occurs when a bank closes the accounts of a customer or refuses to do business with a customer in the form of loans or other services. Once a relatively obscure issue in finance, debanking has become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them and their affiliated interests.

Debanking first became a national issue when conservatives accused the Obama administration of pressuring banks to stop extending services to gun stores and payday lenders under “Operation Choke Point.”

Trump and other conservative figures have alleged that banks cut them off from their accounts under the umbrella term of “reputational risk” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Since Trump came back into office, the president’s banking regulators have moved to stop any banks from using “reputational risk” as a reason for denying service to customers.

“JPMC’s conduct … is a key indicator of a systemic, subversive industry practice that aims to coerce the public to shift and re-align their political views,” Trumps lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Trump accuses the bank of trade libel and accuses Dimon himself of violating Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

In a statement, JPMorgan said that it “regrets” that Trump sued the bank but insisted it did not close the accounts for political reasons.

“We believe the suit has no merit,” a bank spokesperson said. “JPMC does not close accounts for political or religious reasons. We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.”

In the wake of the fatal shooting of a Minnesota mother by an immigration agent this month, House Democrats have filed articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

These lawmakers are on the right track, but they need not have waited so long. Throughout her year at the Department of Homeland Security, Noem has shown disregard for judicial and congressional authority, and she has misled the American people. Her leadership is endangering the country. She should be removed from office before she can do more of the same and worse.

As secretary, Noem has displayed a troubling pattern of unethical behavior. Her infamous photo op last March, posing in front of detainees in El Salvador’s CECOT prison, was not just grotesque; it may have violated Geneva Convention provisions against the public exploitation of prisoners.

In October, Noem ordered a video blaming Democrats for the government shutdown to be played at airports nationwide. This was in direct conflict with the Hatch Act, which restricts federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.

In November, the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica reported that a company tied to Noem got money from $220-million Homeland Security ad contracts in a secret, no-bid process.

None of these instances reflect sound judgment by the person charged with keeping our country safe.

Noem does not seem to respect the judicial branch. She defied a federal judge by not turning around deportation flights to El Salvador last March. Her agents in Chicago have used chemical sprays on protesters multiple times despite a court order forbidding them from doing so. Speaking on “Meet the Press” in November, Noem said, “We’ll continue to do the right thing, continue to work and protect Americans, no matter what radical judge comes out and tries to stop us.” These actions, coupled with her own words, reveal an unacceptable disdain for our constitutional system of checks and balances.

Under Noem, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have flouted congressional authority. Members of Congress have for months been denied their lawful right to inspect detention facilities in Minnesota, New Jersey, Florida and California. Such oversight is critical to protecting the well-being of detainees, especially because the department gutted its own watchdog agencies.

Noem has also made false or misleading statements to Congress, the press and the public. She made so many derogatory remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man deported by mistake to El Salvador, that a federal judge rebuked her for inflammatory comments. Noem has often declared that ICE does not detain or deport U.S. citizens, even though it does. ProPublica has, in fact, documented more than 170 cases of Americans detained by immigration agents. And although Noem likes to repeat that ICE agents are going after “the worst of the worst,” internal agency data show that they have arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records.

When summoned before a congressional committee in December, Noem struck a defiant tone. “I will consider your asking me to resign as an endorsement of my work,” she told one lawmaker. However, this was before the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Now the public appears to have lost confidence in Noem, whose job approval recently slipped to 36%.

True, Noem was appointed by President Trump to execute his aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. Anyone else put in the role would probably also have carried out these policies.

It is how Noem has carried out her responsibilities that demonstrates unfitness for her job — not only pursuing the president’s agenda but also racking up a body count, defying the law and lying.

She is also failing at the most basic functions of her role. Consider that, under her leadership, FEMA has been widely faulted for responding too slowly to natural disasters in Texas and North Carolina. Or that Noem has allowed department social media accounts to feature white nationalist memes and questionable messaging, including recruitment posts saying, “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?”

Noem’s tenure has already had grave consequences. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades. During Trump’s second term, immigration agents have shot at people at least 16 times.

Americans need a Homeland Security secretary who will follow the law, respect Congress and tell the truth to the public. Kristi Noem is not that person. Under her, the department is harming citizens, not protecting them. Lawmakers should press her impeachment forward and remove her from office — unless she has the decency to resign first.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and television commentator in New York City. X: @RaulAReyes Instagram: @raulareyes1

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by the Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.

The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with 4th Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.

The shift comes as the Trump administration dramatically expands immigration arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as Minneapolis.

For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the president’s immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure.

It is unclear how broadly the directive has been applied in immigration enforcement operations. The Associated Press witnessed ICE officers ramming through the front door of the home of a Liberian man, Garrison Gibson, with a deportation order from 2023 in Minneapolis on Jan. 11, wearing heavy tactical gear and with their rifles drawn.

Documents reviewed by the AP revealed that the agents only had an administrative warrant — meaning there was no judge who authorized the raid on private property.

The change is almost certain to meet legal challenges and stiff criticism from advocacy groups and immigrant-friendly state and local governments that have spent years successfully urging people not to open their doors unless ICE shows them a warrant signed by a judge.

The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an official in Congress, who shared it on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive documents. The AP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the complaint.

The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 12, 2025, says: “Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

The memo does not detail how that determination was made nor what its legal repercussions might be.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to the AP that everyone the department serves with an administrative warrant has already had “full due process and a final order of removal.”

She said the officers issuing those warrants have also found probable cause for the person’s arrest. She said the Supreme Court and Congress have “recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement,” without elaborating. McLaughlin did not respond to questions about whether ICE officers entered a person’s home since the memo was issued, relying solely on an administrative warrant and if so, how often.

Recent arrests shine a light on tactics

Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal organization that assists workers exposing wrongdoings, said in the whistleblower complaint obtained by the Associated Press that it represents two anonymous U.S. government officials “disclosing a secretive — and seemingly unconstitutional — policy directive.”

A wave of recent high-profile arrests, many unfolding at private homes and businesses and captured on video, has placed a spotlight on immigration arrest tactics, including officers’ use of proper warrants.

Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.

All law enforcement operations — including those conducted by ICE and Customs and Border Protection — are governed by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures.

People can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents only have an administrative warrant, with some limited exceptions.

Memo shown to ‘select’ officials

The memo says ICE officers can forcibly enter homes and arrest immigrants using just a signed administrative warrant known as an I-205 if they have a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals or a district judge or magistrate judge.

The memo says officers must first knock on the door and share who they are and why they’re at the residence. They’re limited in the hours they can go into the home — after 6 a.m. and before 10 p.m. The people inside must be given a “reasonable chance to act lawfully.” But if that doesn’t work, the memo says, they can use force to go in.

“Should the alien refuse admittance, ICE officers and agents should use only a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien’s residence, following proper notification of the officer or agent’s authority and intent to enter,” the memo reads.

The memo is addressed to all ICE personnel. But it has been shown only to “select DHS officials” who then shared it with some employees who were told to read it and return it, Whistleblower Aid wrote in the disclosure.

One of the two whistleblowers was allowed to view the memo only in the presence of a supervisor and then had to give it back. That person was not allowed to take notes. A whistleblower was able to access the document and lawfully disclose it to Congress, Whistleblower Aid said.

Although the memo was issued in May, David Kligerman, senior vice president and special counsel at Whistleblower Aid, said it took time for its clients to find a “safe and legal path to disclose it to lawmakers and the American people.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump on Thursday inaugurated his Board of Peace to lead efforts at maintaining a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, insisting that “everyone wants to be a part” of the body he said could eventually rival the United Nations — despite many U.S. allies opting not to participate.

The new peace board was initially envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing the ceasefire, but it has morphed into something far more ambitious — and skepticism about its membership and mandate has led some countries usually closest to Washington to take a pass.

In a speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump sought to create momentum for a project to map out a future of the war-torn Gaza Strip that has been overshadowed this week, first by his threats to seize Greenland, then by a dramatic retreat from that push.

“This isn’t the United States, this is for the world,” he said, adding, “I think we can spread it out to other things as we succeed in Gaza.”

The event featured Ali Shaath, the head of a new, future technocratic government in Gaza, announcing that the Rafah border crossing will open in both directions next week. That’s after Israel said in early December it would open the crossing, which runs between Gaza and Egypt, but has yet to do so.

Shaath, an engineer and former Palestinian Authority official from Gaza, is overseeing the Palestinian committee set to govern the territory under U.S. supervision.

Trump tried not to let those not participating ruin his unveiling party, saying 59 countries had signed onto the board — even though heads of state, top diplomats and other officials from only 19 countries plus the U.S. actually attended the event. He told the group, ranging from Azerbaijan to Paraguay to Hungary, “You’re the most powerful people in the world.”

Trump has spoken about the board replacing some U.N. functions and perhaps even making that entire body obsolete one day. But he was more conciliatory in his remarks on the sidelines of the forum in the Swiss alps.

“We’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Trump said, even as he denigrated the U.N. for doing what he said wasn’t enough to calm some conflicts around the globe.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said some countries’ leaders have indicated they plan to join but still require approval from their parliaments.

Why some countries aren’t participating

Big questions remain, however, about what the eventual board will look like.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is still consulting with Moscow’s “strategic partners” before deciding to commit. The Russian was hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday in Moscow.

Others are asking why Putin and other authoritarian leaders had even been invited to join. Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said her country wasn’t signing on “because this is about a legal treaty that raises much broader issues.”

“And we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace, when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine,” she told the BBC.

Norway and Sweden have indicated they won’t participate. France declined after its officials stressed that while they support the Gaza peace plan, they were concerned the board could seek to replace the U.N.

Canada, Ukraine, China and the executive arm of the European Union also haven’t committed. Trump calling off the steep tariffs he threatened over Greenland could ease some allies’ reluctance, but the issue is still far from settled.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin plans to discuss his proposal to send $1 billion to the Board of Peace and use it for humanitarian purposes during his talks with Abbas — if Russia can use of those assets the U.S. had previously blocked.

Others voice reservations

The idea for the Board of Peace was first laid out in Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan and even was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

But an Arab diplomat in a European capital said that Middle Eastern governments coordinated their response to Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace and that it was crafted to limit the acceptance to the Gaza plan as mandated by the U.N. Security Council.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter more freely, the diplomat said the announced acceptance is “preliminary” and that the charter presented by the U.S. administration contradicts in some parts the United Nations’ mission. The diplomat also said that other major powers are unlikely to support the board in its current form.

Months into the ceasefire, Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians continue to suffer the humanitarian crisis unleashed by more than two years of war. And violence in Gaza continues.

Key to the truce continuing to hold is the disarming of Hamas, something that the militant group that has controlled the Palestinian territory since 2007 has refused to do, despite Israel seeing it as non-negotiable. Trump on Thursday repeated his frequent warnings that the group will have to disarm or face dire consequences.

He also said the war in Gaza “is really coming to an end” while conceding, “We have little fires that we’ll put out. But they’re little,” and they had been “giant, giant, massive fires.”

Iran looms large

Trump’s push for peace also comes after he threatened military action this month against Iran as it carried out a violent crackdown against some of the largest street protests in years, killing thousands of people.

Trump, for the time being, has signaled he won’t carry out any new strikes on Iran after he said he received assurances that the Islamic government would not carry out the planned hangings of more than 800 protesters.

But Trump also made the case that his tough approach to Tehran — including strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June last year — was critical to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal coalescing.

Zelensky announces discussions involving U.S., Russia and Ukraine

Trump also spoke behind closed doors for about an hour with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called the discussion “very good” without mentioning major breakthroughs. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected in Moscow for talks aimed at ending Russia’s nearly 4-year-old war in Ukraine.

Zelensky later addressed the Davos forum and said there would be two days of trilateral meetings involving the U.S., Ukraine and Russia in the United Arab Emirates starting Friday — following the U.S. talks in Moscow.

“Russians have to be ready for compromises because, you know, everybody has to be ready, not only Ukraine, and this is important for us,” Zelensky said.

Boak, Madhani and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Madhani and Weissert reported from Washington. AP writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

A 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said, making him the latest child caught up in the immigration enforcement surge that has riled the Twin Cities in recent weeks.

Federal agents took Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car while it was in the family’s driveway on Tuesday afternoon, Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said during a news conference Wednesday. The officers then told him to knock on the door to his suburban Minneapolis home to see if other people were inside, “essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” she said.

Stenvik said the family has an active asylum case and has not been ordered to leave the country.

“Why detain a 5-year-old?” she asked. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “ICE did NOT target a child.”

She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was conducting an operation to arrest the child’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who McLaughlin said is from Ecuador and in the U.S. illegally. He fled on foot without the boy, she said.

“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” McLaughlin said, adding that parents are given the choice to be removed with their children or have them placed with a person of their choosing.

Stenvik said another adult who lives at the home was outside when the father and son were taken, but agents wouldn’t leave Liam with that person. DHS didn’t immediately to respond an email Thursday asking if Conejo Arias had asked to keep his son with him.

Liam and his father were being held in a family holding cell in Texas, Marc Prokosch, the family’s lawyer, said during the news conference.

“Every step of their immigration process has been doing what they’ve been asked to do,” Prokosch said of the family’s asylum claim. “So this is just cruelty.”

Minnesota has become a major focus of immigration sweeps by DHS-led agencies. Greg Bovino, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of the crackdowns in Minneapolis and other cities, said 3,000 “of some of the most dangerous offenders” have been arrested in Minnesota in the last six weeks.

Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said advocates have no way of knowing whether the government’s arrest numbers and descriptions of the people in custody are accurate.

Liam is the fourth student from Columbia Heights Public Schools who has been detained by ICE in recent weeks, said Stenvik. A 17-year-old student was taken Tuesday while heading to school, and a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old have also been taken, she said.

The district is made up of five schools and about 3,400 students from pre-K to 12th grade, according to its website. The majority of the students come from immigrant families, according to Stenvik.

She said they’ve noticed their attendance drop over the past two weeks, including one day where they had about one-third of their students out from school.

Ella Sullivan, Liam’s teacher, described him as “kind and loving.”

“His classmates miss him,” she said. “And all I want is for him to be safe and back here.”

Golden writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Kathy McCormack contributed to this story.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday morning said he was not surprised the Trump administration blocked his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland the day before, saying it was another example of the president trying to stifle dissent.

“Is it surprising the Trump administration didn’t like my commentary and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak?” No,” said Newsom, who is weighing a 2028 presidential run. “It’s consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies.”

The Democratic governor spoke Thursday morning in Davos, less than a day after his scheduled conversation with Fortune at USA House was canceled. Newsom said the event had been positioned as a discussion following Trump’s speech at the global forum. However, Newsom said the Trump administration “made sure it was canceled.”

“That’s what’s happening in the United States of America,” said Newsom, whose Thursday appearance speaking with Semafor’s Ben Smith was at a different location. “Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech — it’s America in reverse. They’re censoring historical facts. They’re rewriting history.”

The USA House is a privately run and corporate sponsored venue serving as the official United States hub at the Global Economic Forum. The venue featured several Trump administration speakers this week.

Newsom’s office said they were told last minute that a “venue-level decision” had been made to “not include an elected U.S. official” in the programming. A spokesperson for Fortune, which was hosting Newsom’s fireside chat, said USA House “determined it would not be able to accommodate the governor’s participation and communicated that decision to Fortune.”

White House officials declined Wednesday to directly address whether the administration had played a role in blocking Newsom’s appearance, instead issuing a statement attacking the governor personally.

“No one in Davos knows who third-rate governor Newscum is or why he is frolicking around Switzerland instead of fixing the many problems he created in California,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in the statement.

Newsom noted he looked at the list of people attending his appearance Thursday, which he said included major businesses like Microsoft, before he accused corporate America of falling in line rather than challenging Trump’s rhetoric and policies. At one point, Newsom held up a pair of red knee pads featuring Trump’s signature — a prop he has used to point to an excessive deference to Trump.

“Many American universities are selling out, and yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration,” Newsom said. “Selling out our values, selling out our future, selling out what makes America great and (it) breaks my heart. People need to stand up.”

A highly toxic pesticide that was banned in California more than two decades ago is still widely used across the state, potentially endangering communities near farm fields and bustling shipyards, according to a new study.

For much of the 20th century, methyl bromide, an odorless and colorless fumigant, had been touted as a miracle product for its effectiveness in killing pests, both on farms and in the shipping containers that conveyed produce across the world. But research later determined that the neurotoxic gas also can cause serious health issues in humans and contributed to the depletion of the ozone, ultimately leading to its ban under the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty, in 2005.

However, researchers from UCLA and UC Irvine recently found that methyl bromide remains in use in 36 of 58 California counties, according to data collected by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation over the last decade. From 2016 to 2023, more than 12 million pounds of the pesticide were applied in these counties, according to those data. And more than 200 fumigation facilities had active permits to emit methyl bromide statewide during that eight-year span.

How is this possible?

Well, the international ban, it turns out, included broad exemptions.

The counties with the highest methyl bromide use — Siskiyou and San Joaquin — were made up of mostly rural communities that were using it for exempted agricultural purposes, such as soil fumigation for specialty crops without feasible alternatives or in greenhouse nurseries.

Los Angeles County ranked fifth, with 725,000 pounds of methyl bromide used. That was mostly due to it’s ongoing use to sterilize container cargo moving through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — another exemption to the Montreal Protocol.

As a consequence, communities near the ports — which already bear the brunt of diesel and air pollution — have been exposed to another toxic pollutant.

Because the pesticide’s use is exempted, the risks are unaccounted for in CalEnviroScreen, the tool the state uses to evaluate a community’s exposure to several types of pollution.

“These communities, like West Long Beach and Wilmington, they were already then designated as a disadvantaged community by the state of California,” said Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, the study’s co-author and an assistant professor of environmental science at UCLA. “So I think this just underscores that there’s potentially even more environmental burdens that weren’t even being accounted for, unfortunately.”

From January 2023 to April 2024, an air monitoring station just north of Long Beach’s Hudson Elementary School, which is downwind of two fumigation sites that handle the imported goods, found that the average levels of methyl bromide were 2.1 parts per billion — twice as high as the state’s threshold exposure for long-term health risks. In early 2024, hourly concentrations surpassed 960 parts per billion, just shy of the state’s short-term exposure benchmark.

Since then, the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner has been collaborating with the fumigation facilities on ideas to reduce risk from the pesticide, including installing higher smoke stacks to disperse emissions and prohibiting fumigation during school hours.

And on Jan. 29, the South Coast Air Quality Management District will convene a public meeting to discuss how methyl bromide and other fumigants might be regulated in the future.

Theral Golden, a longtime resident of West Long Beach, said he plans to attend the meeting and will call for an outright ban of methyl bromide unless fumigation facilities can demonstrate that they can contain the harmful emissions.

“The building should be airtight,” Golden said. “It should not escape into the atmosphere at all. It may cost a lot of money. But that’s the cost of doing business. It’s costing us our lives.”

More recent air news

A deal to shut down Washington state’s last coal plant has been thrown into turmoil after the Trump administration ordered it to stay open for 90 additional days, according to New York Times climate reporter Claire Brown. The move is part of a broader effort by the Department of Energy to keep multiple aging coal plants operating nationwide.

A surprisingly small group of companies is driving most of the world’s carbon emissions, climate journalist Dana Drugmand writes in Inside Climate News. A new analysis finds that just 32 oil, gas, coal and cement producers were responsible for more than half of global fossil CO₂ emissions in 2024, with many of them actually increasing output while lobbying against climate action.

Air pollution isn’t just bad for our health, it’s bad for the economy. Shoppers Stop, a popular department store in India, pointed to poor air quality as a factor behind flat sales and falling earnings in late 2025, according to Lou Del Bello, Bloomberg’s energy and commodities editor.

A few last things in climate news

One year after the deadly Eaton fire, survivors are pushing back against California laws that shield electric utilities from paying the full cost of wildfires sparked by their equipment, Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Melody Petersen writes.

The world is dangerously overdrafting its freshwater, Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Ian James writes, as U.N. scientists warn that humanity has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy.” The report finds that rivers are running dry, lakes and wetlands are disappearing and groundwater is being pumped faster than it can be replenished — putting billions of people and much of global food production at risk.

Back in my home state, Detroit’s auto show is looking a lot less electric these days, Associated Press climate reporter Alexa St. John writes. The shift follows President Trump’s rollback of electric-vehicle incentives and fuel economy rules, moves that have already cost U.S. automakers billions, slowed EV sales growth, and, industry experts warn, could leave them falling behind as China and Europe race ahead on EVs.

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

For more air quality news, follow Tony Briscoe on X and Linkedin.

I’m standing in the northern section of MacArthur Park with City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, and the modern-day struggles of the historic space is all around us.

People lie on the sidewalk or stand hunched over and motionless. Others lounge on spotty lawns near overflowing trash cans. Graffiti besmirch trees. Police and firefighter sirens wail in the distance.

So much to see, so much to consider in a place that has transformed into a Rorschach test for how some people see the challenges of Los Angeles. And what Hernandez initially wanted me to pay attention to were … faded red curbs.

“We redid all of them in this area,” the first-term council member proudly said. “And you’re probably thinking, like, ‘Girl, like, that does not look like it’s redone.’ But the amount of labor and resources that we had to put in to get this done, even if it’s not pretty anymore, that’s just a little tiny bit of the work you do around MacArthur Park.”

What I was thinking, in fact, was that I was quite underwhelmed by the faded red curbs as a signpost for progress.

For decades, dispatches from here — in mainstream and social media — have depicted an out-of-control park two steps away from “The Walking Dead.” The area is so nationally notorious that the Border Patrol chose it to stage an invasion here in July, complete with a literal cavalry of agents trotting down a soccer field where kids usually play while National Guard troops sat inside armored Humvees on Wilshire Boulevard.

It’s a shame, because MacArthur Park is the backyard for one of the densest neighborhoods in the United States, a modern-day Lower East Side of immigrants and their children. A succession of council members have worked for generations to keep these 35 acres free from troubles only to see it crash down on their political reputation.

The latest one is Hernandez, who’s running for a second term against a slew of opponents trying to hang MacArthur Park like an albatross around the neck of the 35-year-old politician.

Old-line liberals have blasted the democratic socialist for de-emphasizing a police presence in favor of volunteers and contract workers armed with little more than overdose kits, notepads and phone numbers. The New York Post, scheduled to launch a California edition next week, has printed at least seven anti-Hernandez stories since December, including one that described MacArthur Park as a “zombie drug den.”

She accepted my invite to take me around it for an hour and show what she has done to improve it, what still needs work and whether voters should judge her performance solely on this sliver of the 1st District, which goes from Pico-Union all the way to Glassell Park.

“MacArthur Park is experiencing” problems, Hernandez acknowledged shortly after we met at its community center on 6th Street. “Is it everything? Absolutely not. And it’s a shame. With that hyperfocus, you throw that neighborhood away instead of seeing its potential and value.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, center, talks with homelessness outreach workers Katharine Murphy, left, and Karen Bracamonte at MacArthur Park on Jan. 15, 2026.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

MacArthur Park is L.A.’s Norma Desmond — a place long lionized as a former jewel supposedly ruined by waves of newcomers and apathetic politicians. Throughout my life, I’ve known the place as gritty on its best days. I saw the worst in February, when I walked to Langer’s after a visit to the Mexican Consulate and saw groups of people smoking God-knows-what while bored law enforcement officers stood around.

I repeatedly asked Hernandez what she was seeing as we strolled past scenes of human misery. Past fenced-off sections of Alvarado Street, where vendors once sold their wares. Near a soccer match where the players brought in their own goalposts because the city can’t provide any.

“I see a lot of people, see a lot of potential, a lot of green space, a lot of spaces to activate,” Hernandez said.

The scent of urine wafted around us.

“It’s beautiful for everybody to care so much about it.”

She then threw the same question back at me.

“I see beauty,” I responded. “I also see a lot of people that need help.”

I see progress.

Over her three years in office, $28 million has been spent on MacArthur Park through city, county, state, federal and private funds. People reliant on social media reels might think it all a waste.

But the more we walked, the more I was seeing — dare I say — a change for the better.

Near a statue of St. Oscar Romero, Karen Bracamonte and Katharine Murphy helped a man fold his clothes and place it in a laundry cart. They’re members of the city’s so-called Circle team, mental health professionals tasked with checking in on unhoused people.

“We cover a lot of ground, but, you know, we can’t get everything,” said Murphy, 40. She started at MacArthur Park last summer. “There was a bad batch of tranq last week, so we had to deal with that instead of helping people with regular stuff.”

Bracamonte has worked at MacArthur Park for three years. Her son is unhoused. “Some aspects are better,” the 54-year-old said. “Because there’s more teams out here that can assist. But is it really better? Because now where do we put people up? There’s not enough beds. There’s not enough food. There’s not enough everything.”

Across the corner from us was Langer’s, whose owner made national news in 2024 when he vowed to close his famed delicatessen if MacArthur Park didn’t improve. Workers power-washed the sidewalk as Hernandez and I ambled on. Nearby, people huddled around a car handing out groceries.

What about critics who say the self-described police abolitionist should work closer with law enforcement to clean up the park, I told her.

“The heaviest hands have been representing this area before me, and what did they have to show for it? Nothing,” she responded as we made our way down to the lake. Hernandez brought up “The Rent Collectors,” a 2024 book by former Times reporter Jesse Katz that covers the history of MacArthur Park through a gang murder.

“It’s easy to blame me for the dereliction of duty that has been going on here for many, many years before I came into office,” she continued. “And part of my time in City Hall is trying to get the city to do things differently because for so long, they’ve been doing things the same way and expecting different results. And what do we have? A crumbling city…This neighborhood, these people, they deserve nice things.”

We now by the edge of MacArthur Park’s lake, which Hernandez hopes to improve its water quality so people can use pedal boats on it for the first time in two decades. For a good three minutes, the scene around us looked like a slice of Irvine.

Hernandez walks past artwork painted on planters surrounding the lake at MacArthur Park.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Canada geese honked and waddled across stretches of grass where I saw condoms and broken glass pipes last year. Birds relaxed on the water. Senior citizens did their morning circuits. There wasn’t a single distressed person to see. It was still grimy, but MacArthur Park’s famed beauty was there, a beauty unmatched by newer parks — if only Hernandez and others could burnish it.

“See that playground?” Hernandez said, gesturing toward a jungle gym near Park View Street.

The one damaged by an arsonist in the fall of 2024 shortly after a multimillion-dollar refurbishment?

“We fought hard for that to be fixed ASAP, and now there’s a little bit of protection around it,” pointing at a small fence. She then looked at streetlights. “They’re solarized. We put them up late last year. It’s twofold. It gets us closer to our sustainability goals. And it also is far more resilient to copper wire theft.”

Hernandez plans more improvements for MacArthur Park and its surrounding streets. Trees. Spots for food vendors. Programming with local nonprofits beyond the Levitt Pavilion bandstand that hosts summer concerts. A $2.3-million fence proposed by the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners last fall that would encircle it and which Hernandez supports because “the park does deserve what state historic park gets, which is to close down and refurbish.”

We crossed Wilshire Boulevard and ran into David Rodriguez and Diego Santana, who serve as so-called peace ambassadors, an Hernandez initiative that contracts nonprofits to help patrol the district. Both grew up in the neighborhood and have lived through MacArthur Park’s travails. Below us was the soccer field that the Border Patrol trampled over half a year ago.

“You see a lot of kids nowadays,” said Santana, 35. “And it wasn’t like that in recent years.”

Rodriguez waved toward a gated pathway. “There was a 5K run that it was opened for,” said the 42-year-old. “You didn’t see that before.”

“It’s much cleaner,” Santana added. “There’s still issues, but it’s getting better.”

Peace ambassadors Diego Santana, left, and David Rodriguez explain to Hernandez and Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, not pictured, how they believe the park has improved.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

A man named David approached us.

“You live around here?” Hernandez said.

“I’m homeless,” he responded.

“Do you need any help?”

“I need a job.”

Santana and Rodriguez walked away with him to take down his information and direct him to resources. Hernandez beamed.

“I think people and conservative media — and oftentimes even, you know, not conservative media — they paint MacArthur Park as if the sky is falling,” she said. “I hope people also see beyond the crises that this is a jewel. There’s so much life. But people shrink it down to problematic substances.”

We walked back to the community center but not before Hernandez stopped me from stepping on fresh dog poop as she said, “I’ve had to fight for every single penny and investment and resources that are in this neighborhood in my term. And I will continue to do so because they deserve it.”

An overdose team was checking in for the day. I asked the council member whether she was willing to stand by MacArthur Park under her watch as she campaigns for four more years.

“Every day with my whole chest, 10 toes down,” Hernandez replied. “And that’s why I keep coming back. I don’t run away from problems. I could have easily forgotten about MacArthur Park because, you know, that’s what traditionally has been done. But no, I ran to it.”

There’s still a long way to go, I thought — but Hernandez is getting there. She certainly seems to be trying, despite what her haters insist. The council member got in her SUV and drove off, but not before rolling down the window to shout out one more message:

“You can tell everyone that the sky isn’t falling here and we’re just getting started.”

NUUK, Greenland — So far north in the middle of winter, the sun had barely crept above Greenland’s ice sheet midday when President Trump began his remarks. But Jinny Holm was not going to miss them.

She turns on the television every morning these days, keeping it on in the background, monitoring the developments of a foreign leader who otherwise would matter little in her life if not for his fixation on conquering her ancient homeland.

“My son, he has been a little bit worried about this military, so I have been talking to him — ‘Don’t worry. He cannot buy us,’” said Holm, a caregiver, describing her 9-year-old. “So that’s really good, that he said he will not use military force.”

In his remarks at Davos, Switzerland, Trump walked back threats to use military force to annex the semiautonomous Danish territory — news that was received with overwhelming relief here. Yet few trust Trump enough to take him at his word on any given day.

“I don’t want to be American, because I am Inuit,” she continued. “I am born here. In my future, I have grandson, and he will be Greenlandic.”

In remarks to the annual economic forum in Switzerland, which were focused largely on the fate of Greenland, Trump made no mention of the people here, whose lives have been consumed by confusion and concern over his designs.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

It has become such an overbearing topic around town that locals have grown weary discussing it. Journalists are making their presence known in Greenland’s largest city, posting tripods at the few major intersections that make up Nuuk. Flying to the regional capital — which, by law and practice, means flying into the European Union — even a border agent in Reykjavik, Iceland, couldn’t help but comment on the news.

“You’re flying into that storm?” she asked.

Many locals let signage speak for themselves: “We Are Not For Sale” posters are common, alongside the occasional silhouette of Greenland, donning an orange toupee, crossed out in red. Several locals said they are flying Greenland’s red-and-white flag for the first time.

“He talks so much s—,” said Silas, a student from Nuuk, who dismissed the idea of joining the United States due to its healthcare system.

Finn Meinel, a lawyer born and raised in Nuuk, said there is “universal” disapproval of Trump’s territorial approach toward the island.

“Of course it’s nice to see that the wording has been softened, and that increases the odds of a nonviolent solution to this conflict,” Meinel said. But he took a moment before answering whether he viewed the United States as a force for good in the world.

“A lot of people are disappointed,” he said, “and for trust to be rebuilt with the Greenlandic people, that will take quite some time.”

Cal Egedeboggild, also born and raised in Greenland, said he had lost trust in Trump after precipitating an unnecessary crisis.

“He’s threatening, he’s threatening and he’s threatening. He gets his way by threatening. But does he create trust? No,” said Cal Egede Boggild, a former university professor working at the Ministry of Education. “There’s no such thing as a friendly annexation.”

A pedestrian at sunset in Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 21, 2026.

(Evgeniy Maloletka / Associated Press)

Like so many others, he has closely followed developments out of Washington. After conveying frustration with the U.S. government, he paused to apologize for being so direct.

“There are Americans, and there is Trump. They are two things,” Egede Boggild said. “I don’t distrust Americans. I distrust the Trump government. It’s only power — that’s all it is. The argument they are making don’t hold.”

Those arguments are coming solely from the White House, where Trump himself, with no meaningful assistance from policy wonks, has run the United States headlong into a diplomatic rupture with its closest allies, Defense and State Department sources tell The Times.

Trump’s remarks Wednesday, suddenly retreating from his threat of military force, could mitigate some of the damage inflicted on Washington’s most cherished relationships. But there is a risk his pivot has come too late. Major transatlantic partners, from France and the United Kingdom to Canada, expressed this week a rare sense of resignation, as if they have had enough with Trump’s foreign policy tactics, viewed across Europe as increasingly boorish and unrestrained.

The president’s moves may ultimately result in a new defense agreement over Greenland. But it may also be remembered as the moment where Europe broke away from the United States, exasperated by a world run solely by hard American power at the whims of an ever imperial presidency.

In Greenland, for its part, it may be remembered as a moment that rallied its small, remote population to its value and purpose.

“I think people are coming together, and are more socially aware — taking care of those who need to be supported, caring for one another,” Meinel said.

“People are more friendly,” he continued, “putting ourselves together as a group against an external foe.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: https://www.latimes.com/sports/newsletter/2026-01-20/rams-seahawks-super-bowl-title
The deep dive: Celebrity PR firm helped LAFD shape messaging after Palisades fire
The L.A. Times Special: 2026 Oscar nominations: Our expert’s predictions in 11 key categories

More to come,
Michael Wilner
—
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

One year ago this week, a case of measles was recorded in Gaines County, Texas.

It was the start of an outbreak that killed two children and sickened at least 760 people. Thousands more in the U.S. have contracted measles since.

In April, the Pan American Health Organization, an offshoot of the World Health Organization, will determine whether the same virus strain first recorded in west Texas on Jan. 20, 2025, has been transmitted without interruption in the 12 months since.

If it has, the U.S. will officially lose the measles elimination status that the organization conferred in 2000.

Meeting those requirements “took several decades of really hard work,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist and emeritus professor at UC Berkeley. “Losing that distinction is an embarrassment for the United States. It’s another nail in the coffin for the credibility of this country.”

In public health terms, elimination means that a disease has become rare enough, and immunity to it widespread enough, that local transmission dwindles quickly if a case or two emerges.

Scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are studying virus sequences from multiple sites around the U.S. to determine whether more recent measles cases are descended from the original outbreak or were introduced from other locations, a distinction that could affect whether the U.S. keeps its status.

Regardless of the international committee’s ultimate ruling, what is clear is that a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease kept largely in check for a quarter of a century is surging back.

There were 4,485 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. between Jan. 1, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2025 alone, there were 2,242 — the highest annual case count since the early 1990s.

“Measles is incredibly contagious, and it is the thing that comes first when you take your foot off the gas, in terms of trying to keep vaccination levels up,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a New York-based pediatric infectious disease specialist and author of the book “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.”

“It didn’t have to turn out this way,” he said. “It doesn’t help us that there haven’t been clear messages from HHS.”

In March, after the first child death from measles in more than a decade in the U.S., Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a statement that noted vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing measles’ spread, but stopped short of outright recommending that parents vaccinate their children.

A month later, he posted on X: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” outraging many of his anti-vaccine supporters.

Yet as the year went on, Kennedy and the agencies he leads upended the nation’s vaccine delivery system, while publicly sharing misleading and inaccurate information about immunizations.

Kennedy dismissed the members of a key vaccine advisory committee to the CDC and replaced them all with handpicked appointees, many of whom have been openly critical of vaccines or have spread medical misinformation.

Late last year, the CDC altered its website on vaccines and autism to include inaccurate statements linking immunizations to the neurodevelopmental disorder. Earlier this month, the CDC abruptly slashed the number of diseases it recommends children be vaccinated against from 17 to 11.

While the CDC has not officially changed MMR vaccine recommendations, the agency’s conflicting actions and confusing statements have only further depressed vaccination rates, experts said.

“The messages that are coming out of this CDC are crazy. It’s hard for pediatricians. It’s hard for parents,” Ratner said. “Nothing has changed about how safe the MMR vaccines are … or how well they work. It is all the messaging. And I’m very concerned that that is speeding up, not slowing down.”

Vaccination rates in the U.S. were already dipping before Kennedy’s appointment to Health and Human Services. Only 10 U.S. states — including California — meet the 95% vaccination threshold required to prevent community transmission of measles.

Forty-five states reported confirmed measles cases last year, and at least nine states have logged cases in January alone.

“If you go to cdc.gov, you would expect to see a huge banner saying, ‘Measles outbreak, get your vaccine now,’” said Dr. Jeff Goad, a Chapman University School of Pharmacy professor and president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “And it’s not there.”

The Pan American Health Organization will review data from the U.S. and Mexico on April 13 to determine whether those two countries will endure the same fate as Canada, which lost its measles elimination status in November.

“Whether or not we officially lose elimination status is an academic exercise at this point,” said Mathew Kiang, an assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University. “The reality is that without concentrated efforts to ramp up vaccination, we will continue to have these long, extended outbreaks across the U.S. We’re witnessing the results of a years-long effort to disassemble the vaccine infrastructure in the U.S. that has been accelerated by the current administration.”

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee is offering to sell private dinners with President Clinton, places on foreign trade missions and other forms of exclusive access to senior officials to party donors willing to pony up $100,000 or more.

In a recent fund-raising letter, the party offered big contributors a pricey catalogue of favors, including high-level briefings, VIP status at the Democratic National Convention and a “personal DNC staff contact” to help cut through red tape in the Washington bureaucracy.

Lesser donors receive lesser privileges, such as lunch with Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore. For $1,000, a donor can get an invitation to events with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tipper Gore and female political appointees, according to the letter, which was first disclosed by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The high-roller solicitation comes just weeks after Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) promised during a public forum in New Hampshire to create a bipartisan commission that would recommend ways to clean up campaign financing practices and end the sale of influence and access in Washington.

It also flies in the face of then-candidate Clinton’s 1992 pledge in his campaign manifesto, “Putting People First,” to end the “cliques of $100,000 donors” buying access to Congress and the White House.

Republicans have long rewarded big-dollar donors with access to top officials, including photo opportunities and receptions with President George Bush at the White House during his tenure and seats near him at public events. But critics said the new Democratic letter had taken the practice to new lows of influence-peddling and assailed Clinton for making promises of places at the presidential dinner table and on government-sponsored trade missions.

“This is outrageous,” said Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group. “They’re auctioning off access to the President of the United States to the highest bidder.”

McBride called on Clinton to disavow the fund-raising tactic and announce that neither he nor any member of his Administration would participate in the promised dinners, briefings, trade missions or other activities.

“Clinton gave a speech today about building community among people. He should remember that one thing that helps build community among average citizens is the belief that they have access to their government and their voices will not be drowned out by the rich and powerful,” McBride said.

A White House aide defended the practice as legal under current campaign financing laws and as a legitimate use of incumbency.

“We support the party and conduct normal fund-raising procedures that have been used by both parties,” spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said. She said the Democrats must employ whatever tools they have to compete with aggressive Republican fund raising.

“Until the system is changed, we will not unilaterally disarm,” said Donald Fowler, co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Republicans have long courted wealthy donors with membership in such exclusive clubs as the Eagle Forum or Team 100, which entitle big donors to private receptions with top party leaders and attendance at policy forums. But Republican National Committee spokeswoman Mary Mead Crawford said she reviewed years of fund-raising letters and had not found any that offered such specific promises of access.

The closest parallel was a 1992 Republican appeal in which those who gave or raised at least $92,000 received a photo opportunity with Bush, lunch with then-Vice President Dan Quayle, a reception with Cabinet officers and breakfast with congressional leaders.

The Democratic fund-raising letter, mailed in late June over the signatures of Fowler and general party Chairman Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), offers to make $100,000 donors “managing trustees” of the party.

That contribution entitles the donor to two meals with the President, two meals with the vice president, one dinner with top Administration officials, honored guest status at the 1996 Democratic Convention, two annual retreats with top policy-makers, exclusive issues briefings, a daily fax on Administration activities and political announcements, a DNC staff contact to assist in handling “personal requests” and a spot on annual foreign trade missions. Donors must reimburse the government for the cost of the missions.

For $50,000, the contributor gets a presidential reception, dinner with Al Gore, two high-level briefings and special–but not “honored”–treatment at the 1996 convention.

“In spite of the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have pledged many times to change business as usual, everything just seems to go along the same path,” said Ellen Miller, director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group. “If anything has changed in Washington, it’s that everything has become so much more obvious.”

Reporting from Washington — Republicans have a boatload of presidential candidates, and Democrats have one clear front-runner, but in both parties most voters seem satisfied with their choices so far, a new poll indicates.

The latest survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center also finds that interest in the presidential campaign has risen notably as candidates have begun to enter the field. Two-thirds of voters said they were thinking about the campaign, up 8 points in two months. But fewer than 1 in 3 say they are thinking “a lot” about presidential politics this far ahead of the November 2016 election.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 57% say they have an excellent or good impression of their party’s candidates, while among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 54% do, the poll found.

For the GOP, that’s a notable switch from this point four years ago, when only 44% said they had such a positive view. The field at that time had only a couple of well-established political figures in it. Partisans on both sides have a more positive view of the choices than they did in the run-up to the 2004 election, when about 4 in 10 rated their parties’ candidates as excellent or good.

The survey asked for specific impressions of Hillary Rodham Clinton and six GOP presidential hopefuls — Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee.

Bush, the former governor of Florida and brother and son of former presidents, was the best-known on the GOP side, with only 12% of Republicans and Republican leaners saying they could not rate him. He also had the largest share with a negative impression, 35%, compared with 52% positive.

Walker, the Wisconsin governor, was the least known, with 36% not able to rate him. He also had the best ratio of positive to negative opinions, with only 17% unfavorable compared with 46% favorable. The numbers reflect the good start Walker has had in his as-yet-unofficial campaign, but also the fact that he has yet to establish a clear image for many.

Conservative Republicans are more likely than moderates or liberals to have opinions about the GOP field. They are a bit less positive about Bush than are moderates and liberals, but not dramatically so, with 37% of conservative Republicans and 34% of the party’s moderates and liberals having an unfavorable view of him.

Both Walker and Rubio, the Florida senator, get significantly more favorable opinions from conservatives than nonconservatives in the party — a potentially important factor in a party where conservatives dominate the primary voting.

Clinton’s ratings have declined, but she remains extremely popular among Democrats or Democratic leaners, with 77% having a favorable opinion of her. That’s down from 86% last summer, but still a much higher number than any of the Republicans garner among their partisans.

Among the public at large, opinion is closely divided on Clinton, with 49% viewing her favorably and 47% negatively. Her ratings are down most sharply among Republicans, 17% of whom now say they view her favorably.

The youngest Democrats, those aged 18 to 26, were least likely to have a positive view of Clinton, with 65% viewing her favorably. Among other age groups of Democrats, about 8 in 10 had a favorable view.

Although some liberal activists have pined for alternative candidates, 81% of liberal Democrats viewed Clinton positively, compared with 74% of conservatives and moderates. And despite her potential appeal as the first female elected president, male Democrats were about as likely to have a positive view of Clinton as females.

By contrast with Clinton’s generally positive ratings among Democrats, Vice President Joe Biden’s star has faded. Only 58% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents viewed him favorably, and among voters overall, 39% have a favorable view compared with 48% who view him unfavorably.

The Pew survey, conducted May 12-18, polled 2,002 adults, including 1,497 registered voters. The margin of error for the registered voter sample was +/- 2.9 percentage points.

For more on politics and policy, follow @DavidLauter on Twitter.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez says her expertise on national defense and global security in an era of worldwide volatility and deadly terrorist attacks makes her the clear choice in California’s U.S. Senate race.

Throughout her campaign, Sanchez has held up her votes against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as examples of her political courage amid intense pressure to support those measures. In the House of Representatives, Sanchez also fought to allow women in combat and to protect members of the military from sexual assaults. She has also supported efforts to reduce the federal deficit.

Her rival in the November election is fellow Democrat Kamala Harris, the clear front runner, who has served as California’s attorney general and San Francisco’s district attorney and has received endorsements from the California Democratic Party and Gov. Jerry Brown. Sanchez, however, argues that Harris lacks experience in the cutthroat politics involved in the legislative process, casting doubt on her ability to be effective in Washington.

Here are some of the noteworthy milestones in Sanchez’s political career, including those that landed her in hot water:

1. Voted against the Iraq War and Patriot Act

A U.S. Marine stands watch as others take a moment to rest after taking over two houses in a pre–dawn mission in the Jolan Heights area of Fallouja, Iraq in 2004. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

(Test)

In 2002, Sanchez was among the 133 House members who voted against the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq.

The resolution passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, however. Among those voting in favor were then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. 

“People forget how difficult, how hard, and how unpopular that vote really was,” Sanchez said while speaking at a Democratic Foundation of Orange County luncheon in 2015. “I was spit at. I had to have bodyguards when I came back to Orange County.”

President George W. Bush had requested congressional approval, saying it was necessary to pressure Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — by force, if necessary — to destroy his suspected weapons of mass destruction programs.

Sanchez said her experience on the House Armed Services Committee made her question the long-term implications of an invasion, and whether the U.S. might find itself bogged down in a war in the Middle East.

Sanchez said she had been just as skeptical of the Patriot Act, the legislation approved by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, which gave law enforcement agencies vastly expanded powers to track terror suspects. 

She said the information later made public by former National Security Administration contractor Edward Snowden revealed that federal authorities  collected massive amounts of data on phone calls made by law-abiding Americans.

2. Advocate for women in the military

A female marine stands in formation along with her male compatriots on November 10, 2010, at Camp Delaram in Helmand province, Afghanistan. (Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)

(Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)

Sanchez, the second ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee and chair of the Women in the Military Caucus, has spent years advocating for the U.S. military to end its policy prohibiting women from combat positions. She introduced legislation in 2011, 2012 and 2014 to do just that, though none of the bills went anywhere. 

Sanchez argued that the combat exclusion policy failed to recognize that women had already been serving on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. The policy also hindered the ability of women in the military to advance up the the chain of command, since combat experience is required for certain promotions.

In December, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced an end to the Pentagon’s formal ban on women in combat jobs, allowing them to serve in all artillery, infantry and other frontline units for the first time. 

In September, the Marines released a study of women in combat skills tests that concluded that women hurt combat capability. The Marines had requested to be exempted from the policy, but the request was denied.

Sanchez also worked on a bill with Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) to provide federal whistleblower protections for people who report sexual assaults in the military. The legislation passed the House unanimously and was later folded into a defense policy bill.

In 2013, a bill proposed by Sanchez to require commanders to include sexual harassment in performance evaluations and to hold them accountable for the climate in their units was adopted into the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act.

3. Voted to shield gun makers from lawsuits

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

(Test)

In 2005, Sanchez voted in favor of legislation that shielded the gun industry from liability for the criminal or negligent acts of gun owners, with certain exceptions.

The law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, was approved by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. The bill superseded existing laws in California and other states that allowed victims of gun violence to sue gun makers and dealers.  

Sanchez said the measure protects lawful businesses from being hit with frivolous lawsuits, comparing it to allowing a person injured by a drunk driver to sue a car manufacturer.

She also defended her record on gun control, saying she has supported a ban on high-capacity magazines and has backed requiring background checks for people who buy weapons at gun shows. Sanchez said she has consistently received poor grades from the pro-gun National Rifle Assn.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has endorsed Harris in the Senate race, and the group’s president, Dan Gross, referred to the 2005 vote by Sanchez when it was announced.

“While her opponent may feel the gun industry, whose products kill 90 Americans every day, deserves a free pass in the form of special legal protections — Kamala Harris doesn’t,” Gross said in the statement.

Still, the Brady Campaign endorsed Sanchez’s 2006 reelection bid for Congress — just a year after the 2005 vote — as well as her reelection campaigns in 2008 and 2010. The Brady Campaign also gave the Orange County congresswoman a thumbs-up grade on gun issues in 2014.

4. Beat conservative firebrand ‘B-1 Bob’ Dornan

Loretta Sanchez, with her campaign manager John Shallman, arrives in Washington in 1996 for orientation sessions for new members of Congress. (Alex Garcia / Los Angeles Times)

(Test)

In 1996, Sanchez was a little-known financial analyst from Anaheim when she ousted Orange County conservative Rep. Robert “B-1 Bob” Dornan for Congress, beating him by just 984 votes.

Few had given her any chance against the bombastic former Air Force pilot, who earned his nickname after he became a top pitchman for the 1980s-era jet bomber.

Sanchez’s own Democratic Party endorsed another candidate in the primary, and her only political experience before that was a failed bid for Anaheim City Council.

Dornan gained a national following in part for his stands against abortion, gay rights and liberalism and for his fervent support of the military, anti-communism and gun rights. During his successful 1992 reelection campaign he said that “every lesbian spear-chucker in this country is hoping I get defeated.” 

President Bill Clinton, labor groups, environmentalists, advocates of abortion rights and gay rights and celebrities all campaigned on Sanchez’s behalf.

The newly elected congresswoman arrived in Washington in 1996 as a Democratic superstar, and as an incarnation of the political ascension of Latinos in Orange County, California and across the U.S.

She survived a bitter fight with Dornan as he attempted to overturn the results. He claimed the election was tainted by illegal ballots cast by noncitizens. Sanchez defeated him a second time him in a rematch in 1998. 

5. A Playboy Mansion fundraiser and other political dust ups

Playboy Mansion (Jim Bartsch)

(Test)

In 2000, Sanchez angered Democratic Party leaders and presidential nominee Al Gore by scheduling a fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

Sanchez, co-chair of the Democratic National Committee, was stripped of her speaking role at the convention because of her steadfast refusal to relocate the fundraiser for Hispanic Unity USA, a political action committee that was raising money for a Latino voter registration drive. 

In a letter, then party chairman Joe Andrew chastised Sanchez, saying that Democrats and women’s groups found the planned fundraiser at the estate of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner to be “neither appropriate nor reflective of our party’s values.”

Sanchez’s supporters noted that many Democrats, including Gore, had accepted campaign contributions from Playboy executives. 

Sanchez ultimately moved the event. She regained a spot on the convention speakers’ list the next day, but refused to accept it.

It wasn’t the last time Sanchez was involved in a political stir:

• In 2007, Sanchez quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus saying that it was, in part, due to caucus chairman Rep. Joe Baca’s demeaning manner toward women and his gossiping that she was a “whore,” which he denied.
• At the California Democratic Party convention in May 2015, Sanchez was speaking to party activists when she tapped her hand to her mouth in imitation of a Native American “war cry” when describing the difference between Native Americans and Indian Americans. She was forced to apologize.
• For years, Sanchez sent out racy Christmas cards featuring her cat Gretzky. In one, the congresswoman was sitting on a motorcycle wearing a tank top, with Gretzky perched on the handlebars.
• Following the deadly terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris, Sanchez said 5% to 20% of Muslims worldwide supported the idea of a caliphate — a strict Islamic state. The congresswoman was criticized by immigrant rights group and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Sanchez said the figures she mentioned have not been repudiated by any credible source.

6. Voted for controversial deficit reduction plan

Sanchez has tried to cultivate an image as a moderate on budget issues, joining a group called the “Blue Dog Coalition” dedicated to fiscal conservatism.

She supported a failed effort to reduce the federal debt that was based on the recommendations of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission, which President Obama appointed in 2010 to address the nation’s debt challenges. The recommendations included spending caps, increasing gas taxes and, among the more controversial proposals, raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits.

Sanchez also was one of 63 members of her party who opposed the 2008 bank bailout.

She did vote for the 2009 economic stimulus package, the auto bailout and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to tighten the regulation of Wall Street and the finance industry.

7. Missed congressional committee meetings

A Times review of Sanchez’s attendance in Congress shows she missed 13 of 18 House Homeland Security Committee meetings from January through early November 2015, tied for the second-worst attendance on the committee. She missed the vast majority of her subcommittee meetings and half of the full meetings in the 2013-14 congressional term.

Sanchez also missed more floor votes in the House — more than one in five — than all but two other members in 2015, according to Congressional Quarterly. That’s a drop from her previous terms in Congress, when she cast votes more than 90% of the time in all but one year.

Sanchez told the Times in December that she doesn’t recall missing many Homeland Security hearings, but added that her responsibilities on the Armed Services committee expanded greatly when the ranking Democrat was away from Congress because of two hip surgeries. 

Sanchez said she also spent more time in California, in part because her father has Alzheimer’s and because her elderly mother also needs care.

8. Lacks a signature bill, but delivered for water project

Gov. Jerry Brown holds glasses of reclaimed at the Orange County Water District Groundwater Replenishment System. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

(Test)

Last year, CQ Roll Call classified Sanchez as among the “debate shapers and swing votes” on its list of the “25 Most Influential Women in Congress.”

But the Orange County Democrat has not offered a successful signature bill that members of Congress covet, though her party held power for four years of her 20-year tenure.

Still, Sanchez boasts of delivering federal funding for Orange County’s Groundwater Replenishment System. The treated water is used to recharge the local groundwater basin and provides enough water for nearly 850,000 residents.

Election 2016 | California politics news feed | Sign up for the newsletter  

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon 

ALSO

Kamala Harris strengthened, Loretta Sanchez weak as general election begins, new poll finds

For a comeback in her Senate race, Democrat Loretta Sanchez may need the help of Republicans

California’s next senator could be a Latina. Will her past mistakes get in the way?

Updates on California politics

Aiming to restore prominent attorney Daniel T. Broderick III’s reputation, prosecutors called family housekeepers to testify Friday that his ex-wife, Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick, provoked and threatened him, but he always remained unruffled.

Responding to repeated claims that Daniel Broderick had a mean temper and scared his four children, allegations advanced during the last two weeks of defense testimony at Betty Broderick’s double-murder trial, housekeepers said Friday he was a kind and loving father.

As testimony in the trial neared a close, the housekeepers–among the final prosecution witnesses–said it was Betty Broderick who vandalized the family home and threatened to commit serious violence, once prompting a call to police after claiming she had a gun in her car.

Betty Broderick, 43, who faces two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 5, 1989, shooting deaths of her ex-husband and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, listened impassively to the testimony.

She showed emotion only when her father, Frank Bisceglia of Eastchester, N.Y., made his first appearance at the trial, smiling delightedly at him when he walked into the courtroom Friday afternoon.

After the day’s testimony concluded, he told reporters he had no comment.

If convicted, Betty Broderick could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. San Diego Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan said Friday that the case is likely to go to the jury next week.

Daniel Broderick, who was 44, was a medical malpractice lawyer and former president of the San Diego County Bar Assn. Linda Kolkena Broderick, who was 28, was his office assistant.

After 16 years of marriage, Daniel and Betty Broderick separated in 1985. During their bitter divorce, which was not final until 1989, she accused her husband of using his legal influence to cheat her out of her fair share of his seven-figure annual income.

Testifying last week in her own defense, Betty Broderick admitted firing the shots that killed her ex-husband and his second wife.

Her defense attorney, Jack Earley, contends that she did not have the premeditation the law requires for first-degree murder because she intended only to talk to him and to kill herself when she stole into his house at dawn.

During the defense case, which concluded Friday morning, witnesses claimed that, when he was mad, Daniel Broderick broke things, kicked the family dogs, screamed at his four children and intimidated them. Betty Broderick said he hit her and subjected her to emotional abuse.

But the two housekeepers who, in turn, ran Daniel Broderick’s home from 1985 through 1987–where the four children were living because his ex-wife had given them to him–said he tried to eat dinner with the children every night, took an active interest in their homework and often played basketball with his two boys, the younger two of the four children.

Both said they never saw him react violently toward the four children. Or even, said Marta C. Shaver, Daniel Broderick’s housekeeper in 1985 and 1986, toward his ex-wife.

In the fall of 1985, Betty Broderick threw a homemade cake around her ex-husband’s bedroom, leaving the room “totally destroyed,” Shaver said. But, she said, Daniel Broderick “remained calm” and announced that he reluctantly would have to enforce a court order requiring his ex-wife to stay off his property.

Robin Tuua, the housekeeper during 1986 and 1987, said that Betty Broderick drove to her ex-husband’s house to drop off one of the boys and one of the two whispered to her, “Mommy has a butcher knife under the seat. Be careful.”

Then, Tuua said, Betty Broderick “told me she had a gun in her glove box. At this point, there was not a shadow of a doubt that this woman would use it on me. I called the police,” who took a report.

Tuua did not indicate whether Betty Broderick actually had a gun in her car. According to earlier testimony, Betty Broderick did not own a gun until two years later, when she bought one in March, 1989.

A marriage and family counseling expert–who testified Thursday that Betty Broderick had been the victim of physical, sexual and psychological abuse during the marriage–said Friday that she was given to exaggeration.

The final defense witness, Daniel J. Sonkin, wrapped up his testimony Friday before the housekeepers took the stand by saying Betty Broderick was suffering from “a lot of anger, a lot of hostility, a lot of hurt” attributable to her ex-husband.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells, the prosecutor in the case, asked Sonkin why a woman who purportedly had been battered by her husband would seek to confront him–especially after separation. She also wondered why, if he really had engaged in a pattern of abusing her, he didn’t simply punch her out when she did try to confront him.

“He used the courts” instead, to manipulate their divorce and to manipulate her, Sonkin said. But he told Wells, “I’m not disagreeing with you that it was inappropriate for her to go over there” on various occasions.

Wells, who sparred repeatedly with Sonkin on Thursday, showed signs of irritation on Friday with his testimony, her voice rising and her speech rapid. She also cut off his answers, and he cut off hers, prompting the court reporter to tell them that only one person at a time could speak.

After 14 days of testimony, the opposing lawyers also showed signs of stress with each other–and even the judge appeared cross.

During Shaver’s testimony about the smeared cake, Earley objected, saying she was being far too dramatic.

“If the witness wants to be in the movies . . . ,” Earley said before Wells cut him off with her own objection. Then Whelan leaned forward, pointed a finger at Earley and said loudly: “Knock that off.”

Testimony in the case is due to resume Tuesday. No court session is scheduled for Monday, a state holiday.

LAS VEGAS — A California teenager says he tried to intervene when his classmate began assaulting a 7-year-old Los Angeles girl, fearing that their game of hide and seek in a Nevada casino had “crossed the line.”

David Cash Jr., 18, told a grand jury that he tapped Jeremy Strohmeyer on the forehead, trying to get his attention, as he allegedly assaulted 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a stall in a women’s restroom at the Primadonna Resort and Casino.

Cash said Strohmeyer stared at him, but continued the assault, so he left.

Cash said he met Strohmeyer half an hour later, and Strohmeyer told him, “I killed her.”

The girl’s body was found in a stall about 5 a.m. May 25.

Cash was a key witness before a Clark County Grand Jury two weeks ago.

The grand jury indicted Strohmeyer, 18, on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and two counts of sexual assault.

District Judge Donald Chairez on Thursday ordered that the grand jury transcript be released, except for a portion by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police detective who interviewed Strohmeyer before his arrest.

Chairez also lifted a gag order that had been imposed in the case, with the restriction that those involved could not talk about a statement Strohmeyer made to police after his arrest in Long Beach on May 28.

Strohmeyer’s attorneys, Leslie Abramson of Los Angeles and Richard Wright of Las Vegas, objected to the release of the transcript, saying it could prejudice potential jurors.

Cash said he, his father and Strohmeyer had stopped at the Primadonna, one of three resorts on the California-Nevada border, the night of May 24. Cash said he and Strohmeyer, a classmate at Wilson High School in Long Beach, began interacting with the Iverson girl about 3 the next morning in an arcade at the hotel-casino, now known as the Primm Valley Resort.

Daniel Eitnier, director of corporate surveillance for the resort, reviewed security videotapes taken by one of the 400 surveillance cameras at the resort.

He identified three people in the tapes as Strohmeyer, Cash and Iverson.

Eitnier said the tapes showed the girl entering the women’s restroom at 3:48 a.m., followed 15 seconds later by Strohmeyer.

Strohmeyer is seen leaving the restroom 25 minutes later, but the girl was not seen again, Eitnier said. He said eight women entered and left the restroom during the time the pair were in there.

Cash said he was curious and walked into the restroom a minute after Strohmeyer entered.

He said the teenager and girl were throwing wet paper towels at each other after apparently playing hide and seek earlier. When the girl threw a wet-floor sign at Strohmeyer, he grabbed the girl and took her into a toilet stall, locking the door, Cash testified.

Cash told the grand jury he went to an adjoining stall, stood on a toilet seat and peered over at the two of them.

He said Strohmeyer was restraining the girl and had a hand over her mouth, muffling her screams.

“My upper torso was over the wall of the stall,” Cash testified. “I was tapping Jeremy on the head trying to get his attention, telling him to let go, trying to get him to come out of the restroom. I knew at that point that the little game that they were playing kind of crossed the line.

“I was tapping on his forehead. At one point I accidentally knocked off his hat. He looked up at me, kind of in a stare, you know, like of–like he didn’t care what I was saying.

“At that point I exited the ladies’ restroom.”

Cash said he and Strohmeyer talked of what they would tell authorities if they were identified. The two had noted to others at the resort the night of the incident that both had their tongues pierced, and Strohmeyer had pierced nipples.

Cash said he, his father and Strohmeyer drove on to Las Vegas, then returned to California on Memorial Day.

Cash said his father took him to the police when he learned about the crime while reading a newspaper the following Wednesday.

Cash has not been charged in the incident. Police and prosecutors have said there is no evidence he took part in the crime.

In Thursday’s hearing before Chairez, Clark County Dist. Atty. Stewart Bell argued for release of the transcripts, saying Nevada law requires that they be made public “unless there is some darned good reason why not.”

Abramson argued against the release, saying it could prejudice potential jurors.

NEW YORK — A judge overseeing Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal case said Wednesday that two members of Congress lacked the legal right to intervene and press their demand for a court-appointed observer to ensure the government complies with a new law ordering release of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

But the lawmakers are free to bring a civil lawsuit or work through the tools they have in Congress to improve oversight, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled.

U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act that was signed into law by President Trump in November. It required the public disclosure of files related to the sex trafficking investigations into Epstein, the late financier, and Maxwell, his longtime confidant.

Engelmayer largely agreed with the Justice Department’s insistence that he had no authority to grant the congressmen’s request to speed the release of that material. They had urged Engelmayer to name an independent monitor to ensure that the government immediately released the more than 2 million documents it has identified as investigative materials. Khanna and Massie said the slow disclosure of the documents violated the law and had caused “serious trauma to survivors.”

A month after the deadline had passed for the materials to be made public, only about 12,000 documents have been made public. The department has said the release of the files was delayed by redactions required to protect the identities of those who were abused.

Engelmayer said the questions raised by Khanna and Massie raised about whether the department was complying with the law were “undeniably important and timely.” But, he said, the way in which the members of Congress were trying to intervene was not permitted.

The judge, who inherited Maxwell’s case after the trial judge was appointed to an appeals court, ruled that has no authority to supervise the department’s compliance with the new law, and that Massie and Khanna have no standing, or legal right, to insinuate themselves into Maxwell’s case.

Engelmayer said he has received letters and emails from Epstein abuse survivors in support of the lawmakers’ request for appointment of a neutral overseer.

“These express concern that DOJ otherwise will not comply with the Act,” wrote the judge, who was nominated by President Obama.

The department has been “paying ‘lip service’ to the victims” and “failing to treat us ‘with the solicitude’ we deserve,” survivors wrote, according to Engelmayer.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her December 2021 sex trafficking conviction. She recently petitioned the federal court for her release, maintaining that new information has emerged that warrants her release. A jury found that she had helped to recruit girls for Epstein to abuse over the last quarter-century and had also participated in some of the abuse.

Epstein died in a federal jail in New York in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. The death was ruled a suicide.

Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press.

JERUSALEM — Several countries have said they will join President Trump’s Board of Peace, while a few European nations have declined their invitations. Many have not yet responded to Trump’s invites.

Chaired by Trump, the board was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. But the Trump administration’s ambitions have since expanded, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting at the board’s future role as conflict mediator.

A White House official has said about 30 countries were expected to join the board, without providing details, while about 50 had been invited.

Here is a tally by the Associated Press on what countries are joining, which are not and which are undecided.

Countries that have accepted to join the board

— Argentina

— Armenia

— Azerbaijan

— Bahrain

— Belarus

— Egypt

— Hungary

— Indonesia

— Jordan

— Kazakhstan

— Kosovo

— Morocco

— Pakistan

— Qatar

— Saudi Arabia

— Turkey

— United Arab Emirates

— Uzbekistan

— Vietnam

Countries that will not join the board, at least for now

— France

— Norway

— Slovenia

— Sweden

Countries that have been invited but remain noncommittal:

— Britain

— China

— Croatia

— Germany

— Italy

— European Union’s executive arm

— Paraguay

— Russia

— Singapore

— Ukraine