POLITICS

WASHINGTON  — Louisiana’s state attorneys on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to stand aside for now and to uphold an appeals court ruling that would stop the mailing of abortion pills nationwide.

They blamed former President Biden for undermining the state’s strict bans on abortion and the Trump administration for slow-walking a study on the federal regulations that permit sending the pills through the mail.

The justices are likely to act soon on emergency appeals filed by two makers of mifepristone. They argued the pills have been shown to be safe and effective for ending an early pregnancy.

But last week, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled for Louisiana and revived an earlier regulation that would require women to obtain the pills in person from a doctor.

The three-judge panel also took the unusual step for putting its order into effect immediately. On Monday, Justice Samuel A. Alito, who oversees the 5th Circuit, issued an administrative stay that will keep the case on hold through Monday.

The justices have to decide whether Louisiana had standing to sue over the federal drug regulations, and if so, whether judges have the authority to overrule the Food and Drug Administration.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote dismissed a similar challenge to the abortion pills that came from the 5th Circuit. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts has said in the past that judges should usually defer to the federal agency that is responsible fo regulating drugs.

In response to anti-abortion advocates, Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to have the FDA review the safety record of mifepristone.

It was approved in 2000 as safe and effective for ending early pregnancies. And in the past decade, the agency had relaxed earlier restrictions, including a requirement that pregnant women visit a doctor’s office to obtain the pills.

But the FDA said last month its review is far from complete.

In October, Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill decided to bypass the FDA review and went to federal court seeking a ruling that would prevent the pills being sent by mail.

A federal judge refused to decide on the issue while the FDA was undertaking its review. But the 5th Circuit chose to act now. The Louisiana state attorney put the focus on the Biden administration.

When the Supreme Court was considering the Dobbs case, which overruled Roe vs. Wade and the right to abortion, “the Biden Administration was preparing a plan that predictably would undermine that decision,” she wrote in Thursday’s response.

“Although Louisiana law generally prohibits abortion and the dispensing of mifepristone to pregnant women, out-of-state prescribers—freed from the in-person dispensing requirement — are causing approximately 1,000 illegal abortions in Louisiana each month by mailing FDA-approved mifepristone into the state,” she said.

The Trump administration has yet to tell the court of its views on this case.

Within days of California’s long-anticipated single-use plastic law going into effect, environmentalists, anti-waste activists and the packaging industry reacted with anger and frustration.

Anti-plastic activists say Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and CalRecycle inserted exemptions favoring the plastic industry into the law’s regulations that weaken it and undermine legislative intent.

“These new rules create huge loopholes for plastic packaging that violate the law,” said Avinash Kar, senior director of the toxics program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

On the other side, the packaging industry has sued over similar laws in other states. “Our members have real concerns about cost, compliance, and constitutionality,” said Matt Clarke, spokesman for the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors, which sued Oregon earlier this year over a similar waste law.

CalRecycle, the state’s waste agency, did not respond in time for publication. The final regulations putting the law into effect were released May 1 and posted for review Tuesday.

The environmental organizations say the law’s new final regulations open the door to what is known as “chemical recycling,” which produces large amounts of hazardous waste. The law also contains problematic exemptions for certain categories of plastic foodware, they say.

The language of the law forbids any kind of recycling that would produce significant amounts of hazardous waste. The new regulations allow for these recycling methods if the facilities are properly permitted.

The new regulations also exempt certain products if they are already covered by federal law. For instance, a packaging company, retailer or distributor can claim that they have such a preemption, Kar said, and CalRecycle might not immediately review that claim. “And as long as they don’t review it, they’ll get the exemption for as long as CalRecycle doesn’t review it,” creating a potential “forever loophole.”

“Californians were promised a system where producers take real responsibility for the waste they create,” said Nick Lapis, advocacy director for Californians Against Waste. “When regulations introduce broad exemptions and redefine key terms, that promise starts to erode. The details matter here, and right now they don’t line up with the intent of the law.”

Senate Bill 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, was signed by Newsom in 2022. It was considered landmark legislation because it addressed the scourge of single-use plastics, requiring plastic and packaging companies to use less of them and ensuring that by 2032, all food packaging is either recyclable or compostable.

Accumulating plastic waste is overwhelming waterways and oceans, sickening marine life and threatening human health.

The law’s intent was not only to reduce it, but also to put the onus and cost of dealing with it on packaging producers and manufacturers, not consumers and local governments. It was supposed to incentivize companies to consider the fate of their products and spur innovation in material redesign.

According to one state analysis, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic components were sold, offered for sale, or distributed during 2023 in California.

Similar laws have been passed in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. Oregon’s law, however, is on hold while a lawsuit by the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors works its way through the courts.

“We see a lot of the same problems in California that we flagged in Oregon,” said Clarke, the trade group spokesman. “Given California’s scale, the cost implications are going to be even larger. Our legal counsel has noted that California’s proposed fees are already higher than what other states have put forward.”

Jan Dell of Last Beach Cleanup, an anti-plastic waste group based in Laguna Beach, doesn’t believe the law will work — irrespective of the final regulations — and said the “exorbitant” cost of its implementation will either spur producers to sue, or they’ll end up passing the higher costs onto consumers.

She referred to a report from the Circular Action Alliance, the state-sanctioned group established to represent and oversee the implementation of the law on behalf of the plastic and packaging industry. It finds the law will increase the cost of disposal between six and 14 times for common products, such as Windex bottles, made of polyethylene terephthalate.

“If the producers don’t successfully sue to stop the fees, this will certainly add to product inflation for CA consumers,” she said in an email. “Californians already have to pay exorbitantly high curbside collection fees for trash, recycling, and organics … so, starting in 2027, our groceries will cost a LOT more but we won’t see a reduction in our waste bills.”

Christopher “Smitty” Smith, a partner at law firm Saul Ewing in Los Angeles, who councils companies and interest groups on SB 54 and other Extended Producer Liability laws, said that although he could see areas of the law that “could be sharper and avoid the legal challenges … you can’t stop people from suing.” Environmentalists and anti-waste activists say they are preparing a lawsuit.

Smith said the law already has sparked changes in how companies think and respond to concerns about waste.

One of his national fast-food chain clients has realized that if its brand name is on plastic packaging, it’s that company’s responsibility, he said, so “they’ve spent the past year mapping out their franchise agreements, their supply chain agreements, their producer agreements, to figure out” what it needs to do to comply.

He said in the past, companies have paid little attention to these details and just let their franchisees figure this kind of thing out. Now, they’re spending a lot of time and money “to wrap their arms around what their supply chain looks like and like, what post consumer use of their plastic products looks like and what their regulatory obligations are.”

It’s bringing a new dialogue within companies. And that, Smith said, is what could make this law so powerful.

Times staff writer Meg Tanaka contributed to this report.

In the ancient days of 2022, when the Supreme Court sledgehammered abortion rights with the Dobbs decision, the (Republican) party line was that the issue had returned to where it belonged: the states.

Fast forward to 2026 and it would now seem that the antiabortion crowd, faced with the aggressive pro-choice response of states such as California and lethargy on the part of the Trump administration to do more toward implementing a national ban, is no longer satisfied with that outcome.

They are now out to stomp on California, and a handful of other reproductive health sanctuaries, to ensure that what happens inside our borders fits their ideology.

“It’s strategic, it’s targeted,” Mini Timmaraju, president and chief executive of Reproductive Freedom for All, told me. “Even if you’re in a ‘blue state,’ you’re not safe.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide next week whether to take up the abortion issue again, in a case that could end medication-only procedures as we know them.

That would force women into a less-safe regimen with a lower success rate that would almost certainly lead to more complications — and therefore more controversy. Even in California, which would not be spared by what the court could do, and whose policies are central to the case.

Let’s break it down.

Union members, immigrant rights supporters and anti-Israel demonstrators participate in a May Day rally and march in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

(Robyn Stevens Brody / Sipa USA via Associated Press)

Rogue California

After the Dobbs decision, 11 states passed near-total bans on abortions.

Six other states put early time limits on the procedures, and others passed bans in the second trimester, leaving women in much of the South and the Great Plains with no access to in-person care for hundreds or even thousands of miles.

In many of those places, those bans include making it illegal to receive abortion-inducing medications in the mail from states such as California. But that’s a hard law to enforce unless you go around opening lady-mail.

In recent years, the number of U.S. abortions arranged through telehealth and mailed medication has skyrocketed to more than a quarter of all procedures, though the often illegal nature of this route probably means the number is higher but underreported.

To protect the doctors and providers who are prescribing and sending these medications, California and other states have passed numerous laws to make it easier and safer — from allowing the prescriber to remain anonymous to shield laws that ensure those providers can’t be penalized or extradited to other states for prosecution, though some states are trying.

Earlier this year, Louisiana (a state with a full ban) tried to extradite a California doctor with no luck. Gov. Gavin Newsom gleefully denied that request, promising to “never be complicit with Trump’s war on women.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during the annual March For Life at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23.

(Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Rogue Louisiana

In the Supreme Court case, Louisiana is thinking bigger — and expressing antiabortionists’ frustration with the Trump administration. The state is suing Trump’s Food and Drug Administration because it allows mifepristone, one of two medications used in abortions, to be prescribed via telehealth.

“Patients and these states with bans and extreme restrictions have relied on providers in blue states, abortion access states, to really help provide care,” Timmaraju said. “And this is a way to stop that.”

Antiabortion groups had hoped (and pushed) Trump to simply have the FDA remove its approvals of mifepristone, but Trump ain’t that dumb. Despite all his promises on the campaign trail, the administration would prefer to kick the can instead of the hornet’s nest on this one, especially before the midterms — since most Americans support abortion rights. So the FDA has said it’s “studying” mifepristone, which could take awhile.

Louisiana is claiming it had to spend $90,000 in taxpayer money to help two women who sought medical treatment after medication abortions (though it has not said they received the medication in the mail).

That’s a real harm, it argues, and gives them standing to sue the FDA to stop mifepristone from being prescribed by telehealth at all, claiming the FDA hasn’t done its due diligence to ensure that’s safe and it makes them really sad that they can’t stop women from ordering it.

The FDA has remained “completely silent on this point because the Trump administration doesn’t want to get involved,” said Mary Ziegler, a UC Davis law professor and expert on reproductive law.

“It’s totally one of the signs that the antiabortion movement is in an open rebellion, and is using the federal courts to express that because the political branches have been pretty non-responsive,” she said.

The Contemplation of Justice statue is seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court building on Monday in Washington.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

The Supreme Court lifted a stay Monday imposed by the 5th Circuit that stopped mifepristone from being tele-prescribed. So it’s available until at least May 11.

After that, who knows. It’s up to a court that has proven it’s no friend to reproductive rights.

It’s an issue with real consequence for Trump. If the court takes the case, the midterms must contend with abortion. If they don’t, the pressure on Trump to do so sometime intensifies. But its also an issue with real consequence for Californians.

Consequences in California

In California, there are 22 counties without an abortion clinic, Ziegler points out. In the far north of the state, women without access to telehealth abortions would be little better off than those in Louisiana if mifepristone by mail is stopped.

Instead, women would probably be forced to use the second medication, misoprostol, alone. This single-drug regimen has a lower effectiveness rate than the combined drugs, meaning more women will have to seek out secondary care — often in places where even in-person care is hard to come by. That could lead to more real harm, and therefore more high-profile cases of botched abortions to fuel a further ban on misoprostol.

Steve Hilton takes an interview after the California gubernatorial debate at Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

And then there’s the fact that Newsom won’t be governor for much longer, and it will be up to the next chief executive to protect in-state providers from extradition. The top Republican contender, Steve Hilton, has previously said he would allow Louisiana to grab our California doctor if he were in charge.

Those kinds of threats have a chilling effect, both Ziegler and Timmaraju said. If enough providers are scared of the consequences of providing telehealth — or any — abortions, a ban becomes self-imposed.

Even in California.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Immigration crackdown souring Orange County’s view of Trump, poll finds
The deep dive: ‘How the Fight Over Israel Is Playing Out Inside MAGA
The L.A. Times Special: Who won the California governor debate on CNN? Here’s what our columnists say

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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WASHINGTON — The first baby boomer on the Supreme Court hit a milestone on Thursday, becoming the second-longest-serving justice in history at a time when his influence has never seemed greater.

Once an outlier on the nation’s highest court, Justice Clarence Thomas has become a towering figure in the conservative legal movement over the last decade as he helped secure landmark rulings on abortion, voting and Second Amendment rights.

The only justice with a longer tenure is liberal William O. Douglas. Thomas would overtake Douglas in 2028 if he remains on the court — and there’s no sign he plans to retire anytime soon.

“I think he’s more energized and excited now than when I first met him,” said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who served in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration after his time as a Thomas clerk three decades ago.

Thomas was confirmed in 1991 after contentious hearings that included sexual harassment allegations. More recently, his acceptance of luxury trips has raised a storm of ethics questions. He’s nevertheless gone from near-silence at oral arguments to asking the first questions and penning a landmark ruling expanding Second Amendment rights.

Following the appointment of three conservative justices by Republican President Trump, Thomas is now the most senior member of a supermajority that’s also overturned abortion as a constitutional right, ended affirmative action in college admissions and sharply limited the Voting Rights Act.

“The court has radically moved in his direction over the course of his time on the court,” said Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan. Thomas’ seniority means he can decide who writes an opinion if he’s part of a majority that doesn’t include Chief Justice John Roberts, a factor that can nudge other votes behind closed doors, Karlan said.

Off the bench, Thomas’ sphere of influence also includes his large, close-knit network of former clerks, who have served in the Trump administration and are increasingly filling out the ranks of federal judges.

“That is an important legacy that he will leave,” said Sarah Konsky, director of the Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “Even as justices’ own time on the court winds down, significant influence lives on through their clerks.”

That’s not to say Thomas’ time on the court is up. In a recent speech, Thomas tied the nation’s highest ideals to a conservative vision of limited government — and launched a broadside on progressivism seen by critics as unfair and inappropriate. In the room at the University of Texas, though, it earned a standing ovation.

Thomas, who became the second Black member of the court, now has a tenure that tops 34 years, putting him ahead of Justice Stephen J. Field, who was appointed by Lincoln before the end of the Civil War and served as the only 10th justice until 1897.

For Thomas, 77, it’s a long way from the hearings at which his nomination by Republican President George H.W. Bush was nearly derailed by allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a charge he forcefully denied.

Thomas has more recently come under scrutiny for lavish, undisclosed trips from a GOP megadonor and the conservative political activism of his wife, who backed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. The justice has said he wasn’t required to disclose the trips he took with friends and ignored calls to recuse himself from cases related to the election.

On the court, though, recent years have also brought perhaps the most significant work of his career, especially a 2022 opinion he wrote that found people generally have the right to carry a gun in public. The justice did not respond to a request for comment on his tenure.

His own jurisprudence has changed little over the years, said Scott Gerber, author of “First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas.” Even as the majority moves his way, he’s continued to write dissents that get noticed.

“He’s incredibly consistent,” Gerber said. Once known for solo dissents, “now he writes majority opinions.”

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Maine — Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says she has a benign essential tremor, disclosing the longtime health condition for the first time in her decades-long political career as she seeks reelection in one of this year’s toughest Senate races.

Collins first confirmed the tremor to WCSH-TV in Maine on Wednesday after facing questions about her health from appearances in recent videos, including her campaign announcement video.

The condition causes trembling in Collins’ hands, head and voice, and she said she has had it for the entirety of her nearly three-decade Senate career. It affects millions of Americans over the age of 40 and “does not interfere” with work, Collins said in a Thursday statement to the Associated Press. She said it is not a neurodegenerative condition.

“The tremor is occasionally inconvenient, and sometimes the subject of cruel comments online, but it does not hinder my ability to work and, as I said, is something that I have lived with for decades,” the statement said.

Health issues and candidates’ ages have drawn increased scrutiny in high-profile elections following Democratic President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection in 2024 at age 81. Those questions have only lingered with Republican President Trump, who’s 79 and in recent months has been seen with bruising on the back of his hand, sometimes concealed with makeup. The White House acknowledged last year that Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency.

Collins is up for reelection in a seat Democrats need to flip to have a chance to take back the Senate. Her likely opponent is Democrat Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign last week. Age has been an issue in the contest, with Collins, 73, and Mills, 78, more than three decades older than Platner, 41.

Platner acknowledged early in his campaign his own health problems. He has spoken openly about chronic pain in his shoulder and knees stemming from combat service, and he has said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving at war. Platner has said he has a 100% disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs but continues to work as an oyster farmer.

“There are a lot of disabled combat veterans, or just disabled vets, at 100%, who still work,” Platner told WCSH last year. “It’s a very normal thing.”

Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996 and said in her statement that she has had the condition for all of that time. Over the years, the condition has been noticeable in Collins’ debates and frequent public appearances.

As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins has been at the forefront of the chamber’s many spending disputes this Congress, often leading the floor debate and providing the GOP’s closing arguments. She frequently engages with reporters in the hallways. Her streak of never missing a Senate vote is up to 9,966 and stands as the second-longest consecutive voting streak in the chamber’s history.

Tremors happen when nerves aren’t properly communicating with certain muscles. Essential tremor, sometimes called benign essential tremor, is one of the most common movement disorders, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The risk of developing it increases as people get older, but at least half of cases are inherited, meaning the tremor runs in the family, and those tend to begin at younger ages. It almost always involves shaky or trembling hands but also can affect the head, voice or lower limbs.

Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I. AP writers Kevin Freking and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican lawmakers in Tennessee forged ahead with a plan Thursday that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.

Protesters shouted “No Jim Crow” outside the House and Senate chambers as lawmakers convened to consider the legislation. As the Republican-led House later voted for the new map, Democratic lawmakers locked arms at the front of the chamber while protesters yelled and made noise. A final vote in the Senate would sent the map to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who called lawmakers into special session.

The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.

The court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law. The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give time for state lawmakers to craft a new House map. Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state’s congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its U.S. House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers urged on by Trump have taken initial steps to add congressional redistricting to their agenda.

The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump prodded Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10. But some competitive races mean the parties may not get everything they sought in the November elections.

Tennessee Republicans act despite protests

As a first step to adopting new House districts, Tennessee lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to legislation that would repeal a state law prohibiting mid-decade redistricting. They then passed a bill that would reopen a candidate qualifying until May 15 to allow time for new people to enter the U.S. House primaries and existing candidates to switch districts or drop out.

The proposed House map would break up Tennessee’s lone Democratic-held district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis, creating a ripple effect of alterations to districts throughout the western and central parts of the state.

Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the proposed districts were drawn based on population and politics, not racial data.

But Democrats dismissed such assertions.

“These maps are racist tools of white supremacy at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J. Trump,” said state Rep. Justin Pearson, a Black Democrat from Memphis who is running for the U.S. House.

State Rep. Torrey Harris, another Black Democrat from Memphis, said he would lose part of his voting power as a result of the congressional districts.

“You cannot celebrate democracy while carving out Black communities,” he said. “We all know it, whether we say it or not, that this map impacts Black people negatively.”

Democrats noted that the state Supreme Court in April 2022 rejected a challenge to the current congressional map, finding it was too close to the election to make changes. This year, there’s even less time before the Aug. 6 primary, raising the potential of confusion for both candidates and voters, Democrats said.

A plan for a new primary advances in Alabama

Protesters watching an Alabama legislative committee Thursday erupted in shouts of “shame” as Republican lawmakers advanced legislation to authorize special congressional primaries if the state can put a new congressional map in place for the November midterms.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision arising from Louisiana, Alabama is seeking to overturn a court injunction that created a second U.S. House district with a substantial percentage of Black voters. That map led to the 2024 election of Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. Republicans want instead to use a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers that would give the GOP an opportunity to reclaim Figures’ district.

If a court grants Alabama’s request, the legislation under consideration would ignore the May 19 primary results for congressional seats and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.

The House passed the legislation on a party-line vote Thursday after four hours of fiery debate. A final vote in the Senate is expected Friday.

South Carolina may add redistricting to its agenda

The South Carolina Senate could take up a resolution Thursday giving lawmakers permission to return later, after their regular work ends, to redraw congressional districts that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held district. The proposal, which passed the House on Wednesday, needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers.

Republican House leaders said after the vote that they plan to introduce a new map Thursday and hold committee meetings on Friday. But during debate Wednesday, Republicans fended off specific questions from Democrats, including why they were willing to stop the June 9 U.S. House primary elections well after candidates filed and how much a rescheduled primary could cost.

Democratic Rep. Justin Bamberg said he felt sorry for Republicans who, he said, were giving up their principles to follow the whims of Trump.

“The president of the United States is a very powerful man. Wields a heavy, heavy thumb — Truth Social, X, Meta, Instagram. To be honest I don’t envy our Republican colleagues,” Bamberg said.

Loller, Chandler, Collins and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala.; Collins from Columbia, S.C.; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Mo. AP reporter Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican raised the “need to work tirelessly in favor of peace” in talks Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to Rome on a fence-mending visit after President Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war.

Both the Vatican and the U.S. State Department stressed that Rubio’s meetings with Leo and the Vatican’s top diplomat underscored strong bilateral ties. Those relations, though, have been strained over Trump’s repeated broadsides about Leo’s calls for peace and dialogue to end the U.S.-Israeli war.

Rubio, a practicing Catholic, has often been called on to tone down or explain Trump’s harsh rhetoric. He had an audience first with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. During a 2½-hour visit, Rubio then met with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit had strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks.

“Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.

After the meetings, the U.S. State Department said that Rubio and Parolin discussed “ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East. The discussion reflected the enduring partnership between the United States and the Holy See in advancing religious freedom.”

In a separate statement about the audience with Leo, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said that the two discussed the situation in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere. “The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.

The Vatican, for its part, said that during Rubio’s meetings with both Leo and Parolin, “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed.”

It said the two sides exchanged views on the current events “with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly in favor of peace.”

Rubio also has meetings Friday with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Those meetings might not be much easier for Washington’s top diplomat, given both have strongly defended Leo against Trump’s attacks and have criticized the Iran war as illegal — drawing the president’s ire.

A mission to smooth ties

The tensions began when Trump lashed out at Leo on social media last month, saying the pope was soft on crime and terrorism for comments about the administration’s immigration policies and deportations as well as the Iran war. Leo then said that God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who wage war.

Later, Trump posted a social media image appearing to liken himself to Jesus Christ, which was deleted after a backlash. He has refused to apologize to Leo and has sought to explain away the post by saying that he thought the image was a representation of him as a doctor.

Rubio said that Trump’s recent criticisms of Leo were rooted in his opposition to Iran potentially obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he said could be used against millions of Catholics and other Christians.

Leo has never said Iran should obtain nuclear weapons and that the Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there.”

“The mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo said late Tuesday, after Trump again accused him of being “OK” with Iran having a nuclear weapon.

By Thursday, tensions seemed to have eased.

Rubio gave Leo a small crystal football paperweight. He acknowledged Leo’s known allegiance to the Chicago White Sox, saying “you’re a baseball guy,” but noted that the football had the seal of the State Department on it.

“What to get someone who has everything?” Rubio joked as he gave Leo the paperweight.

Leo, for his part, gave Rubio a pen apparently made of olive wood — “olive being of course the plant of peace,” Leo said — with his coat of arms on it and a picture book of Vatican artworks.

Trump also has criticized Meloni and other NATO allies for a lack of support for the Iran war, recently announcing plans to withdraw thousands of American troops from Germany in the coming months.

Vatican seen as willing to have dialogue

Giampiero Gramaglia, former head of the ANSA news agency and its onetime Washington correspondent, said that he didn’t expect much to come out of Rubio’s visit for Italian or Vatican relations. He, and other Italian commentators, believe Rubio instead was looking to smooth over relations with the pope for his own political ambitions, as well as the upcoming midterm U.S. congressional elections and 2028 presidential race.

“I doubt Rubio has the role of conciliator for Trump,” he told Italy’s Foreign Press Association. “I have the perception that Rubio’s mission is more about himself” and his political ambitions as a prominent Catholic Republican.

The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture office, said that Rubio’s mission wasn’t to “convert” the pope to Trump’s side. Rather, Washington “has come to acknowledge — implicitly but legibly — that (Leo’s) voice carries weight in the world that cannot simply be dismissed.”

“The situation created by President Trump’s remarks required a high-level, direct intervention, conducted in the proper language of diplomacy: a semantic corrective to a narrative of frontal conflict with the church,” he wrote in an essay this week.

Cuba is also on the agenda

Rubio said that topics other than the Iran war were on the agenda for the Vatican visit, including Cuba. The Holy See is particularly concerned about the Trump administration’s threats of potential military action there following its January ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has said frequently that Cuba could be “next,” and even suggested that once the Iran war is over, naval assets deployed in the Middle East could return to the United States by way of Cuba.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk.

“We gave Cuba $6 million of humanitarian aid, but obviously they won’t let us distribute it,” Rubio said. “We distributed it through the church. We’d like to do more.”

Winfield and Lee write for the Associated Press. Lee reported from Washington.

BEIRUT — A dozen U.S. Democratic Senators have called for the U.S. Central Command to answer questions about American coordination with Israel in declaring broad “ evacuation zones ” in Lebanon and Iran, alleging that the practice may violate international law.

The letter underlines how the Democratic Party — both its leaders and the base — has grown increasingly critical of Israel.

Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, the Israeli military has regularly issued maps covering large areas of territory along with warnings telling all residents of the zones to flee. Israel had previously used a similar approach in Gaza.

The senators said the sweeping warnings have “been used to permanently displace people and destroy homes and towns” and that some civilians who refused to leave their homes in the areas have been killed by subsequent strikes.

The 12 senators led by Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, in a letter dated May. 4 to CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper that was provided to The Associated Press, state that Israel’s practice of unilaterally declaring mass evacuation warnings in Lebanon and Iran “likely contravene international laws the United States has helped develop around humane warfare.”

The other signatories include senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

The letter asked the CENTCOM chief whether U.S. forces have coordinated military targets with Israeli forces during the recent war with Iran, whether they provided assistance or intelligence helping Israel’s military to impose the evacuation zones in Lebanon and Iran, and whether CENTCOM signed off on U.S. military support for the targeting of people or infrastructure in the evacuation zones. It also asked whether the U.S. military has reviewed the legality of the practice.

The Israeli military declined to comment when asked about the letter. CENTCOM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the past, Israel has said the evacuation maps aim to keep civilians out of harm’s way. It says Hezbollah has positioned fighters, tunnels and weapons in civilian areas across southern Lebanon, from which it has launched hundreds of drones and missiles — without warning — into northern Israel.

A shift in the party stance

Observers said the move is part of a larger shift in the stance of Democratic Party leaders on U.S. military assistance to Israel. Democrats have also been critical of the Trump administration’s entry into the war on Iran alongside Israel.

The letter came nearly three weeks after more than three dozen Democrats supported an effort by Sanders to block arms sales to Israel, signaling a growing discontent in the party with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the wars in Gaza and Iran.

The two resolutions to block U.S. sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected 40-59 and 36-63.

Jon Finer, former deputy national security adviser under President Joe Biden, said the recent steps by Democratic senators reflect a “growing concern about Israeli conduct of various wars that cause civilian harm and U.S. complicity in that” across the spectrum within the Democratic Party.

Asked why the Democratic Party is taking these steps now and not at the time when the war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war broke out — when the Democratic Biden administration was in power — Finer said: “our operational integration with Israel appears to be growing, which is part of it, but the truth is the Democratic base has been moving in this direction for some time and Washington has been catching up.”

Andrew Miller, a former senior official on Israel and Palestinian Affairs at the State Department, said the letter “represents a shift among congressional Democrats moving from questions of the legality of Israeli military operations to concerns about the complicity of the U.S. military.”

“It demonstrates that Democrats are taking international law very seriously and that is a welcome development,” Miller said.

The evacuation zones

Israel has issued dozens of evacuation warnings in Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began on March 2. Over 1 million people in Lebanon have fled their homes during the war.

Israel has also issued similar warnings for Iranians, both during the 12-day Israel-Iran war last year and during the U.S.-Israeli war launched on Iran on Feb. 28. In one case last year they warned 300,000 people in Tehran, Iran’s capital, to evacuate.

On Wednesday, the Israel military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued an evacuation warning to residents of 12 villages in southern Lebanon saying Hezbollah is using them to launch attacks. The warnings came despite a ceasefire that has been nominally in place since April 17, although Israel and Hezbollah have been carrying daily attacks since then.

The senators said the declaration of evacuation zones does not absolve Israeli and U.S. forces “from the absolute legal responsibility to determine that each individual person or civilian facility targeted by drones, jets, and gunfire is, in fact, a military target.” It said the use of the zones has been linked to “the deaths of thousands of civilians,” describing them as “kill zones.”

In response to questions by the AP last month, the Israeli military said it issues warnings by phone, text, radio broadcast, social media and leaflets dropped from the air, in accordance with the “principles of distinction, proportionality and feasible precautions” under international law.

Mroue writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

Who won the 2020 election?

Was the Capitol attacked on Jan. 6, 2021?

Can Donald Trump be elected to a third term as president?

No brainers, right?

The answers are, of course, “Joe Biden,” “yes” and “no.” Any fact- and reality-based American would say so. But that humongous class of people pointedly doesn’t include the president of the United States. And apparently for that reason, his nominees for federal judgeships — the very jobs in which you’d most want fact-based individuals — hem, haw, stammer and ultimately decline to give direct answers when Democratic senators test them with such easy-peasy questions at confirmation hearings.

One after another, month after month, Trump nominees for district and appeals courts across the land say that the answers to the questions are matters of debate, of “significant political dispute.” Well, they’re in dispute only because Trump says they are, as does every ambitious officeholder and office-seeker desperate to remain in the retributive ruler’s good graces — including, alas, would-be judges.

To watch them squirm and then squirt out the same rehearsed reply, the same legalistic word salad, just like the dozens of nominees before them would be hilarious (see below) if it weren’t so ominous for the rule of law in the nation.

Trump nominees for other high-ranking jobs, likewise prepped for Senate Democrats’ questions by their Trump handlers, give the same rote response. But the fact that candidates for lifetime seats on the federal bench, making decisions of life-changing consequences for millions of Americans, would choose to dodge the truth is most sickening.

In their truth-trolling to keep Trump happy, lest he yank their chance at new black robes, these candidates fail the test of judicial independence. As one Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, told four district judge nominees last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, their humiliating hedging “on an issue of fact” — Biden won in 2020 — “reflects not only on your honesty but really on your fitness to be a federal judge.”

Indeed. That judicial nominees would curry Trump’s favor bodes ill for future federal jurisprudence in the one branch of government that’s stood up for the rule of law against Trump, repeatedly, when Congress and the Supreme Court have not. To be fair, a number of judges confirmed in Trump’s first term have been among the many who’ve ruled against his and his administration’s second-term abuses of power. Yet just as Trump has populated his Cabinet and executive branch with sycophants, unlike in Trump 1.0, he’s obviously applying new litmus tests to potential judges. One of them, clearly, is playing along with his election lies.

His nominees’ failure to speak truth to Trump’s power should be disqualifying. But they’re not disqualified, because the Senate is run by Republicans who share their fear of him.

That fact is a big reason to hope that Democrats capture the majority in November’s midterm elections and that, under new management, the Senate will finally take seriously its constitutional “advice and consent” responsibility to act as a check on Trump nominees for the final two years of his term — including, perhaps, one for the Supreme Court.

And, yes, this is Trump’s final term, for all of his teasing about “Trump 2028.” The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says as much in its opening line: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Yet the four wannabe district judges at last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing — Michael J. Hendershot of Ohio; Arthur Roberts Jones and John G.E. Marck, both of Texas; and Jeffrey T. Kuntz of Florida — struggled over that clear language.

All four hesitated when Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, asked them to describe the amendment. He even read its initial words before querying Marck, “Is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?”

Marck paused, then sputtered: “Senator, with ah, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this to me strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could be raised.”

“It’s not a hypothetical,” Coons countered, then asked again whether Trump is “eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution.”

“Um, I would have to, to review the, the actual wording of it,” Marck blabbered.

Coons turned to the others: “Anybody else brave enough to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term?” Silence.

“Anybody willing to apply the Constitution by its plain language in the 22nd Amendment?” Coons persisted. Crickets.

His Democratic colleague, Blumenthal, inquired of the foursome, “Who won the 2020 election?” All agreed in turn that Biden “was certified” the winner. None would say he “won” because — as we and they know —Trump insists to this day that he won; he’s turned the power of his “Justice” Department to trying to prove that obvious falsehood. Far be it from these future judges to contradict the president who nominated them.

Here’s Hendershot’s gibberish to Blumenthal’s simple query: “Senator, I want to be mindful of the canons here. I know this question has come up many times in these hearings and it’s become an issue of significant political dispute and debate. So, with, with that, I would say that, that President Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election.”

After the others replied similarly, Blumenthal turned justifiably scathing: “It’s pretty irrefutable that Joe Biden won the election. But you’re unwilling to use that word because you are afraid. You are afraid. Of what? President Trump? That is exactly what we do not need on the federal bench today. We need jurists who are fearless and strong, not weak and pathetic.”

Apparently unshamed, each similarly demurred when he asked if the Capitol had been attacked. “You’ve seen the videos, have you not?” Blumenthal blurted.

No matter, Senator. These would-be triers of fact apparently won’t believe their eyes. Not when their patron, the president, insists on lies.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

The emails continually fill my inbox: Startups exclaiming they have engineered a solution to protect homes from wildfires.

I’ve been pitched a system that monitors fires via satellite so it can automatically turn on water cannons when fire gets too close. Another offered high-tech speakers that homeowners can place around their home that blasts powerful but silent sound waves designed to disrupt the chemical process of combustion.

One recent one was so outlandish, I couldn’t ignore it:

An entrepreneur together with a former mayor of Malibu were appearing on Shark Tank to pitch a new system to literally lower an entire home into a subterranean vault when a wildfire approaches.

Many fire officials and experts are optimistic we really can find part of the solution to California’s wildfire crisis in the proliferating world of home defense tech. But they also warn these wild ideas are often expensive as well as largely unproven.

Of course I tuned in to Shark Tank.

“I know, this sounds like a magic trick,” entrepreneur Holden Forrest told the Sharks.

“It sounds crazy,” investor and businesswoman Barbara Corcoran interjected.

Nonetheless, Corcoran, who lost her Pacific Palisades home in the 2025 fires, invested $1 million in exchange for a 20% ownership stake in the company — on the condition that its first proof-of-concept home is her own.

If you, like Corcoran, want to put down some serious money for exciting new tech, there are a few things you should know.

This kind of tech is often significantly more expensive than proven, less flashy approaches to reduce the risk of your home burning — such as covering vents with mesh so embers can’t sneak into the home and multipaned windows that are less likely to shatter in the extreme heat, allowing flames and embers to enter.

For example, Forrest expects the retractable homes to cost around $1,000 per square foot. The company hopes to eventually get it down to around $400.

For reference, Palisades fire survivors expect to pay around $800 per square foot to rebuild, while Eaton fire survivors expect to pay just shy of $600. It’s also more than a new series of fire-resilient homes in the Palisades that incorporate both tried-and-true and flashy new tech, sitting around $700.

Fire safety experts also warn that some of this technology can encourage dangerous behavior such as ignoring evacuation orders and staying to defend homes. For example, even when water cannon companies insist their technology can function autonomously, some homeowners nonetheless stay behind to operate them.

Forrest rejected the idea that his technology, HiberTec Homes, would encourage homeowners to disobey evacuation orders — he argued the opposite. The trust that comes with knowing your home will survive actually decreases the likelihood residents will stay behind, he told the Sharks.

Many of the new home protection systems remain unproven, in part because it takes time for researchers to evaluate them. There are three steps to that:

First, scientists head to the lab to see whether the physics behind the tech works as expected in controlled tests.

Second, they investigate individual homes that used the tech in major fires to piece together whether the same physics held together in the chaos and immense power of real-world fires.

Third, they determine whether what they saw in the lab and on the ground translates to a reduced risk at scale. To do this researchers survey thousands of structures that faced wildfires and compare the percentage with the tech that survived with the percentage without the tech that survived.

If you live in a fire-prone area, and you understand the risks and uncertainties of new tech and have money to spare, by all means, build the wildfire bunker of your dreams — just email me an invite to check it out.

Otherwise, Cal Fire maintains a list of the less flashy solutions that have already gone through their scientific paces.

More recent wildfire news

After months of fierce debate between fire officials and residents in fire-prone areas, California released a new “Zone Zero” proposal outlining landscaping restrictions within 5 feet of people’s homes. Unlike previous proposals, many Southern Californians seem to be … OK with this one.

California regulators determined State Farm “delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape.” The Department of Insurance may now seek to suspend the company’s license. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department filed a brief supporting 60 fire victims who are suing State Farm and other insurers, my colleague Laurence Darmiento reports.

Survivors of the 2023 Maui fires could start receiving their share of a $4-billion settlement with Hawaiian Electric, the state of Hawaii, Maui County and other defendants as early as June. However, few will break even, reports Stewart Yerton of Honolulu Civil Beat. Lawyers will get a slice for legal fees; the Internal Revenue Service may claw back as much as a third if Congress doesn’t resurrect a tax exemption for such settlements; and insurers who paid out claims will get 10% of the money.

Oh — and this Saturday is Fire Service Day. There’s a good chance your local fire station will hold an open house, complete with fire equipment demos and maybe even free pancakes.

A few last things in climate news

Tom Steyer, a Wall Street prodigy turned billionaire who made a portion of his money off investments in coal-fired power plants, is now trying to use that money to convince Californians he’s the best candidate on climate and energy affordability. Read my colleagues Ben Wieder and Hayley Smith’s full profile here.

The last California-bound oil tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz before the Iran war reached the Port of Long Beach, my colleague Blanca Begert reports. After the ship finishes offloading its crude oil, California will have to manage a deficit of roughly 200,000 barrels of oil per day.

The company that produces the widely used weedkiller Roundup promised to “provide a small thanks” to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator after the agency asserted it would not approve a label for the weedkiller warning it causes cancer, reports Sky Chadde of Investigate Midwest. The revelation came at a congressional hearing last week as the company seeks immunity in the Supreme Court.

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 wildfire news, follow @nohaggerty on X and @nohaggerty.bsky.social on Bluesky.

The top candidates in California’s wide-open race for governor took the stage Wednesday night in a Los Angeles debate that began politely but quickly devolved into another raucous clash.

Former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra and billionaire Tom Steyer, both Democratic frontrunners, were primary targets of the political attacks — Becerra for his record as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and Steyer over his past investments, including in private prisons that housed immigrant detainees.

San José Mayor Matt Mahan started off the debate by lashing out at both Republicans and Democrats.

“We do not need the leadership that MAGA candidates on this stage are offering that’s divisive. We don’t need the leadership of a billionaire who’s now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results,” Mahan said, taking shots at conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, Steyer and Becerra, respectively.

Mahan had good reason to go on the attack. The moderate Democrat has struggled to meet early expectations that he would emerge as a top-tier candidate.

The California Democratic Party’s latest poll, released Monday, showed Hilton and Becerra tied at 18%, and Bianco, a Republican, with 14%. Steyer received the backing of 12%, while support for the other top Democrats in the race — former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, Mahan, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — were in the single digits. Thurmond did not meet the polling threshold to qualify for the televised debates this week.

Sanctuary state policy leads to kerfuffle

In a tense exchange on immigration and the state’s sanctuary laws, Porter said, “We ought to enforce our sanctuary laws everywhere so we don’t have crazy cowboys taking the law into their own hands.”

It was a shot at Bianco, who has criticized the law that blocks local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration agents.

“Tell that to the crazy mother who lost her child,” Bianco said, referring to a case in his county involving a 14-year-old who was hit and killed by a driver who he said had two prior DUI arrests and was in the country illegally.

“Sir, I don’t need any lectures from you about being a mother,” Porter, a single mother of three and the only woman on the debate stage, shot back.

“You might,” Bianco said, prompting a nasty look from Porter and groans and boos from the studio audience.

The one-hour clash followed another Wednesday evening debate, among candidates for Los Angeles mayor, part of a doubleheader hosted and broadcast by NBC4 and Telemundo 52 in Los Angeles. Both took place at the Skirball Cultural Center and were moderated by NBC4 News anchor Colleen Williams, chief political reporter Conan Nolan and Telemundo 52 News anchor Enrique Chiabra.

Republicans and Democrats divided on immigration

Democrats were in lockstep on most issues related to immigration, including opposing Immigration & Customs Enforcement raids and supporting the sanctuary law that prohibits police from coordinating with the federal agency.

Republicans said the controversial state law, which was approved in 2017 during President Trump’s first term, has hurt public safety.

“I have someone in my jail right now … he’s convicted of a felony, but the three prior convictions for DUI, he was released from jail,” Bianco said. “He was deported on two of them, [came] back into the country, and then he killed a 14-year-old boy with another DUI. So we have to wait until somebody dies before we deport criminals who are in our jail.”

Villaraigosa countered that the law allows for violent criminals to be deported and that thousands have been by state and local law enforcement agencies.

Hilton, a British national who became a U.S. citizen in 2021, declared himself “the candidate of the legal immigrant community” and said the governor’s job is to enforce laws, whether they agree with them or not.

All the Democrats said they would restore full Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants, which has been rolled back due to budget constraints, while Republicans said they would not.

Courting Latino voters

One of the many undercurrents of Wednesday’s debate was the ongoing tussle between Becerra and Villaraigosa. Both have been competing for California’s pivotal Latino vote, and the former Los Angeles mayor’s attacks have become increasingly aggressive as Becerra has ascended in the governor’s race.

At about 40% of the state’s population, Latinos are California’s largest ethnic group but also among the groups least likely to vote, casting just 21% of ballots in the 2022 primary election.

Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC, said Becerra’s surge in momentum could boost Latino turnout, “but I don’t see any evidence right now that actually tells us that will happen. The thing about primaries, unfortunately, is that turnout is always low. Even in a competitive primary like this.”

On Wednesday, Villaraigosa launched a new digital ad highlighting a former member of the Biden administration questioning Becerra’s record as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

He highlighted the issue during Wednesday’s debate after the moderates asked the candidates how they would address homelessness in California.

“Mr. Becerra, are you proud that you pushed out 85,000 migrant children? They were, according to the New York Times, they were maimed, they were exploited,” Villaraigosa said. “Some were even killed. You said those are MAGA talking points, it’s a MAGA hoax. Tell that to the children who died.”

“So I’m not sure what that had to do with homelessness, but cálmate, Antonio, cálmate,” Becerra responded, urging his opponent to “calm down.” He accused Villaraigosa of parroting the unfounded attacks that Trump deployed against former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

“We protected kids. We did not let them be abused,” Becerra said. “Stop lying.”

Speaking of homelessness

The Democrats and Republicans on stage were sharply divided on the best way to address California’s ongoing homelessness crisis.

People living on the streets are “pawns in the homeless industrial complex,” Bianco said, adding: “This is not and has never been about homes. This is about drug and alcohol addiction.”

Mahan, Villaraigosa and Becerra touted their records building housing and expanding mental health services, saying those will help reduce homelessness. They, along with Porter, also called for more oversight of state homelessness spending.

Hilton said the issue is one of the state’s biggest failures and blamed the Democrats — the party that has controlled state government for the past 16 years.

“Some of these Democrats are on this stage, they talk as if we’re in some parallel universe where Democrats haven’t been running this state for the last 16 years of one-party rule,” he said.

Democratic shift on nuclear plants, high-speed rail

A series of lightning-round questions highlighted some subtle shifts on traditional Democratic policies as candidates aim to make the state more affordable.

Democrats led the charge to decommission nuclear power plants in California over concerns of potential environmental and health catastrophes, but as the state struggles with energy affordability, all the Democrats (and both Republicans) said they would support further extending operations at the state’s only remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo County.

Most of the Democrats also said they support finishing a high-speed rail line from Bakersfield to Modesto, despite the massive cost overruns and delays, but said the project should be done cheaper and more efficiently. Hilton and Bianco want to scuttle the project.

And all Democrats except Steyer said they would vote against a proposed billionaire tax that will likely be on the November ballot mostly to backfill federal cuts to healthcare coverage. Although most of the Democratic candidates aside from Mahan say they support higher taxes on the wealthy, they have raised issues with the details of the proposal, including the fact that it is a one-time tax.

Democrats have a huge opportunity to make a huge difference. But whether they’ll grab it is a huge question.

In 2020, I wrote that voters were “weary, anxious and looking for salve” after President Trump’s first term. I said then that the experienced, reassuring Joe Biden fit the moment. Now I fear that if Democrats nominate a similar presidential candidate in 2028, one who wins yet doesn’t act with alacrity on democracy preservation and helping Americans live better lives, a fed-up electorate will once again turn them out as ineffectual.

Who can or should lead the party at a time like this?

I’m not alone in hoping for a tough and confrontational 2028 nominee, someone who is aggressive, persistent and, when necessary, as ruthless as the forces on the opposite side. This person also must have the energy to undertake the mammoth task of repairing the institutional wreckage of Trumpism. Which suggests Democrats should be checking out younger nominees.

Fortunately, newer generations of leaders are emerging. Those who “get it,” in my view, include Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Obviously any Democrat will be better than anyone from Trump’s team or orbit, including JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr. or Marco Rubio. The issue facing Democrats is whether moderate or policy wonkish people such as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would be the democracy warriors this moment demands. Repairing a crucial interstate bridge with lightning speed is a great thing and, sometimes, so is outreach to Republicans and Fox News. But would they prioritize thinking big and fighting hard for the fundamental changes we need?

Where would centrist former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, the new Virginia governor, land on this scale? Even after coming around to supporting new House maps that will net four seats for her party? Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who began his podcast by inviting MAGA guests, championed a referendum on five new Democratic seats in his state and led his party to a redistricting triumph. Where would he land? Would he prioritize outreach to Republicans or the battle to assure a “no kings” future for America? The need for structural changes in our outdated institutions is glaringly obvious. Who will run to repair this country? Who can be trusted to follow through? Because the solutions are out there, staring us in the face:

Checks on presidential pardon power. A larger, term-limited Supreme Court bound to an enforceable ethics code. A national law requiring independent redistricting commissions or, better yet, multi-member districts with proportional representation. A voting rights law that sets minimum standards for mail voting, early voting and voter IDs. Anti-corruption laws that prevent profiteering by presidents and their allies. Explicit limits on presidential construction and alterations to federal properties. A stronger “impoundment” act with sharp teeth to make sure future presidents spend taxpayer money constitutionally, as Congress intends, instead of any way they want. D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood to start rebalancing a Congress and electoral college that have shortchanged urban America since the late 19th century.

It’s a long list, and there’s no guarantee that today’s Supreme Court would allow any of it. But realizing some of these goals will take decades; we can’t be discouraged by temporary impediments such as the current lineup of justices. The work on all of it should start ASAP — next year in the next Congress if Democrats are running one or both chambers. And at some point, we’ll have a different high court.

I can already hear the protests: What about affordability? That’s the best part: Trump has done so many things to make life more expensive that simply reversing them would have immediate impact. Stop the Iran war; reopen the Strait of Hormuz; aim to restore the Obama-era agreement that kept Iran’s nuclear ambitions in check; end the Trump tariffs; stop shrinking labor forces in agriculture, healthcare, construction and other industries by ending detentions and deportations of noncriminals; reverse last year’s tax breaks for elites and restore the money for Medicaid and health insurance premium subsidies; and kill off the Versailles-level Trump ballroom that he now wants to fund with taxpayer dollars (initially $400 million, now $1 billion).

Then Democrats could revisit some of their own affordability priorities, including the expanded child tax credit that significantly reduced child poverty, new ways to put housing within reach of more people and national paid family leave. They could also crack down on military spending that is pointless in the modern era and refocus on cheap and effective equipment such as drones like Ukraine is using to strike inside Russia.

As it happens, a stark indicator of the political tides came as I was writing this. Maine Gov. Janet Mills suddenly dropped out of the Democratic Senate primary race against Graham Platner. It was a lightning bolt, given her establishment support after being recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But in a way it was inevitable.

Mills is 78. If she had gone on to win the primary and defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins, she would have been sworn in at age 79. Platner is 41, an oyster farmer and military veteran with a compelling, relatable persona. Though he has a controversial past, Mills’ negative ads did nothing to dent his appeal. Polls showed him winning the primary vote against Mills, sometimes by 2 to 1, and with a consistent general-election edge against Collins as well.

Platner told Jon Stewart last week that the party leadership establishment had largely ignored him. His message to them? “You should be curious, because I’m polling 40 points ahead.” By the next morning, Mills was out, and the establishment — Schumer and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Senate campaign committee — said they’d work with Platner to flip the seat.

The midterm races are sending Democrats clues. They should take them seriously.

Jill Lawrence is a journalist and the author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.” Bluesky: @jilldlawrence

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. Supreme Court sharply curtailed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last week, Democrats in Washington had a message: The rules of redistricting have changed, and California — the nation’s biggest blue bastion — may have a further role to play.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Democrats should “play by the same set of rules” as Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) vowed to fight in “the Deep South and all over the country.” And Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, was blunt: “I’ll take 52 seats from California, I sure would. And 17 seats from Illinois.”

The calls for action came as Republican governors in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississipppi and Tennessee called special legislative sessions to redraw congressional maps ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Florida has also approved new maps that could give the GOP four more seats in the House, and President Trump urged other Republican states to follow suit.

The Republican response has intensified the pressure on Democrats to act, including those in California — where the ruling could upend not just congressional maps, but also legislative and local races.

“We can’t allow this national gerrymandering effort of Republicans to go unanswered,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach). “If Republicans go for it, I think we have to leave all options on the table.”

For now, California’s response is far from settled.

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) cautioned against “accelerating a race to the bottom.”

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

The chair of the California Democratic Party said there are no current plans to redraw maps — just months after voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing a mid-decade redistricting backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Democratic consultant who drew the state’s current congressional district boundaries says an all-blue map, while possible to create, would probably hurt Democrats more than help them in the long run. And some of the state’s congressional Democrats are worried the impulse to match Republican partisan efforts would be bad for the American electorate.

“Rather than accelerating a race to the bottom, the next step is to dial it down because you can reach a point of no return,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), one of the state’s most prominent Black lawmakers. “And that’s where we’re headed.”

What California decides — and when — will matter at the national level. With 52 congressional seats, no state has more to offer Democrats in a redistricting war. But experts, lawmakers and party officials say the path forward is more complicated than the calls from Washington suggest.

California could see 48 blue seats, out of 52

That’s in part because California already acted. In 2025, voters approved Proposition 50, which drew new congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. The new maps, which could yield as many as 48 Democratic seats out of 52, are already in effect, and voters have begun receiving their mail-in ballots.

Going farther is not currently on the table — at least not yet.

“We have yet to fully win the seats in the map that was drawn in 2025. It seems a step too far to say we’re going to go back to the drawing board and redraw the map,” said Rusty Hicks, the chair of the California Democratic Party.

Hicks said it doesn’t mean the issue could not become part of a future discussion, but he said Democrats in other states should not look past what California has already done.

“We’re trying to pick up 48 of them. How much more do you want us to pick up? You want us to make it 52 blue? Well, you all should get into the fight,” Hicks said. “You all should pick up some seats. Let’s all do this together, because California cannot do it alone, it will take the rest of the country.”

Others are not convinced the most aggressive option makes the strategic sense in California.

Paul Mitchell, the Democratic redistricting consultant who drew California’s Proposition 50 congressional maps, said the push for a 52-0 delegation reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how a partisan map would perform in the state over time.

“A 52-to-zero map would have the potential of backfiring,” Mitchell said. “In 2026, we could pick up 52 seats. But then in 2028 or 2030 — a bad year for Democrats, let’s say — Democrats lose 11 of those seats. You’ve drawn these districts so demonically to a Democratic advantage in a good year that in a bad Democratic year, they don’t have the ability to withstand the challenge.”

Ruling could jeopardize state’s voting rights law

The political debate over congressional maps has so far dominated the conversation in Washington. But legal scholars and redistricting experts say the ruling could also have consequences in California’s city hall, school board and county supervisor races.

The justices’ ruling, decided by the court’s conservative majority, says states cannot consider race to create majority-minority electoral districts while allowing them take partisan interests into account.

“A purely partisan map is actually more defensible now than one drawn with racial considerations,” said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA. “It turns the world on its head.”

The ruling now puts at risk any district drawn at any level of government that relied on the Voting Rights Act to justify its boundaries, Hasen said.

And in California, that uncertainty extends to districts drawn under the state Voting Rights Act, which extends protections for minority voters beyond the federal law, he said. The state law was not directly at issue in the Supreme Court ruling, but Hasen argues the court’s reasoning could provide new legal grounds to challenge the state law as potentially unconstitutional.

Cities including Santa Monica and Palmdale have faced lawsuits alleging their at-large City Council elections diluted the Latino vote. Palmdale settled its case and agreed to switch to district-based elections; Santa Monica’s case is ongoing. Hasen argued that the cities, as well as other bodies, such as school boards, could now return to court to challenge whether district maps drawn as a result of the California Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional.

“That has not been tested yet,” he said, but he fears the same arguments made to challenge the federal Voting Rights Act could be made against the state law.

At the state level, Republican strategist Matt Rexroad sees the ruling affecting the California Legislature as well. He argues the boundaries drawn for the state Assembly and Senate districts are racial gerrymanders.

“Those legislative lines, I would argue, are unconstitutional,” Rexroad said. “And those lines are probably going to change by 2028.”

But Rexroad’s biggest concern goes beyond any single set of maps: It is the future of California’s independent redistricting commission, the nonpartisan body he has spent years defending.

A threat to independent redistricting

Rexroad sees a scenario in which the national political environment gives California Democrats little incentive to return the map-making power to the commission. If Republican states continue to aggressively redraw maps, Democrats will have another justification to keep power in the Legislature’s hands, the same argument made to pass Proposition 50, he said.

“I don’t think the California redistricting commission has ever been in greater jeopardy than it is right now,” he said.

J. Morgan Kousser, a historian who has testified as an expert witness in voting rights cases for 47 years, said California’s commitment to the commission may depend on how aggressive Republican states act in redistricting.

“If we go back to an all-white South in Congress, California may not go back to a fairness standard,” Kousser said. “It may not disarm. It may rearm.”

Mitchell, the redistricting consultant, said that he hopes California and other states choose the path of disarmament and that there is a national push for independent commissions in every state.

“This isn’t good for anybody,” he said. “This was all basically a nerd war over lines that didn’t actually improve any districts anywhere.”

U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra’s mayoral campaign not only produced a scandalous telephone ad in the Los Angeles mayoral race but later erased the message after it had prompted an investigation, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Wednesday.

Although the actions did not constitute a crime, the district attorney’s report could spell political trouble for both Becerra and Los Angeles Councilman Nick Pacheco, a Becerra supporter connected to the telephone bank that issued the calls.

In the prerecorded telephone calls made days before the April 10 election, a woman posing as county Supervisor Gloria Molina attacked former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and his record on crime.

Although Becerra said he had no involvement in the calls, Molina said Wednesday that she felt “personally abused and personally hurt by Xavier Becerra and his campaign.”

Molina told reporters that the congressman could not hide behind his aides and that, even if he did not personally authorize them, had to accept responsibility for the calls.

Molina’s strong statements could hurt Becerra, who has benefited from her support and enjoyed a squeaky-clean image.

“There’s no way to see this in a positive light,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and a longtime friend of Becerra. “I can’t imagine him knowing. On the other hand, he is the candidate and he is ultimately responsible for the actions of his campaign.”

Late Wednesday, Becerra said he had offered an apology to Molina and Villaraigosa. In a two-page statement issued from his attorney’s office, the congressman said his campaign staff had long denied involvement in the calls.

Becerra said he had told his staff not to engage in negative campaigning. “I can’t express how disappointing and frustrating it is to now learn that those instructions and responsibilities may have been ignored in this case,” he said.

Pacheco, a rising force at City Hall, also found himself entangled in the scandal. The nonprofit organization that he co-founded, Cal Inc., leased its telephone bank to La Colectiva, which made the controversial calls. And one of his top aides was a pivotal figure in the inquiry.

The calls targeted rival mayoral candidate Villaraigosa just days before the April election, in which he finished first out of six major candidates. He is now in a runoff with City Atty. James K. Hahn; Becerra finished fifth with 6% of the vote.

In the calls, made to 80,000 voters, a woman identifying herself as “Gloria Marina” declared: “Please don’t hang up. This is an emergency call.” She then made allegations about Villaraigosa’s record on crime.

One day after the calls began, Molina asked Cooley to investigate them. Seven weeks later, the district attorney said that even though his office found no crime committed, it was important for the public to know what happened.

“Although those responsible for this reprehensible conduct will not face criminal prosecution, this office remains hopeful that the court of popular opinion will rule that this type of underhand political ‘dirty tricksterism’ will not be tolerated,” Cooley wrote in a letter to Molina.

A detailed report on the investigation combined with other information obtained by The Times shows that investigators first interviewed people at La Colectiva on April 2, two days after the calls were made.

“After . . . it became clear that investigators from this office were focusing on La Colectiva,” the report says, Floyd Monserratt, a top aide to Pacheco who was working as a volunteer for La Colectiva, became concerned and spoke with Becerra campaign manager Paige Richardson. At that point, the report adds, Richardson told Monserratt to change the recorded call. During the switch, the “Marina” recording was erased.

Over the course of the probe, investigators found themselves stymied by some of the Becerra campaign’s top officials, prosecutors said.

Monserratt initially denied any knowledge of the controversial calls.

Several days later, Cooley said, investigators tried to reach Monserratt but were unsuccessful until an attorney representing him contacted the district attorney’s office. But on May 1, under oath, Monserratt explained La Colectiva’s role in making the controversial calls.

Richardson also failed to cooperate with authorities’ efforts to get to the source of the phone calls, the report says. As early as April 5, a district attorney’s investigator spoke to Richardson at the campaign’s headquarters, where she denied any knowledge of the calls, according to Cooley’s office. Last weekend, Richardson refused to speak to an investigator who flew to her New Mexico home.

By then, prosecutors had interviewed two other members of the Becerra campaign who said Richardson had given them a script for the call. One, press deputy Allyson Laughlin, said she believed it was “inappropriate” to record the call because as press deputy “her voice was so recognizable,” the district attorney’s report says.

Richardson then asked Veronica Del Rico, a scheduling aide, to record the announcement, prosecutors said. Stephen Mansfield, an attorney for Del Rico, said his client was a low-level employee who was presented a script by her superiors. She asked whether the call would be ethical, legal and accurate before recording it, he said.

The prosecutors’ report also says Richardson and deputy campaign manager Scott Nunnery made the decision to have the caller identify herself as “Gloria Marina.”

“Ms. Richardson and Mr. Nunnery laughed at the idea, and Ms. Richardson said something like, ‘It would be a slap in her face since she just endorsed Villaraigosa,’ ” the report states.

Richardson’s attorney has denied that she originated the recorded call. Nunnery did not return calls for comment.

“The D.A.’s report is inaccurate in many respects,” Richardson’s attorney, Fred Woocher, said in a statement Wednesday. “At this point, however, she sees no value in pointing her finger elsewhere or in spreading the blame.”

On Tuesday, Becerra said in a statement that he had just learned the district attorney’s investigation was focusing on La Colectiva. On Wednesday, in a more detailed statement, he said he had heard “rumors” of the connection weeks ago and asked his campaign attorney to look into it.

Becerra said his attorney reported back that all staffers denied involvement.

Cooley took issue with the notion that the congressman only recently become aware of the focus on La Colectiva. Indeed, Cooley said that, although his office only recently contacted Becerra, there was no doubt the congressman’s campaign was under scrutiny.

“After all, we had been interviewing his campaign staffers for several weeks,” Cooley said. He also disputed Pacheco’s claim that the councilman was instrumental in finding out who was behind the calls.

“That is not an accurate representation,” Cooley told reporters. “He surfaced only because we contacted him last Friday.”

In a letter dated Tuesday to the district attorney, Pacheco said he encouraged Monserratt to share what he knew of the calls with prosecutors.

“That assertion would be inconsistent with our investigation and the statements of Mr. Monserratt,” Cooley said. Adding that Pacheco could have done more to let investigators know about the calls, the district attorney said: “One would think that Nick would have known his information would be helpful.”

Pacheco said he was “stunned” that Cooley told reporters he failed to quickly disclose his knowledge of the calls. “All I can tell you is I was hearing secondhand stories,” Pacheco said. “I’m stunned a prosecutor would want an investigation started with secondhand rumors.”

*

Times staff writers Tina Daunt and Matea Gold contributed to this story.

The Humboldt County Office of Elections made an unnerving discovery Monday: a stack of 596 sealed ballots from the most recent election left at the bottom of a locked voting drop box.

The uncounted ballots would not have affected the outcome of the November statewide special election for Proposition 50, the county office said in a news release Wednesday. However, officials said they’re working hard to have all the votes legally counted.

The office discovered that the ballots were uncounted because of a staff error. When workers checked the drop box, there was a miscommunication about whether it had been fully emptied, the office said.

“That outcome is unacceptable and runs counter to the core of what this office stands for,” Juan Pablo Cervantes, county clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, said in a statement. “While the mistake occurred after an election worker did not follow proper procedures, the responsibility for what happened ultimately sits with me.”

After the ballots were discovered, elections staff confirmed that the sealed ballots had not been tampered with, and they worked with the California secretary of state to determine next steps. Under California law, the ballots should have been counted before the election was certified on Dec. 5 and destroyed six months later.

The Office of Elections said it had altered its protocols to ensure such a mistake does not take place again, implementing a new “lock out, tag out” procedure to ensure each drop box is empty and secured before election results are finalized.

“I promise you that we are taking this seriously,” Cervantes said. “We will strengthen our processes and continue pushing toward the standard our community expects and deserves.”

The discovery comes as California continues to be under a microscope for allegations of voter fraud.

Within minutes of polls opening for California’s special election in November, President Trump took to Truth Social to claim that the Proposition 50 vote — which redrew several congressional districts to favor Democratic candidates — was rigged.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote.

When asked later that day to explain Trump’s claims on how the election was allegedly rigged, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said California has “a universal mail-in voting system, which we know is ripe for fraud.” She also accused the state of counting ballots from undocumented immigrants.

Elections officials and Democratic leaders including Gov. Gavin Newsom decried those claims as baseless. “The bottom line is California elections have been validated by the courts,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a November statement.

More recently, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco has drawn scrutiny for using his position as Riverside County sheriff to seize some 650,000 ballots in the county to determine whether they were fraudulently counted. Critics decried the move as another attempt by Republican election deniers to disenfranchise voters.

Humboldt County, which encompasses 4,052 square miles of rural California below the Oregon border, has largely avoided election-related turmoil in recent years. In 2008, however, Humboldt election officials discovered that software they used to tally votes had failed to count 197 ballots from one precinct.

More recently, nearby Shasta County has become a hotbed of election denialism and MAGA politics, with its Board of Supervisors voting in 2023 to end the use of Dominion Voting Systems machines in favor of pursuing a hand-counting system.

Times staff writers Hailey Branson-Potts, Jenny Jarvie and Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader’s office on Wednesday as part of a corruption investigation, a person familiar with the matter said. Federal agents also were seen at the senator’s nearby cannabis business.

The search at Virginia Sen. L. Louise Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth comes after the Democrat helped lead the state’s recent redistricting effort.

The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search warrant in Portsmouth. The person who confirmed the FBI’s search was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Besides the search at Lucas’ office, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby Cannabis Outlet, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to its cannabis store parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights.

Lucas — a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana — has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.

Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday on a cellphone for Lucas, who has been a state senator for 34 years.

State House Speaker Don Scott said he was deeply concerned by the FBI search.

“Right now, there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public,” Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that more facts were needed “before anyone rushes to political conclusions.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger declined to comment. Some other Virginia Democrats were quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of President Trump.

The context “must be acknowledged,” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott said in a social media post.

Last week, the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A separate mortgage fraud case, ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, who had brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business.

The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats about ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Ga.

Lucas has been a vocal leader of Virginia’s redistricting effort, which voters approved last month. A sign urging people to “vote yes” to “stop the MAGA power grab” still hung Wednesday on a fence separating her office’s parking lot from the parking for the cannabis shop.

Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters OK’d a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.

“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” Lucas said after the vote. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.

The state Supreme Court let the referendum proceed but has yet to rule whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a lower-court judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated procedural requirements.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

Lucas, 82, has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a City Council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the body’s president pro tempore.

Earlier in life, she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.

In recent years, she has been the chief executive of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.

Tucker, Breed and Peltz write for the Associated Press. AP writers Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Ky.; Jake Offenhartz in New York; and Claudia Lauder in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted in favor of new restrictions on so-called “pretextual” traffic stops, signaling a growing impatience with the Police Commission’s failure to rein in a controversial LAPD tactic that critics say enables racial discrimination.

The vote requests that the department’s all-civilian watchdog adopt new guidelines similar to San Francisco, which bars police officers from pulling people over for broken taillights and other minor equipment violations unless there is a safety threat.

“Board of Police Commissioners: Get this done; we’re watching, no excuses,” said Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who shared stories of her late father being stopped by police with no explanation. “This is what this generation wants.”

If the new policy were adopted, LAPD officers would be prohibited from stopping motorists, bicyclists or pedestrians for minor violations “except in cases where the violation poses a significant and imminent safety risk.”

The unanimous vote followed sometimes emotional testimony at a City Council meeting from Angelenos about how their lives had been shaken by discriminatory traffic stops and searches.

Several speakers pointed to a growing body of research showing that minor stops disproportionately affect Black and brown motorists and do little to combat violent crime while eroding public trust. In recent years, there have been several high-profile traffic stops that resulted in officers or drivers being killed.

The current LAPD policy, in place since 2022, requires officers to record themselves on their body-worn cameras stating the reasons for suspecting a more serious crime had occurred when making a stop for a minor infraction.

The measure passed Wednesday stops short of a categorical ban that some have sought, but was still met with cautious optimism by traffic safety reformers.

“It helps place the city of Los Angeles on a path of ending racial profiling by LAPD,” said Chauncee Smith, of Catalyst California, a group that advocates for racial justice.

Smith’s group recently released a report that said such stops have continued to disproportionately affect Black and Latino drivers.

Smith said the new policy advanced by the City Council represents “a more formal, explicit prohibition,” adding that he hopes the Police Commission will ultimately give officers even less discretion in deciding when to make stops.

In a brief statement after the vote, Mayor Karen Bass thanked Harris-Dawson for his “leadership and dedication in moving this updated policy forward.”

“I will work closely with the Police Commission and Chief [Jim] McDonnell to implement it and to provide officers with appropriate training,” Bass said.

Any changes to the policy will probably draw strong challenges from within the LAPD and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the powerful union that represents the city’s rank-and-file officers.

McDonnell has publicly defended the stops as an essential law enforcement tool in the department’s fight against guns, gangs and drugs. He and some transportation safety advocates have argued that persistent traffic deaths — road fatalities have in recent years outpaced the number of homicides — indicate the city needs to crack down harder on reckless driving.

The proposed change comes against the backdrop of a broader effort by city leaders to wrest greater oversight of the LAPD from the Police Commission. A spokesperson for the civilian body said it would evaluate how to proceed.

“The Board intends to place this item on a forthcoming agenda to enable a full and transparent discussion of the Department’s pretextual stop policy, which will include the recommendations from the City Council,” the statement said.

McDonnell did not respond to a request for comment.

The vote was the latest move in a broader push to remove police officers from traffic enforcement. Some advocates have argued that more punitive approaches that prioritize arrests and traffic citations do little to keep city streets safe; instead, they argue the city should invest in unarmed civilian workers and speed bumps, roundabouts and other street modifications that could help curb unsafe driving.

Adrienna Wong, a senior attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday’s vote showed city leaders taking action on an issue that was personal to them.

“I think what you saw today in council was the council members have lived experiences and are hearing from their constituents and are voting to represent their constituents in a way that the Police Commission has not,” she said.

Karen Bass, Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman each came into tonight’s mayoral debate with goals for what may be their only time together on stage.

As the incumbent mayor, Bass had to weather blows from her challengers while trying to sell voters on her fitness for another term, despite a disastrous 2025.

As a reality TV star with no political experience, Pratt needed to show that he could offer substance instead of just AI fanboy videos and the name-calling — “Karen Basura” — he has indulged in on social media.

Raman’s task was perhaps the hardest. As a city councilmember whose two previous campaigns were backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, she needed to convince Pratt-curious voters that she’s more conservative than Bass. Yet for others, she needed to appear liberal enough to peel away support from the mayor and come out as a progressive lioness to excite Democrats in a year where GOP candidates like Pratt have to answer for the disaster that is President Trump’s second term.

Only one of the three failed.

At times, Raman was tongue-tied trying to answer simple questions. Moderators kept telling her she was going over her time. Answering a yes/no question about whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in city elections, the councilmember went on and on, until the moderator cut her off.

While Raman offered some policy plans, she also played a card straight out of Trump’s arsenal. She claimed that Pratt and Bass were teaming up against her — an unlikely scenario that drew laughs from the audience. She got more and more frustrated, to the point that when Bass was allowed time for a rebuttal, she dejectedly proclaimed, “I haven’t been offered that in a lot of this debate.”

Raman, who had endorsed Bass’ reelection before throwing her hat in at the last minute, came off as inexperienced, touchy and unprepared.

The line of the night was Pratt dismissing Raman as a “random councilmember” — which is how the L.A. political world responded to her entry into the race. She was so upset about Pratt’s remark that she continued to whine about it to a KNBC reporter after the debate.

What’s shocking about Raman’s flop is that she should know how important it is to project well to a television audience, given that her husband is a screenwriter. Her tone was flat, when she needed to be passionate.

No one had to remind Pratt of that. He was parrying tough questions on a big stage for the first time, facing an audience who knew him only as the Angry L.A. White Guy he has reveled in playing.

He mostly succeeded.

At his best, Pratt came off as a boisterous bro with enough charm to call himself “humble” without coming off as obnoxious. He dominated the flow of conversation without coming off as commandeering, even interrupting Raman at times to let Bass speak. At one point, he even said “Sorry” when he had taken up too much time and the moderators cut him off.

He was light on specifics, other than saying he was going to do better than the others and that he would prioritize public safety above all. Instead, he was the one person on stage who used anecdotes to sell himself, citing conversations about abused animals, downtown workers too afraid to eat outside and film producers hiring local gang members to keep their shoots safe.

As a TV personality-turned-influencer, Pratt knows that storytelling is far more effective than drowning the audience in statistics, as Bass and Raman did.

But the bad Pratt flared up at times. He earned a reprimand from KNBC anchor and debate co-moderator Colleen Williams when he called the mayor an “incredible liar.” Affecting high-pitched voices to mock Bass and Raman came off as juvenile and possibly sexist. And when it came to last summer’s federal immigration raids that terrorized Southern California, Pratt appeared flummoxed when Bass pointed out that 70% of those arrested didn’t have criminal records — a use of stats that hit.

Bass was also who she had to be — measured, forceful and raring to defend her record, without coming off as defensive. She wasn’t exactly inspirational, but she didn’t have to be. The city’s powerful labor unions have backed her, along with much of the Democratic establishment.

Raman and Pratt are right in deeming Bass the old guard of a beat-up city — but the old guard didn’t get there without knowing how to win.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York unsealed a suicide note Wednesday purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in July, 2019, before a failed suicide attempt soon after he had been taken into federal custody on sex trafficking charges.

The disgraced financier would ultimately die weeks later in the same New York facility in what was ruled a suicide.

While the note’s authenticity has not been established, it contains an apparent reference to a line from a 1931 Little Rascals film that Epstein had used in at least two email messages, according to the trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice this year in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In the short handwritten note released Wednesday, Epstein allegedly wrote, “They investigated me for month — Found nuthing!!!”

The note concludes, “Whatcha want me to do — Burst out cryin!! No Fun – Not Worth It!!”

It was a phrase Epstein had used before.

In a September, 2016, email to his brother, Mark, he wrote, “whtchoo want me toodo — bust out crying” in response to news that their cousin had become a grandfather.

And in another message the following year to his childhood friend Terry Kafka, Epstein wrote, “Whatcha want me todo/bust out cryin,” in response to a message from Kafka about being nostalgic

Epstein’s brother and Kafka did not immediately responded to requests for comment.

The line is an apparent reference to a 1931 Little Rascals short film “Little Daddy,” in which the character Stymie says, “Well, what do you want me to do, bust out crying?” when another character says that it will be their last breakfast together.

The note emerged from the court records of Epstein’s onetime cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving four consecutive life sentences for a 2016 quadruple murder.

It was released in response to a request by the New York Times.

The note itself was not included in the millions of pages released by the Justice Department.

In 2020, “60 Minutes” disclosed a note Epstein reportedly wrote days before his August, 2019, death that included complaints about his conditions and similarly concluded with the phrase “No fun!!!”

Journalist Katie Phang sued acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche for allegedly failing to comply with the requirements of the Epstein files law passed last year, which required that the documents be released in their entirety within 30 days, with reasoning provided for any documents not released.

The department released the files after the deadline passed and has faced criticism for removing or not releasing some documents and simultaneously failing to redact the names of numerous Epstein victims while redacting the names of some of Epstein’s friends and associates.

Although he lost his bid to become Speaker of the California Assembly, Charles Calderon (D-Alhambra) said he will persist in efforts to curb the powers of that office and to reform the legislative system even if it means working for passage of a Republican-sponsored initiative.

Assemblyman Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) won an unprecedented fifth term as Speaker on Monday, turning back the challenge of a coalition of Republicans and five dissident Democrats, including Calderon. Brown got 40 votes in the 80-member Assembly while Calderon received 34.

Calderon, a 38-year-old attorney, shook hands with Brown after losing the election but said that act did not signal an end to his challenge to Brown’s leadership. All it meant, he said, is that “I’m not a bad loser.”

It was nearly a year ago that Calderon and four other Assembly Democrats rebelled against Brown and formed what the press dubbed “The Gang of Five.” They began working with Republicans to pass legislation Brown opposed and called for reforms to weaken the Speaker’s power.

Gained Support

Brown not only survived the challenge but picked up additional allies in November’s elections.

Nevertheless, Calderon said he considers the Gang of Five effort successful because it has brought legislative reform to the forefront.

He noted that even Brown has said he will support changes in the way the Assembly is run and has appointed a committee headed by Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco) to make recommendations. Calderon said he is skeptical about Brown’s support for reform and in a letter to Burton termed the committee’s preliminary proposals “a clever and skilled rubber-stamping procedure that in reality further concentrates power in the Speaker and his friends.”

Calderon said he is optimistic about the prospects for legislative reform, however, because Democrats apart from the Gang of Five are demanding it.

If the Legislature does not produce meaningful reform, he said, he will support Assembly Minority Leader Ross Johnson’s proposal to reform the Legislature through the initiative process.

In an interview in his Montebello office last month, Calderon said that by putting legislative reform at the top of his agenda, he is responding to the desires of voters in his district.

‘Don’t Give Up’

“Everyone says, ‘Don’t give up. Keep fighting.’ That’s what people want. They don’t want to elect people to go up to Sacramento to lay down for an office. They want people to go up and raise hell for the right reasons.”

Calderon compared the way the Assembly works now to what he saw of the Communist Party when he visited the Soviet Union in a cultural exchange program in 1985.

“The way the Speaker runs the Assembly has many similarities to how the Communist Party works,” Calderon said.

“In the Soviet Union, the only means of upward mobility is through participation and advancement in the Communist Party,” he said. Those who are loyal, do as they are told and don’t challenge those above them move up, he said.

“That’s exactly the way the Assembly works. If you don’t challenge the Speaker, don’t vote against him, don’t embarrass him and do as you’re told, why, then you’ll move up in the Assembly hierarchy.”

Susan Jetton, Speaker Brown’s press secretary, dismissed Calderon’s assertion that the Assembly operates like Soviet politics. Brown, she said, “has never, never said that people have to agree with him.” But Jetton added, Brown has told lawmakers that if they want to chair committees they should support his direction “on procedural matters.”

For example, she said, in the last legislative session Brown appointed Republican Assemblyman Larry Stirling of San Diego as chairman of the Public Safety Committee, even though the liberal Brown often disagreed with the conservative Stirling.

When told that Calderon is continuing to assail Brown’s policies, she said: “I’m sorry Chuck is doing this. The Speaker began the day after the election and has continued . . . to bury the hatchet and say ‘let’s work together.’ ”

Calderon rose to the post of majority whip under Brown and was a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He authored major bills opening California to interstate banking, requiring environmental testing near landfills, and regulating firms that help consumers obtain credit.

Calderon said that even before he joined the Gang of Five, Brown “perceived me as a threat to him and constantly attempted to co-opt me by handing me more titles and assignments, more public praise and that kind of thing. When he realized he wasn’t making any difference, he took the opposite tack and tried to take everything away.”

Fall From Power

Calderon’s allies in the Gang of Five, Gerald Eaves of Rialto, Rusty Areieas of Los Banos, Steve Peace of Chula Vista and Gary Condit of Ceres, all held leadership positions or seats on influential committees before they began challenging Brown’s leadership. Last spring Brown referred to them as “just the most outrageous collection of ungrateful people I’ve ever met.”

All five lost their leadership positions and choice committee assignments.

In addition, Brown dismissed six members of Calderon’s staff and moved him to a smaller office earlier this year. Calderon no longer has any committee assignments, and said he sometimes has been denied the customary legislative per diem of $87 for attending legislative hearings and reimbursement for travel to Sacramento.

Calderon said Brown “arbitrarily approves or denies legislative per diem depending on the way he feels.” A spokeswoman for Brown said he rejects claims that fail to comply with Assembly rules, but does not act arbitrarily.

Speaks as Moderate

Calderon said Brown and other Democratic leaders have increasingly focused on a liberal agenda that excludes moderates such as himself.

“If ‘60s liberalism continues to dominate the leadership of the Democratic Party, then I think the party is doomed,” Calderon said.

“It used to be there was room for everybody in the Democratic Party. The reality is that there is no room for you if you are a moderate or a middle-of-the-road Democrat.”

However Calderon said he does not intend to leave the party. “I have been a Democrat all my life,” he said. “I will always be a Democrat. My mother was a Democrat . . . my father . . . my grandparents, and I will die a Democrat but I won’t sit back and be a silent Democrat.”

Some critics have questioned whether Calderon is moderate and a reformer, or is just maneuvering for power.

Critical Memo

Before Monday’s vote on the speakership, Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne), a Brown loyalist, circulated a 28-page memo titled “The Two Faces of Charles Calderon.” The memo accused Calderon of ducking issues, saying he has one of the highest rates of not voting in the Assembly. The memo also accused Calderon of hypocrisy in advocating a ban on transfer of campaign funds, and then transferring thousands of dollars to political allies. It also noted that he has urged a limit on the number of bills a legislator can introduce but has introduced more than most of his colleagues, although he has had a low percentage enacted.

Calderon said he does not know whether the charge that he votes on fewer bills than other members is true, but he sometimes abstains when he approves the general thrust of a bill but dislikes specific provisions. As to his position on transfer of funds, Calderon said he has supported reform of campaign financing, including Prop. 68 last June, but until reforms take effect he will operate within existing rules, helping allies when that is permitted.

The assemblyman said he does not regard the number of bills introduced and passed to be a measure of effectiveness.

Diffusing Power

Calderon has called for a number of reforms in the Assembly, many of them aimed at sharing power now concentrated with the Speaker. For example, in place of the present system in which the Speaker controls committee assignments, Calderon would have the entire Assembly elect the Rules Committee, which would make other committee assignments. He also would give each member a budget allotment, outside the control of the Speaker.

“We’ve got to diffuse the power of the Speaker by setting up a checks and balances system in the House and by taking away the Speaker’s power to punish members in a personal and political way.

“We need to do away with this punishment and reward system,” he said. “As long as there is this punishment and reward system, members are going to be either seduced or intimidated from representing their own districts.”

One Brown ally, Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) said he hopes Calderon will make peace with the Democratic leadership.

GOP Links

“I’m hopeful he’ll return as a fully functioning member of the Democratic caucus and leave behind the alliance with Republicans,” he said.

Margolin said he has repeatedly stressed the following point in conversations with Calderon during the past year:

“Whatever our internal differences, they are best resolved within the Democratic caucus and when you invite Republicans into the discussion what follows is not in the best interest of the Democratic Party . . . because they (the Republicans) clearly have a focused self-interest.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) said that Calderon’s future remains bright, despite Monday’s vote.

“I think he’s got a good future here,” Mountjoy said. “I just don’t believe Willie will be around here a long time. I’m not sure if he will become Speaker. That’s not out of the realm of possibility. But even if he’s not Speaker, certainly he will have a key position in the house once Willie moves on and I don’t think Willie will be here forever.”

Calderon, who lives in Whittier, was reelected to his fourth term in November without Republican opposition. He represents a district that contains Alhambra, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pico Rivera, South El Monte and part of Whittier.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone in Sacramento contributed to this story.

Three of the leading candidates for Los Angeles mayor — incumbent Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and reality television personality Spencer Pratt — will share the stage for a debate Wednesday evening.

The hour-long forum, broadcast on NBC4 and Telemundo 52, will be held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Brentwood starting at 5 p.m.

The debate will also air online at nbcla.com and telemundo52.com and be available via streaming channels on platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Samsung TV Plus.

Voters have already been mailed their ballots for the June 2 primary election, which can be returned by mail or at designated drop box locations. In-person voting is already open at the county’s Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office in Norwalk, and will expand to county Vote Centers starting May 23.

Wednesday’s debate will be moderated by anchor Colleen Williams and political reporter Conan Nolan of KNBC-TV, and anchor Enrique Chiabra of Telemundo 52. The debate is held in partnership with Loyola Marymount University and the Skirball Cultural Center.

A gubernatorial debate will follow at 7 p.m.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s impending sale has rattled Hollywood — and the company’s balance sheet as the auction’s high costs increasingly come into focus.

The New York-based media company released its first-quarter earnings Wednesday, which included a $2.9 billion loss. That amount includes $1.3 billion in restructuring expenses, including updated valuations for Warner’s declining linear cable television networks.

Contributing to the net loss was the $2.8 billion termination fee paid to Netflix in late February when the streaming giant bowed out of the bidding for Warner. The auction winner, Paramount Skydance, covered the payment to Netflix but Warner still must carry the obligation on its balance sheet in case the Paramount takeover falls apart. Should that happen, Warner would have to reimburse Paramount.

Warner also spent another $100 million to run the auction and prepare for the upcoming transaction, according to its regulatory filing.

“As we prepare for our next chapter, our focus remains on executing our key strategic priorities: scaling HBO Max globally, returning our Studios to industry leadership, and optimizing our Global Linear Networks,” Warner Bros. Discovery leaders said Wednesday in a letter to shareholders.

Warner generated $8.9 billion in revenue, a 3% decline from the same quarter one year ago, excluding the effect of foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

Its streaming services, including HBO Max, notched milestones in the quarter and 9% revenue growth to $2.9 billion. The company launched HBO Max in Germany, Italy, Britain and Ireland during the quarter.

Advertising revenue for streaming was up 20% compared to the first quarter of 2025.

The streaming unit posted a 17% increase to $438 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).

Warner’s studios, primarily its TV business, had a strong quarter.

Studios revenue rose 31% to $3.1 billion, compared to the prior year quarter.

Television revenue soared 58% (excluding exchange rate fluctuations) due to increased program licensing fees to support the launch of HBO Max in international markets. Those launches also propelled the movie studio, which saw revenue increase 21%.

Video games revenue declined 30% because of lower library revenues.

Adjusted EBITDA for the studios grew $516 million (158%) to $775 million compared to the prior year quarter.

The company’s vast linear television networks saw revenue fall 9% to $4.4 billion compared to the prior year period.

TV distribution revenue tumbled 8% largely due to a 10% decrease in domestic linear pay TV subscribers.

The company also felt the loss of its NBA contract for its TNT channel, which NBC picked up. Advertising revenue fell 12%. “The absence of the NBA negatively impacted the year-over-year growth rate,” Warner said.

As the costs of the merger with Paramount come into clearer focus, the opposition has grown louder.

More than 4,000 artists and entertainment industry workers, including Bryan Cranston, Noah Wyle, Kristen Stewart and Jane Fonda, have signed an open letter warning about the dangers of the merger with Paramount. “This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries — and the audiences we serve — can least afford it,” according to the letter.

“The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world.”

Adjusted EBITDA for the television networks fell 10% to $1.6 billion, compared to the prior year quarter.

Warner ended the quarter with $3.3 billion in cash on hand and $33.4 billion of gross debt.