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PHOENIX — There are expectations surrounding new Dodgers right fielder Kyle Tucker — not surprising for someone with a four-year, $240-million contract.

But first things first.

“Last year I got one hit in spring [training], so hopefully I get more than that,” Tucker said, sharing a laugh with reporters after grounding out and walking in two plate appearances in his Cactus League debut on Sunday. “So, that’s the goal. But I mean, [I’m] just feeling comfortable.”

In a clubhouse full of superstar players, the feeling seems mutual with his teammates.

“I’m glad he’s with us,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said, adding: “Yeah, There might be other superstars on this team, but it’s not really anyone’s focus here. It’s all about getting in every day, working hard, helping us win a ballgame that day and working toward the ultimate goal of winning the World Series.”

It was a tale of two seasons for the 29-year-old Tucker in 2025.

Through the first three months of the year, Tucker had the Chicago Cubs’ offense humming, powering the club to a 53-35 start. Entering July, Tucker was batting .291 with a .395 on-base percentage, .931 OPS, 17 home runs, 52 RBIs and 20 stolen bases. Tucker found himself in the middle of the National League MVP discussion as the Cubs sat in first place in the NL Central.

But from July 1 through the end of the season, he batted just .225, posting a .690 OPS, five home runs and 21 RBI, a far cry from his first half that earned him a start in right field in the All-Star Game.

It was later revealed that Tucker sustained a hairline fracture in June, which he played through. In September, he suffered a calf strain, landing him on the injured list.

He finished the season with a .266 batting average and 22 home runs, career lows for him. That did not deter the Dodgers, and it was an easy sell for Tucker as well.

“Every organization is unique in its own sense,” Tucker said. “But this organization obviously the last couple of years has done pretty well, so I think that’s a huge part of the front office and them doing their part and trying to get a great group together. Just great people and great athletes, and then trying to just put the best product out on the field for the city of Los Angeles and the fans. I think they’ve done a pretty good job of that so far. Hopefully, we can keep winning for them.”

Despite what happened last season with Tucker, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is confident in the newly-signed star.

“For me and the people that I talked to and how he goes about it, there’s nothing negative for me,” Roberts said last week. “I love guys that just come to work and love playing and competing. So, he just wants to win. He’s not a self-promoter; he’s not going to give [the media] a bunch of great soundbites. He wants to play to win, and I love guys like that. So, I’m excited to have him and get to know him even more.”

Tucker missed just under three weeks in the season’s final month. He would not return to the outfield in 2025, manning the designated-hitter spot for the Cubs, whose season ended at the hands of the Brewers in five games in the NL Division Series. Tucker says he felt good all offseason and is feeling even better in the early days of camp with his new team.

“It was a pretty healthy [offseason],” Tucker said. “At the beginning, I might have still been kind of nursing the calf a little bit. But it was kind of feeling pretty good right at the end. I think if we had moved onto the next series, I probably would have gone to the outfield, so I wish I could have gotten out there for that. Overall, in the offseason, I felt pretty healthy, and [feel pretty healthy] going into camp so far.”

Alex Vesia returns to the mound

Dodgers left-hander Alex Vesia made his Cactus League debut in Monday’s 3-0 win over the Seattle Mariners — the first time he’s pitched in a game of any kind since his newborn daughter died last fall.

Entering Monday’s game in the fifth inning to a loud ovation, Vesia struck out one and retired the side in order. He then received a warm greeting by his teammates in the dugout.

“Being around the guys, it’s really been comforting,” Vesia said. “These guys are my brothers, I truly love all of them. It’s meant a lot.”

Dodgers set starting pitchers for the week

Before Monday’s game, Roberts revealed starting pitchers for this week. Gavin Stone will take the mound Tuesday, Roki Sasaki will start Wednesday before Tyler Glasnow makes his first start of the Cactus League Thursday. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start for the second time Friday, in what will likely be his final start before joining Team Japan for the World Baseball Classic.

Over the last two offseasons, the Dodgers spent a combined $141 million on relief pitchers Edwin Díaz and Tanner Scott, both of whom are expected to make their first spring training appearances later this week.

“I think Tanner and Edwin are going either Wednesday or Thursday in the Cactus League games,” Roberts said. “Those guys, we’ll start to see them this week.”

Finalists and honorees for the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday.

Writer-curator Ekow Eshun is among the biography finalists for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries. Contenders in the fiction categories ranged from seasoned novelists like Michael Connelly to breakouts including Saou Ichikawa, whose debut novel, “Hunchback,” was longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Many selected books evoke the greatest anxieties of our time, from government-sanctioned historical revisionism to the ongoing proliferation of AI.

“The Joy Luck Club” author Amy Tan will be honored with this year’s Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Nonprofit We Need Diverse Books and novelist Adam Ross will receive the Innovator’s Award and Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, respectively.

Winners in the remaining categories will be revealed at the 46th L.A. Times Book Prizes on April 17 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The ceremony is a prelude to the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books, which this year runs April 18-19.

The Oakland-born Tan will be given the marquee Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her highly awarded body of work exploring multicultural identity and its complex effects on familial bonds.

“Throughout her extraordinary career, Amy Tan has transformed American literature by shining a light on the emotional complexities of family, identity and cultural inheritance,” said Times senior editor for Books Sophia Kercher. “Her work confronts the social and cultural legacies of the American West with rich details of the immigrant experience.”

Tan’s 1989 debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” which interweaves the stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters in San Francisco, is a staple of the modern literary canon and was previously a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. “The Joy Luck Club,” along with the essays, memoirs and novels Tan has since penned — most recently 2024’s “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” — have also led her to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and earned her a National Humanities Medal from President Biden.

We Need Diverse Books, a viral 2014 Twitter campaign turned nonprofit, is being honored with the Innovator’s Award for its efforts toward promoting diversity and inclusion in children’s and young adult publishing.

According to the WNDB website, upon the nonprofit’s launch more than a decade ago, only 8% of children’s books published in the U.S. were written by authors of color. In 2023, that figure rose to 47%, in no small part due to WNDB’s grants, library partnerships and other advocacy work, per the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We Need Diverse Books has played an important role in publishing by championing stories that reflect our world, and opening doors for writers and readers,” said Times Executive Editor Terry Tang. “We are thrilled to recognize them with this year’s Innovator’s Award, honoring their unwavering commitment to access and representation in literature.”

Ross rounds out the L.A. Times Book Prize honorees as the winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York that is described as “less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation.”

In addition to the achievement awards, the Book Prizes recognize titles in 13 categories: audiobooks, autobiographical prose (the Christopher Isherwood Prize), biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), graphic novel/comics, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science fiction, science and technology and young adult literature. Each category’s finalists and winners are chosen by panels of writers specializing in that genre.

For more information about the Book Prizes, including the complete list of finalists, visit latimes.com/BookPrizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel”

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel”

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them”

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America”

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel”

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection”

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City”

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive”

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness”

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel”

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI”

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince”

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

Kazakhstan and Kosovo have also pledged to participate, while Egypt and Jordan will provide training for police officers.

Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged to send troops to Gaza, the commander of a newly created International Stabilization Force (ISF) has said during a meeting of United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace.

US Army General Jasper Jeffers, who has been appointed as the head of a future Gaza stabilisation force by Trump’s board, said on Thursday that the Indonesian contingent to the mission has “accepted the position of deputy commander”.

“With these first steps, we will help bring the security that Gaza needs,” Jeffers said during a meeting of the board in Washington, DC.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who was among several world leaders participating in the meeting, said his country would contribute up to 8,000 personnel to the planned force “to make this peace work” in the war-torn Palestinian territory, where Israel’s genocide has killed at least 72,000 people.

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country will also send an unspecified number of troops, including medical units, to Gaza, while Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that his country is ready to deploy police officers to Gaza.

Albania, whose prime minister recently made a two-day official visit to Israel, has also said it will contribute troops, while neighbouring countries Egypt and Jordan have said they will participate by training police officers.

Indonesia, which was one of the first countries to commit to sending troops, has sought to reassure potential critics that its participation is intended to ensure international law is upheld in Gaza, amid Israel’s genocidal onslaught.

‘Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations’

Indonesia’s foreign minister met with both United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour in New York on Wednesday, in advance of President Subianto’s participation in the Board of Peace meeting.

“Indonesia’s mandate [on troop deployment] is humanitarian in nature with a focus on protecting civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction as well as training and strengthening the capacity of the Palestinian Police,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a recent statement, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.

“Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations or any action leading to direct confrontation with any armed group,” the ministry said, responding to questions raised over its future role in Gaza by Amnesty International.

The head of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, has voiced concerns that Indonesia risked violating international law through its participation in the Board of Peace and the planned stabilisation force for Gaza.

Hamid warned that Indonesia’s deployment of troops to Gaza “means putting Indonesia at risk of participating in a mechanism that will strengthen violations of International Humanitarian Law”.

“The Peace Council does not include members from the most disadvantaged Palestinians, but instead includes members from Israel, which has for nearly eight decades carried out an illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people, even committing genocide in Gaza,” Hamid wrote last week in an open letter to the speaker of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia.

Palestinians have also voiced concerns that Trump’s Board of Peace will only further entrench Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to carve out more “buffer zones” and restrict the entry of food and other aid, months into a so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas, during which almost 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

The Gaza stabilisation force differs from other peacekeeping forces deployed by multilateral organisations such as the UN or the African Union.

In neighbouring Lebanon, more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 countries continue to participate in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was created in 1978.

Indonesia, along with Italy, is one of the largest contributors of troops to UNIFIL, which has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli forces, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The landmark Bangladesh election held last week was ⁠triggered by a Gen Z-led uprising in 2024, yet a youth-led National Citizen Party (NCP) – born out of the uprising – managed to secure only six parliamentary seats out of the 297, the results of which are available.

The results, officially declared on Saturday, showed that voters overwhelmingly chose the long-established Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which comfortably defeated a Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance, of which the NCP is a key partner.

Tarique Rahman of the BNP, which has already governed the country three times, most recently from 2001 to 2006, is set to become prime minister following one of the most consequential elections in the country’s history.

Many young Bangladeshis who voted for the first time described the election as historic, but falling short of their expectations.

“As Generation Z, we didn’t get the expected representation and results after shedding so much blood and losing lives,” student Afsana Hossain Himi told Al Jazeera.

“Still, we are very hopeful. We have representatives from the younger generation, and we hope they will do something good,” she said, referring to the six NCP winners.

Many young Bangladeshis felt the NCP failed to build up a big enough support base in time for ‌the vote.

“They did not live up to the hopes and dreams people had after the 2024 uprising,” 23-year-old university student Sohanur Rahman said. “The NCP’s alignment with Jamaat felt like a betrayal, and many young voters like us chose not to support them.”

NCP spokesperson Asif Mahmud said the ⁠party would rebuild itself in opposition and focus on local government elections due in a year.

‘A new beginning’

The South Asian country of 173 million people has one of the world’s youngest populations, with approximately 44 percent of its vote bank – 56 million – between the ages of 18 and 37.

The election outcome is widely seen as a chance to restore stability after months of upheaval that followed the 2024 uprising, which toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Security forces at the time, acting on her orders, killed more than 1,400 people, according to the United Nations. Hasina has since been handed a death sentence in absentia for the crackdown.

Hasina, currently living in exile in New Delhi, and Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, have for decades towered over the country’s political landscape. Rahman’s father, Ziaur Rahman, a key figure in Bangladesh’s independence struggle, also led the nation from 1977 until his assassination in 1981.

Rahman, who is likely to be sworn in on Tuesday, has pledged that his administration will prioritise the rule of law.

“Our position is clear. Peace and order must be maintained at any cost. No wrongdoing or unlawful activity will be tolerated,” he said at a news conference on Saturday. “Regardless of party, religion, race, or differing opinions, under no circumstances will attacks by the strong against the weak be accepted. Justice will be our guiding principle.”

Shakil Ahmed, a government and politics professor at Jahangirnagar University, said ⁠the Jamaat-NCP alliance pushed away young voters who had wanted a new political class after the fall of Hasina.

“Many saw it as a retreat into old politics rather than a break from it,” Ahmed said. “This decision divided the youth vote and strengthened support for the BNP under Tarique Rahman, which appeared more organised and capable of governing.”

However, for student Farhan Ullash, the vote felt like a long-awaited break with the past.

“After all, the election was a kind of dream for us, a new beginning for Bangladesh,” he said. “I know already BNP is going to make the government. I hope they will listen to us.”

Feb. 14 (UPI) — The Routt County, Colorado, Coroner’s Office has identified the four victims who died in a plane crash while approaching a Steamboat Springs airport early Friday morning.

The victims are Aaron Stokes, 47, Jackson Stokes, 21, Colin Stokes, 21, and Austin Huskey, 37, the Steamboat Pilot reported.

Aaron Stokes is the father of Jackson Stokes, but it is unclear if he also is the father of Colin Stokes.

Aaron Stokes was a resident of Franklin, Tenn., which is where the flight originated on Thursday before making a brief stop in Kansas City and then proceeding to Steamboat Springs.

Franklin is located about 20 miles south of Nashville and is home to many country music stars and other celebrities.

Aaron Stokes was the founder of Shop Fix Academy, which assisted the owners of independent auto shops, according to his Ever Loved obituary.

“The Franklin, Tennessee, community and the global automotive industry are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Aaron Stokes, a visionary entrepreneur, mentor and beloved family man,” the obituary says.

“A self-made multi-millionaire with 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, Aaron’s influence extended significantly within the industry,” it continues. “He successfully owned and operated five auto repair shops and hosted the popular radio show Fixin’ Cars with Aaron Stokes.”

The obituary describes him as a “cherished member of the Franklin community. Known for his vibrant personality, kindness, and adventurous spirit, he embraced life with enthusiasm.

“He was a devoted husband and father, and his family has requested privacy during this difficult time. Friends remember him for his deep faith and unwavering integrity.”

The plane crashed at 12:20 a.m. MST near the summit of Emerald Mountain, which is located southeast of Steamboat Springs and the Yampa River.

The remote crash site required a local rescue team to recover the victims’ bodies.

ALS Aviation LLC of Franklin is the registered owner of the single-engine, turboprop Epic Aircraft E1000 that crashed and caused the deaths of all four aboard it.

Initial reports do not say which of the four deceased passengers was piloting the aircraft or if ALS might have been owned by Aaron Stokes.

The company was formed in 2021 and dissolved in 2024, but its ownership certificate is valid through 2031.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash and its cause.

Feb. 11 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s National Fire Agency warned that choking incidents involving rice cakes and other foods tend to spike around major holidays, with older adults accounting for most victims.

A Seoul resident in his 60s recalled nearly choking while eating tteokguk, a traditional Lunar New Year soup, after a piece of rice cake lodged in his throat. He said he now cuts rice cakes into smaller pieces and eats more slowly.

The fire agency said an analysis of rescue statistics from 2021 through 2025 found an annual average of 239 people were transported to hospitals for airway obstruction caused by rice cakes or other foods.

During the same period, authorities recorded 1,487 related emergency responses and 1,196 hospital transports. Of those taken to hospitals, 455 people, or 38.1%, were in cardiac arrest, the agency said. Another 741 people, or 61.9%, were reported as injured, underscoring that choking can become life-threatening.

During the Lunar New Year holiday period over the past five years, 31 people were transported for choking incidents involving rice cakes or food, averaging 1.3 people per day.

Older adults made up nearly all of those cases. Among the 31 patients transported during the holiday period, 29 were ages 60 or older, or 96.7%, the agency said, citing factors such as increased meal frequency and faster eating during holiday gatherings.

Officials also pointed to age-related declines in chewing strength and swallowing function, warning that tough or sticky foods such as rice cakes can more easily block the airway when eaten quickly.

The agency urged families to watch elderly relatives during meals, particularly when they are eating alone, and encouraged the public to learn the Heimlich maneuver and use it immediately if someone shows signs of choking or breathing difficulty.

A fire official in Gyeonggi Province said most holiday choking transports involve seniors and can quickly lead to cardiac arrest if breathing is blocked.

Acting Fire Service Commissioner Kim Seung-ryong urged people not to eat too quickly or overeat during the holiday period and asked family members to closely monitor elderly relatives while they eat.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260202010000583

Names of the rich and powerful are littered throughout the latest batch of the “Epstein files.” Here are some of the most prominent global figures.

The schism between Democratic environmental ideals and California voters’ anxiety about affordability, notably gas prices, were on full display during an environmental policy forum among some of the state’s top Democratic candidates for governor on Wednesday.

The Democrats questioned the economic impact Californians could face because of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s goal to have the state transition to zero-emission vehicles, a policy that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035. The Trump administration has attempted to negate the policy by canceling federal tax credits for the purchase of such vehicles along with invalidating California’s strict emission standards.

“It’s absolutely true that it’s not affordable today for many people to choose” an electric vehicle, said former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine. “It’s the fact that, particularly with expiring federal subsidies and the cuts that [President] Trump has made, an electric vehicle often costs $8,000 or $10,000 more. If we want people to choose EVs, we have to close that gap.”

Both Porter and rival Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under former President Biden, said that as governor they would focus on making low-emission vehicles more affordable and practical. Porter said the cost of buying a zero-emission car needs to be comparable with those that run on gas, and Becerra said California needs to have enough charging stations so drivers “don’t have to worry can they get to their destination.”

“We know our future is in clean energy and in making our environment as clean as possible,” Becerra said. “We’ve got to make it affordable for families.”

Porter and Becerra joined two other Democrats in the 2026 California governor’s race — former hedge fund founder turned environmental advocate Tom Steyer and Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin — at the Pasadena event hosted by California Environmental Voters, UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, the Climate Center Action Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund. The Democrats largely agreed about issues such as combating climate change, accelerating the transition to clean energy and protecting California’s water resources.

The coalition invited the six candidates with greatest support in recent public opinion polls. Republicans Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, and Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, did not respond to an invitation to participate in the forum, which was moderated by Sammy Roth, the writer of Climate-Colored Goggles on Substack, and Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the UC Berkeley center.

Newsom, who has acknowledged that he is considering a run for president in 2028, is serving the final year of his second term as governor and is barred from running again.

The state’s high cost of living, including high gas prices, continues to be a political vulnerability for Democrats who support California’s progressive environmental agenda.

In another controversial issue facing the state, most of the Democratic candidates on Wednesday distanced themselves from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta tunnel, a massive and controversial proposal to move water to Southern California and the Central Valley. Though it has seen various iterations, the concept dates back to Gov. Jerry Brown’s first foray as California governor more than four decades ago.

Despite Newsom’s efforts to fast-track the project, it has been stalled by environmental reviews and lawsuits. It hit another legal hurdle this month when a state appeals court rejected the state’s plan to finance the 45-mile tunnel.

Swalwell, Porter and Steyer argued that there are faster and less expensive ways to collect and deliver water to thirsty parts of California.

“We have to move much faster than the Delta tunnel could ever move in terms of solving our water problems,” Steyer said, adding that data and technology could be deployed to more efficiently deliver water to farms.

Swalwell said he does not support the project “as it’s designed now” and proposed covering “400 miles of aqueducts” with solar panels.

During Wednesday’s forum, Becerra also committed a gaffe as he discussed rooftop solar programs for Californians with a word that some consider a slur about Jewish people.

“We need to go after the shysters,” Becerra said. “We know that there are people who go out there to swindle families as they talk about rooftop solar, so we have to make sure that that doesn’t happen so they get the benefit of solar.”

The term is not viewed as derogatory as other antisemitic slurs and was routinely used in past decades, a spokesperson for the Becerra campaign noted after the event.

“Secretary Becerra never knew this word to be offensive and certainly he meant no disrespect to anyone,” said a campaign spokesperson. “He was talking about protecting the hardest-working and lowest-paid Californians who are often taken advantage of by unscrupulous actors.”

Plane vanished in remote jungle near eastern border with Venezuela; search hindered by dense terrain and adverse weather.

Bogota, Colombia – Search and rescue teams in Colombia are searching for a passenger plane carrying 15 passengers that went missing near the eastern border with Venezuela.

Two crew members were among the passengers, which included a Colombian congressional representative and a candidate running in the upcoming elections, according to local officials and media reports.

It remains unclear what caused the disappearance, but local Air Traffic Control sources say the plane’s flight history shows a sudden altitude drop 11 minutes before it was expected to land in Ocana.

The flight, operated by government-run commercial airline Satena, was en route from Cucuta to Ocana, two cities in the North Santander department bordering Venezuela, when it left radar coverage.

“The Accident Investigation Directorate of @AerocivilCol reports that it is gathering information regarding the loss of communication from aircraft HK4709, which was flying the Cucuta-Ocaña route with 13 passengers and 2 crew members,” wrote Maria Fernanda Rojas, Colombia’s minister of transport, in a post on X.

“The corresponding protocols have been activated, and we have already initiated PMU,” added Rojas, referring to the “Unified Command Post” set up to respond to emergencies.

The plane disappeared in a remote region characterised by dense jungle, complicating search-and-rescue efforts.

Among the passengers was Diogenes Quintero, a lower house lawmaker who holds a seat specially reserved for conflict victims. He was accompanied by ​​Carlos Salcedo Salazar, a candidate running for the same seat.

A local government official, who requested anonymity since they were not authorised to speak to the press, told Al Jazeera that authorities suspected that the plane had been affected by adverse weather conditions.

Drug trade

The Catatumbo region is also an active conflict zone and is home to the world’s largest cultivations of coca, the plant which produces the raw ingredient used to make cocaine.

Both the drug trade and the region’s strategic location on the Venezuelan border have made it a historic hotbed for armed conflict between rebel groups.

In January last year, violent clashes between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and Frente 33, a dissident group of the demobilised FARC fighters, displaced more than 50,000 people in the region.

The route from Cucuta to Ocana began operating only in June last year, marking an important milestone for a region that has historically had poor road connections to major cities.