election

The cornerstone of Kim’s platform is her call for the state-run property disaster insurance program, which largely would be funded by policyholders. Coverage would be universal, with policyholders automatically enrolled. With no need to generate shareholder profits, fund marketing or pay high executive salaries, she contends the plan could better invest in fire prevention and make buildings and property more fire resilient. Such a drastic change in the insurance system would require legislation and support from the governor.

“Voters I’ve talked to don’t want to see the same old tinkering with the system, because most voters agree that it’s actually magical thinking that doing the same tinkering of the existing system is going to lead to a different result,” she said.

Allen is sharply critical of Kim’s plan, which he says is woefully short on details. Instead, he is focusing on the mechanics of improving the current system — for both homeowners and insurers. He wants to speed reviews of insurer rate applications, create a business office to attract more carriers to the state and work with elected officers at all levels to design programs that reduce fire risk of individual properties and at the neighborhood and community scale.

“I’m focused on what’s actually doable. The people who suffer from these terrible fires don’t need a 10-year experiment. Voters of all stripes, not just Republicans, are not interested in making the state a guinea pig,” he said.

Measure G, propelled by Horvath, will result in expanding the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members in 2032 and create a new county chief executive position, with an election in 2028. It passed narrowly, with 51.6%.

It also called for creating a county ethics commission and an ethics compliance office. Other branches of government already have this, including the city of Los Angeles, where the commission’s duties include overseeing campaign finance, such as the matching funds program for political candidates. The commission also regulates lobbying and can issue penalties for fundraising and other infractions.

The Measure G governance reform task force is setting everything up, but officials realized that for true independence, the seven-member commission and the compliance office must be permanently enshrined in the county charter. That requires the approval of voters.

Establishing the commission and the compliance office, Horvath said in a statement in May, “delivers on the will of the voters and marks a monumental step toward greater transparency and accountability in County government.”

Gaspar founded Gaspar Insurance in 2008 and sold it in 2021 after he built it into one of the largest independent insurance companies in the Valley, and worked with several nonprofit and community groups: Discovery Cube Los Angeles, YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, Viewpoint School‘s board of trustees and the West Valley/Warner Center Chamber of Commerce.

He would bring a pro-business perspective to City Council and help it make decisions that support business owners and residents alike.

Gaspar came in first during the primary election with 46.1% of the vote. He is running with support from groups including the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a union representing LAPD officers. He’s also been endorsed by Blumenfield, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, real estate developer Rick Caruso and former Democratic state Assemblymember Bob Hertzberg, Worth Girvan’s former boss.

Worth Girvan meets voters during a neighborhood event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Worth Girvan is a longtime city and county employee, with nearly 20 years working in public service. Prior to running, she was L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years, handling constituent services on the Westside and in the Valley.

Before that, she spent eight years as an aide to Hertzberg, who failed to take Horvath’s seat in 2022.

Worth Girvan secured 42.5% of the vote in the primary, only 4% shy of her opponent.

Worth Girvan said her two decades of experience at the city and county levels have helped her build relationships and gain deep knowledge of the communities she works with.

“It allows me to be able to make a phone call and to be able to know how to bring about the change that we need,” she said.

She’s been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party and labor unions including the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Service Employees International Union. She’s also been endorsed by Horvath and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Israel’s top court has overturned an election panel’s ban on Arab parties contesting parliamentary elections this month, saying the decision had not met the legal requirements for excluding them, according to Israeli media.

The Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously on Friday to undo the Central Elections Committee’s disqualification of the country’s two main Arab-majority political lists – Ra’am, also called the United Arab List, and the Joint List, which is an alliance of Hadash, Ta’al and Balad.

The decision keeps Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population, in the race after critics accused the committee of double standards ahead of the October 27 Knesset vote.

The court also voted 7-2 to reinstate Ofer Cassif, a sitting Jewish member of the Knesset from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party and an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, media reports said.

The two dissenting justices said Cassif backs “armed struggle against the state of Israel”, which is grounds for his disqualification.

In September, the elections committee voted to disqualify the Joint List and Ra’am as parties, as well as Cassif and Sami Abu Shehadeh, head of the Balad party, as individuals.

Balad leader withdraws

The Supreme Court has nearly always overruled the committee when it votes to ban candidates.

However, at a hearing on Thursday, Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit told Abu Shehadeh that a majority of the nine justices favoured disqualifying him from the election.

They gave him until Friday to withdraw, saying that if he did not, he would be disqualified, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Abu Shehadeh withdrew from the election after that.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led the push to bar him over an article written after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Abu Shehadeh described the attack as “an important historical event” in the piece, but denies supporting it.

Balad said in a statement that a court-ordered removal, rather than a voluntary one, would have had “grave consequences for the country’s political and parliamentary life” as it would set a precedent around the removal of Arab candidates.

Double standards

The Ra’am party made history after the 2021 election, becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli government when it took part in a disparate coalition that briefly removed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Most Palestinian citizens of Israel had stayed out of coalition politics until then.

In this election, Ra’am is also fielding a Jewish Zionist candidate for the first time, Yoav Segalovitz, who won popularity in Arab communities for his work to curb crime as deputy minister for internal security.

The election committee’s September vote drew accusations of a double standard, as Palestinian-led parties faced exclusion while parties led by far-right ministers, some of whom have been sanctioned internationally, stayed on the ballot.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Abu Shehadeh said he withdrew because he “didn’t have any other choices”.

Although the Supreme Court has restored the Arab parties to the ballot, Abu Shehadeh said the reversal did not make the original disqualifications acceptable.

“In the end, what happened yesterday was a historical catastrophe for democracy, or the very narrow margins of democracy in the State of Israel,” he said. “I was disqualified because I think differently, because I have a different narrative on how to read history, the present, and the future in the place that we live today.”

The amendment aims to clarify campaign finance rules for candidates running for a seat on the board of education, which overseas LAUSD and its approximately 350,000 students.

Repetitive language in the Los Angeles City Charter would be deleted and would make clear the same campaign finance rules apply to both mayoral candidates and board of education candidates, except in certain instances, the measure says.

Among those requirements are rules governing campaign contribution limits, filing deadlines, public disclosures and fundraising windows.

Stuttgart, Germany – Minutes after the results of the first exit polls flashed across German screens, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declared in a televised statement at the party’s headquarters that he was going nowhere.

“It’s a disaster,” he said of the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience. I will muster them – as party chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.”

But pressure on Merz is mounting.

On Thursday, a survey by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD found that only one in 10 respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with his work. That is the lowest figure for any chancellor since the survey began in 1997.

His party crashed out of the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats – the first time this has happened since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first with more than a third of the vote.

On the same day in Berlin’s state elections, the CDU suffered another major setback. It came second after The Left party, which won 25.7 percent of the vote. The Left now hopes to form a government in the capital although it will need coalition partners.

Just two weeks earlier, the CDU suffered another blow. The AfD won the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, receiving more than 40 percent of the vote, compared with 17 percent for the CDU.

No obvious successor

Merz could face a revolt within his own party, but removing him as chancellor would be considerably harder.

Under Germany’s Constitution, the Bundestag can replace a chancellor only by simultaneously electing a successor with an absolute majority.

Wolfgang Schroeder, a professor of political science at the University of Kassel, told Al Jazeera: “The CDU is in a situation where it can’t really get any further with Merz, but it also doesn’t know how things would work without him. There is no attractive replacement, so there is no alternative.”

A former chairman of the BlackRock investment company’s German supervisory board, Merz had long harboured ambitions of becoming chancellor but was sidelined by then-Chancellor and -CDU leader Angela Merkel in the early 2000s. He staged an unexpected comeback, finally taking office in May 2025.

At the helm, Merz has drawn criticism for remarks about the country’s “Stadtbild” (cityscape), widely interpreted as a suggestion that there were too many refugees and migrants on the streets. The debate has resurfaced in recent days with prominent CDU figures returning to the issue after the party’s poor election results.

The AfD’s surge is but one factor behind the decline of Germany’s long-dominant conservative party, which has produced six chancellors in its history.

The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, govern Germany in coalition with the Social Democratic  Party (SPD). The government is struggling amid the rising cost of living, deindustrialisation, crumbling infrastructure and a housing crisis in major cities.

Nils Diederich, a professor emeritus of political science at the Free University of Berlin and a former SPD member in the Bundestag, said Merz has failed to make a good impression but argued he is not the main reason for the CDU’s poor results.

“Overall, I see the coalition itself as the main problem,” he said. “The Social Democrats have worn themselves out in the coalition. They have lost their sense of direction and are putting the brakes on reforms. That, in turn, is dragging the CDU down with them.”

Schroeder told Al Jazeera: “It’s possible that the crisis surrounding the chancellor could develop into a fundamental crisis for the CDU and from there into a crisis for the coalition.”

The reform dilemma

In July, the German government announced a package of 34 measures, including reforms to pensions, taxation, bureaucracy and the labour market. Merz originally intended to push through his repeatedly promised reforms by the end of the year.

But the state elections have put the coalition parties under greater pressure to stake out their own positions.

To ease the burden on people in need of long-term care and to plug multibillion-euro deficits, the SPD is calling for a cap on care costs and for people with private health insurance to share the costs. The CDU firmly rejects both proposals on legal and financial grounds.

State premiers from both major parties and the SPD leadership want to retain the option of retiring without a pension reduction after 45 years of contributions, which they see as a reward for a lifetime of work. The conservative bloc’s business wing, however, insists that the provision be phased out.

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil of the SPD is planning new revenue measures to consolidate the budget but faces fierce resistance from CDU state premiers and conservative legislators determined to block any tax increases.

Schroeder warned that the coming months could be difficult.

“The CDU is caught in a dilemma. If Merz continues down the path of reforms that place a burden on society, the likelihood of cooperative governance with the SPD will diminish further. If he goes along with the course the SPD is proposing, pressure within the party will increase.”

Diederich said: “If the reforms fall through, then either Merz or the Social Democrats would have to act and let the coalition collapse.”

The next major election test will come in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where voters elect a new parliament in April.

Palestinian participation in upcoming Knesset vote continues to shrink with withdrawal of Sami Abu Shehadeh.

Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh has withdrawn his candidacy for the upcoming Israeli elections after the Supreme Court advised him to drop out.

The leader of the left-wing Palestinian Balad party announced on Friday he was dropping his bid for election to the Knesset on October 27. His withdrawal, which came after the court threatened to disqualify him, comes amid increased efforts by Israeli authorities to block Arab Israeli parties from taking part.

Political analysts view Arab Israeli parties as potential kingmakers in the election, with polls showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for an outright majority.

The withdrawal came after the Supreme Court indicated that a majority of its judges agreed with a September 23 decision from Israel’s Central Elections Committee to oust him from the race after nationalist political rivals accused him of supporting Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023.

Adalah, a rights organisation representing Abu Shehadeh, condemned the court, saying the evidence it presented had no legal basis.

“The court has effectively decided to remove a Palestinian leader, a citizen of Israel, from the Knesset,” Adalah said in a statement.

“The court’s clear intention to disqualify him,” it added, was “a direction that would have set a dangerous legal precedent with devastating consequences.”

Abu Shehadeh served in the Knesset from 2019 to 2022. Balad confirmed he was withdrawing his candidacy but stressed that the decision did not mark the end of his political struggle and that he would remain party leader.

The elections committee voted to disqualify him at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused him of supporting the Hamas attack due to an article issued the following day in which Abu Shehadeh called it an “important historical event”.

Speaking to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Abu Shehadeh said he did not support “armed struggle” but acknowledged that a paragraph in the article had been incorrectly worded. He said his intention was to call for moving the conflict towards a political process.

Adalah labelled his withdrawal from the election “a severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election”.

The elections committee has also barred two Arab electoral lists: the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Abu Shehadeh’s party Balad. The Supreme Court is due to continue hearing appeals from the parties on Friday.

Adalah has questioned why the Palestinian candidates are being disqualified but far-right Israeli candidates were “cleared to run” despite openly calling for violence against Palestinians and making statements “amounting to incitement to genocide”.

The state Legislature was tasked with developing a better recall system after Gov. Gavin Newsom faced a gubernatorial challenge in 2021, costing state and local governments more than $200 million.

Newsom defeated the recall attempt after nearly 62% voted to keep him in office. Had he been ousted, conservative talk radio host Larry Elder was the leading candidate to replace him with less than 49% of the vote.

Former state Sen. Josh Newman, who was recalled in 2018 and later reelected to office, co-authored the measure that made it to the ballot. He believes that the elimination of a second simultaneous vote for a replacement removes “the political incentive for gamesmanship around recalls.”

“My solution is really simple: It’s to eliminate that second question and maintain the recall as a valid, powerful tool of accountability,” he said.

It’s not uncommon for someone to get appointed to fill an official’s term if they leave office before their time is up. Newman said that slotting the lieutenant governor into the role of governor in the event of a recall would follow a precedent.

The lieutenant governor currently serves as acting governor when the governor leaves the state.

The measure is backed by four of the five supervisors. During the February meeting, Horvath, who authored the initial motion, said that binding arbitration would promote transparency and push the sides to reach a deal. She said that 21 California jurisdictions, including Sacramento and San Francisco counties, have implemented binding arbitration.

Supervisor Hilda Solis called this “another tool in the toolbox.”

A battery of labor unions representing county workers are on board, including the International Assn. of Firefighters Local 1014, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Assn.

Dave Gillotte, president of IAFF Local 1014, which represents more than 3,000 L.A. County Fire Department employees, said contract negotiations with the county generally are intense and lengthy. He said the goal is never having to resort to binding arbitration, but that if required, this would allow a “neutral third party” to make the final decision.

“Binding arbitration really brings about leverage to move both parties to work hard to get a contract done, where we don’t have that now,” Gillotte told the Times.

Democratic State Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin is facing off against Republican candidate and nonprofit leader Samuel Gallucci in the race for California’s 26th Congressional District.

They are seeking to claim the open seat created by the retirement of Rep. Julia Brownley, who has represented the region for the last 12 years. The district stretches from the the Pacific Ocean through the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains, encompassing most of Ventura County and the L.A. County communities of Calabasas and Agoura Hills. It includes the communities of Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Ventura and Camarillo as well as wide swaths of vineyards and agricultural land.

As with most Californians, the rising cost of living and especially the price of housing are major concerns for constituents. Many communities sit at the wildland-urban interface, making wildfire prevention and response another essential issue. The district is home to a significant immigrant community in agricultural areas such as Oxnard and Camarillo, which have been the site of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and protests.

The seat is ranked as solidly Democratic by Cook Political Report.

Steven Veres, 46, is vying to maintain his seat on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

(Courtesy of Steven Veres)

Name: Steven F. Veres

Age: 50

Website: www.steveveres.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: Los Angeles Community College District, member of the board of trustees

Experience: Veres cited his role as trustee and previous work as a teacher as key experience for another four-year term. Veres also has worked as a state politics adviser, including for Sen. María Elena Durazo. As trustee, he said his work has included strengthening job training programs, improving graduation rates and addressing basic student needs.

“Successful colleges depend on students, faculty, and staff having a meaningful voice in decisions” while the board should “listen, set clear priorities, protect public resources, and give our colleges the support necessary to help students succeed,” he said.

District challenges: The district’s greatest challenge is helping students finish their education, given how many are forced to juggle school with “jobs, housing costs, food insecurity, transportation, and family responsibilities … We need to remove those barriers while making the academic experience easier to navigate,” he said.

Priorities: “First, make college truly affordable. Tuition is only part of the cost. Housing, food, transportation, textbooks and childcare can determine whether a student stays enrolled.

“Second, improve completion and transfer rates. Students deserve clear academic pathways, accessible counseling and course schedules that allow them to earn a degree, certificate or transfer without unnecessary delays. Third, connect education to careers. I want to dramatically expand paid internships, apprenticeships and partnerships with employers and organized labor.

“These priorities reinforce each other: Students are more likely to finish when college is affordable, the path to completion is clear, and they can see the economic value of their education.”

Budget: “Our first responsibility is to use taxpayer dollars efficiently while protecting instruction and student services,” he said. In addition, Veres said that because state funding is based on enrollment, boosting it can be a path to financial stability, along with eliminating unnecessary, duplicative spending across the nine colleges and investing in energy efficiency to cut costs.

“Fiscal responsibility is not simply cutting spending,” he said. “It means directing limited resources toward what produces the greatest value for students and taxpayers.”

Student success: Veres would address barriers to student success and enrollment by pushing to make the application process easier and providing more flexible class schedules — including more evening, weekend, online and hybrid options — for working adults, parents and others. “Our job should not end when a student enrolls. It ends when that student reaches their educational goal,” he said.

Robert Payne is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(Robert Payne)

Name: Robert Payne

Age: 77

Website: http://payneforlaccd.info/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: researcher/writer/environmentalist

Experience: Payne said he has taught at L.A. Mission College. His education at L.A. Valley College and Cal State Northridge helped prepare him for a career as a writer. He said he has worked on movie crews and ran an import business, among other jobs. Growing up in Pacoima helped him understand the needs of immigrants and “those of diverse backgrounds with limited resources.”

“I went through the [community college] system,” he said. “I know the difficulties. All my ideas come from my direct experience.”

District challenges: Payne cited low enrollment growth as the main challenge. Students also need to see a quicker return on their investment. “Life costs money,” he said. “If students could see immediate advantages to college, the colleges would attract more enrollments.”

He reflected on his own experience when discussing the importance of a quick payback. “I graduated from Cal State Northridge. Nothing I learned at L.A. Valley or Cal State paid off immediately,” he said. “I worked as a janitor, security guard, construction site cleaner. I lucked into a union tech job and I earned my way through graduate school. Years later, the master’s degree finally helped me get work as a ‘professor.’ ”

Priorities: Payne wants to make community colleges “cheaper, faster, better” in part by offering students more training for specific jobs and less expensive online textbooks. He also would support ending student debt.

Budget: He does not support cutting “student opportunities” and said if “the colleges can demonstrate success for the students, enrollment will justify the expense of maintaining the expense of the faculty, the staff, the facilities.”

Student success: Payne wants college to do more to offer “immediate perceived value,” including teaching résumé building, interview skills and how to apply to jobs. He said hiring adjuncts with industry experience could enhance student success.

Kristina Irwin is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Yolando Mitchell Brown)

Name: Kristina Irwin

Age: 50

Website: https://kristinairwin.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: parent/business owner.

Experience: As a former community college student, Irwin has firsthand knowledge of the L.A. community college student experience.

She serves on the general advisory board at Santa Monica College and said she also served on the board of trustees at her children’s school, Palisades Charter High School, during the Palisades fire. She said she holds a Public Engagement & Civic Leadership Certificate from the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

District challenges: Irwin said the main challenge is preparing young people to advance in college when their earlier schooling failed to give them the tools to succeed.

Priorities: Irwin wants to establish “preentry” programs in every local high school that would prepare students for community college and do more to give educators the resources they need to craft classes that “fit the needs and life limitations of the students.”

Budget: Irwin said alternative streams could be identified to fund “classroom student resources.” She said that as “responsible stewards” of district resources, trustee actions “are often under scrutiny either formally or informally.”

Student success: Irwin wants to address barriers to student success and enrollment by doing more to demonstrate how a community college education can give them the tools necessary to succeed in their chosen career.

Name: Roy Payan

Payan told the Times he suspended his campaign.

Adriana Cabrera is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(John McCoy/For Los Angeles Times en Espanol)

Name: Adriana Cabrera

Age: 34

Website: https://adrianaforlaccd.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: educator

Experience: Cabrera said she attended community college and went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in Chicana/o studies and political science and a master’s in education from Cal State Northridge. She said she also served as president of the Central Alameda Neighborhood Council and co-founded Empowering Youth in South Central, a “grassroots collective of students and educators” that “has supported thousands of first-generation students with college, career, financial-aid, and leadership support.”

“I am not coming into this role to learn higher education after I am elected,” she said. “I have studied it, worked in it, navigated it as a student, built programs within it, worked inside public institutions, and organized communities around it.”

District challenges: Cabrera said student services are too difficult to navigate, too many students struggle to afford basic needs such as housing, and clearer pathways are needed to economic mobility, She said budget decisions also can feel “disconnected” from the staff and students those decisions effect.

Priorities: “My first priority is invest in students first,” she said. Cabrera would do that by making student services easier to navigate and strengthening financial aid and other support, including for food, housing, child care and mental health.

Secondly, Cabrera wants to better connect education to economic mobility through good paying jobs. Lastly, Cabrera would give students, faculty, staff, labor organizations and community members “a meaningful voice before major budget priorities are finalized.”

Budget: Cabrera would review the district’s spending “to make sure existing dollars are being used efficiently” and “identify responsible ways to generate additional revenue without shifting costs onto students.” For instance, renting out underutilized facilities.

Student success: Cabrera would take steps to ensure student services are more readily available and the public has better visibility and say in trustee decisions. “The overall standard I would bring to the board is simple,” she said. “Can students enter LACCD, understand their options, find the support they need, complete their goal, and leave with more opportunity than when they arrived?”

Brazilian president and opposition candidate snub the final debate ahead of the presidential election.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his main opponent Flavio Bolsonaro have snubbed a chance at a final debate ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, while police ruled out a bomb threat outside the country’s Supreme Court.

Lula, instead of taking part in the debate, opted to appear on a popular podcast with millions of YouTube subscribers while his rival Bolsonaro accused the electoral court of “censorship” as a reason for his withdrawal.

Bolsonaro, son of the former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, said during a live broadcast on Thursday on his social media channels that his decision not to participate in the debate was due to “censorship imposed by the electoral court”.

The right-wing candidate was referring to a decision that barred the debate broadcaster from keeping President Lula’s empty seat on stage.

The debate organised by TV Globo, the country’s most popular broadcaster, was set for Thursday and offered a final opportunity for the two presidential frontrunners to face off before polls open.

TV Globo said in a statement that the debate was cancelled because two rulings, one from the country’s electoral court and the other from the Supreme Court, had created “legal uncertainty” about the event.

Lula, 80, will face off against Bolsonaro in a first-round vote on Sunday, with polls giving him a slight advantage.

The pair are neck and neck in projections for a potential runoff on October 25, however.

Bomb scare

On the same day of the cancelled debate, Brazilian police ruled out a bomb threat outside the Supreme Court.

A suspect who “tried to jump the court’s fences” and “threw a backpack on top of a bus stop” had been arrested, the court said in a statement.

Authorities examined the backpack, which ultimately contained “only personal belongings,” military police spokesperson Raphael Broocke told AFP.

The suspect will remain in custody while the investigation continues, he added.

The Supreme Court has been criticised by the political right, notably for the 2025 conviction of ex-leader Jair Bolsonaro over a coup plot.

It has also become embroiled in a fraud scandal that has dominated the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

Oct. 1, 2026 3 AM PT

California’s general election takes place on November 3. Here is information Times reporters gathered about the races:

L.A. mayor election

L.A. City Council elections

Other L.A. city elections

Community college elections

L.A. County elections

Judge elections

Governor’s race

California statewide propositions

Other statewide races

U.S. House elections

How to vote

Follow more election coverage

Last year, Kim was one of the sponsors of the Community Investment and Prosperity Act, a proposed law that later was encompassed in another piece of legislation that expanded banks’ ability to invest in communities in a way that promotes economic development and the public good. The law allows national and state member banks to invest up to 20% of their capital and surplus in affordable housing, small business lending and community revitalization.

“Families across California have felt the effects of rising costs for years. From delivering meaningful tax relief to supporting commonsense housing and energy reforms, I remain committed to fighting for opportunity and economic security that put Californians first,” Kim said in a press release issued by Americans for Prosperity in May.

Calvert sees affordability as the biggest challenge facing families and blames Sacramento for the rising costs and “driving businesses out of the state.” He points to his vote in support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which maintained many of the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and raised the State And Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap.

“My priority is fighting to lower everyday costs, help families keep more of what they earn and supporting policies that fuel economic growth, which in turn provides higher wages and more opportunities for California families and workers,” he said.

The largest chunk of this money — $7.2 billion — would be doled out as loans to builders who agree to rent some of the homes to low-income families; in Los Angeles County, a family of four earning about $133,000 a year qualifies as low-income.

Researchers recently found that the construction of nearly 40,000 low-income homes was in limbo because of a lack of funding.

The second-largest portion of these funds — $1.25 billion — would be set aside for housing for veterans, in the form of homeownership loans. Voters last approved this type of statewide bond for veteran home loans in 2018.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the remaining dollars would be spread across several other initiatives and could subsidize up to 40,000 rental apartments, 2,500 homes for farmworkers and 1,200 beds for university students:

• $1.1 billion to help low- and middle-income families buy homes through direct loans and funds to nonprofits
• $500 million for infrastructure related to new housing, such as road and water repairs
• $450 million in loans or grants to build or upkeep affordable housing for farmworkers
• $350 million to build affordable housing for students, split evenly among the University of California and California State University
• $200 million available for tribal members to use to build or repair housing
• $200 million available to city and county governments and other entities hoping to pilot programs to build low-cost housing

Consolidate boards

Arguably the biggest change is to Area Planning Commissions, a group of seven volunteer-led boards that hear cases from homeowners, developers and businesses and make rulings on liquor licenses, hillside developments and more.

The amendment would consolidate those seven commissions into a single unified Neighborhood Appeals Commission.

The goal is efficiency. State laws passed in recent years have changed the appeals process, leading to lower caseloads for the seven boards. It’s also a financial drain on the city to train and take on so many volunteer commissioners while also paying overtime for staffers to host evening meetings for seven bodies — think audio-visual specialists, tech support, etc.

Under the amendment, the total number of commissioners would shrink from 35 to as few as seven, and the staff required to host meetings also would shrink significantly.

A unified board would eliminate the risk of commissions issuing different rulings. Picture a developer trying to build a hillside home; a commission that’s wary of such projects could reject it, while another commission that leans more pro-housing could approve it. Having a single board means that all appeals and applications would be governed by the same logic.

Pave the way for super-skyscrapers

Could an L.A. skyscraper rise higher than those in New York City or Chicago? Could downtown L.A. claim not just the tallest building west of the Mississippi River but also in the entire country?

If so, it would start here.

This amendment allows the City Council to change the existing floor area ratio (FAR) restrictions, which cap the height of certain buildings. FAR ratios vary by neighborhood and height districts, but the highest ratio is currently 13x, meaning a building’s total square footage never can be more than 13 times the size of the parcel of land that it sits on. For reference, L.A.’s tallest building, the Wilshire Grand Center, has a ratio of roughly 10.5, depending on how you calculate the square footage and acreage.

These limits were set in the 1950s, when L.A.’s population was roughly half of what it is now. This amendment would give City Council the flexibility to set higher limits to add density in order to adapt to a growing population.

Individual projects still would require zoning reviews, so no need to worry about skyscrapers coming to Silver Lake.

Set deadlines

You just opened a taco shop and you want to serve margaritas. The City Council said it’s fine, but you’re waiting to hear back from the City Planning Commission. They’re taking too long, and your patrons are drinking water while you wait for a liquor license.

Under current rules, decisions from either the City Council or Planning Department can get kicked back and forth indefinitely. This amendment sets deadlines for both sides to speed up rulings: Planning boards have 30 days to concur or dissent with City Council decisions, and City Council gets 21 days to hold a final vote on Planning decisions — or else the Planning decision becomes final.

Ensure passed amendments actually pass

Here’s how it would work. Say there’s an amendment to the city’s General Plan, which guides land use decisions, or a tweak to one of the neighborhood community plans that oversee development in areas like Hollywood or Boyle Heights. The mayor has signed off on it. The City Planning Commission approves too. But the City Council just hasn’t quite gotten to it yet.

Under current rules, if the City Council doesn’t vote on an amendment within 75 days of the mayor and Planning Commission approvals, it’s automatically denied. This amendment reverses that; if the City Council doesn’t get to an amendment within 75 days, it’s automatically approved.

McKinney has been endorsed by Hochman, the union that represents rank-and-file L.A. police officers and City Councilmembers Traci Park, John Lee, Tim McOsker and Monica Rodriguez. While McKinney has raised half a million dollars, independent expenditures have spent more than $3 million to support the veteran prosecutor.

More than $2 million of those funds have come from a political action committee run by Airbnb. The rental giant was sued by Feldstein Soto for price gouging after the destructive Palisades fire, but McKinney has dismissed criticism that he’s receiving massive financial support from a corporation that if elected, he’d be involved in litigation against.

“Airbnb is going to benefit from a safer L.A., because it’s going to boost tourism to the extent that they have properties and interests here,” he told The Times in May. “When they look at the current city attorney and they look at Marissa Roy, maybe they decided this guy is going to do a better job.”

Roy has the support of the L.A. County Democratic Party, the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), City Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Eunisses Hernandez, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, L.A. County Supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsay Horvath, the city attorneys of San Francisco and San Diego, the L.A. County Federation of Labor and a host of other labor unions and Democratic groups.

Mayor Karen Bass endorsed Feldstein Soto in the primary. She has yet to weigh in on the runoff.

Former Long Beach Police chief Robert Luna came out of retirement to run for sheriff in 2022, promising to turn around a department that had veered off course.

As someone who didn’t have the wide name recognition or countywide political experience of some of his challengers, Luna’s second-place finish to Villanueva in the primary was far from guaranteed, but he ultimately cleared the rest of the field by a wide margin.

Fast-forward four years to June, and Luna received 44.2% of the vote in this primary — less than six points short of winning the race outright — versus Villanueva’s 21.7%. And Luna’s been a more effective fundraiser, bringing in $366,000 since Jan. 1, more than three times the nearly $109,000 Villanueva had raised by June 30, according to their most recent campaign filings. Luna had $352,000 in the war chest as of June 30, and Villanueva had about $56,000.

But Villanueva has wide name recognition in L.A. County. And he pulled off a historic political upset of his own in 2018 when he beat Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who is now the Los Angeles police chief. It was the first time an incumbent L.A. County sheriff lost a reelection campaign in more than a century. It was also the first time in 100 years that a Democrat had been elected to the nonpartisan sheriff’s job.

After running on a progressive platform and pitching himself as a criminal justice reformer, Villanueva tacked hard to the right. Within two years he was a favorite of conservative media, including Fox News, where he appeared repeatedly to vilify “woke” culture and criticize Democrats. He ultimately switched his party registration to Republican in a move that solidified a new base of law-and-order supporters while alienating many who supported him in 2018.

Villanueva’s tenure was marked by controversy and scandal. He launched, then walked back a criminal leak investigation of a Los Angeles Times reporter and was ordered to testify after sheriff’s deputies took and shared pictures at the site of Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash. Villanueva defied subpoenas over so-called deputy gangs.

Now, Luna is the one defending his record as sheriff over the last four years. He’s presided over declines in homicides and violent crime and established a period of relative calm after the stormy Villanueva years. But Luna’s department has come under scrutiny in the wake of a July 2025 incident in which a grenade exploded accidentally in a department parking lot, killing three deputies. The state has fined the department more than $350,000 after identifying a series of safety violations leading up to the blast.

And the Civilian Oversight Commission filed suit against the department in June for declining to provide certain records related to three cases of use of force the commission issued subpoenas for in February 2025. Luna has said the county’s attorneys maintain that the unredacted records can’t be released until it completes a “meet and confer” process with the Sheriff’s Department union, a claim that watchdogs have disputed.

Min said Trump’s attacks on voting by mail and his attempts to get the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots, combined with his attempts in 2020 to overturn the election, “should worry every American who cares about our country, our Constitution, and the values of our nation.”

Min added that all of this has happened despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

In 2024, Min authored a bill which passed that prohibits local governments from forcing voters to present identification before they cast a ballot at a polling place.

“I will continue to do all I can to stand up against these anti-democratic and un-American attacks on the sanctity of our elections,” Min said.

Le Roux told The Times she supports the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship at the time of registration and a photo ID at the time they vote.

In California, people are required to provide a driver’s license number or a portion of their social security number when they register to vote.

“Millions of ballots are mailed out in California with very few safeguards and at significant cost, leading to weeks of uncertainty as the rest of the country laughs and mocks us for our incompetence,” she said.

Le Roux also supports Proposition 39, which will appear on the November ballot in California, and would require voters to show government issued identification at the polls. Voters who submit mail-in ballots would need to provide the last four digits of a government ID to vote.

Proponents of the measure say Los Angeles is falling short in providing basic services, including street and sidewalk maintenance, upkeep of streetlights and trees and other services administered by the Department of Public Works.

The measure is intended to streamline public works decision-making to improve city services and add new sources of revenue by leveraging existing resources such as underutilized city land.

Measure LA’s perhaps most controversial element is the proposal to increase the power of the director of public works while reducing the sway of the Board of Public Works or potentially eliminating it.

The director would be able to manage public works projects, including construction, buying or leasing property, exercising eminent domain with City Council approval, granting street permits, regulating parking and recommending budgets for the department.

An opponent of the measure, Rodriguez said the Board of Public Works was established to provide independent review of city contracting, with commissioners’ decisions made in public meetings.

“Removing this important check and balance would reduce public scrutiny and weaken accountability over billions of taxpayer dollars for public projects,” Rodriguez said in her ballot argument against the measure.

Commissioners are appointed by the mayor. They work full-time on the board for five-year terms administering the Public Works Department while assisted by several bureau heads and the director of public works.

Proponents of the measure say the current system of overseeing public works is ineffective because responsibility is spread among multiple officials, commissions, agencies and bureaus.

“Angelenos see the results in crumbling streets, buckled sidewalks and streetlights that stay dark,” proponents said in their ballot argument.

Another key element of the measure is establishing a two-year budget cycle for the city, which currently adopts its budget annually. Under Measure LA, the mayor would be required to submit a proposed two-year budget to the City Council by April 1. A two-year budget would enhance planning for infrastructure improvements under another new requirement that the city adopt a Capital Infrastructure Plan.

Most major U.S. cities rely on multiyear capital improvement plans to schedule spending on roads, bridges, parks and buildings.

A long-term infrastructure plan administered with two-year budgeting “sets clear priorities, identifies the projects that need to get done, and plans how to fund them over time,” proponents said.

Currently, the charter prohibits the city from mortgaging city-owned property and prevents it from operating purely commercial or industrial businesses. The measure would remove these restrictions to raise new revenue.

Easing restrictions on operating a business also would allow the city to use its intellectual property to sell merchandise with city logos, as is done in other cities including New York, Yaroslavsky said.

Ugarte, who once collected signatures for Measure ULA, also known as the “mansion tax,” says it’s not working as intended and is keeping developers away from the city. The measure levies a tax on property sales above $5.3 million and funnels the money to affordable housing programs and homeless prevention.

“If developers are running away from the city of L.A., we gotta know why. We gotta go back to the drawing board. We gotta accept when we make mistakes, including myself,” Ugarte said.

He supports amending the measure to exempt affordable housing developers. He also wants to raise the threshold for properties subject to the tax to $10 million, to account for the increasing costs of construction.

Ugarte supports State Bill 79, a law mandating that cities increase housing density around public transportation hubs. But more transportation, Ugarte said, needs to come before more housing.

Making L.A. more transit-friendly will lower costs for housing, insurance and parking, Ugarte said, giving residents relief from the city’s high cost of living.

Mazariegos said homeless prevention starts with enforcing a “huge list” of the city’s tenant rights laws, including rent control and prohibitions against landlords harassing tenants.

Building affordable housing, along with enforcing those laws, will keep more people housed, he said.

Mazariegos wants to use public land to build social housing, which is publicly subsidized housing separate from the rental market.

He also would push to extend the travel industry’s upcoming $30 minimum wage to all workers and to tie the minimum wage to the consumer price index.

“A combination of those things will reduce and stop the bleeding of folks going into the street, going homeless, and will start giving us a chance as a city to work our way out of this crisis,” Mazariegos said.