The imposing Beaux-Arts mansion at the Huntington in San Marino, designed at the start of the 20th century by architects Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, first opened to the public in 1928, just for a few weekday afternoon hours, following the deaths of founders Arabella and Henry E. Huntington. (They’re buried out on the lawn.) The railroad, shipbuilding and real estate tycoon (1850-1927) and his wife (1850-1924) were sometimes said to be America’s wealthiest couple, equivalent to billionaires today when their fortune is adjusted for inflation, and they had been spending lavishly on art for two decades. Their nonprofit was founded in 1919, partly to take advantage of brand new income tax deductions for charities, a government novelty lessening what was surely a hefty annual federal assessment, plus eventual estate taxes. For more than 30 years after it opened, their grand house-museum held the best art collection — by far — that the suburban Los Angeles public could see.
The Huntington’s Art Museum, once home to Henry and Arabella Huntington, boasts a large collection of European, American and East Asian art.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
L.A. has seen various major art museums blossom since the 1960s, but the Huntington collection is still enormously impressive. The centerpiece is European paintings, sculptures and decorative arts — especially 18th century British and, secondarily, French — while American art claims maturing depth. (Chinese and Japanese art holdings are modest.) A 2021 acquisitions partnership with the Ahmanson Foundation is bringing major additions, so far including exceptional paintings by Francisco Goya and Thomas Cole.
What follows is a selection of 22 works, chosen from the mansion and the Virginia Scott Steele Galleries for American Art, a short walk away. (The art’s locations are noted as “M1” or “M2” for the mansion’s two floors, or “S” for the Steele.) Note, however, that this is most definitely not a “best of” list. Some works would surely turn up on such a selection, but the aim here is instead to give an idea of the diverse pleasures that will be found throughout the place. The list is in chronological order.
Tom Stoppard, frequently hailed as the greatest British playwright of this generation, had both a remarkable life and a remarkable career.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, his family fled to Singapore when the Nazis invaded. When Japan threatened their new home, his mother took him and his brother to India. His father stayed behind in Singapore but died when the ship he was aboard was sunk. His mother later married a British officer and the family relocated to England, where young Stoppard took his stepfather’s surname and “put on Englishness like a coat,” he later said.
Stoppard quickly became known for his clever, witty and intellectually curious work, earning three Olivier Awards, five Tony Awards and an Oscar (for “Shakespeare in Love”). He was even knighted in 1997 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to theater.
Starting with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” in 1966, through his final full-length play “Leopoldstadt” in 2020, Stoppard crafted a body of work that would be the envy of most countries, let alone one writer.
Below are some of Stoppard most important plays, with observations from Times critics:
The 2022 Broadway production of “Leopoldstadt” in a family scene from 1924.
(Joan Marcus)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966)
After working as a journalist, Stoppard had a breakthrough when this absurdist romp debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe. Times theater critic Charles McNulty reviewed a 2013 production at the Old Globe’s Shakespeare Festival in San Diego, describing it as a “metapharcical romp (to coin a genre), in which ‘Hamlet’ is glimpsed through the oblique perspective of the prince’s twin buddies, sent to spy on him by Gertrude and Claudius in that Elsinore castle of murder, adultery and occult intrigue. … Stoppard’s fertile wit keeps this three-act drama pulsing along without too much strain. A subtle pathos, along with the playwright’s verbal sophistication, prevents the play from degenerating into a collegiate vaudeville.” In 1990, Stoppard himself directed a film version starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.
Jumpers (1972)
This satire set in an alternative universe in which British astronauts land on the moon and “Radical Liberals” have taken over the nation’s government, premiered at London’s Old Vic starring Michael Hordern and Diana Rigg. Two years later, Times theater critic Dan Sullivan reviewed an American Conservatory Theater production of it in San Francisco. “Stoppard’s new play can’t be hung with one of those preprinted tags that theater critics carry in their pockets for easy labeling,” he wrote. “You might call it a Metaphysical Spoof With Acrobatic Prelude, or you might not. The only general thing you can say about it is that it’s very bright and very funny, and sometimes rather touching.”
Travesties (1974)
The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the first production at the Aldwych Theatre in London, starring John Wood, John Hurt, Tom Bell and Frank Windsor. Stoppard was fascinated with the idea that James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and Dadadist poet Tristan Tzara were all living in Zurich in 1917. He placed these zeitgeist figures in the orbit of a more humble historical figure named Henry Carr, who figured into Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The Times’ Sullivan took in the 1975 New York production, calling it “dazzling” and wondered if Broadway audiences would be able to keep up with it. “Like Stoppard’s last play ‘Jumpers’ (which didn’t do very well here), this is a vaudeville show where the language does tricks as well as the actors,” wrote Sullivan. “And to do the tricks as well as ‘Travesties,’ John Wood [as Carr], a playwright’s language has got to be pretty accomplished.”
The Real Thing (1982)
Felicity Kendal and Roger Rees originated the lead roles in Stoppard’s very personal examination of love and marriage, truth and honesty. The playwright significantly reworked the script for its Broadway run, starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons directed by Mike Nichols, to great success. Linda Purl and Michael Gross assumed the roles for the 1986 L.A. production at the Doolittle Theatre. ”Without spoiling its surprises, the reviewer can say that not every scene in ‘The Real Thing’ is what it seems to be, including the first one,” wrote Sullivan. “Stoppard’s characters are theater people, professional makers of scenes, and some of these scenes get swept into the play. … ‘The Real Thing’ has wit, surprise and characters you care about. … If you like plays written in full sentences, you’ll like ‘The Real Thing.’
Arcadia (1993)
Moving between the 19th century and the present, Stoddard balanced tragedy and comedy with a healthy dose of science and mathematics. The play opened at the Royal National Theatre in London directed by Trevor Nunn with a cast including Rufus Sewell, Felicity Kendal, Bill Nighy and Emma Fielding. Two years later, in New York, Nunn directed a new cast that included Billy Crudup, Blair Brown, Victor Garber as Bernard, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Dundas and Paul Giamatti in his Broadway debut. “‘Arcadia’ is a great play not because it seamlessly meshes serious ideas and the intense pleasure of a literary detective story,” wrote Times critic Laurie Winer, reviewing director Robert Egan’s 1997 Mark Taper Forum production. “It is a great play because, by the end, Tom Stoppard touches ineffability, just as his heroine touches genius.”
The Invention of Love (1997)
For this portrait of poet A. E. Housman, Stoppard once again turned to historical figures for his cast. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London, with Housman played as an old man by John Wood and as a young man by Paul Rhys. It was directed by Richard Eyre. The play opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in 2001, directed by Jack O’Brien. “Stoppard has written an essentially undramatic dreamscape,” wrote Times critic Michael Phillips.” The recently deceased Housman (Richard Easton), about to cross the River Styx, assesses his recessive life and great unrequited love for the athlete Moses Jackson (David Harbour), a fellow Oxford man. En route, the elder Housman runs into his younger self (Robert Sean Leonard). There’s a long scene near the end of Act 1 shared by the two Housmans. As they discuss the niceties and textual flaws of the classics they love as much as life itself, Stoppard’s playfulness is tinged with rue; the older man cannot prevent the younger’s heartbreak to come.”
The Coast of Utopia (2002)
This trilogy of plays, “Voyage,” “Shipwreck” and “Salvage,” zeroed in on philosophical debates in 19th century Russia. They premiered at the National Theatre’s Olivier auditorium in repertory, directed by Nunn. The plays debuted on Broadway, directed by Jack O’Brien, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in 2006. “A nearly eight-hour drama about the Russian intelligentsia that received mixed reviews when it premiered in London in 2002, ‘The Coast of Utopia’ isn’t for the theatrical faint of heart,” cautioned Times critic McNulty. “Stamina is a prerequisite for the company and audience alike. … Stoppard’s play enacts a moment in history when thinkers and writers set out to redirect the future. Ideologies were conceived and pressed immediately into service, sometimes at the expense of the individual lives they were theoretically meant to serve. [It] dramatizes both the ebb and flow of conditional life and the hunger for unconditional solutions to its woes.”
Rock ‘n’ Roll (2006)
Stoppard looked to his Czech roots with this drama, connecting the Prague Spring of 1968 with the Velvet Revolution of 1989 through music. The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, once again directed by Nunn and featuring Rufus Sewell, Brian Cox and Sinéad Cusack. The cast moved to Broadway in 2007. “You might want to arrive a bit early and study the timelines in the lobby, which detail Czechoslovakia’s turbulent political history from 1968 to 1990 and key events in the rock music scene during that era,” wrote reviewer F. Kathleen Foley of Open Fist’s 2010 production. “Read them carefully. Otherwise your head just may explode at some point during this Los Angeles premiere, which presupposes an intimate familiarity with Czech history, the early rock scene and, oh, did we mention Sapphic poetry? It’s all a bit ostentatious and difficult to follow — but even at his most intellectually prolix, Stoppard is flat-out brilliant, arguably our greatest living playwright.”
Leopoldstadt (2020)
The final play of Stoppard’s brilliant career was sparked by the playwright learning of the plight of his Jewish ancestors upon his mother’s death in 1996. It debuted at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End, but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and debuted on Broadway in 2022 starring Davis Krumholtz with Patrick Marber directing. The play “unfolds as a series of oil paintings magicked into life,” wrote Times critic McNulty. “The play, which features a cast of 38 actors, moves from turn-of-the-century Vienna, where Freud, Mahler and Schnitzler are the talk of the town, to 1924, when the scars of World War I are clearly visible. Performed without intermission, the action ominously leaps to 1938, as the Nazis are ransacking the homes of Jewish citizens. The play concludes in 1955, when three family survivors reunite to piece together the fates of their murdered relatives. … It’s not just that the work mirrors aspects of his personal history. It’s also the virtuosic way that he conjures the shifting cultural zeitgeist of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century through stylized conversation alone.”
You can find audio dramas by L.A. Theatre Works of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” “The Real Thing” and “Arcadia” on Spotify.
Many of the films Stoppard wrote or co-wrote are available for streaming, including “Brazil” (1985),” Turner Classic Movies, and for rent on Apple TV and Prime Video; “The Russia House” (1990), for rent on Prime Video; “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” (1990), for rent on various platforms; “Empire of the Sun” (1987), for rent on various platforms; and “Shakespeare in Love” (1998), Paramount+ and Kanopy, and for rent on various platforms.
Stoppard is also certainly a playwright whose work is a joy to read. Most of these plays can be found at your local public library or favorite bookstore.
Along the road to the airport as President Trump ended his holiday in Florida, people greeted the presidential motorcade with waving American flags, and signs reading “Puppies for Trump,” “Fire McMaster,” “Hillary for prison,” and “Trump Strong.” Then there were the others: “President Trump is fake news,” “Go away and don’t come back,” “Mr. Mueller is coming for [you]” and “Resign.”
Such is the moment in this divided nation.
Trump returned to Washington on Sunday for what will be a critical week for his legislative agenda. In the coming days, Congress must address immigration issues, children’s healthcare and continued funding for the government.
That’s not to mention the GOP tax cut plan that cleared the House and faces an uncertain future in the Senate. (Trump over the weekend said he hoped the Senate would “come through” and approve the plan.)
The bigger question will be how the storylines of sexual misconduct and harassment overshadow any policy discussion.
HARASSMENT STORIES CONTINUE
The long holiday weekend brought plenty of news on this topic.
Under pressure from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others, senior Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr., the No. 2 on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday he would step down from his post as he faces an ethics investigation into allegations he sexually harassed female staffers.
Conyers, 88, the Dean of the House elected last fall to his 27th full term, has denied the allegations. But he said the investigation and the allegations are a distraction to the “important” work of the committee, which he noted handles civil rights cases and voters’ access to the ballot box.
Sen. Al Franken issued another apology after new allegations from women.
We’ll be closely tracking what happens here in California when the Assembly begins its sexual harassment hearings Tuesday. The moment comes as one of its lawmakers has opted against reelection in the wake of accusations from six women. The Times’ report about Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra last week could become part of that legislative discussion. Likelier still is that the hearing will examine the process for people to come forward.
To that end, the California Legislature again denied records requests from The Times on sexual harassment complaints.
The issue has gotten attention locally as well. Despite its size, the city of Los Angeles has no centralized method for tracking sexual harassment complaints lodged against its workers. Nor are managers required to report such claims to the city’s Personnel Department. Dakota Smith reports that with dozens of different departments and a fragmented reporting system, two members of the Los Angeles City Council want to examine the city’s process for reporting abusive and inappropriate behavior.
Mueller’s tenacious yet linear approach to evaluating evidence led him to fumble the biggest U.S. terrorism investigation since 9/11, Willman writes, and now, as he leads a sprawling investigation aimed at the White House, Mueller’s prosecutorial discretion looms over the Trump presidency.
Trump tweeted over the weekend that the Russia investigation is “phony.”
NATIONAL POLITICS LIGHTNING ROUND
The Senate Republican plan to use tax legislation to repeal the federal requirement that Americans have health coverage threatens to derail insurance markets in conservative, rural swaths of the country, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis. Noam Levey writes that the measure could leave consumers in these regions — including most or all of Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming, as well as parts of many other states — with either no options for coverage or health plans that are prohibitively expensive.
White House officials said Saturday that Trump was on solid legal ground in naming Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the battle over control of the CFPB escalated Sunday as the deputy director sued to stop Trump. Leandra Englishrequested a temporary restraining order to block Mulvaney from taking the position.
A Texas Republican congressman apologized for sending a nude selfie during the course of a consensual relationship. The image was posted on Twitter.
From the “you can’t make it up” files, we bring you Piegate.
Get the latest about these storylines, the tax plan developments and what’s happening in the nation’s capital on Essential Washington.
VILLARAIGOSA CAME OUT AHEAD
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the final top Democrat running for governor to release his tax returns, allowed reporters to view six years of filings the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The man who famously proclaimed that he left office with nothing has been busy making millions ever since then, Seema Mehta and Patrick McGreevy report.
LONGSHOT WITH A LONG LIST OF FRIENDS
Omar Navarro lost badly to Rep. Maxine Waters last fall, but he’s trying again, and he has a cadre of famous far-right friends to help him: Trump confidant Roger Stone, former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Plus, a group of major Republican donors plans to take on the long-serving Los Angeles congresswoman. As Sarah Wire reports, either Trump supporters see a GOP path to victory in a district that’s overwhelmingly Democratic or they just want to punish one of Trump’s most vocal detractors.
FORMER CLINTON AIDE FACES LOCAL CONTENDERS IN EAST BAY RACE
Buffy Wicks, who last year helped steer Hillary Clinton’s victory in California, started out as an antiwar community organizer in the Bay Area more than a decade ago before going to work on Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008. She eventually rose through the ranks to become one of his senior White House staffers.
Now, she is running for office herself — in the crowded race for Assembly District 15 in one of the state’s most diverse and politically progressive regions, covering Berkeley, Richmond and parts of Oakland. She says she jumped into the competition at an energetic time for Democrats, and with a desire to apply all she learned in Washington. But she is facing some popular local contenders who say they see her as an outsider trying to parachute in.
A reminder you can keep up with this and other important races in the moment via our Essential Politics news feed on California politics.
POLITICAL ROAD MAP: A PRIVACY BATTLE BREWS
If headlines about private information stolen or data bought and sold worry you, then a California ballot measure will catch your attention next year.
— During his 39 years behind bars, Craig Coley maintained his innocence. Now, authorities say they agree with him. Gov. Jerry Brownpardoned Coley, 70, last week. Evidence once thought destroyed helped free him.
— In cycling-obsessed Colombia, he dreamed of glory. But first he needed a bike. Read Jazmine Ulloa’s story from Tunja, Colombia, produced as part of a fellowship with the International Center for Journalists. The exchange program centered on digital media institutions and is geared to allow journalists to gain insights into digital practices outside the U.S.
LOGISTICS
Essential Politics is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day for the latest and greatest. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics?
WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.
This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.
The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.
A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”
The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.
So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?
One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.
Asked in that same Pew survey if mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.
The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.
Esmeralda Bravo, 63, holds a photo of her granddaughter, Nevaeh, one of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims, during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”
The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.
Go back roughly 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.
California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.
Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.
Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.
California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods earlier this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.
The overall pattern is clear, nonetheless, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.
Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.
Hardcore opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.
Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.
Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.
Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.
Finally, in an era defined by “negative partisanship” — suspicion and fear of the other side — it’s easy to convince voters that a modest gun control proposal is just an opening wedge designed to lead to something more dramatic.
That leads to a common pattern when gun measures appear on ballots: They do less well than polling would suggest.
Then, as now, polls showed strong support for requiring background checks for sales that currently evade them. But support for the legislation was sharply lower than support for the general idea, Pew found.
Almost 8 in 10 Republican gun owners favored background checks in general, they found, but when asked about the specific bill, only slightly more than 4 in 10 wanted it to pass. When asked why they backed the general idea but opposed the specific one, most of those polled cited concerns that the bill would set up a “slippery slope” to more regulation or contained provisions that would go further than advertised.
Faced with that sort of skepticism from voters, Republican senators who had flirted with supporting the bill mostly walked away, and it failed.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden led the unsuccessful effort to pass that bill. Nearly a decade later, the political factors impeding action have only grown more powerful.
Texas school shooting
The recent string of devastating shootings has renewed calls for tighter gun restrictions. But as Kevin Rector reported, a loosening of gun laws is almost certainly coming instead, largely because of an expected decision from the Supreme Court, which is likely to strike down a broad law in New York that doesn’t allow individuals to carry guns in public without first demonstrating a “special need” for self-defense.
For all the impassioned speeches and angry tweets, for all the memes and viral videos of gun control proponents quaking with rage, most of the energy and political intensity has been on the side of those who favor greater gun laxity, Mark Barabak wrote.
Biden marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer by signing an executive order aimed at reforming policing at the federal level. As Eli Stokols reported, Wednesday’s order falls short of what Biden had hoped to achieve through legislation. It directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and provides grants to incentivize state and local police departments to strengthen restrictions on chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
Sluggish response and questionable decisions by the Food and Drug Administration worsened the nation’s infant formula shortage, agency officials told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. “You’re right to be concerned, and the public should be concerned,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. The agency’s response “was too slow and there were decisions that were suboptimal along the way,” Anumita Kaur reported.
Only a couple of months ago, U.S. and European officials said a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal was “imminent.” But with little progress since then, and a shifting global geopolitical scene, the top U.S. envoy for the Iran negotiations testified Wednesday that prospects for reviving the Iran deal are “at best, tenuous,” Tracy Wilkinson reported. “We do not have a deal,” the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Cuba will not attend next month’s Summit of the Americas, a major conference to take place in Los Angeles, after the U.S. refused to extend a proper invitation, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced Wednesday. As Wilkinson reported, the decision throws the summit, which is crucial to the U.S.’ ability to demonstrate its influence in the Western Hemisphere, into further disarray.
The latest from California
GOP Rep. Young Kim would seem to have a relatively easy path to reelection in November — the national mood favors her party, she has a lot of money and the newly drawn boundaries for her Orange County district give her more Republican constituents. But Kim is suddenly campaigning with a sense of urgency, Melanie Mason and Seema Mehta report. She’s unleashed $1.3 million in advertising, and outside allies are coming to her aid with more spending. Most of it is aimed at fending off Greg Raths, an underfunded GOP opponent who has been a staple on the political scene in Mission Viejo, the district’s largest city.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and top legislative Democrats pledged Wednesday to expedite gun legislation. Among the bills are measures that would require school officials to investigate credible threats of a mass shooting, allow private citizens to sue firearm manufacturers and distributors, and enact more than a dozen other policies intended to reduce gun violence in California, Taryn Luna and Hannah Wiley reported. “We’re going to control the controllable, the things we have control of,” Newsom said during an event at the state Capitol. “California leads this national conversation. When California moves, other states move in the same direction.”
The Los Angeles mayor’s race has seemingly devolved in recent days into a rhetorical brawl between two of the city’s richest men, Benjamin Oreskes wrote. Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who supports Rep. Karen Bass, says Rick Caruso’s history of supporting Republican candidates and being registered as a Republican a decade ago disqualifies him from being mayor. That came after Variety published an interview with Caruso in which he attacked the former Walt Disney Studios chairman for “lying” about him in ads by a pro-Bass independent expenditure committee predominantly funded by Katzenberg.
The growing corruption scandal in Anaheim has cost the city’s mayor his job, endangered the city’s planned $320-million sale of Angel Stadium to the team and provided a rare, unvarnished look at how business is done behind closed doors in the city of 350,000. Read our full coverage of the FBI probe into how the city does business.
