After some shocking revelations in Mayor of Kingstown season four, actor Lennie James has teased even more surprises from mobster Frank Moses
Mayor of Kingstown star Lennie James has revealed his journey as Detroit mobster Frank Moses is headed in some very unexpected directions.
Following Mike McClusky’s (played by Jeremy Renner) feud with Russian crime lord Milo Sunter (Aiden Gillan), Frank has entered the fray in season four to fill the power vacuum.
After developing a shaky alliance with Kingstown’s ‘mayor’, Frank has since revealed his true colours as potentially an even greater threat in the Paramount+ crime saga.
In episode six, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, Mike’s closest confidant on the streets, Deverin ‘Bunny’ Washington (Tobi Bamtefa), is taken to hospital after suffering gunshot wounds from an attacker named Lamar (Zuri James).
However, Mike soon discovers that Lamar is actually working for Frank, who betrayed both his and Bunny’s trust to take over operations in Kingstown.
Mike brings him in and attempts to get him arrested, but a member of the Cartel tries to take Frank out. By the end of the episode, Mike and Frank’s working relationship seems to be completely dissolved.
Throughout the series, Frank has affected a calm demeanour even while under intense pressure, which James exclusively told Reach could be a façade that’s about to slip.
“It’s gonna be tested, but it’s not going to be tested where you expect it to be tested,” James teased.
“When it drops, it’s not gonna be for the reason that everybody thinks it might be. When he goes gangster, it’s not in the direction that is expected.
“That’s one of the things I think the writer’s room liked writing for Frank, because all things were possible, because he’s a unicorn.”
Frank’s history in Detroit has served him well so far as he’s able to rise to the challenges presented by the crime-ridden Kingstown with years of experience handling rival gangsters and cops.
At the very start of the series, he’s introduced just minutes after decapitating several Russian mobsters on a train track to announce his arrival, but he’s not had to get his hands dirty again since.
Line of Duty star James explains that he’s able to stay chillingly calm because “there isn’t much he hasn’t seen”. Even so, his power struggle with Mike could test him beyond his limits.
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The actor also hints the series could go back a little more to his roots in Detroit, confirming: “Yeah, you will. You’ll find out more.
“You won’t find out everything, but you’ll find out more, much more.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to confirm whether or not Frank will be back in season five, which has yet to be confirmed by Paramount.
Still, he’s already proven a formidable threat and a popular new addition amongst fans, so there’s every chance of following in his predecessor Sunter and lasting for at least a couple of more seasons.
Mayor of Kingstown continues Sundays on Paramount+.
COLUMBUS, Ga. — It’s the longest walk in Georgia politics — the 600 steps from the mayor’s office in Atlanta’s towering City Hall to the governor’s office in the gold-domed state Capitol.
No Atlanta mayor has ever made the journey to the state’s top office, but Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is undeterred.
“I’m going to be the first because I am working to earn people’s votes across the state,” she said after a campaign appearance in Columbus last week. “So just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.”
The former mayor must initially overcome six others in a Democratic primary in May. If she pushes through that thicket, Republicans lie in wait to attack Bottoms on how she managed crime, disorder and the COVID pandemic as mayor before jolting Atlanta politicos by not seeking reelection.
“She is the easiest to run against,” said Republican strategist Brian Robinson, who calls Bottoms “unelectable.”
While Georgia Democrats are elated after two unknowns won landslide victories over Republican incumbents in statewide elections to the Public Service Commission on Nov. 4, they need a nominee who can reach independents and even some Republicans for the party to win its first Georgia governor’s race since 1998.
Democrats hoped Joe Biden winning the state’s electoral votes for president in 2020 marked a lasting breakthrough. But Republican Gov. Brian Kemp handily defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in their 2022 rematch despite Abrams outspending Kemp. And 2024 saw Donald Trump substantially boost Republican turnout in his Georgia victory over Democrat Kamala Harris.
Early advantages
For some Bottoms supporters, the primary is a process of elimination in a field highlighting many of the fissures Democrats face nationally, including suburban-versus-urban, progressive-versus-centrist and fresh faces-versus-old warhorses.
Former state Sen. Jason Esteves is backed by some party insiders but is unknown statewide. Former state labor commissioner and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond has vast experience but is 72 years old and has historically been a weak fundraiser. Former Republican lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan’s party switch has drawn curiosity, but apologies for past GOP positions may not be enough for lifelong Democrats. State Rep. Ruwa Romman promises Zohran Mamdani-style progressivism, but may face an uphill battle among moderate Democrats. And state Rep. Derrick Jackson boasts a military record but finished sixth in the 2022 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Bottoms starts with advantages. She’s the best-known of the Democrats running. She’s got executive experience. Being considered by Biden as a possible vice presidential nominee and then joining his administration gave her national fundraising connections. Additionally, Bottoms is the only Black woman in the Democratic field in a state where Black women are the backbone of the party. In 2022, for 10 statewide offices, Georgia Democrats nominated five Black women.
Sheana Browning, who attended the Columbus event, said she liked Bottoms’ promise of pay raises for Browning and fellow state employees. Like 70% of the roughly 125 attendees, Browning is a Black woman. She cited Bottoms’ “previous mayoral status and the fact that she’s a Black woman” as key reasons to vote for her.
But other Democrats bet Bottoms’ early support is soft. A Biden connection could leave many voters cold. And no Black woman has ever been elected governor of any state.
Reminding voters who she is
For Bottoms’ part, she’s seeking to reintroduce herself. She’s reminding voters that her father, a ‘60s soul crooner, went to prison for dealing cocaine and that her mother enrolled in cosmetology school at night to support the family. She’s also burnishing her mayoral record. She rattled off a string of accomplishments in questions with reporters in Columbus — building city reserves to $180 million, avoiding property tax increases, giving raises to police and firefighters, creating or preserving 7,000 affordable housing units.
“That sounds pretty successful to me,” Bottoms said.
Bottoms also touts an affordability message, saying she will exempt teachers from state income taxes and do more to create reasonably priced housing, including “cracking down” on companies that rent tens of thousands of single family homes in Georgia.
“I think can really put a dent into this affordability issue that we’re having,” Bottoms said.
A long shadow from 2020
But her mayoral record also poses problems, centering on the challenging summer of 2020. The high point of Bottoms’ political career may have come on May 30, 2020, when she spoke emotionally against violence and disorder in Black Lives Matter protests, upbraiding people who vandalized buildings, looted stores and burned a police car.
“We are better than this! We are better than this as a city, we are better than this as a country!” Bottoms said in a speech that raised her profile as a possible vice presidential pick for Biden. “Go home! Go home!”
But the low point followed weeks later on July 4, when an 8-year-old girl riding in an SUV was shot and killed by armed men occupying makeshift barricades near a Wendy’s burned by demonstrators after police fatally shot a Black man in the parking lot. A “blue flu” of officers called in sick after prosecutors criminally charged two officers in that shooting of Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms said she gave a City Council member more time to negotiate with protesters to leave without police intervention.
“She took the side of the mob over the Atlanta police over and over again,” is how Robinson puts it.
The reelection that never happened
In May 2021, Bottoms became the first Atlanta mayor since World War II not to seek a second term. She later served for a year as Biden’s senior adviser for public engagement, then joined his reelection campaign.
Esteves has been sharpening attacks, telling WXIA-TV that Bottoms is “a former mayor who abandoned the city at a time of crisis, and decided not to run for reelection” and saying Bottoms is one of several candidates who have “baggage that Republicans will be able to focus on.”
Bottoms denies she’s a quitter, saying her political position remained strong and that she would have won reelection. “I ran through the tape,” Bottoms said in May. “We ended the term delivering.”
In May, Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman and Atlanta City Council members Eshé Collins, Amir Farokhi and Jason Dozier endorsed Esteves. Shipman, elected citywide as City Council president in 2021, said voters told him that year that they were unhappy with crime, garbage collection, and efforts to split the city by letting its Buckhead neighborhood secede.
“I think that that frustration is something that people are going to have to revisit,” Shipman said of the 2026 governor’s primary, saying Democrats need “a fresh start” and “some new energy.”
But Bottoms says her experience and record should carry the day.
“Who I am is a battle-tested leader and what I’ve been saying to people across the state is, I know what it’s like to go into battle,” she said. “I know what it’s like to go up against Donald Trump. I know what it’s like not to back down against Donald Trump.”
US President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met in the Oval Office on Friday after weeks of trading barbs. Trump, who described their meetings as “productive,” gave Mamdani a warm welcome, and said he’ll be “cheering for” the 34-year-old incoming mayor.
Former Bamban town mayor Alice Guo, seen here in September 2024, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday after being convicted of human trafficking. File Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA
Nov. 20 (UPI) — A Philippine judge on Thursday sentenced a former mayor convicted of human trafficking in connection with an illegal offshore gambling operation in her town, according to local reports.
Alice Guo, the disgraced 35-year-old former mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, located about 62 miles northeast of the capital Manila, was sentenced by the Pasig Regional Trial Court to life in prison, Rappler reported.
She was convicted along with seven co-defendants, while five others were acquitted. The case remains open.
“This eagerly awaited ruling is not only a legal victory but also a moral one,” the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission said in a statement.
“It delivers justice to victims, reaffirms the government’s united stance against organized crime and marks a defining moment in the country’s fight against large-scale trafficking and online scam syndicates.”
Guo was charged following a March 2024 raid on a Bamban casino operated by Chinese-owned Zun Yuan Technology Inc., rescuing nearly 800 people, more than half of them foreigners. Authorities alleged human trafficking was being perpetrated by the offshore gaming operator.
Prosecutors said the company that had leased the 7.9-hectare compound to Zun Yuan Technology was Baofu, which was incorporated by Guo. Rappler reported that her business partner in Baofu was Huang Zhiyan, a notorious Chinese gang leader wanted in China.
Guo said she had divested from Baofu before running for mayor, but it was proven in court that she did not do so. Guo was elected mayor of Bamban in 2022, but was removed from office after it was ruled that she was a Chinese citizen, born Guo Hua Ping.
She was arrested in September 2024 in Indonesia after fleeing the Philippines.
According to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, the court ordered the criminal forfeiture of the 7.9-hectare compound of the illegal offshore gambling operation that contains 36 buildings worth about $66 million.
The government continues to seek the civil forfeiture of additional assets linked to Guo, including 27 bank accounts holding $1.23 million as well as 18 vehicles and 14 properties, it said.
“The Alice Guo case is a story of a nation that refused to be deceived, of institutions that stood firm and of victims whose voices now echo through every courtroom decision,” PAOCC Executive Director Undersecretary Benjamin Acorda Jr. said in a statement.
“It is proof that no matter how elaborate the scheme, how powerful the mastermind or how long the deception, justice will find its way.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Federal immigration authorities will expand their enforcement action in North Carolina to Raleigh as soon as Tuesday, the mayor of the state’s capital city said, while Customs and Border Protection agents continue operating in Charlotte following a weekend that saw arrests of more than 130 people in that city.
Mayor Janet Cowell said Monday that she didn’t know how large the operation would be or how long agents would be present. Immigration authorities haven’t spoken about it. The Democrat said in a statement that crime was lower in Raleigh this year compared to last and that public safety was a priority for her and the city council.
“I ask Raleigh to remember our values and maintain peace and respect through any upcoming challenges,” Cowell said in a statement.
U.S. immigration agents arrested more than 130 people over the weekend in a sweep through Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, a federal official said Monday.
The movements in North Carolina come after the Trump administration launched immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago. Both of those are deep blue cities in deep blue states run by nationally prominent officials who make no secret of their anger at the White House. The political reasoning there seemed obvious.
But why North Carolina and why was Charlotte the first target there?
Sure the mayor is a Democrat, as is the governor, but neither is known for wading into national political battles. In a state where divided government has become the norm, Gov. Josh Stein in particular has tried hard to get along with the GOP-controlled state legislature. The state’s two U.S. senators are both Republican and President Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.
But maybe focusing on a place where politics is less outwardly bloody was part of the equation, some observers say.
The White House “can have enough opposition (to its crackdown), but it’s a weaker version” than what it faced in places like Chicago, said Rick Su, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law who studies local government, immigration and federalism.
“They’re not interested in just deporting people. They’re interested in the show,” he said.
The crackdown
The Trump administration has made Charlotte, a Democratic city of about 950,000 people, its latest focus for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime — despite local opposition and declining crime rates. Residents reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Border Patrol officers had arrested “over 130 illegal aliens who have all broken” immigration laws. The agency said the records of those arrested included gang membership, aggravated assault, shoplifting and other crimes, but it did not say how many cases had resulted in convictions, how many people had been facing charges or any other details.
The crackdown set off fierce objections from area leaders.
“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color,” Stein said in a video statement late Sunday. “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.”
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said Monday she was “deeply concerned” about videos she’s seen of the crackdown but also said she appreciates protesters’ peacefulness.
“To everyone in Charlotte who is feeling anxious or fearful: You are not alone. Your city stands with you,” she said in a statement.
The debate over crime and immigration
Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County have both found themselves part of America’s debates over crime and immigration, two of the most important issues to the White House.
The most prominent was the fatal stabbing this summer of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train, an attack captured on video. While the suspect was from the U.S., the Trump administration repeatedly highlighted that he had been arrested previously more than a dozen times.
Charlotte, which had a Republican mayor as recently as 2009, is now a city dominated by Democrats, with a growing population brought by a booming economy. The racially diverse city includes more than 150,000 foreign-born residents, officials say.
Lyles easily won a fifth term as mayor earlier this month, defeating her Republican rival by 45 percentage points even as GOP critics blasted city and state leaders for what they call rising incidents of crime. Following the Nov. 4 election, Democrats are poised to hold 10 of the other 11 seats on the city council.
While the Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on the state because of sanctuary policies, North Carolina county jails have long honored “detainers,” or requests from federal officials to hold an arrested immigrant for a limited time so agents can take custody of them. Nevertheless, some common, noncooperation policies have existed in a handful of places, including Charlotte, where the police do not help with immigration enforcement.
In Mecklenburg County, the jail did not honor detainer requests for several years, until after state law effectively made it mandatory starting last year.
DHS said about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not been honored since October 2020, putting the public at risk.
For years, Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden pushed back against efforts by the Republican-controlled state legislature to force him and a handful of sheriffs from other urban counties to accept U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.
Republicans ultimately overrode a veto by then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper late last year to enact the bill into law.
While McFadden has said his office is complying with the law’s requirement, he continued a public feud with ICE leaders in early 2025 that led to a new state law toughening those rules. Stein vetoed that measure, but the veto was overridden.
Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said in a Monday post on X that immigration agents are in Charlotte because of McFadden’s past inaction: “They’re stepping in to clean up his mess and restore safety to the city.”
Last month, McFadden said he’d had a productive meeting with an ICE representative.
“I made it clear that I do not want to stop ICE from doing their job, but I do want them to do it safely, responsibly, and with proper coordination by notifying our agency ahead of time,” McFadden said in a statement.
But such talk doesn’t calm the political waters.
“Democrats at all levels are choosing to protect criminal illegals over North Carolina citizens,” state GOP Chairman Jason Simmons said Monday.
Verduzco, Sullivan and Robertson write for the Associated Press. Sullivan reported from Minneapolis and Robertson from Raleigh, N.C. AP writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.
SEATTLE — First-term Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded his reelection fight to progressive activist Katie Wilson on Thursday, handing another victory to leftist Democrats around the country frustrated with unaffordability, homelessness, public safety and the actions of President Trump’s administration.
Harrell, a centrist Democrat who previously served three terms on the City Council, led in early results. But Washington conducts all-mail elections, with ballots postmarked by Election Day. Later-arriving votes, which historically trend more liberal, broke heavily in Wilson’s favor, adding to a progressive shift to the left nationally.
In a concession speech at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, Harrell said he had congratulated Wilson in a “delightful” call.
“I feel very good about the future of this country and this city still,” he said.
Wilson, 43, is a democratic socialist who has never held elected office. She told a news conference later Thursday that it was hard for her to believe she had been elected mayor, considering that at the beginning of this year she had no intention of running, and she acknowledged concerns about her lack of experience: “No one saw this coming.”
But she also spoke to the resonance of her volunteer-driven campaign among voters concerned about affordability and public safety in a city where the cost of living has soared as Amazon and other tech companies proliferated. Universal child care, better mass transit, better public safety and stable, affordable housing are among her priorities, and she said she would take office with a strong mandate to pursue them, though she acknowledged the city also faces a significant budget shortfall.
Wilson called herself a coalition builder and community organizer, and said she would also work with those who questioned her qualifications to lead a city with more than 13,000 employees and a budget of nearly $9 billion: “This is your city too.”
“When I say this is your city, that means you have a right to be here and to live a dignified life — whatever your background, whatever your income,” Wilson said. “But it also means that we all have a collective responsibility for this city and for each other. … We cannot tackle the major challenges facing our city unless we do it together.”
She will be working with a relatively new City Council: Only two of the seven council members have served more than one term.
Harrell was elected mayor in 2021 following the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. With crime falling, more police being hired, less visible drug use and many homeless encampments removed from city parks, the business-backed Harrell once seemed likely to cruise to reelection.
But Trump’s return to office — and his efforts to send in federal agents or cut funding for blue cities — helped reawaken Seattle’s progressive voters. The lesser-known Wilson, a democratic socialist, ran a campaign that echoed some of the themes of progressive mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York. She trounced Harrell by nearly 10 percentage points in the August primary and quickly became favored to win the mayor’s office.
Wilson studied at an Oxford University college in England but did not graduate. She founded the small nonprofit Transit Riders Union in 2011 and has led campaigns for better public transportation, higher minimum wages, stronger renter protections and more affordable housing. She herself is a renter, living in a one-bedroom apartment in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, and says that has shaped her understanding of Seattle’s affordability crisis.
Wilson criticized Harrell as doing too little to provide more shelter and said his encampment sweeps have been cosmetic, merely pushing unhoused people around the city. Wilson also painted him as a City Hall fixture who bore responsibility for the status quo.
Harrell, 67, played on the Rose Bowl champion University of Washington football team in 1978 before going to law school. His father, who was Black, came to Seattle from the segregated Jim Crow South, and his mother, a Japanese American, was incarcerated at an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho, during World War II after officials seized her family’s Seattle flower shop — experiences that fostered his understanding of the importance of civil rights and inclusivity.
Both candidates touted plans for affordable housing, combating crime and attempting to Trump-proof the city, which receives about $150 million a year in federal funding. Both want to protect Seattle’s sanctuary city status.
Wilson has proposed a city-level capital gains tax to help offset federal funding the city might lose and to pay for housing. Harrell says that idea is ineffective because a city capital gains tax could easily be avoided by those who would be required to pay it.
Nov. 14 (UPI) — Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, a career politician who aspired to a second term as the conservative leader of Washington’s largest city, conceded defeated in this week’s mayoral election to Katie Wilson on Thursday night.
The race was officially over Wednesday night when the number of remaining outstanding ballots was smaller than Wilson’s lead. Polling results showed that Wilson, 43, won by 2,000 votes, the thinnest margin for a mayoral race in recent Seattle history.
Harrell said he talked to Wilson on Thursday morning to offer his congratulations, and offered assistance with a transition to her administration.
“The Wilson administration will have new ideas,” Harrell said. “It will have a new vision. By winning the election, they have earned that right. We must listen to the young voters.”
Wilson held her own news conference shortly after Harrell finished speaking and acknowledged the “anxiety and fear” she said some people feel, but pledged to work to ease the uncertainty.
“I am delighted, beyond delighted, to be your next mayor,” Wilson said to a crowd of supporters at Seattle Labor Temple in Sodo. “It is an honor and a privilege that I will do my very best to be worthy of.”
Wilson congratulated Harrell for nearly two decades in public service.
“I know that we are in this together,” she continued. “And we cannot tackle the major challenges facing our city unless we do it together.”
Wilson’s razor thin victory margin belied her 10% victory in the primary election, and made Harrell’s performance somewhat of a surprise.
She is a self-described socialist and has a scant political resume, The New York Times reported. Analysts said voters had a distinct choice between two very different candidates.
“They are almost opposite sides of the same coin in terms of personalities,” said Joe Mizrahi, a Seattle school board member and secretary general of the United Food and Commercial Workers 3000, among the largest unions in the area.
Wilson has pledged to find “progressive” ways to pay for housing and other basic services the city needs, and has said that Seattle has been a “kind of laboratory for progressive policy,” and inferred that her administration will pursue similar ideas in the future.
She has pledged to pursue a $1 million bond to pay for home construction and establish new protections for renters, who make up 56% of people living in the city.
Following the historic victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election, many Los Angeles-based admirers of the 34-year-old politician’s campaign and agenda have longingly wondered: When will a political spark plug like that happen in L.A.?
Looking at the mayoral landscape of L.A. County, there are two existing mayors that espouse similarly progressive ideologies as Mamdani: Burbank Mayor Nikki Perez and Cudahy Mayor Elizabeth Alcantar Loza. Both elected officials have worked with and been recommended by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Nikki Perez
Perez was sworn in as Burbank’s youngest mayor in 2024 at the age of 30. She is also the first Indigenous and out LGBTQ+ mayor to serve the city. The politician was first voted onto the City Council in 2022.
She was raised by parents who emigrated from Guatemala and El Salvador to Burbank. Perez received her bachelor’s degree from UC Riverside and a master’s from UCLA.
Prior to becoming a council member, she worked as a social worker with the L.A. Unified School District, served in the state Assembly as the communications director and functioned as a development coordinator for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
A key issue for Perez — and a common rallying point for democratic socialists — was having sufficient affordable housing options in the Media Capital of the World. The City Council has a goal of constructing 12,000 new housing units in the municipality and has accepted plans on twoprojects that are expected to create about 200 housing units.
“From the point of view of our average residents, most people just really want to be able to live, to work and to play in Burbank, so that’s what my priorities are,” then-Vice Mayor Perez told her constituents in 2024. “I want my very first priority to be continuing our efforts of alleviating the housing crisis.”
Cognizant of the unstable job market for production, or below-the-line, workers in the entertainment industry, Perez has attempted to combat the shrinking creative job prospects in her city.
In July — while celebrating the expansion of California’s film and television tax credit program alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom — Burbank launched a task force made up of professionals and stakeholders from across the entertainment sector to identify challenges, explore new opportunities and shape policies that help retain and grow industry jobs in the city.
Elizabeth Alcantar Loza
Before joining the City Council of her hometown of Cudahy, Alcantar Loza worked with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, to organize and educate community members about immigration issues. In November 2018, she was elected to the City Council and served as vice mayor of Cudahy.
She then served as Cudahy’s first Latina mayor beginning in 2020, when she led the southeast L.A. County city during the 2020 Delta jet fuel dump and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In November 2023, Alcantar Loza was a City Council member when Cudahy became the first city in Southern California to support the Palestinian people of Gaza with a resolution that not only called for a cease-fire, but declared Israel’s government as “engaging in collective punishment” in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants. The resolution passed on a 3-1 vote after hours of public comments and deliberation.
Last year, she was reinstated as the largely Latino city’s mayor, and in December, she led the City Council to vote to divest from investments that contribute to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and what it considers genocide in Gaza. The five-member council voted unanimously to divest city funds from all arms and weapons manufacturing industries.
“As a progressive leader representing one of our SELA cities, I am committed to ethical governance that prioritizes integrity, accountability, and the trust of the people I serve. Every decision I make is guided by a deep responsibility to transparency and equity in every policy we enact, with a commitment to rejecting backroom deals and self-serving politics,” she wrote in a social media post about her political ideologies.
“True leadership is not just about upholding the highest ethical standards but actively building a government that serves the people — not special interests or the politically connected. I look forward to collaborating with other progressive elected officials across our region who share these values, working together to transform the experience of our residents and redefine the narrative of Southeast L.A.”
Following Mamdani’s win, Alcantar Loza expressed joy for a national recognition that progressive ideals are popular.
“It’s an exciting time to see someone that is so like-minded, that is talking about the issues that matter most to our communities, actually win and win big for our communities and have a plan that will hopefully support folks that are very similar to our folks here,” Alcantar Loza told The Times.
While her city doesn’t have the same monetary sway or resources as New York City, the 32-year-old mayor noted that Cudahy is working with its limited funds to address the needs of as many citizens as possible.
“We often hear the phrase that a city’s budget is a list of the city’s priorities, and it’s something that rings really true,” she said. “In Cudahy, we’re really pushing forward with advancing programs that support the community.
“We’re so used to funding certain programs over for others. It’s often thought that every budget is touchable, except police and fire services. Those are important services to fund, but so are community program services ensuring that our kids have somewhere to go after school so that they’re not engaging in violent activity or activities they shouldn’t be participating in.”
One of Alcantar Loza’s main concerns is ensuring renters’ rights and that their needs are taken care of as over 80% of housing units in Cudahy are rentals.
“It’s important for us to fund programs and staff that support the renter community in knowing their rights and knowing what they can and cannot do, just how to keep folks housed because we should be catering to the needs of our of our most vulnerable folks,” she added.
The fight for rent stabilization is one that Alcantar Loza has been fighting for over half a decade now. She first tried to push it forward in 2019, but it lacked the votes on the City Council and it failed to pass again in 2021, despite a robust campaigning effort. In 2023, Cudahy’s City Council was able to get a Latina majority and advanced rent stabilization.
Additionally, the city established a minimum threshold for eviction in October in cases where a tenant has missed rent. Under the ordinance, a landlord may only initiate an eviction if the amount of rent missed exceeds one month of the fair market rent for the Los Angeles metro area, as determined annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
One obstacle that Alcantar Loza has noticed in her work has been with citizens envisioning what progress looks like in their day-to-day life.
“It’s difficult to help others visualize the opportunities in their community,” she said. “It’s easier for folks to imagine business as usual because it’s been happening for so long. They do not know how to visualize something new.
“Gifting people the opportunity to visualize something new, to think about other ways to support their community is a very powerful tool that we’ve been able to implement and show folks there are other ways to do policy other than what we’re used to.”
When Nancy Pelosi first ran for Congress, she was one of 14 candidates, the front-runner and a target.
At the time, Pelosi was little known to San Francisco voters. But she was already a fixture in national politics. She was a major Democratic fundraiser, who helped lure the party’s 1984 national convention to her adopted home town. She served as head of California’s Democratic Party and hosted a salon that was a must-stop for any politician passing through.
She was the chosen successor of Rep. Sala Burton, a short-timer who took over the House seat held for decades by her late husband, Philip, and who delivered a personal benediction from her deathbed.
But at age 49, Pelosi had never held public office — she was too busy raising five kids, on top of all that political moving and shaking — and opponents made light of role as hostess. “The party girl for the party,” they dubbed her, a taunt that blared from billboards around town.
She obviously showed them.
Pelosi not only made history, becoming the nation’s first female speaker of the House. She became the party’s spine and its sinew, holding together the Democrat’s many warring factions and standing firm at times the more timorous were prepared to back down.
The Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s signature achievement — would never have passed if Pelosi had not insisted on pressing on when many, including some in the White House, wished to surrender.
She played a significant role in twice helping rescue the country from economic collapse — the first time in 2009 amid the Great Recession, then in 2020 during the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — mustering recalcitrant Democrats to ensure House passage.
“She will go down in history as one of the most important speakers,” James Thurber, a congressional expert at Washington’s American University, said. “She knew the rules, she knew the process, she knew the personalities of the key players, and she knew how to work the system.”
Pelosi’s announcement Thursday that she will not seek reelection — at age 85, after 38 years in Congress — came as no surprise. She saw firsthand the ravages that consumed her friend and former neighbor, Dianne Feinstein. (Pelosi’s eldest daughter, Nancy, was a last caretaker for the late senator.)
Pelosi, who was first elected in 1987, once said she never expected to serve in Congress more than 10 years. She recalled seeing a geriatric House member hobbling on a cane and telling a colleague, “It’s never going to be me. I’m not staying around that long.”
(She never used a cane, but did give up her trademark stiletto heels for a time after suffering a fall last December and undergoing hip replacement surgery.)
Pelosi had intended to retire sooner, anticipating Hillary Clinton would be elected president in 2016 and seeing that as a logical, and fitting, end point to her trailblazing political career. “I have things to do. Books to write; places to go; grandchildren, first and foremost, to love,” she said in a 2018 interview.
However, she was determined to stymie President Trump in his first term and stuck around, emerging as one of his chief nemeses. After Joe Biden was elected, Pelosi finally yielded the speaker’s gavel in November 2022.
But she remained a substantive figure, still wielding enormous power behind the scenes. Among other quiet maneuvers, she was instrumental in helping ease aside Biden after his disastrous debate performance sent Democrats into a panic. He was a personal friend, and long-ago guest at her political salon, but Pelosi anticipated a down-ticket disaster if Biden remained the party’s nominee. So, in her estimation, he had to go.
It was the kind of ruthlessness that gave Pelosi great pride; she boasted of a reptilian cold-bloodedness and, indeed, though she shared the liberal leanings of her hometown, Pelosi was no ideologue. That’s what made her a superb deal-maker and legislative tactician, along with the personal touch she brought to her leadership.
“She had a will of steel, but she also had a lot of grace and warmth,” said Thurber, “and that’s not always the case with speakers.”
History-making aside, Pelosi left an enduring mark on San Francisco, the place she moved to from Baltimore as a young mother with her husband, Paul, a financier and real estate investor. She brought home billions of dollars for earthquake safety, re-purposing old military facilities — the former Presidio Army base is a spectacular park — funding AIDS research and treatment, expanding public transit and countless other programs.
Her work in the 1980s and 1990s on AIDS funding was crucial in helping move discussion of the disease from the shadows — where it was viewed as a plague that mainly struck gay men and drug users — to a pressing national concern.
In the process, she become a San Francisco institution, as venerated as the Golden Gate Bridge and beloved as the city’s tangy sourdough bread.
“She’s an icon,” said Aaron Peskin, a former San Francisco County supervisor and 2024 candidate for mayor. “She walks into a room, people left, right and center, old, young, white, Black, Chinese stand on their feet. She’s one of the greatest speakers we have ever had and this town understands that.”
Pelosi grew up in Baltimore in a political family. He father, Tommy D’Alesandro, was a Democratic New Deal congressman, who went on to serve three terms as mayor. “Little Nancy” stuffed envelopes — as her own children would — passed out ballots and often traveled by her father’s side to campaign events. (D’Alesandro went on to serve three terms as mayor; Pelosi’s brother, Tommy III, held the job for a single term.)
David Axelrod, who saw Pelosi up close while serving as a top aide in the Obama White House, said he once asked her what she learned growing up in such a political household. “She didn’t skip a beat,” Axelrod said. “She said, ‘I learned how to count.’ ”
Meaning when to call the roll on a key legislative vote and when to cut her losses in the face of inevitable defeat.
Pelosi is still so popular in San Francisco she could well have eked out yet another reelection victory in 2026, despite facing the first serious challenge since that first run for Congress. But the campaign would have been brutal and potentially quite ugly.
More than just about anyone, Pelosi knows how to read a political situation with dispassion, detachment and cold-eyed calculation.
US President Donald Trump labelled New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ‘a communist’ and claimed New Yorkers would flee the city when he becomes mayor. In his election victory speech, Mamdani called Trump ‘a despot’ and said he had ‘betrayed the country’.
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in generations.
In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises.
With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office Jan. 1.
Mamdani’s unlikely rise gives credence to Democrats who have urged the party to embrace more progressive, left-wing candidates instead of rallying behind centrists in hopes of winning back swing voters who have abandoned the party.
It was one of three victories by Democrats in high-profile races for elective office that were being viewed as a gauge of public sentiment toward President Trump in his second term. In California, voters were expected to approve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50, a redistricting measure aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections.
In New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump.
New Jersey Democratic Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill speaks during an election night party in East Brunswick, N.J., on Tuesday.
(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)
Sherrill, a 53-year-old Navy veteran who represented a northern New Jersey district in the U.S. House for four terms, will be the state’s second female governor.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to give Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and make history as the first woman to lead the commonwealth.
Spanberger, 46, is a center-left Democrat and former CIA case officer who helped her party win a House majority during Trump’s first presidency.
Economic worries were the dominant concern as voters cast ballots for Tuesday’s elections, according to preliminary findings from the AP Voter Poll.
The results of the expansive survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City suggested the public was troubled by an economy that seems trapped by higher prices and fewer job opportunities.
Supporters celebrate during the election night watch party for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger as she is projected to win the race at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Mamdani has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of what they say is a more radical Democratic Party.
The contest drove the biggest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, with more than 2 million New Yorkers casting ballots, according to the city’s Board of Elections.
Mamdani’s grassroots campaign centered on affordability, and his charisma spoiled Cuomo’s attempted political comeback. The former governor, who resigned four years ago following allegations of sexual harassment that he continues to deny, was dogged by his past throughout the race and was criticized for running a negative campaign.
There’s also the question of how he will deal with Trump, who threatened to take over the city and to arrest and deport Mamdani if he won. Mamdani was born in Uganda, where he spent his early childhood, but was raised in New York City and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
New Yorkers celebrate as NY1 projects Zohran Mamdani the winner in the mayoral election at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on Tuesday.
(Jeremy Weine / Getty Images)
Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration before taking office next year and game out how he plans to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.
Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would send mental health care workers to handle certain emergency calls rather than police officers. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.
His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.
Mamdani’s campaign was driven by his optimistic view of the city and his promises to improve the quality of life for its middle and lower classes.
But Cuomo, Sliwa and other critics assailed him over his vehement criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Mamdani, a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, has accused Israel of committing genocide and said he would honor an arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
New York Independent mayoral candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo votes at the High School of Art and Design on Tuesday in New York City.
(Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
Going into the Democratic primary, Cuomo was the presumed favorite, with near-universal name recognition and deep political connections. Cuomo’s chances were buoyed further when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the primary while dealing with the fallout of his now-dismissed federal corruption case.
But as the race progressed, Mamdani’s natural charm, catchy social media videos and populist economic platform energized voters in the notoriously expensive city. He also began drawing outside attention as his name ID grew.
In New Jersey, Sherrill built her campaign around pushing back against Trump. She recently seized on the administration’s decision to abruptly freeze funding for a multibillion-dollar project to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City beneath the Hudson River.
Spanberger’s victory in Virginia will flip partisan control of the governor’s office when she succeeds outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“We sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth, a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country,” Spanberger told cheering supporters in Richmond. “We sent a message to the whole word that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”
Izaguirre and Colvin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Catalini, Adriana Gomez Licon, Olivia Diaz and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
On her first day in office, Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness.
The declaration allowed the city to cut through red tape, including through no-bid contracts, and to start Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into interim housing.
On Tuesday, nearly three years after she took the helm, and with homelessness trending down two years in a row for the first time in recent years, the mayor announced that she will lift the state of emergency on Nov. 18.
“We have begun a real shift in our city’s decades-long trend of rising homelessness,” Bass said in a memorandum to the City Council.
Still, the mayor said, there is much work to do.
“The crisis remains, and so does our urgency,” she said.
The mayor’s announcement followed months of City Council pushback on the lengthy duration of the state of emergency, which the council had initially approved.
Some council members argued that the state of emergency allowed the mayor’s office to operate out of public view and that contracts and leases should once again be presented before them with public testimony and a vote.
Councilmember Tim McOsker has been arguing for months that it was time to return to business as usual.
“Emergency powers are designed to allow the government to suspend rules and respond rapidly when the situation demands it, but at some point those powers must conclude,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
McOsker said the move will allow the council to “formalize” some of the programs started during the emergency, while incorporating more transparency.
Council members had been concerned that the state of emergency would end without first codifying Executive Directive 1, which expedites approvals for homeless shelters as well as for developments that are 100% affordable and was issued by Bass shortly after she took office.
On Oct. 28, the council voted for the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would enshrine the executive directive into law.
The mayor’s announcement follows positive reports about the state of homelessness in the city.
As of September, the mayor’s Inside Safe program had moved more than 5,000 people into interim housing since its inception at the end of 2022. Of those people, more than 1,243 have moved into permanent housing, while another 1,636 remained in interim housing.
This year, the number of homeless people living in shelters or on the streets of the city dropped 3.4%, according to the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of unsheltered homeless people in the city dropped by an even steeper margin of 7.9%.
The count, however, has its detractors. A study by Rand found that the annual survey missed nearly a third of homeless people in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row — primarily those sleeping without tents or vehicles.
In June, a federal judge decided not to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, while saying that the city had failed to meet some of the terms of a settlement agreement with the nonprofit LA Alliance for Human Rights.
Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said the end of the emergency does not mean the crisis is over.
“It only means that we must build fiscally sustainable systems that can respond effectively,” she said. “By transitioning from emergency measures to long-term, institutional frameworks, we’re ensuring consistent, accountable support for people experiencing homelessness.”
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — Voters were casting ballots in high-stakes elections on both coasts Tuesday, including for mayor of New York, new congressional maps in California and governor in both New Jersey and Virginia, states whose shifting electorates could show the direction of the nation’s political winds.
For voters and political watchers alike, the races have taken on huge importance at a time of tense political division, when Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over the direction of the nation. Despite President Trump not appearing on any ballots, some viewed Tuesday’s races as a referendum on him and his volatile second term in the White House.
In New York, self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, 34, was favored to win the mayoral race after winning the Democratic ranked-choice mayoral primary in June. Such a result would shake up the Democratic establishment and rile Republicans in near equal measure, serving as a rejection of both former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a more establishment Democrat and Mamdani’s leading opponent, and Trump, who has warned that a Mamdani win would destroy the city.
On the eve of voting Monday, Trump threatened that a Mamdani win would disrupt the flow of federal dollars to the city, and took the dramatic step of endorsing Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican in the race.
“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Monday.
A vote for Sliwa “is a vote for Mamdani,” he added. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
Mamdani, a Ugandan-born naturalized U.S. citizen and New York state assemblyman who already defeated Cuomo once in the primary, has promised a brighter day for New Yorkers with better public transportation, more affordable housing and high-quality childcare if he wins. He has slammed billionaires and some of the city’s monied interests, which have lined up against him, and rejected the “grave political darkness” that he said is threatening the country under Trump.
He also mocked Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo — calling Cuomo Trump’s “puppet” and “parrot.”
Samantha Marrero, a 35-year-old lifelong New Yorker, lined up with more than a dozen people Tuesday morning at her polling site in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn to cast her vote for Mamdani, whom she praised for embracing people of color, queer people and other communities marginalized by mainstream politicians.
Marrero said she cares deeply about housing insecurity and affordability in the city, but that it was also “really meaningful to have someone who is brown and who looks like us and who eats like us and who lives more like us than anyone we’ve ever seen before” on the ballot. “That representation is really important.”
New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo speaks to reporters as he marks his ballot in New York on Tuesday.
(Richard Drew / Associated Press)
And she said that’s a big part of why people across the country are watching the New York race.
“We’re definitely a beacon in this kind of fascist takeover that is very clearly happening across the country,” she said. “People in other states and other cities and other countries have their eyes on what’s happening here. Obviously Mamdani is doing something right. And together we can do something right. But it has to be together.”
Elsewhere on the East Coast, voters were electing governors in both Virginia and New Jersey, races that have also drawn the president’s attention.
In the New Jersey race, Trump has backed the Republican candidate, former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, over the Democratic candidate, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, whom former President Obama recently stumped for. Long a blue state, New Jersey has been shifting to the right, and polls have shown a tight race.
In the Virginia race, Trump has not endorsed Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by name, but has called on voters to “vote Republican” and to reject the Democratic candidate, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a 46-year-old former CIA officer whom Obama has also supported.
“Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World?” Trump recently wrote on Truth Social, repeating some of his favorite partisan attacks on Democrats from the presidential campaign trail last year.
At a rally for Spanberger in Norfolk, Va., over the weekend, Obama put the race in equally stark terms — as part of a battle for American democracy.
“We don’t need to speculate about the dangers to our democracy. We don’t need to wonder about whether vulnerable people are going to be hurt, or ask ourselves how much more coarse and mean our culture can become. We’ve witnessed it. Elections do matter,” Obama said. “We all have more power than we think. We just have to use it.”
Voting was underway in the states, but with some disruptions. Bomb threats disrupted voting in some parts of New Jersey early Tuesday, temporarily shutting down a string of polling locations across the state before law enforcement determined the threats were hoaxes.
In California, voters were being asked to change the state Constitution to allow Democrats to redraw congressional maps in their favor through 2030, in order to counter similar moves by Republicans in red states such as Texas.
Leading Democrats, including Obama and Gov. Gavin Newsom, have described the measure as an effort to safeguard American democracy against a power grab by Trump, who had encouraged the red states to act, while opponents of the measure have derided it as an anti-democratic power grab by state Democrats.
Trump has urged California voters not to cast ballots by mail or to vote early, arguing such practices are somehow “dishonest,” and on Tuesday morning suggested on Truth Social that Proposition 50 itself was unconstitutional.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote, without providing evidence of problems. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”
Both individually and collectively, the races are being closely watched as potential indicators of political sentiment and enthusiasm going into next year’s midterm elections, and of Democrats’ ability to get voters back to the polls after Trump’s decisive win over former Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
Voters, too, saw the races as having particularly large stakes at a pivotal moment for the country.
Michelle Kim, 32, who has lived in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn for three years, stood in line at a polling site early Tuesday morning — waiting to cast her vote for Mamdani.
Kim said she cares about transportation, land use and the rising cost of living in New York, and appreciated Mamdani’s broader message that solutions are possible, even if not guaranteed.
“My hope is not, like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna solve, like, all of our issues,’” she said. “But I think for him to be able to represent people and give hope, that’s also part of it.”
Lin reported from New York, Rector from San Francisco. Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta contributed to this report.
