politics

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills this week designed to help a San Diego stadium and development project led by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke sidestep environmental review hurdles.

Newsom signed Senate Bill 344 and Senate Bill 958, which were put forward by state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-La Mesa) to help the stadium project, known as Midway Rising. The project would replace the decades-old Pechanga Arena and include a new 16,000-seat facility, 4,254 homes, including up to 2,000 affordable units, and commercial and outdoor space. The site is south of Mission Bay.

Newsom cast the bills as part of a package to help speed up the construction of much-needed housing.

“Every Californian deserves a fair shot at a stable home — families shouldn’t have to wait years for housing to be approved and built in their communities,” he said in a written statement.

Senate Bill 344 deems Midway Rising in full compliance with the state’s landmark California Environmental Quality Act, known was CEQA.

The act, adopted in 1970, has been credited for protecting California’s natural resources and minimizing pollution. It also has been criticized for sometimes being weaponized by opponents of a project, including housing developments.

After the state Legislature’s vote last month, Weber Pierson said the project would provide “much-needed affordable housing, permanent jobs, community spaces, and health resources in a part of our city that is ready for investment.”

Former San Diego Assemblymember Lori Saldaña, a longtime critic of the proposal, called Senate Bill 344 “reckless and rushed” because it was introduced late in the session without public input. Saldaña said the site isn’t suitable for development because of sea-level rise that she said is causing street flooding in the area.

Senate Bill 958 states that a project’s increased building height, and any related noise, shadows, or impact on wildlife shall not be considered significant environmental impacts, if the project meets a host of conditions.

It would apply to any development in the state but was introduced to benefit Midway Rising, according to Weber Pierson.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was among those who voted against both bills.

The developers “don’t want to play by the rules, so they came here to Sacramento asking for a special exemption,” DeMaio said during a discussion on Senate Bill 958 last month.

“We’re talking about the coast. I think a big condo tower on the coast impeding the view is a significant environmental impact, and I think deep down in your heart of hearts, you know that,” DeMaio said.

State lawmakers routinely carve out environmental exemptions for proposed sports stadiums, sometimes in the closing days of the legislative session.

Former Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) led his colleagues in passing a bill in 2013 that helped the Sacramento Kings arena by limiting environmental lawsuits. The new arena for the Golden State Warriors basketball team in San Francisco also benefited from CEQA reforms passed by state lawmakers in 2011.

The San Diego City Council still needs to approve the project.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been ordered not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training, under new internal guidance issued after several drivers were shot in encounters with ICE.

A memo sent to officers in ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division and obtained by the Associated Press warned they are not any under circumstances authorized to chase vehicles that fail to pull over. Instead, officers should take down the vehicles’ information for further investigation, according to the memo signed by ICE’s executive associate director, Marcos D. Charles, and dated Wednesday.

The new guidance comes after ICE-initiated vehicle stops have repeatedly escalated when drivers have refused to cooperate or tried to flee. ICE agents have opened fire during more than a dozen such encounters since last year, killing at least four people and wounding several others.

President Trump’s administration has faced internal tension over how to handle traffic stops, which are seen as particularly high-risk encounters.

After fatal shootings of drivers in Maine and Texas in July, ICE officers were directed to temporarily pause most vehicle stops. But the next day, Trump went on social media to direct the agency to continue traffic stops, calling them “one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.”

ICE has faced intense pressure from the White House to deport more people who are in the country illegally, and its arrests have reached record numbers. At the same time, the agency’s rapid hiring spree last year resulted in some poorly vetted and trained officers hitting the streets.

In a statement, ICE downplayed the significance of the memo, which said the new guidance was intended to replace and amend previous directives issued earlier this year, last year and in 2018.

“Occasionally, ICE leadership issues guidance reminders to law enforcement officers,” the statement said. “Vehicle stops and arrests of illegal aliens continue.”

The new memo outlines steps intended to improve the safety of vehicle stops for ICE officers, drivers they are targeting, their passengers and the public.

The memo told ICE’s field office directors that they must ensure vehicles used for traffic stops have lights and sirens that let the public know they are law enforcement vehicles when activated. Underthe guidance, all officers on the scenes of vehicle stops must wear and activate their body cameras.

In addition, only officers who have completed one of five specific agency training courses can conduct vehicle stops. Officers who have not completed the courses can participate in vehicle stops only “in a support capacity” as passengers and cannot be the drivers of any of the vehicles involved.

The guidance says ICE officers can continue to use a controversial technique known as pinning, which is defined as “using a vehicle or physical barrier to trap or stop a car,” but only if they have received special training. Similarly, only trained officers can use spike strips that deflate tires to prevent drivers from fleeing.

The memo came the day that courtroom testimony highlighted ways in which two ICE officers involved in a vehicle stop, pursuit and shooting that wounded a delivery driver in Austin last month would not have complied with the new guidance.

During a bond hearing for Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, testimony showed that the officer who shot him wasn’t wearing a body-worn camera. The ICE officer who did have a camera was driving in a separate car and turned it off during the pursuit.

Prosecutors presented surveillance video that showed an ICE agent chasing Garces Perez at high speeds through residential streets after he fled an initial traffic stop.

Garces Perez faces federal assault charges after investigators say he struck an ICE officer with his driver’s side mirror. That officer then shot into Perez’s vehicle, lodging a bullet in his back, officials say.

Attorneys for Garces Perez have called the charges against him “retaliation” and have argued that the camera footage was inconclusive because it didn’t fully capture the moment when he allegedly tried to flee.

Foley writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Anna Wilder contributed to this report from Austin, Texas.

SACRAMENTO — Days after signing a package of bills to rebuff aspects of federal immigration enforcement in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed two bills from Los Angeles lawmakers that targeted public employment for federal agents.

One of the bills, backed by Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), would have blocked agents and contractors who worked to enforce federal immigration laws from state and local jobs in California, including for law enforcement agencies. It was called the “Get the Feds Out” or “GTFO” Act.

Newsom said the bill goes “a step too far.”

“It is a mistake to discourage empathetic and qualified Americans from working in the federal government, or choosing to leave long-standing employment with the federal government because they find the current administration’s policies and tactics reprehensible,” the governor wrote in a veto letter to the Legislature made public on Wednesday.

The governor added that hiring for public employment already includes personal conduct evaluations. He emphasized the “horrific tactics” used by immigration agents during President Trump’s second term but said it is the responsibility of Congress to hold the administration and individual agents accountable.

Newsom signed a similar bill that prevents federal agents from becoming police in California if their federal badge was revoked for misconduct.

While he expressed disappointment in the veto, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), the author of Assembly Bill 1896, applauded Newsom for signing “a strong package of legislation that will protect Californians and stand up for our immigrant communities.”

“From the beginning, the GTFO Act was about a simple principle: We should never use public dollars to reward conduct that has caused fear, terror, and pain in our communities. I am proud to have stood alongside my brother, Speaker Rivas, in this fight and this fight is not over,” Gonzalez said in a statement to The Times.

A spokesperson for Rivas said while the proposal did not become law, “Californians know Trump’s immigration agenda is failing and doesn’t keep anyone safe. That’s why Assembly Democrats are leading the nation in holding ICE accountable. The Speaker thanks his colleagues for delivering real results this year.”

The outgoing governor also vetoed a proposal from Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Culver City), Assembly Bill 1537, that would have prevented sworn law enforcement officers from taking secondary employment or contract jobs for immigration enforcement.

Newsom took issue with the prospect of prohibiting “secondary employment law enforcement officers choose to do in their free time.”

“State and local peace officers already must abide by specific standards and rules, including ones that apply to their personal conduct,” Newsom wrote in the veto letter. “Any officers who violate those standards are held accountable through investigations that may culminate in their peace officer status being suspended or revoked entirely.”

Bryan, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the veto.

Earlier this week, Newsom signed 21 bills aimed at federal immigration enforcement, including bans on electric shock gloves and face coverings for law enforcement. Other laws impose a 25% tax on companies that operate private detention centers, along with additional oversight of the facilities.

“No tax will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make California safe again,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in an email. “While California sanctuary politicians continue to release pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and murderers onto their streets, our brave law enforcement will continue to risk their lives to arrest these heinous criminals and make California safe again.”

A report stating that the Trump administration directed funds towards right-wing groups comes ahead of Brazil’s presidential election.

Brazil’s attorney general has called on law enforcement to investigate alleged efforts by the United States to interfere in the country’s domestic politics through the diversion of funds to far-right causes.

Attorney General Jorge Messias called for the probe on Thursday, one day after the British newspaper The Guardian published a story suggesting that the administration of United States President Donald Trump planned to award $1m to right-wing civil groups opposing the Brazilian Supreme Court.

Messias stated in a social media post that foreign meddling “cannot be tolerated” and that the report represented “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”.

“The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” the attorney general added.

The report comes amid a tense presidential election in which leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is seeking re-election.

Lula has sought to focus attention on efforts Trump has undertaken to boost the prospects of far-right allies across Latin America, warning of threats to regional sovereignty.

Trump has endorsed multiple right-wing candidates ahead of elections across the region, sometimes hinging the possibility of economic support on the voting results.

He has also cultivated close relations with the family of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost to Lula in the last presidential election.

Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, is a frontrunner in the race to challenge Lula this year. Recent polls have shown Lula and Bolsonaro virtually tied ahead of the first round of voting on October 4.

Flavio Bolsonaro met with Trump at the White House in May. He has promised closer ties with the US, while Lula has positioned himself as a critic of Trump’s interventionist approach to Latin American politics and security.

The Guardian report published on Wednesday states that the Trump administration sought to redirect $175m from the State Department’s human rights fund to various far-right causes around the world.

The recipients allegedly included groups advocating for white Afrikaners in South Africa that the Trump administration has falsely portrayed as victims of a “genocide” and efforts in Brazil to counter what the US called “lawfare and censorship”.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has been a subject of frequent criticism from the political right, both in Brazil and the US.

Much of that criticism stems from the 2025 conviction of Jair Bolsonaro for involvement in an alleged coup plot, designed to subvert his loss to Lula in the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro and his allies, including Trump, have depicted the case as an instance of political persecution.

Citing the trial, Trump last year placed 50-percent tariffs on certain Brazilian goods that he has since removed.

At the time, he announced the tariffs in a letter that denounced Bolsonaro’s prosecution. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace,” Trump wrote.

The Trump administration also revoked the visas of Brazilian judicial officials involved in Bolsonaro’s case in an effort to have it tossed out. It also levied short-lived sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of “an unlawful witch hunt” against right-wing voices.

Bolsonaro was ultimately convicted and sentenced to a 27-year prison sentence in September 2025.

In June, one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, was sentenced to more than four years in prison after a court ruled he had lobbied for US interference in his father’s case.

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.

Holidaymakers will also be given greater flexibility to correct simple name errors including spelling mistakes on bookings for free – rather than facing charges

Rip-off airline charges including hidden fees for parents to sit next to children under 14 will be banned under government plans.

Holidaymakers will also be given greater flexibility to correct simple name errors including spelling mistakes on bookings for free – rather than facing charges.

Under the proposals unveiled today, airlines will be required to seat children under the age of 14 with a parent or adult accompanying them free of charge.

Andy Burnham said: “Charging parents just to sit with their children is a rip-off, plain and simple. And being hit with a hefty fee for a simple spelling mistake on a booking form isn’t right either.

“People are fed up with these little charges that add up, so I’m putting a stop to them. This is what our everyday fixes are all about. Giving people room to breathe by tackling the small irritations that catch people out, waste their time and cost them money.”

Earlier this year the Competition Markets Authority (CMA) investigated budget airline Ryanair over such charges costing around £8 each way.

Under the airline’s old policy parents had to book a “mandatory family seat” to sit with their children aged 2-11 in order to secure a seat when they flew.

But Ryanair – which the CMA said was the only major operator to charge such a fee – changed its policy in June with kids up to the age of 11 seated next to their parents free of charge.

It’s website now states: “For safety reasons, children aged between 2 and 11 years must sit next to an accompanying adult, and infants (8 days to 23 months inclusive) must sit on an accompanying adult’s lap. Families may choose either to reserve seats or select free random allocation.

“If random allocation is selected, children will be seated next to an accompanying adult on the same reservation free of charge. Other adults and teens on the booking may be allocated seats separately.”

The government said that while some airlines already offer protections on fees, the reforms will guarantee the same rights for passengers – despite who they fly with.

British Airways policy already makes clear children up to the age of 12 will be seated for free. It states: “To ensure your family has the best seats when you fly, we recommend choosing yours in advance when you book. There may be an additional fee for this.

“If you don’t choose your seats in advance, we always do our best to seat your family together based on flight seat availability. This may mean that you’ll be seated in adjacent rows or across the aisle. All children under 12 will be seated with an accompanying adult.”

EasyJet’s policy adds:”If you leave it to the last minute it’s possible that there may not be enough seats left for us to seat your family next to each other.

“We’ll still make sure each child under 12 is seated close to an adult on your booking. However we may only be able to arrange this at the airport or on board, which can cause delays for you and other passengers, and not everyone may be seated together.”

The government said the move was the latest in the PM’s attempts to give people breathing space, including action already unveiled on costly subscription traps and school uniform rip-offs.

Heidi Alexander, Transport Secretary, said: “Parents should not have to feel the pinch just to sit next to their child on a flight, or for amending a simple booking error. That’s why we’re scrapping these unnecessary charges for all airlines – another everyday fix to help put money back in people’s pockets and give households more breathing room.

“And everyone deserves to travel knowing their flight isn’t going to be disrupted by bad behaviour from a small minority. These common-sense reforms will make flying safer for staff and passengers and protect people from unnecessary charges, whoever they fly with.”

Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, added: “It’s clearly unfair to force parents and children as young as three to pay an extra fee just to sit together. Airlines that have separated families are putting profit ahead of passenger peace of mind.

“Which? has successfully pressured many airlines into dropping these fees over the past ten years. So it’s welcome to see the government taking firm action on this by outlawing these charges completely and finally putting an end to this rip off.

“It is also positive to see greater flexibility to amend simple mistakes, protecting consumers from unnecessary charges.”

Oct. 1, 2026 1:36 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is dispatching roughly 9,000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East, a U.S. official said Thursday. The bolstering of the American military presence comes as President Trump warned anew that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

He also said early indications suggest that Iran is linked to the co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday.

In an exchange with reporters at the White House, Trump raised the connection when asked by a reporter if there were any links between the pilot behind the attack and Tehran.

“I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is ‘yes,’ but we’re working on it right now,” Trump said, without offering details.

Trump also warned that if the link is established to Iran, the United States would retaliate.

“Oh they’ll be hit, very hard, don’t worry,” Trump said. “You just ask them. They know what happened. They’ll be hit very hard.”

Meanwhile, the group of ships now en route to the Middle East together carry over 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines.

It includes the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which recently deployed with the cruiser USS Chosin, and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships.

It could mean that three carriers are in the region as early as the end of October, according to the U.S. official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

Given the personnel already in place in the Middle East, the move would bring the U.S. naval presence to an unusually high number of more than 20,000 sailors and Marines and hundreds of aircraft. The Navy previously had three carrier strike groups in the Middle East in April for the first time since 2003.

The carriers USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington are in the region now, along with the USS Boxer amphibious readiness group. The Washington is typically deployed to Pacific Ocean but it was moved to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose arduous deployment resulted in the crew being at sea for more than 260 days straight.

Trump, in a Time magazine interview published Thursday, also raised the prospects of new strikes, saying it is “possible” that he will ramp up bombing in Iran after the Nov. 3 elections in the United States.

When pressed, Trump said he could not go further in detailing his strategy.

“I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?” Trump said.

He said in the interview, conducted Monday, that he rejected the latest ceasefire proposal from Iran because “things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”

Trump cited as an example an offer from Iran to “open up” the Strait of Hormuz, the key energy shipping corridor, but said the overall proposal was “not good enough.”

Members of the military listen as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gives a State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Asked if the increasingly unpopular war would threaten Republican Party chances in November, Trump at first responded, “It’s possible.” But then he added, “It should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

The president said “100% of the people” oppose Iran having nuclear attack capabilities “including worldwide.”

“So, when you say it that way, It would help,” Trump added. “If you don’t say that, it could hurt.”

Toropin and Price write for the Associated Press. AP writers Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review a Trump administration policy denying bond hearings for immigrants as the government carries out a sweeping crackdown.

The justices will consider whether immigrants who have been living in the U.S. have a right to a hearing to determine if they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.

The case will test a key pillar of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Most appeals courts to have considered the issue have found that it violates federal law to detain immigrants, including those living in the U.S. illegally, without a bond hearing. Those decisions conflict with rulings by the 5th and 8th circuits, which held that immigrants accused of illegally entering and remaining in the U.S. must be detained while their deportation cases are pending.

The high court agreed to hear the case of Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a citizen of Brazil. Authorities say he entered the United States illegally two decades ago and applied for asylum in 2016. He sought a bond hearing after an immigration judge determined that his detention was mandatory following his September 2025 arrest.

He has never been charged or convicted of a crime, his attorneys said. The court is expected to hear the case in the coming months.

President Trump’s administration had urged the high court to take up a different but related case that involves the broader constitutional implications of the new policy.

Attorneys from the Republican administration argue the circuits’ split is “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law.” They say the nation’s courts have been inundated with thousands of petitions filed by immigrants challenging the government’s legal interpretation.

“The result is an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others,” lawyers for the administration wrote.

The plaintiffs are immigrants represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says hundreds of district court judges have joined most circuits in rejecting the Trump administration’s new reading of the statutes. Plaintiffs’ lawyers say the administration is trying to deny bond hearings for immigrants apprehended anywhere in the U.S. — no matter how long they’ve lived in the country — rather than limiting the restriction to noncitizens stopped at the border.

“Millions of noncitizens could be affected by the government’s new interpretation,” ACLU attorneys wrote.

The Trump administration says its new mandatory detention policy is legal under a 1996 immigration law. The policy change departs from the practices of prior administrations, which typically allowed most noncitizens without criminal records to request a bond hearing if they were arrested away from the border.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

Police have detained hundreds as students protest overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

French students have set fire to bins and erected blockades outside schools in several cities, protesting overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling facilities.

Several school principals were injured, harassed or assaulted during blockades at high schools on Thursday, according to reports from regional education authorities, prefectures and union representatives.

Police have already detained hundreds of protesters at the lycees, which students aged 15 to 18 attend for their final three years of secondary education in France.

At Marseille’s Victor Hugo high school, the teachers were inadvertently splashed as a student attempted to throw petrol into a rubbish bin, local authorities said. Earlier, the prosecutor’s office had ⁠said the teachers had been assaulted and “doused in petrol”.

At another school in the city, Saint-Exupery high school, hundreds of young people surrounded a firetruck that had arrived to put out a blaze in the morning, police said. The attackers forced the firefighters to flee the vehicle, then set it alight.

In Nantes, firefighters extinguished a fire at a high school entrance following what regional education officials called a gathering “marked by violence towards staff”. In Strasbourg, trams were halted to “restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators”, and students burned barriers on tram tracks, authorities said.

“There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” Raphael, a 17-year-old who withheld his surname for fear of reprisals, told the AFP news agency outside a protest in Strasbourg.

“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.”

His frustration echoes a wave of student anger that has spread across France since last week, as high school pupils protest and grievances snowball into nationwide unrest.

Some 340 demonstrations were under way outside high schools by mid-morning on Thursday, with more than 160 schools shut down as a result, police said.

University students joined in, blocking access to about 30 campuses, including in Paris and Marseille, according to a student union.

Authorities have reported many dozens of injuries – some from thrown objects, others reportedly from police riot-control projectiles.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police have opened internal investigations into brutality allegations involving three students.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu convened a crisis meeting and asked ministers to cancel upcoming official travel so authorities could focus on the demonstrations, his office said.

French Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that he would successively meet representative staff unions and parent and student associations on Friday.

The unrest has become entangled in the race to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next May. The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests. Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said Wednesday that his party “called for nonviolent methods of struggle” and criticised the government’s response as repressive.

CNN Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Thompson could remain in his role at the news network after Paramount completes its deal to acquire the news network’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Thompson, 69, is said to be in early stages of a discussions with Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison about continuing in the job he has held since April 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report Thursday that Thompson has been approached by Ellison about staying with the network. A representative for Paramount declined to comment.

Retaining Thompson in his role would provide short-term relief to CNN staffers who are concerned about the change in ownership. As Paramount pursued its $111-million deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery — which is moving forward following a judge’s decision to settle an antitrust suit filed by state attorneys general who wanted to block the deal — the Ellison family have reportedly had discussions with President Trump about altering the network’s coverage, which he has often deemed as unfair.

As part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to the formation of an editorial oversight board that will monitor adherence to editorial independence from its owners and shareholders. The editorial board is part of an agreement to end the states’ antitrust fight that threatened to delay the completion of the deal for months.

Keeping Thompson at CNN raises questions of how CBS News Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss will be integrated into the new company.

Weiss, who joined the storied news division after Paramount acquired her contrarian digital news site the Free Press last year, has made major changes at “CBS Evening News” and the top rated newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” with no audience gains to show for it.

CNN insiders have been skeptical over how Weiss could take over the vastly larger and more profitable news organization based on her CBS track record so far.

CNN and CBS News are expected to consolidate some of their operations, such as its overseas bureaus. But there are obstacles to a rapid consolidation, as many CBS News employees work under union contracts. Most of CNN is not unionized.

But if Thompson remains, its likely he we will have the task of reducing costs, as the traditional TV audience that provides the bulk of revenues for both CNN and CBS News continues to shrink.

Thompson has been behind a major effort to generate more revenue from CNN’s digital operations, which now include a subscription streaming service that makes the channel available without a cable or satellite TV package. He oversaw the New York Times’ successful transformation into a dominant digital news product during his run as president and chief executive from 2012 to 2020.

The Paramount-Warner deal will close soon after a judge signed a settlement that ended the antitrust lawsuit brought by Calif. Atty. General Rob Bonta and 11 other attorneys general. The detente , however, has not cooled tensions between CNN and the White House.

CNN was scheduled to provide press pool coverage of Trump’s trip to Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday. But the White House removed the network from the pool, despite a judge’s order last week to block the administration’s attempt to ban access for some media outlets.

Last week, CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from White House grounds. Trump cited the outlets’ ongoing negative coverage of him as the reason for the ban. The administration later tried to argue in court that their coverage was a threat to national security.

Carney declared the pipeline a project of national interest, smoothening its way to a single federal regulatory review process.

Canada will fast track the approval process for a new proposed crude oil export pipeline to its west coast that could generate billions in revenue and boost economic growth, Prime Minister Mark Carney has said.

Carney made the announcement on Thursday to fast-track the pipeline, which is a crucial part of his bid to diversify the economy away from the United States and help lessen the effect of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Carney said Ottawa is officially listing the Pacific Link pipeline, which had been announced in July, as a project of national interest. That will ensure it proceeds through a single federal regulatory review process. He said Ottawa aimed to complete the process by September 1, 2027.

“A pipeline to the west coast is part of our mission to transform our economy, to double our non-US exports over the next decade … [and] to unlock our full potential as a global energy superpower,” he told reporters in Fort McMurray, hub of Alberta’s tar sands industry.

Ottawa says the 1 million barrel a day project would create 140,000 jobs and generate more than 20 billion Canadian dollars ($14bn) in gross domestic product (GDP) per year and 100 billion Canadian dollars ($70bn) in government revenue by 2060.

Canada currently has just one east-west oil export pipeline in Canada, the 890,000-barrel-per-day Trans Mountain pipeline. An expansion of that pipeline was completed in 2024, but it is already running at capacity.

For years, Canada has sent more than 90 percent of its crude oil exports to the US via pipeline. A new oil export pipeline could make Canada a major global energy supplier, as Asia’s top importers seek oil from outside the Middle East in the wake of the Iran conflict.

Filling the pipeline, however, would require new tar sands expansions of the type no company has undertaken in more than a decade.

The pipeline will be built by government-owned Trans Mountain Corp in coordination with Pembina Pipeline Corp. Alberta estimates it could cost between 35.2 billion Canadian dollars and 43.7 billion Canadian dollars ($24.7bn – $30.7bn).

The majority owners will be the federal government and the government of Alberta. Indigenous communities will be offered a minimum of 10 percent ownership interest.

Previous oil pipeline projects in Canada have faced strong opposition from environmentalists and Indigenous groups, resulting in the cancellation of some projects and leading to cost overruns and construction delays with others.

Alberta separatism

Carney made the announcement alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Fort McMurray in the heart of Canada’s tar sands, a move meant to mend relations with oil-rich Alberta as separatists push for a referendum on leaving Canada.

Alberta is holding a public vote on October 19 on whether to hold a referendum on leaving Canada. Smith has long complained that Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, hindered Alberta’s energy industry and fuelled separatist sentiment.

Smith said she would vote to keep Alberta in Canada and called the roughly 22 percent support for separation in a recent poll “still too high for my liking”.

“I don’t like the fact that many of our fellow citizens have given up on Canada,” Smith said, adding that the pipeline was an example of how “cooperative federalism can work in action”.

Asked what message Albertans considering separation should take from the announcement, Carney said it demonstrated that “Canada is working” and showed what the country could achieve by acting together.

Photo: Acting President Ramón J. Velásquez (1993–1994) and his cabinet on the last day of his term. Dr. Velásquez, both during his brief tenure and previously at the helm of a special commission, was a leading proponent of decentralization in the late 20th-century. | Source: Archivo Fotografía Urbana.

The next democratically elected president of Venezuela will inherit an office that is simultaneously too powerful and not powerful enough.

Too powerful because decades of centralization have placed extraordinary political, fiscal and administrative authority in Miraflores. Not powerful enough because whoever inherits it will also confront a damaged bureaucracy, weak public services, deteriorated infrastructure and institutions that may still be controlled by political adversaries.

That combination will make concentration tempting.

A new government will have an enormous reconstruction mandate and voters impatient for results. Every institutional restraint will risk looking like another obstacle left behind by chavismo. Decentralization can wait until the State is stabilized. Congressional procedures can wait because the crisis is urgent. Extraordinary executive authorities can be justified because ordinary government is too slow.

Many of those arguments will contain some truth.

That is what makes them dangerous.

Chávez inherited Venezuela’s presidentialist political culture and radicalized it.

If Venezuela wants this transition to be the last one it needs, the country cannot simply transfer the powers accumulated in the presidency to someone more democratic. But neither can it respond to authoritarianism by constructing an executive incapable of governing.

The question is not whether Venezuela needs a strong president or a weak one. It needs to decide what the president should actually be strong enough to do.

Miraflores was powerful before Chávez

Chavismo radically expanded executive power, but it did not invent Venezuelan presidentialism.

Long before Hugo Chávez, the presidency occupied an unusually commanding position over the political system. Oil reinforced that arrangement. Whoever controlled the national government controlled the principal source of public revenue, and the ability to distribute that revenue made Caracas not merely the political center of Venezuela but the financial center on which much of the rest of the government depended.

The result was a particular understanding of political effectiveness. Presidents were expected to not merely administer the executive branch but to solve national problems, distribute resources, arbitrate conflicts and impose direction on the State.

Chávez inherited that culture and radicalized it.

Carlos Rangel would have recognized something familiar in the phenomenon. His critique of Latin American political culture repeatedly returned to the attraction of the providential leader: the politician whose extraordinary personal mandate supposedly allows him to rise above institutions that appear slow, compromised or incapable of producing the transformation the country requires.

A new democracy has to be built for the political society Venezuela actually has.

Chavismo gave that tradition a twenty-first-century vocabulary. The leader possessed a direct relationship with the people. Institutions that resisted him therefore did not represent legitimate constraints on democratic power; they interfered with the popular mandate.

That logic did not begin with Chávez, and removing chavismo will not automatically remove it.

This is one reason institutional design matters more than hoping Venezuela will simply develop a different political culture. A new democracy has to be built for the political society Venezuela actually has, including its recurring attraction to presidents who promise to cut through institutions rather than patiently govern through them.

Decentralization was one answer

Venezuela has attempted to solve part of this problem before.

The decentralization reforms beginning in 1989 transformed Venezuelan politics by allowing voters to directly elect governors and mayors. They created alternative centers of democratic legitimacy, allowed regional leaders to build careers outside national party hierarchies and weakened the assumption that every important political decision had to originate in Caracas.

Those reforms were real democratic progress.

They also occurred during the accelerating crisis of the political system that had governed Venezuela since 1958. Carlos Andrés Pérez was attempting a profound economic transformation while confronting social unrest, two coup attempts, resistance within his own party and an increasingly fragmented political environment.

Enough independently powerful actors with absolute vetoes can also make coherent government extraordinarily difficult.

It would be wrong to claim that decentralization caused Pérez’s downfall. The crisis of his second government had far deeper causes. But the period should caution against the assumption that dispersing power automatically produces better government. A political system needs restraints. It also needs the capacity to reach decisions.

Juan Linz famously warned that presidential systems contain an inherent problem of competing legitimacy: both the president and the legislature can claim a direct mandate from voters. Venezuela could face that problem almost immediately in a transition. A newly elected president may claim a national mandate for reconstruction while legislators, governors, courts and other institutions exercise equally legitimate powers to resist particular policies.

Those conflicts are not defects but rather an essential part of democracy.

But enough independently powerful actors with absolute vetoes can also make coherent government extraordinarily difficult. The goal cannot therefore be to create as many obstacles to presidential action as possible.

Decentralization has to mean power, not administration

Chavismo subsequently demonstrated another weakness in Venezuela’s earlier decentralization: elected local government does not necessarily amount to decentralized power.

A governor who depends overwhelmingly on transfers determined in Caracas may be politically elected but remains fiscally vulnerable to the center. A municipality with responsibilities but inadequate revenue possesses decentralization on paper. A regional government whose police, infrastructure projects or public services can be bypassed by parallel national authorities is autonomous only until Miraflores decides otherwise.

Chávez and his successors became adept at exploiting these weaknesses. Political authority could be recentralized, resources redirected, parallel institutions created and opposition-controlled governments bypassed without formally abolishing governors or mayors.

A president who negotiates every administrative action with multiple institutions would not protect democracy for very long. It could instead discredit it.

A serious decentralization therefore has to involve more than another constitutional declaration that Venezuela is a federal State.

It must ask where revenue is collected, who controls it, which responsibilities genuinely belong to states and municipalities and which functions require national coordination. Regional governments need enough authority and predictable resources to govern without requesting political permission from the president. But the national government must retain enough capacity to maintain common standards, respond to national emergencies, redistribute among regions and preserve the Venezuelan State as a functioning whole.

That balance is much harder than simply transferring competencies from one level of government to another.

The State must still be able to act

An executive constrained by law is not the same thing as an impotent executive. The Venezuelan president should be capable of executing a legally approved budget, directing the national administration, coordinating responses to disasters, conducting foreign policy and implementing the program on which voters elected the government. Rebuilding infrastructure, stabilizing public finances and restoring basic services will require a national government capable of making decisions and making those decisions stick.

A presidency that must negotiate every administrative action with multiple institutions would not protect democracy for very long. It could instead discredit it. Citizens judge democratic government partly by whether it governs. If elections repeatedly produce leaders incapable of responding to crime, blackouts, inflation or deteriorating public services because every decision disappears into institutional paralysis, frustration with democratic restraint will eventually become politically valuable. The politician promising to eliminate the obstacles will always be waiting.

Institutional design has to emerge from Venezuela’s own history and needs.

Machiavelli understood the underlying problem centuries before modern constitutionalism gave it different terminology: a political order that cannot preserve itself will not remain a political order for long. Democracies require enough power to respond to genuine threats.

The danger lies in what happens next.

Emergency authorities created to save the State can outlive the emergency. Executive discretion justified by reconstruction can become normal government. A president given extraordinary authority because democratic institutions are initially weak acquires the ability to ensure that those institutions remain weak.

Venezuela has already lived that cycle.

Miraflores should matter less

The difficult conclusion is that democratic reconstruction will require whoever next controls the presidency to surrender powers at precisely the moment when there will be compelling reasons to retain them. That is a much harder political proposition than replacing chavista officials.

Someone who has spent years fighting to reach Miraflores may arrive there facing a devastated country and discover an arsenal of executive authority that could make reconstruction easier. It will be extraordinarily tempting to argue that institutional reform should come later, after the emergency has passed and the country has stabilized.

But democratic restraints are easiest to support when they constrain somebody else. Their real test comes when they constrain us.

The president should not determine whether an opposition governor receives the resources necessary to govern. The executive should not be able to transform regulatory authority into political discipline. Emergency powers should expire without depending on presidential generosity. Institutions capable of investigating the government should not owe their survival to that government’s continued support.

None of this necessarily requires turning Venezuela into a parliamentary republic, copying the United States or mechanically importing someone else’s federal model. Institutional design has to emerge from Venezuela’s own history and needs.

But one principle should survive whatever arrangement eventually emerges: winning the presidency should not mean winning the State. That principle protects more than the opposition, it also protects the president.

Winning should give politicians the authority to govern without giving them the tools to decide whether anybody else will ever govern again.

A system in which the loss of Miraflores does not mean losing access to every meaningful source of political authority makes electoral defeat less existential. Governors can govern. Legislators retain influence. Parties can preserve territorial organizations. Former incumbents can imagine returning through elections rather than manipulating the State to avoid leaving. Distributing power can therefore make alternation easier to accept.

The point is not to make political victory meaningless. Elections must have consequences. Governments need enough authority to implement different programs or democracy becomes little more than a ritual for changing administrators.

The objective is narrower: winning should give politicians the authority to govern without giving them the tools to decide whether anybody else will ever govern again.

That is the distinction Venezuela failed to maintain.

And it brings three problems of institutional reconstruction together. Venezuela needs institutions that remain democratic regardless of who occupies them. It needs a State capable of implementing rules while remaining bound by them. And it needs political power distributed widely enough that no single electoral victory becomes an ownership of the Republic.

For 25 years, Venezuela’s political system increasingly revolved around a simple question: who controls Miraflores?

A durable democracy will require making the answer matter considerably less. The next president of Venezuela should inherit enough power to govern the country, but considerably less power to define it.

WASHINGTON — A pro-Israel Democratic advocacy group on Thursday released a framework intended to help the party better articulate its vision for the U.S. relationship with Israel, an issue that has deeply fractured Democrats this year and could lead to further divisions heading into the next presidential campaign.

Democratic Majority for Israel is calling on the party to continue providing security and military assistance to the country while supporting a negotiated path to statehood for both Israelis and Palestinians and a future for Gaza that doesn’t include Hamas.

It notably does not insist on unyielding support for Israel, acknowledging that “Israel’s security does not require support for every decision made by an Israeli government.” The document also calls on Israel to “act decisively against settler threats, intimidation, and violence.”

The framework is being released at a sensitive moment for Democrats following a primary season in which voters from New York to Michigan embraced candidates who backed positions including ending military aid to Israel. If Democrats retake control of the U.S. House or Senate in next month’s elections, these candidates could play a significant role in shaping the debate over America’s posture toward Israel.

The issue could also play prominently in the early stages of the next presidential campaign, which could begin shortly after the midterms.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s chief executive, Brian Romick, said his goal is to provide a “helpful guide for our mainstream Democratic candidates on how to engage with a complicated issue.”

“It’s important to remind Democrats and Americans that there’s value in the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he said. “We thought it was important to kind of lay out a forward-looking vision.”

The question is whether such a framework will go very far in shaping the views of Democrats, who are increasingly skeptical of Israel.

About 58% of Democrats said the U.S. is “too supportive” of the Israelis, according to a June survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, up from 45% in January 2024. Roughly half of Democrats believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war with Hamas, an accusation Israel rejects.

Former Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who has argued Democrats need to return to the political center ahead of launching a potential presidential bid, went to Israel in July and delivered a blistering speech warning the country was at risk of becoming a “territorial pariah.” He specifically called out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has closely aligned himself with President Trump, a Republican.

Emanuel, who’s also a former congressman, Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador, blamed Netanyahu for driving Israel to a “dead end,” emboldened by poor decisions from American leaders.

The framework from Democratic Majority for Israel takes a less strident view on Netanyahu, who faces another election this month. “Support for Israel,” the group argued, “transcends any one Israeli government.”

The group took a similarly long view on military and security assistance for Israel, arguing it shouldn’t be stopped now even as it acknowledged the possibility of change in the future.

“Over time, and by mutual agreement, today’s partnership should be capable of evolving beyond the traditional assistance framework toward an increasingly reciprocal relationship centered on joint investment, innovation, and technological advantage,” the framework reads. “The objective should be to build the partnership both countries will need to confront the threats and seize the opportunities of the coming decades.”

Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, acknowledged “strong, passionate views” on the issue.

“Clearly, not everyone will agree with every aspect” of the framework, he said. “But I think there’s a lot there that many Democrats would find speaks to them.”

Sloan writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Trump.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.

Hearn’s lawyers say Trump administration officials have continued to falsely accuse the Maryland resident of vandalizing the reflecting pool despite Pirro’s decision to drop the case on July 31. Trump responded by saying Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”

In a court filing in July, Pirro said new evidence produced by the Interior Department showed Hearn wasn’t responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. Pirro’s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.

Pirro’s admission was an embarrassing setback for the White House. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.

Hearn has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it.

Hearn was charged with one count of property destruction, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

Trump, a Republican, appointed Pirro, a former Fox News host, to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia. Edelman was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Hearn’s attorneys said the ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice” and allows Hearn to “move forward with his life as he deserves.”

“This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted,” the lawyers said in a statement.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

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.

New Delhi, India — Speaking at an event in New York this week, India’s Foreign Affairs Minister S Jaishankar offered a blunt assessment of Washington: It has been an insensitive partner to India’s concerns over “terrorism”; has warmed to its arch-rival Pakistan; and has pursued “self-centered” trade policies that have disproportionately hurt the Global South.

That tone marks a new edge in how New Delhi is dealing with US President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington, analysts say, on the back of rising bilateral tensions between the capitals.

For decades, India has dealt with divisive issues with otherwise friendly nations quietly behind the scenes, away from spectacle. That has especially been New Delhi’s approach with Washington, where the relationship has broadly enjoyed wide bipartisan support.

However, after months of tensions, New Delhi is adopting a more openly critical tone towards Washington to address the volatility and uncertainty that Trump brings to the White House.

The changing tune in New Delhi also comes at a critical time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces mounting domestic pressure and criticism from the opposition for allegedly bowing down to US pressure, time and again. On Wednesday, Modi held a telephone call with Trump, which the Indian PM called “productive” — a cold and formal depiction far removed from his description of the US president as a “good friend” in previous years.

Chietigj Bajpaee, a senior research fellow for South Asia at the Chatham House think tank, said that Jaishankar’s remarks “offer a frank assessment” on the current state of the India-US relationship. “Clearly, the shine has come off the bilateral relationship after India was initially among the most optimistic about a second Trump term,” he said.

India’s pain points

Jaishankar addressed frictions between India and the US while speaking at an Asia Society event after the UN General Assembly in New York ended on Monday.

“If I stand back and look at the [India-US] relationship, I note that much of the world has had a more difficult relationship with the US,” he said. “I mean that may not be a consolation, but that’s a reality.”

Trade

Trade has been one of the flashpoints. Washington is India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral goods trade reaching $149.1 billion in 2025; but the relationship remains tilted towards India with a $58.4 billion goods surplus.

Jaishankar started by noting: “Countries should not be so self-centred that you’re in your own world and take your decision and say, ‘Well, it was not my intention to make your life difficult’.”

The minister was partly referring to the economic spillover of the wars in Iran and Ukraine, urging that “sound common sense” should ensure that the basic needs of countries were not neglected.

But then, he referred to the trade negotiations between India and the US, that have so far yielded a roadmap to a deal — but not a deal itself. “Apart from the per capita gap between India and the United States, the nature of production and the nature of society is very different,” he noted.

The agricultural sector has been among the most contested points between the two, where India has kept its market largely closed for decades to safeguard its farmers. “The expectation that it could rapidly move forward was tested against the ground reality, which was much more complex,” he said, adding that “there is more or less an understanding on the trade agreement.”

At one point, India was among the countries facing the worst tariff rates imposed by Trump. After the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs in February, his administration swiftly turned to other tools, including a new 10 percent global tariff. Earlier this month, Trump signed a law under which the US can impose up to 100 percent tariffs on countries like India that purchase Russian oil.

Jaishankar pointed to these changes, noting that the negotiations created “bumps last year for the relationship,” and added that once the deal is closed, it “would contribute to a better relationship.”

Ajay Bisaria, a retired diplomat who served as high commissioner to Canada and Pakistan, and as ambassador to Poland, told Al Jazeera that with Washington, in particular, “India has decided to be more public because there has been a lot of public criticism and a sentiment that the US is bullying India and India has been silent.”

The new 100 percent tariff on India, due to come into effect in less than a month, “is sort of a deal breaker in the relationship right now,” said Bisaria. “If that becomes reality, then all Indian efforts [to reach out to the US] would come under scrutiny.”

‘Terrorism’

But trade isn’t the only challenge in the relationship. A major rupture emerged in May last year, when New Delhi engaged in a four-day war with its bitter neighbour, Pakistan, after an attack by armed fighters in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 civilians.

New Delhi was upstaged as President Trump announced a ceasefire, claiming that he threatened both countries with economic damage if they didn’t stop fighting. For India, any question on Kashmir is strictly bilateral with Pakistan, with no room for so-called third-party intervention.

Nevertheless, Trump has gone on to claim dozens of times that he brokered the crucial ceasefire — as recently as at the UNGA in New York — that halted the war between two nuclear-armed neighbours. India took offence to these claims.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s leaders cozied up to Trump, showered high praise, and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, the relationship between Islamabad and Washington has bloomed, to New Delhi’s obvious irk.

For India, Jaishankar said, “particularly important is the issue of terrorism.”

“As a country, perhaps there are very few countries which have been subjected to the kind of terrorism that we have from a neighbour as part of a deliberate, conscious policy over many, many decades,” Jaishankar said, referring to Pakistan.

“Now, if something which matters so deeply to us, there isn’t enough understanding or appreciation or empathy of that, I think that creates a problem too,” he said, adding that India’s primary concerns are “not fully appreciated” by its partner, the US.

New Delhi’s changing tone while addressing Washington “is a lesson learnt from its experiences,” said Bisaria, the former diplomat. “After the ceasefire issue, the moods changed — and it all became worse.”

Harsh Pant, vice president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank, said that “the obsession with Pakistan in the Trump administration without taking India’s sensitivities into account contributed to the sense that, look, we need to start articulating it.”

“When at the top level, you don’t see reciprocity, then calculations change and decisions are taken to bring differences out in the open,” Pant told Al Jazeera, referring to Jaishankar’s comments.

Domestic Pressure

Indians have been the biggest beneficiaries of the US’s H1B programme which allows hiring of foreign workers with training in specialty fields. But that has come under fire from Trump, under whose watch Washington has raised barriers and fees for applicants, amid growing criticism of the scheme from supporters of his MAGA movement.

“For many years, mobility was seen as an economic gain. Today the economics of mobility and the politics of mobility are at odds with each other, at least in some quarters,” Jaishankar said, referring to Trump’s anti-immigration politics.

“That certainly in public perception is an issue,” the minister said.

Domestic pressure appears to be finally catching up in New Delhi. “Modi is feeling domestic pressure, with key state elections coming up next year, especially amid some anti-incumbency,” said Bisaria. “It dictates that the government’s posture should not be one of taking bullying from the US.”

Pant said issues like migration impact the general public in India, with the world’s largest population. For years, such connections made the US “an attractive partner for a large mass of Indians.” But today, he said,
”the same issues are becoming a negative drag on the relationship.”

“The public mood in India is also changing perceptibly towards the US. And I think the government is articulating that negative sentiment now publicly,” Pant said.

‘Waiting out Trump’

When Trump returned to the White House for his second presidential run, many in New Delhi’s strategic community were optimistic about bilateral relations, because of the US president’s warm personal relations with PM Modi during his first term.

But things unravelled in the coming months.

Still, Chatham House’s Bajpaee said that despite widening divisions between the US and India, “both have not given up on reviving their relationship”.

He pointed to Jaishankar’s remarks that India isn’t singled out in having a difficult relationship with the US. “Rather, the downturn in India-US relations is a reflection of the Trump administration’s transactional and often unpredictable or erratic foreign policy,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This offers a potential off-ramp for an eventual reset in relations. The conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement is a key watchpoint for this,” Bajpaee added.

For New Delhi, Pant said, “it is now just the question of waiting Mr. Trump out.” Though he added, with a laugh, that India is not alone in that queue.

“Everyone is waiting him out. President Trump has little respect for conventions and norms of inter-state behaviour. How do you just deal with that individual?” Pant said.

A Black police officer asked whether a monkey was named “Tyrone,” to the laughter of a roomful of Latino and Asian colleagues.

A Latina cop described how to inflict maximum pain: “You hit Black people in the liver — I heard they got weak livers,” she said, according to an LAPD internal affairs report.

The report said their boss, an Asian sergeant, stood by as his employees used terms like “midnight” and “chocolate, chocolate” to describe people’s skin tones.

Those were among the comments that came to light last year after an LAPD whistleblower secretly recorded his colleagues in a unit that screens police recruits.

The scandal, which has seen new developments in recent weeks, is forcing department officials to reckon with a harsh reality: Years of efforts to make the LAPD more diverse have seemingly done little to stamp out prejudice in the ranks.

For much of its history, the LAPD was a white man’s department. Aggressive tactics in communities of color fueled racial uprisings in the 1960s and early 1990s, when the beating of motorist Rodney King led to the discovery of messages similar to those in the recruitment unit tapes, with officers referring to Black men as “Buckwheat” and bragging about “busting heads.”

Under pressure from lawsuits and consent decrees, police leaders pushed to recruit more Black, Latino and Asian officers, seeking to build up trust in minority communities.

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1. Los Angeles Police Department graduates a total of 22 recruits at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park on Friday, September 18, 2026. 2. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Latinos now make up more than half of the 8,500-officer department. Black officers constitute less than 9% of the force, coinciding with a decline in the city’s Black population.

The officer who made the recruitment unit recordings, Daniel Flores, is Latino.

He recorded dozens of conversations over a six-month span in 2024, eventually handing them over to the department’s inspector general for investigation.

Last week, Flores filed a new lawsuit against the city, adding to a previous claim that alleged he faced retaliation from his bosses for documenting the offensive comments he heard while on the job.

According to his latest claim, department officials recommended that he be suspended for 22 days without pay. After initially seeking to keep his job with the LAPD, the 13-year department veteran said in the lawsuit that he recently decided to retire rather than endure an increasingly hostile work environment.

Flores also alleged LAPD officials were responsible for pushing a criminal case against him for violating a state eavesdropping law that prohibits recording conversations without consent. Initially alleging 16 felonies, Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman has since reduced the charges to misdemeanors, likely allowing Flores to avoid jail time.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to answer questions about Flores’ case.

“The Department takes these allegations seriously,” Lt. Elpidio Orozco said in a statement. “Because the case and related personnel proceedings remain ongoing, we cannot discuss individual disciplinary actions or make comparisons to unrelated past incidents.”

The department’s defenders maintain that progress has been made toward rooting out bigotry.

Officers are required to undergo psychological screening and training aimed at teasing out unconscious biases. New recruits and seasoned officers alike take field trips to the Museum of Tolerance, where trainers extol the virtues of multiculturalism. The department has sent recruiters to historically Black colleges in the South and the East Coast.

But others, including civil rights attorney Connie Rice, say the latest scandal proves that the LAPD’s problems run deeper than the hateful actions of a few individuals.

The beating of Rodney King in 1991 forced a reckoning for the LAPD.

(George Holliday / Associated Press)

“Racism is like the herpes virus in the body of the LAPD: You can suppress it with a good chief, but as soon as they leave, it breaks out again,” Rice said.

A 2024 study by British researchers examined racial attitudes among members of the department’s vaunted Metropolitan Division.

The researchers found that LAPD officers were “shockingly defensive” when asked about systemic racism, taking a negative view of diversity hiring programs and insisting that left-leaning activists, elected officials and media outlets were stoking public outrage over racial profiling.

“The dismissive reactions … to a question on such an important issue highlight an unhealthy antagonism which prevents any organization from learning or developing its practice,” the researchers concluded. “It is a fundamental barrier that must be overcome.”

While hiring more officers from historically marginalized groups has long been pushed as a way to improve police practices and build trust in minority neighborhoods, studies have not necessarily borne that out, said Daniel Gascon, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“Just because there’s more numbers of a given sort in a department doesn’t mean it’s going to change automatically,” said Gascon, who has studied the LAPD’s relationship with Latino communities.

Since the start of the year, a review of recruit graduation announcements shows the department has hired just seven new Black officers. By contrast, roughly 80% of the 241 officers to graduate from the police academy over the last nine months have been Latino.

The growing Latino presence in the LAPD has been reflected in police use-of-force numbers.

A Times analysis of police shootings since 2016 found that of the roughly 150 people who have been shot dead by the LAPD across the city, at least 94 were Latino men. In 3 out of every 4 of those shootings, at least one of the officers who fired was also Latino, the analysis showed.

LAPD Officer Daniel Flores, left, listens as his attorney Alan Jackson speaks to reporters at the Superior Court building.

(Libor Jany / Los Angeles Times)

Despite the increased diversity, interviews with current and former LAPD members indicate deep divisions are reflected in the way that Black and Latino officers see the department’s racial issues. Most agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

Several Black officers told The Times they still experience workplace hostility and racial dog whistles, such as fretting about the lowering of police recruit standards. The comments, they said, came from Black and Latino colleagues alike.

Too often, the Black officers said, Latinos who wear the uniform see themselves only as victims of discrimination, and not perpetrators.

Some Black officers said they avoid conversations about race entirely for fear of upsetting conservative colleagues — who feel emboldened by the divisive rhetoric coming from the White House.

The Latino officers who spoke to The Times said the department has for too long prioritized the promotion of Black members of the force to leadership roles while the representation of Latinos in the highest ranks has slipped.

Others argue that because society tends to lump Latinos of different backgrounds together, workplace discrimination against and within the community is often missed.

Officers from both groups said their race has been used against them when it comes to promotions. But both sides also say racism is a problem in society writ large, and not limited to the LAPD.

In a recent interview with The Times, Mayor Karen Bass said that although she is pleased that the department has increased the number of Latino officers to reflect the city’s demographics, its percentage of Black officers continues to dwindle as older African Americans are on the brink of retirement with very few young Black officers coming onto the job.

Bass, who was a young community organizer in South L.A. when the King beating happened, said it was foolhardy to believe that merely because the LAPD is more diverse, old problems cannot be repeated.

“Just because this happened 30 years ago and there are new policies that were put in place, that’s not enough,” she said in an interview with The Times. “You’ve gotta make sure that those policies are constantly updated.”

Times staff writers Andrea Flores and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

The California I grew up in had its pluses and minuses, just like the state I’m living in now.

But consider this:

In 1974, I wrote a check for a semester of college.

The fee was $98.

That was the cost of registration, by the way. Tuition for in-state residents was free at San José State University and other public universities in California. The state’s leaders believed subsidized higher education would serve the greater good and seed economic growth.

Two years after graduating, I was working as a sportswriter for a small Bay Area newspaper. My spouse was a drug store clerk. Together we made less than $20,000 a year.

And we bought a brand-new house, 45 minutes east of Oakland, for just under $50,000.

In a thousand ways, we’re living in a different California today. Tuition and fees for a semester on a Cal State campus now run about $4,500, and the average mid-tier home costs about $775,000 in some places and far more in others, which is out of reach for nearly 80% of working people.

So as I watched the gubernatorial debate Wednesday night between the two men who want to lead us into the future, I was wondering which California is better in terms of hope, opportunity and livability?

The one I was born in during the postwar boom, or the one we’re living in now?

There’s no easy answer. The California of my youth was more affordable, but it was no utopian dreamscape. Housing discrimination and segregation were deep-seated, and the Los Angeles sky was the color of swamp water.

In the last half of the 20th century, California went on to become a global leader in technology, aerospace, the arts and healthcare, and its investment in public education helped build an economic superpower. Even the air got cleaned up, to a degree.

But for all of California’s riches and unrivaled natural beauty, it’s fair to say things are out of whack at the moment. How is it that the world’s fourth-largest economy also has the nation’s highest poverty rate?

There’s a flotilla of yachts, but millions of have-nots, and enough homeless people to fill stadiums. If we’re so progressive, and swimming in more venture capital than the rest of the nation combined, why are the masses crippled by a housing shortage and the high cost of living, and why did we build a soaring higher education model while letting our once exalted K-12 system sink in national rankings?

If California weren’t so lopsidedly blue, Republican candidate Steve Hilton might get a little more traction with a campaign built around the idea that there’s an easy explanation for the state’s misery of problems: Democrats have been in charge for years, they’ve mucked things up, and Xavier Becerra is yet another textbook California liberal who will stay the course.

“It’s impossible for regular working people to live in this state anymore,” Hilton charged during the debate, calling out over-regulation, the high cost of living, the housing shortage and a homelessness problem that “shames” our state. “And all you’re offering,” Hilton continued, “is more of the same, backed by the same corrupt machine in Sacramento.”

Becerra, meanwhile, kept handcuffing Hilton to President Trump, a good move, given that the president has helped launch an idiotic war, gummed up the economy, and seen his favorability plummet.

Hilton is not entirely off base, although there’s no evidence he has plausible solutions.

What he doesn’t tell you is that other states have their own problems, many of which have more to do with global economic forces — and President Trump’s war-mongering and tariff tirades — than with public policy decisions at the state level.

When I was a lad, my father drove a milk truck, and then a bread truck, and then he sold candy and tobacco for a wholesale distributor based in Oakland, near the Coliseum, where he’d take me to A’s games but save a few bucks by parking next to the railroad tracks a half-mile away from the parking lot.

His jobs were mostly unionized. Unions were plentiful in the private sector back then. My family saved up for a house while we lived in an apartment, and then I paid next to nothing for a college degree.

The boldness of that idea — a free education at an elite university, with a lofty if unfulfilled goal of equal access for all — is still a testament to California’s long-ago grand ambition, even if Gov. Ronald Reagan eventually ended free tuition.

In her new book, “California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California,” Miriam Pawel references a quote from UC Berkeley alum Joan Didion, who called the system “the most coherent expression of the California possibility.”

The staircase I climbed was the essence of what USC professor Natalia Molina called “the infrastructure” of upward mobility. In her immigrant family, her grandmother established an Echo Park restaurant that Molina wrote a book about — “A Place at the Nayarit” — and her mother ran the bar there after attending bartending school.

Molina went to UCLA, and is now both a MacArthur Foundation fellow (the “genius” grant) and a Guggenheim fellow.

“There’s not that same path for upward mobility,” Molina said. “But there sure seems to be a path for downward mobility.”

That brings me back to the economy, and lessons I learned in 2018, when I spent several weeks in and around Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima, looking into why nearly a quarter of the students were homeless.

The answer? Several once-bustling manufacturing and aerospace companies in the area had shut down. The new economy was fast food and big box stores. Pay dropped; housing prices spiked. It was a snapshot of a changing world — one we haven’t yet adapted to.

Modern politics is not built to foster long-term thinking about such challenges, said longtime political strategist Darry Sragow.

“What are the dreams, what are the aspirations, where do you want to go?” said Sragow, who doesn’t know the answers but would like to at least hear the questions. “I keep looking for somebody who will do that.”

Agoura Hills resident and attorney Dan Douglass, 80, who detests President Trump and isn’t a fan of Hilton, told me that as a moderate Republican, he feels like “a man without a party.” But he is not without an answer to California’s housing problem.

“They’ve made it too complicated to build anything,” Douglass said. “Too many permits. Too much time to build.”

He is not wrong.

Samuel Trachtman, a political scientist with the UC Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, argues that despite recent legislative progress on the housing crisis, state policies are restricting growth and making California more unaffordable.

“California must reduce regulatory costs that fall disproportionately on low- and middle-income residents,” Trachtman wrote in a recent four-part analysis.

“The state has “long led the nation in regulations promoting safety, sustainability, and quality,” he went on. “These policies can produce strong benefits. But they can also drive up the cost of essentials — costs that hit the poor hardest. This amounts to regressively funded progressivism.”

California was, and is, a work in progress, richly endowed and deeply flawed. Fixing complicated problems isn’t easy, but what I’d like to see from the next governor is more of the striving, imagination and sense of collective purpose that made California great.

There’s no way and no reason to go back to the state of my youth, but Trachtman had a thought about where to go next.

“In some ways we can use the past as a model,” he told me. “But in other ways we need to be more innovative and think about charting a path forward.”

Toward the most coherent expression of the California possibility.

steve.lopez@latimes.com