At first it looked like just another fight over war powers and Congress doing its job. But it feels like something bigger: the start of a real tug-of-war over what the Republican Party is going to be once Trump isn’t the center of everything.
For almost ten years now, Republican politics has been all about Trump. You rose if you stood with him, and you got sidelined if you didn’t. Loyalty often counted more than old-school conservative ideas, passing bills, or sticking to principles. But every party eventually has to answer the tough question that personality-driven movements hate: what happens when the big guy starts looking more like a problem than a winner? That question is getting harder for Republicans to dodge.
Trump didn’t just take over the party in 2016 — he remade it. The old Republican worldview of strong alliances, free trade, and steady leadership shifted toward a more populist, Trump-centered style.
It worked for a while. He won elections, fired up voters who felt ignored, and built a super-loyal base. As long as the wins kept coming, most Republicans went along. Parties get tested in the tough times, though — not the good ones. And the Iran conflict is turning into exactly that kind of test.
A lot of Republicans who backed Trump’s rise never thought they’d end up defending another big Middle East war. Trump made “no more endless wars” one of his best lines—slamming both parties for the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now the fighting with Iran has dragged on for months. Costs are adding up, gas prices sting at the pump, and nobody’s really clear on what “winning” would even mean. That’s created real quiet discomfort inside the party. The senators and reps who voted to rein in Trump’s war powers weren’t just talking procedure. They were signaling that blind loyalty isn’t automatic anymore.
Parties talk a lot about ideology, but when things get serious, survival often wins out. Some Republicans are starting to put distance between themselves and Trump — not because they hate everything he stands for, but because they don’t want their own careers sinking with one person. There’s a real difference between backing conservative policies and handing the whole party over to a single leader. More of them seem to be waking up to that.
What’s interesting is that the pushback is coming from inside the tent. Democrats opposing Trump is old news. When Republicans do it, it hits different. Senators like Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bill Cassidy broke ranks on the Senate vote. In the House, guys like Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett, and Warren Davidson did the same. These are still small numbers. But big shifts often start small.
The bigger story might be that some Republicans are finally imagining a future without Trump dominating every headline. A younger crop is coming up—they agree with him on immigration, trade, and culture wars, but they don’t want the party to be defined only by personal loyalty to him forever. They want a Republican Party that can keep going after he’s gone—Trumpism as one important piece, not the whole thing.
History shows parties sometimes tie themselves too tightly to charismatic leaders. Sometimes it revitalizes them. Sometimes it drags them down.
Right now, some inside the GOP worry Trump might be moving from asset to liability—especially with the Iran war dragging on and polarization getting worse. Trump is still the biggest force in the party with a rock-solid base. But power and lasting control aren’t the same.
These congressional votes show that at least some Republicans are already looking ahead to the next chapter. They see the risks of hitching the whole party’s future to one man. Whether they’re right or wrong, time will tell. But the conversation inside the party has clearly moved past just Iran or war powers. It’s now about whether the Republican Party still belongs to Trump — or whether it can finally start belonging to itself again.
When Nithya Raman stepped up to a podium on the night of L.A.’s mayoral primary election, she thanked her supporters for standing up to the “powerful interests” who spent millions of dollars trying to “preserve this city’s broken and unjust status quo.”
“At a time when so many people have written Los Angeles off or have lost hope in the future of this incredible city,” the democratic socialist L.A. mayoral hopeful said, “you are proof that Angelenos are hungry for change.”
But as election results rolled in, the movement for change was underwhelming, or at least divided. Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass was in the lead, advancing to the November runoff. That left Raman locked in a battle for a second spot with Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt.
Bass is one of several high-profile establishment Democrats to emerge on top. In California’s gubernatorial race, centrist Xavier Becerra, a veteran of the Biden Cabinet, advanced to the runoff after being challenged from the left by billionaire green activist Tom Steyer and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter. Steyer is now behind Steve Hilton, a Republican, and battling to make the runoff.
Still reeling from the rise of Donald Trump, Democrats in California and beyond are struggling to figure out the future direction of the party.
Some progressives, inspired by Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral victory, saw 2026 as an opportunity to move the city further left. But the results have been mixed in key races, with veteran Democrats like Bass and Becerra eking out leads even as polls show dissatisfaction with status quo politics in California.
“This was supposed to be a change revolution, but voters clearly said no to the revolution,” said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College. “Voters want change,” she noted, “but it doesn’t appear right now that there has been an appetite for a major shift in the ideology of the city or the state.”
Xavier Becerra speaks during an election night event in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Becerra emerged as the Democratic favorite late in the election and won support from many establishment party leaders. Pundits said after a wild primary that included the implosion of Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign amid sex assault allegations, Becerra emerged as a “safe” choice.
Some opponents attacked his moderate views and his willingness to accept campaign donations from big oil companies like Chevron. But that did not stop his rise.
Bass was also beset with challenges, being an incumbent in a city beset with problems.
For her, election night marked a “victory with an asterisk,” Sadhwani said, noting that Bass is first incumbent L.A. mayor in more than two decades to face a runoff. “It would be wrong for Karen Bass to think that this victory … is a ringing endorsement of the work she is currently doing.”
The results underscore Bass’ unpopularity as an incumbent, garnering just 35% of the vote so far. If Raman can catch up and eventually surpass Pratt in the vote count, she could pose a considerable challenge to Bass as more young voters come to the polls in November.
Mike Bonin, a former L.A. City Council member who leads the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said if Bass exceeded expectations it was because they were very low.
“Coming in first in a runoff isn’t a huge victory for an incumbent mayor,” he said. “Two-thirds of the city did not vote for her. That’s not a position of strength.”
James Adams, a political science professor at UC Davis, said that Becerra and Bass coming through indicates the centrist Democratic candidates were in a stronger short-term position than their rivals. But problems loom ahead, he said, as the longtime Democratic establishment that’s been governing California for the last 15 years failed to make notable progress in solving problems with affordable housing, homelessness, public transportation and education.
“I think the Democrats’ prospects are very bright in 2026 given the California Republicans’ dysfunctionality and a complete backlash against Donald Trump,” Adams said. “But I have much bigger concerns about the California Democrats long term, because it seems to me they’re setting a record for most consecutive years of failing to fix the state’s problems while getting reelected anyway.”
Democrats in California, he said, were suffering from being in power too long.
“Whenever one party gets into a long-term, dominant position, usually because the other party is just in the midst of self-destructing … the whole thing ends in tears, because the party that is in a dominant position, they don’t have to be that good.”
As the vote count continues in the mayor’s race, democratic socialists in Los Angeles already have some wins down-ballot.
“We are gaining momentum,” said Leslie Chang, a co-chair of the 5,000-member L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a decentralized anti-capitalist group that advocates for rental protections and defunding the police. Over the last six years, Angelenos have elected four DSA-backed City Council members and a DSA-recommended city controller.
The DSA did not officially endorse Raman, because she entered the race after the group had issued endorsements and another DSA candidate was also running for mayor. However, three of the six DSA-backed candidates for citywide office were projected to win outright.
DSA Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez were reelected by such large margins they avoided runoffs. In the city attorney’s race, DSA-endorsed Marissa Roy was in the lead and the mainstream Democratic incumbent became the first city attorney ousted in a primary in nearly a century. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, a progressive anti-establishment candidate who is not a DSA member but an ally of the group, led by nearly 20 percentage points.
When Chang knocked on doors, she said, some voters asked: “Well, what’s the difference between Nithya and Karen Bass?”
A few voters told her that after reviewing Bass’ and Raman’s websites, they found their platforms similar. Chang was surprised. She thought Raman articulated a clear and novel strategy for how to get L.A. out of the housing crisis, but she said some on the left took issue with her working with housing developers to reduce red tape.
Neel Sannappa, chair of the California Democratic Party’s progressive caucus, said Raman was stymied by getting into the race late and having only a few months to campaign. It also didn’t help that a more left-wing challenger, Rae Huang, already had some momentum — not enough to win, but enough to split the left.
“Nithya does represent something real and growing in Los Angeles,” Sannappa said. “There is a hunger for more progressive, left-leaning candidates that want to make sure that we’re investing in people and not so much investing in just police … and being able to build things that are new and innovative.”
Supporters watch election results come in on their phones during Nithya Raman’s election night party at Boomtown Brewery on Tuesday.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Some have criticized Raman’s coalition-building, noting she was not endorsed by her fellow DSA-backed City Council members. Others said the MIT and Harvard graduate, who has been a councilmember for six years, performed tepidly in a May televised debate and suffered from Pratt’s attempts to tie her to the establishment.
“If you’re a part of the institution, which she is,” Sadhwani said, “then you can’t exactly claim that you’re going to bring massive change.”
Sadhwani said that California’s left, in contrast to New York’s, appears to have a charisma deficit. While Pratt and Hilton had an advantage with their television backgrounds, they also spoke “in plain terms about the real problems that the state faces.”
Part of Bass’ success can also be attributed to assembling a coalition that included the L.A. County Federation of Labor, the L.A. police officers union, the L.A. County Democratic Party and immigrant rights groups.
In the mayoral race, Sadhwani said, “the dominant political coalition still has power, money, the organization.”
“If you can garner the support of the unions, then having a broader message, maybe it’s less important,” she said. “You don’t have to work quite so hard, because the unions have the base machine.”
People attend Mayor Bass’ election party for the California 2026 primaries at the LINE Hotel on Tuesday.
(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)
Yusef Robb, a longtime Democratic strategist who is an advisor to Bass, attributed the mayor’s lead to her campaign’s success in building a broad coalition and communicating across the political spectrum. Most voters, he said, tend to think less about ideology — and whether a Democrat was mainstream or DSA-supported — than candidates’ positions on bread and butter issues.
“Mayor’s races are first and foremost about what people see outside of their front doors, when they walk their kids to school, when they drive to work,” he said. “At the end of the day, the voters look at the field and say, ‘OK, who do I trust to keep my kids from having to skip around a tent on the way to school?’ ‘Who can I trust to hire more officers?’ … and ‘Who can I trust to fight back against ICE in court through executive action and even in the streets?’ And that’s Karen Bass.”
For Democrats in this robustly blue state, part of the challenge in figuring a path forward is that every candidate — even those already in power — pitches themselves as a bona fide progressive against the status quo.
“We have led a grassroots campaign because we want to bring change to our city,” Bass said on election night. “And that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”
Raman also tried to tout herself as a change candidate. Articulating her platform in broad strokes rather than bread-and-butter detail, Raman said she wanted L.A. to be a place “where government actually functions and delivers every day on this city’s beautiful bighearted values, where we stand up against ICE, where we show up for our gay and trans siblings.”
But as she talked of neighborhoods “full of trees and shade … and people and good food,” she seemed low-key and equivocal. Her message was a far cry from the pressing one U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put forward in his presidential campaigns, highlighting the millions of Americans working for “starvation wages” and a young single mother in Nevada struggling on $10.45 an hour.
Ultimately, the fight between Bass and Raman, as a struggle between mainstream and progressive Democrats, is complicated by the fact that Bass came up through the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, founding the grassroots Community Coalition in South L.A. in the 1990s.
Campaign worker Khai Dombroe prepares balloons before Nithya Raman’s election night party.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
And even though Raman is a DSA member, she has tacked to the center during the campaign, distancing herself from past calls to defund the police by saying she did not want the LAPD to lose more officers.
While Raman and Bass have much in common, the most significant difference between them is on homelessness, Sannappa said. Even though Bass comes from a political tradition of not wanting to criminalize the unhoused, he said, she understood her voters include people wanting to move homeless people off the streets.
“Brass tacks is that we need people that are going to be willing to fight for mental health services,” Sannappa said.
“I think Nithya more so represents the direction where the Democratic Party is going to have to go.”
As L.A. becomes less affordable and homeownership becomes out of reach for many Angelenos, young renters have become a rising political constituency — a shift that many say will likely propel the city leftward.
Bonin said he expected the next new rising Democratic coalition in L.A. to be a labor-renter coalition. He cited Councilmember Soto-Martinez, a renter and union organizer, as probably the best avatar of that.
But as the middle-class splinters along generational lines, other political experts warn that many ordinary Angelenos feel increasingly shut out of L.A. politics.
“Once upon a time the Democratic Party was the party of the working class, and today it has become the party of the educated elites,” Sadhwani said. “Perhaps one of the gifts that Donald Trump has given to Democrats is to force them to contend with the everyday issues of voters, which they seem to have distanced themselves from.”
As many Angelenos feel worse off now than four years ago, Chang said Bass was not directly responsible for every problem. Still, she said, she could have done more to move the city in the right direction.
Delaying the wage boost tied to the 2028 Olympics, she said, was a move that failed working people at a time when many are struggling to make ends meet.
“My fear, of course, is people pivot away from corporate Democrats and they choose the MAGA Republican, because that is the most visible fight,” Chang said. “Or because they think, ‘Oh, well, a democratic socialist running on the Democratic Party line, this is just more of the same status quo.’ ”
Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on earth. It has lithium. It has agriculture, a coastline three hours away from Miami, and—for the first time in a generation a political window. The reconstruction investment case is real. So is the obstacle for every actor, across every ideology, that wants Venezuelan assets to perform.
The obstacle is not the oil price. It is not the OFAC sanctions framework, which has been substantially liberalized since January 2026. It is not even the absence of functioning institutions, though that is the proximate problem every investor will encounter. The obstacle has a nucleus with name, a title, and an active intelligence apparatus. And his continued presence in power is not merely a moral affront.
This is not a story about mismanagement. Mismanagement leaves a paper trail.
What happened across Venezuela’s infrastructure ministries between 2002 and 2012 lest almost none, deliberately. Over $150 billion in documented railway, housing, and infrastructure contracts were disbursed across that decade. The projects largely do not exist. The documentation largely does not exist. The Tinaco-Anaco railway, a $7.5 billion contract signed with China Railway Engineering Corporation, produced looted campsites and empty concrete columns. The National Railway Plan, budgeted at $150 billion, produced less than one percent of its projected track.
One of the ministers who oversaw that disbursement period of the infrastructure that is so dire, and who preserved an influence only surpassed by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, today is the Interior Minister of Venezuela. He controls the national intelligence apparatus, the police, and the armed colectivos. He is Diosdado Cabello, your competing General Partner that has acted without impunity. He carries a live indictment from a New York court on narco-trafficking charges. He is sanctioned by the US Treasury. He hosts a television program that airs every Wednesday evening.
By 2011, the beneficial ownership architecture built by Venezuela’s ruling network spanned more than forty trustees across multiple jurisdictions: a parallel private equity structure embedded inside a sovereign state.
The distinction that every institutional investor must internalize is this: a mismanaged State is recoverable. A State whose productive apparatus was deliberately extracted (not ruined by incompetence but hollowed out because extraction was more profitable than production) presents a categorically different investment problem. The destruction was not the side effect of the governance model. It was the point of it. Cabello remains an icon of that governance model.
The counterparty problem
Conventional private equity rests on a foundational assumption: your counterparty has an interest in the underlying asset performing. Returns depend on it. Exit depends on it. The entire structure of an LP agreement, a term sheet, a co-investment right, all of it assumes a counterparty whose incentive is aligned with asset value.
In Venezuela, the sophisticated actor on the other side of the table for two decades was running a competing structure. One with no limited partners, no fiduciary duty, no quarterly reporting, and a sovereign intelligence apparatus for compliance. That structure had a single mandate: maximum extraction, minimum documentation, zero accountability. It executed that mandate with precision.
By 2011, the beneficial ownership architecture built by Venezuela’s ruling network spanned more than forty trustees across multiple jurisdictions. This is not a warlord’s operation. This is a parallel private equity structure embedded inside a sovereign state.
That sophistication is precisely what makes the residual presence of these networks so consequential for reconstruction capital. They did not disappear with the January 2026 transition. They repositioned. The structures that governed Venezuela’s extraction apparatus are experts at corporate layering: shell companies, nominee directors, off-channel financial instruments designed to distance beneficial owners from the assets they control.
This is the counterparty environment that reconstruction capital is walking into. Not a post-conflict landscape with residual corruption. An active, sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional extraction network that has spent 25 years perfecting its operational security
These are not improvised operations, they are multi-jurisdictional corporate architectures spanning Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, the Caribbean, and more recently Turkey and the Middle East. Each node chosen for its specific regulatory gap or enforcement lag. The $5.2 billion in gold shipped to Switzerland between 2013 and 2016, the Alex Saab procurement network running through Turkey and Cape Verde, the Zapatero indictment revealing consulting structures designed to siphon money from China, Venezuela, and Spain simultaneously these are documented examples of the same operational capability.
These networks retain the best advisors money can pay. Former heads of state, international law firms, financial intermediaries operating across jurisdictions. The Zapatero case is not the exception, it is the template. And they operate with the enforcement discipline of a cartel: strategic asset moves backed by the implicit and sometimes explicit willingness to use coercion when commercial pressure is insufficient. The SDNY indictments against senior regime figures on narco-trafficking charges are not separate from the financial architecture. They are evidence that the same command structure manages both.
This is the counterparty environment that reconstruction capital is walking into. Not a post-conflict landscape with residual corruption. An active, sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional extraction network that has spent 25 years perfecting its operational security, asset acquisitions by “patriotic”expropriations to serve their drug-logistic hubs and is now repositioning for the reconstruction window.
Why China doesn’t actually want this
China’s position in Venezuela is widely misread as unconditional support. The reality is more commercially specific. China has over $60 billion in loan-for-oil exposure through CNPC and the China Development Bank. Those loans require one thing: barrels flowing. Barrels require functional production infrastructure. Functional production infrastructure requires institutional stability, contract enforcement, and (critically) a counterparty with an interest in assets performing.
Beijing understands this better than any outside observer because its own institutions have investigated the damage. Xi Jinping’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection placed a CITIC Group vice president under investigation for serious disciplinary violations, the same CITIC that embedded confidentiality clauses in Venezuelan housing contracts barring the Venezuelan government from accessing financial information about its own projects. An Andorran court documented $100 million in bribes paid by CAMC Engineering to Venezuelan officials. China did not need backchannel meetings to understand the corruption. Its own companies were defendants in it.
China also enforces its own code of conduct internally. The CCP’s anti-corruption apparatus, operating through the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has a long reach, including over state enterprise executives who participated in overseas schemes that damaged China’s institutional reputation. Chinese firms implicated in Venezuelan bribery networks in Andorra for payments to PDVSA lobbyists related to Venezuela’s electricity system did not operate without consequence within their own system. Beijing does not publicize these accountability mechanisms, but they exist. The party does not tolerate reputational exposure that undermines its economic diplomacy, regardless of the geography.
Every dollar that disappears into the extraction apparatus is a dollar that does not produce the barrel that services the Chinese loans.
The Trump-Xi summit concluded in Beijing on May 15, 2026, the same day Lamargas exploded on Lake Maracaibo, a facility operated by China Concord Resources Corp under a PDVSA joint venture contract. At the moment, the US and Chinese governments are navigating toward economic stabilization and a framework for managed competition, building on their South Korea thaw. That G2 stabilization has direct implications for Venezuela: a China that is repositioning toward US capital markets, Boeing purchases, and agricultural commitments is a China with diminishing strategic incentive to backstop a Venezuelan network that embarrasses it commercially.
The Chevron model—US-anchored, internationally governed, with Chinese off-take embedded through structured contracts—is precisely the kind of framework that serves Beijing’s debt recovery needs without requiring it to defend the indefensible.
A ministry based in a kleptocracy whose financial architecture is premised on assets not performing for the state is structurally incompatible with Chinese debt recovery. Beijing is not sentimental about this. It is calculating.
China’s $50-60 billion in loan-for-oil exposure to Venezuela requires one thing above all else: barrels flowing. Barrels require functional production infrastructure. Functional production infrastructure requires institutional stability, contract enforcement, and a counterparty whose economic interest is aligned with assets performing. When the ministry overseeing oil production is the same apparatus that systematically extracted value from every sector it touched, railways that produced concrete columns and nothing else, housing programs with $76 billion in unaccounted deficits, power plants that were paid for and never built, you can see that the problem for Beijing is not political. Every dollar that disappears into the extraction apparatus is a dollar that does not produce the barrel that services the loans.
China tried to correct this internally before abandoning the effort. In 2018, Margaret Myers at the Inter-American Dialogue pointed out that Beijing “tried over the past couple of years to guide decision-making in Caracas by providing advice or by tying loans to production capacity projects in the oil sector, in order to try to help Venezuela right itself economically. That has not proven successful.”
By 2016, China stopped issuing new loans entirely. That is not a diplomatic signal. That is a credit committee decision. The same kind of decision any institutional lender makes when the counterparty’s governance structure has made repayment structurally unlikely.
The Brazilian vector
Brazil’s relationship to Venezuela’s reconstruction is complicated by a paper trail that runs through the largest corruption scandal in Latin American history. Odebrecht paid the highest figure of any country outside Brazil itself. Venezuela’s own former prosecutor general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, formally linked those payments to senior Socialist Party figures including Diosdado Cabello after being removed from office and forced to flee the country. The investigation was halted by Venezuela’s highest court. The Swiss banking system was asked to provide a list of Venezuelan recipients. Neither process was allowed to reach its conclusion.
In Brazil, the Odebrecht network reached the highest levels of political life. Federal prosecutors investigated Lula for allegedly lobbying foreign governments on Odebrecht’s behalf after leaving the presidency, and for his role in directing state development bank BNDES financing toward Odebrecht projects abroad. The contracts that linked Odebrecht to Venezuela were not arm’s-length commercial transactions. They were, by Odebrecht’s own admission in its US Department of Justice plea agreement, instruments of a coordinated bribery architecture that spanned twelve countries and operated through a dedicated internal division (the Division of Structured Operations) whose sole purpose was managing political payments.
What does not yet exist is the decision—by US institutional capital—to arrive with a governance structure that the extraction network cannot penetrate.
Brazil has significant commercial interests in Venezuela’s reconstruction, across energy, agriculture, and infrastructure. Those interests are legitimate and Brazilian private capital is a natural reconstruction partner. The complication is not Brazil. It is the specific political-commercial network that governed Brazil’s prior engagement with Venezuela. Odebrecht did not select its Venezuelan counterparties through competitive markets. Contracts were directed through political relationships — between heads of state, with BNDES as the financing instrument, and with the Odebrecht Division of Structured Operations managing the payments in between.
Political networks have institutional memory. The preferred partners that flow through certain diplomatic channels into Venezuela’s reconstruction window carry relationships forged in that prior architecture. A governance framework serious about reconstruction cannot simply exclude Odebrecht, the legal entity. It must screen for the network that Odebrecht served. That screening is structural, not political. It is the difference between Brazilian capital that competes on merit and Brazilian capital that arrives pre-selected by the same diplomatic infrastructure that enabled the extraction.
The structure that worked and the decision that remains
One Venezuelan asset survived twenty-six years of chavismo with its value intact. One. CITGO Petroleum, incorporated in Delaware, governed under US fiduciary law, with its governance architecture anchored entirely outside Venezuelan legal jurisdiction. It survived not because of political protection but because of structural protection. US law held when every Venezuelan institution around it failed. That is not a coincidence. It is the blueprint.
Venezuela sits very close to Miami. Capital will flow in. The question is whether it arrives with a governance structure equal to the threat, or whether it arrives the way it always has in captured states: trusting counterparties who already demonstrated, at extraordinary scale, that trust was the wrong instrument.
The SDNY indicted the man who sits in the Interior Ministry. The US Treasury sanctioned him. He is still in the building. Turkish construction conglomerates, Asian commodity traders, and European energy juniors are already positioning—without FCPA compliance costs, without fiduciary obligations, without LP reporting requirements. They will move faster. They will price lower. This is what happened in Iraq after 2003. It is what happened in Libya.
The architecture to do this differently exists. Human capital exists in the diaspora: eight million Venezuelans left and within them there are over a million that hold verifiable credentials embedded in US and European institutions, carrying the technical and legal knowledge to rebuild what was taken. The OFAC licensing framework exists. The proof of concept exists in CITGO’s survival. What does not yet exist is the decision—by US institutional capital—to arrive with a governance structure that the extraction network cannot penetrate. That decision is the only thing standing between reconstruction and a second extraction with better letterhead.
A Loose Women panellist spoke about her health problems after rushing for help before the live show.
The Loose Women presenters addressed dentist troubles (Image: ITV)
Loose Women panellist Jane Moore has revealed she rushed to medics for help before a live show.
The panellist joined Christine Lampard, Judi Love and GK Barry on Friday’s programme, where the presenters were discussing dentist appointments.
At one point after a break, Christine teased: “Do you fear losing your teeth as dentists warn they’re overwhelmed?” before jokingly adding: “Jane is here to tell us all about nearly having to rush a dentist onto the studio floor, that was only a couple of weeks ago… it was touch and go, wasn’t it?”
Laughing it off, Jane explained that she had turned up to the studio one morning, and as she was eating, a tooth “fell” into her mouth.
“I thought, ‘What the hell’s that?'” she went on, saying the others had been laughing at her during their morning meeting.
Jane continued: “So I then had to get on a bike and go to the dentist in the middle of the meeting, he was on holiday!
“Anyway, it was a whole thing, so I came back with the tooth, got some gummy stuff and literally put it in.
“People might have noticed – I’m normally quite gobby – [but] I barely said a word. I thought, if I say anything slightly emphatic, my tooth is going to go!”
She added that her loose tooth resulted from receding gums, and she’s now waiting to get it properly fixed after a temporary solution.
This comes after fellow ITV star Kate Garraway made an emergency dash to a dentist after her teeth fell out moments before Good Morning Britain.
She later took to Instagram to explain she’d had an “unfortunate collision” resulting in two front teeth getting cracked.
She said: “Letting you in on the horror behind the scenes on Monday’s show…
“After an unfortunate collision with a taxi window at the weekend I cracked my two front teeth caps.. of course. They then fell out just before going on air.
“All I can say is it’s hard to appear young and cool in front of a whole new team of trendy producers when you are reduced to gluing your teeth on with denture fixative at three in the morning!!!”
Kate continued: “An emergency trip to the dentist means now I have a temporary set of fake teeth … but they are soooo massive.
“Just hoping they hold for @gmb tmrw from 6am with @richardmadeleyofficial – glue at the ready!”
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
The Cotswolds is famous for its beautiful scenery, charming market squares and iconic stone houses. However, a common issue keeps springing up when the sun is shining
The Cotswolds can get very overcrowded when it’s sunny(Image: WhitcombeRD via Getty Images)
This Bank Holiday weekend promises glorious sunshine, and plenty of us will be seizing the opportunity to venture out on day trips.
Britain boasts an array of stunning destinations right on our doorstep – the Cotswolds among them. The region hasn’t just served as a backdrop for films, it’s also become a social media sensation, drawing visitors from across the globe.
Countless people relish wandering through the lush countryside, picturesque stone cottages and bustling market squares. They also descend in their thousands upon the wealth of pubs, independent shops, farm outlets and tearooms.
Yet the storybook villages aren’t always quite so perfect in reality. That’s because many have been hit by overtourism in recent years.
Traffic jams, parking disputes and pressure on local amenities are among the problems that have emerged. In fact, residents are so fed up they’re urging people to stop going altogether.
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Illustrating the effect on both locals and tourists alike, a visitor named Chloe recorded footage in Bourton-on-the-Water this month. The stunning Gloucestershire village is renowned for its river and distinctive bridges.
On quieter days, it feels wonderfully tranquil to settle beside the water and absorb the surroundings. Yet it becomes extremely busy during peak season and on sunny weekends, with bottlenecks forming on the bridges and along the riverbank.
Following her visit on a sunny day, Chloe cautioned: “What should have felt peaceful was packed and overwhelming.
“The sheer amount of tourism must keep local businesses thriving – but it was hard not to feel like the charm is being worn down in this quaint, rural village. Visit with caution and maybe at 6am in the morning to beat the crowds.”
Chloe’s video struck a chord with many, racking up more than 13,100 likes alongside a flood of comments from frustrated locals struggling to go about their everyday lives.
One resident pleaded: “Please stop coming here, I’m just trying to get to work.” Another sympathised, writing: “My mum lives there and says it’s a battle just to get to the shops for some milk. I couldn’t do it!”
A third added: “I live here and genuinely don’t remember the last time I took my kids down to the river or even for an ice-cream on a nice day because it’s just too overwhelming. I’ve never seen traffic like it. It’s taking some people over an hour to get from one end of the village to the other just to get home.
“It’s a pretty village, yes, but other residents and I feel something needs to be done with how stupidly busy it gets.”
Nevertheless, some offered helpful tips for those planning a trip. Visiting during the off-season is widely recommended as the best way to soak up the surroundings without the mayhem.
One commenter suggested: “I prefer visiting the Cotswolds during autumn and winter because it’s much calmer. It’s mostly spring and summer that is so busy. The Cotswolds can be very quiet when it’s colder – and in my opinion the atmosphere is so much better on colder days.”
A second visitor agreed, adding: “We went in March. Had the place to ourselves. We had been before in summer and it was hell, so learnt our lesson!”
A year ago, David Ellison was viewed as a white knight poised to save Paramount.
Hollywood embraced billionaire Larry Ellison’s son, figuring he had the means and the mettle to revive the faded studio after decades of neglect.
But now, as the 43-year-old tech scion works to close his $111-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — which would mark his second major studio acquisition in less than a year — a large swath of Hollywood has soured on the budding mogul and his audacious bid to build a new media colossus.
David Ellison has spent the last year courting the president and his allies, including hosting a black-tie gala to honor Trump and attending state dinners and the president’s State of the Union address.
Ellison’s perceived coziness with the administration, along with controversial changes at CBS, has sullied his reputation in a town where image is everything.
Should the merger clear its regulatory hurdles, the Ellison family would control CNN and CBS News in addition to holding a significant stake in TikTok, the hugely influential social media app.
“When power is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the stories that get told and the livelihoods of the people who tell them become hostage to whoever that power serves,” Jane Fonda, the Oscar-winning actor who is helping lead the opposition, told The Times. “We are not going quietly.”
Paramount declined to comment. Ellison previously has pushed back on fears that Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. would be bad for Hollywood. Instead, Ellison envisions building a stronger company to boost the industry, including movie theaters.
If the Warner Bros. Discovery deal is finalized, Ellison would control two legendary news organizations and two iconic studios. His determined White House outreach to speed approval of the Warner Bros. deal has aroused deep suspicion among many in Hollywood, which has long been considered a liberal bastion.
“They got too close to Trump,” said Norm Eisen, executive chairman of Democracy Defenders Fund, one of the groups coordinating the opposition campaign. “People in Hollywood are concerned that the Ellisons are going to do to CNN what they did to CBS.”
One of Ellison’s first moves after taking over Paramount was to hire journalist Bari Weiss, who had no TV news experience, as CBS News editor-in-chief. Weiss, who built her reputation being a contrarian voice, along with her recently installed evening news anchor Tony Dokoupil got off to a rocky start.
During his inaugural week, Dokoupil awkwardly saluted Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a fellow Floridian). “CBS Evening News” viewership fell 9% this season. The program, which attracts 4.1 million viewers, musters less than half the audience for ABC’s “World News Tonight with David Muir.”
Ellison is aiming to get his deal done by September.
“The projected merger timeline would have Ellison in control of CNN before November,” Fonda said, noting the high stakes this fall because the midterm elections will decide control of Congress.
“If this merger goes ahead, the administration will have yet another lever to cast doubt on results it does not like,” Fonda said. “This is about corruption, not optics.”
Her group has urged California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to file a lawsuit to try to block the merger. Bonta has said his team is reviewing potential antitrust concerns with the deal, which he said has “red flags everywhere.”
Some in Hollywood favor Ellison’s takeover, saying it would lift two middling players to create more robust competition to Netflix, Disney and Amazon.
“This deal will set up an environment where we will have four competitive streaming services, and that’s a good thing for the creative community,” said Ari Emanuel, executive chairman of WME Group and Ellison’s agent.
Ellison is pressing ahead, working to secure government approvals in Britain, Europe and the U.S. Prominent Democrats in Congress have decried the deal and Ellison’s proposed ownership structure, which would include the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi as significant, but passive, investors.
Paramount leaders have tried to keep their heads down by focusing on their businesses. This year, the company has signed deals with Kim Kardashian, Neil Patrick Harris, Tituss Burgess and Kinetic Content, the reality TV firm behind Netflix’s “Love Is Blind.”
Some filmmakers have privately discussed whether to steer clear of Paramount, according to people knowledgeable of the discussions who were not authorized to comment. Taylor Sheridan, the prolific producer behind “Yellowstone” and “Landman,” last fall opted to switch teams. He eventually will make new shows for NBCUniversal instead of Paramount.
Colbert learned he was getting the boot in July, two days after he called Paramount’s $16-million settlement with Trump “a big fat bribe” during a show monologue. Paramount had agreed to pay the money to end Trump’s lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview, a payout blasted by 1st Amendment advocates who viewed the Trump suit as frivolous.
Paramount settled because it needed Federal Communications Commission approval as part of its sale to the Ellison-owned Skydance Media. Paramount’s CBS has blamed declining revenues for its decision to oust Colbert, which came just before Ellison officially took the keys to Paramount.
This week, for the first time in 18 years, CBS will fall short of claiming the largest live audience in broadcast TV. NBC snagged the ratings crown, thanks to its sports-heavy lineup, prompting NBC late-night comedian Seth Meyers to crow about his network’s victory.
“We have taken down CBS,” Meyers told advertising buyers last week in New York. “Well, the Ellisons did, but I like to think we helped.”
Ellison’s supporters view the anti-merger campaign as politically motivated.
“So much of the criticism and negative sentiment originates from [Ellison’s] apparent relationship with Trump,” said one observer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the topic.
But interviews with numerous industry insiders reveal that concerns over Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner go well beyond anti-Trump sentiment — or worries about CNN’s future.
The merger comes during an existential crisis for the industry, and for Los Angeles, as the shift to streaming has upended established business models.
“Whether it’s Ellison, Amazon, Apple or Netflix, these are essentially tech companies that are gaining increasing control over what has been a cultural and entertainment sector,” said Dominic Asmall Willsdon, executive director of the International Documentary Assn.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apple’s outgoing Chief Executive Tim Cook also have openly embraced Trump, which some see as a pragmatic move to curry favor in Washington to advance their sprawling businesses, which include film and TV operations in Culver City.
Much of the angst over the Ellison deal is driven by economic uncertainty. L.A.’s film industry has been decimated by a flight of production to other locations.
“L.A. has already had a taste of things to come,” Eisen said. “There’s less competition so the artists get hurt, and so do the working people who have long been an integral part of Hollywood.”
A combined Warner-Paramount would instantly become the largest employer for union writers, said Michele Mulroney, president of the Writers Guild of America West. It would control HBO, CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, HGTV, Animal Planet and two of the largest film and television studios.
“This media behemoth would have enormous leverage to reduce content, raise prices, increase control of production, suppress our members’ compensation and silence the voices of our members,” Mulroney said.
Jessica J. González, the L.A.-based co-chief executive of the 1st Amendment group Free Press, said: “This isn’t just about David Ellison. It’s about what David Ellison did with his last merger and how he uses his power.”
Ellison’s wealth and privilege have also fueled resentment among the rank and file who are struggling amid America’s growing economic disparity. Said one veteran executive: “We’re living in a new gilded age.”
For many, the prospect of more job losses is most unsettling.
Ellison and his team have vowed to make $6 billion in cuts following the merger. Those cuts are expected to include sizable layoffs on top of nearly 2,000 in job cuts at Paramount since last fall.
Hollywood has a troubled track record with mergers, including two failed takeovers of Warner Bros.
AT&T misfired with its 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, and within four years, the phone company had unloaded the firm to David Zaslav’s smaller Discovery. That transaction saddled Warner with more than $50 billion in debt, and Zaslav and his team laid off thousands of workers and cut dozens of projects to dramatically reduce the company’s debt and keep the company solvent.
Walt Disney Co.’s $72-billion acquisition of much of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox in 2019 led to thousands of layoffs as one of the industry’s original studios all but disappeared.
“We have seen from that merger the earnings and employment numbers for screenwriters significantly reduced,” Mulroney said.
Emanuel, the power agent, pointed to Ellison’s commitment to keep the Warner and Paramount studios largely intact, with each entity releasing about 15 films into theaters each year.
“He’s going to be making a minimum of 30 movies a year for theatrical release plus content for both their own and other platforms because that’s the only way to generate revenue,” Emanuel said.
Still, critics question whether Ellison will be able to keep his commitment due to the $79-billion debt load he will take on.
“I’m sure [Ellison’s] intentions are genuine,” Mulroney said. “But a promise like that’s not enforceable, and there are no consequences if you don’t meet the quota that you’ve set for yourself.”
On Wednesday, S&P Global Ratings agency said Paramount Skydance will remain on a negative credit watch due to balance sheet concerns.
S&P also cited worries about Ellison’s prospects “given the immensely complicated endeavor of combining two of the largest global media companies and the limited track record of PSKY’s management team in integrating and transforming such companies.”
Emanuel and others say Ellison’s image won’t suffer long-term damage.
The two sides, he predicts, will eventually work together.
“Here’s a guy who’s willing to put a lot of money on the line and take huge risks to make our environment more competitive,” Emanuel said. “The one thing about David is that he’s not a vindictive person. He always does what’s best for the project.”
Current events are causing all sorts of problems, according to a currency exchange expert
Euros could cost more(Image: imageBROKER/Frank Roeder via Getty Images)
Brits heading abroad this summer are being given a new warning.
Towards the close of last week, Sterling dropped to a three-week low against the Euro and a five-week low against the US Dollar, spelling trouble for Britons travelling overseas. The decline, according to a foreign exchange expert, stems from two key factors.
Tony Redondo, founder of Newquay-based Cosmos Currency Exchange, explained: “Firstly, markets are worried that Britain is heading towards a period of political instability. Secondly, they are worried about how the UK economy will cope with an expected rise in inflation.
“Though inflation fell to 2.8% today, it is expected to rise, potentially sharply, in the months ahead as the impact of rising oil prices due to the conflict in the Middle East hits the UK economy in full. If markets believe higher inflation makes UK gilts a not–so-safe bet, that will apply further downward pressure on Sterling.”
Tony noted the weakened Pound was hammering holidaymakers venturing abroad, as their money was now “plummeting” in value against currencies like the Euro and Dollar – a situation that “could get worse in the weeks and months ahead”.
However, he highlighted that a struggling domestic economy and Sterling’s persistent fragility was prompting an increasing number of businesses to fundamentally reconsider how and where they sell their services.
Tony added: “If they’re anything, the UK’s businesses are resilient and proving they can adapt. During 2026 to date, we’ve seen a sharp rise in UK businesses moving away from difficult domestic conditions and looking for customers overseas.
“Rather than having all their eggs in one UK economic basket, a growing percentage of UK firms are now marketing and selling their products and services online to customers in Europe, America, Canada, Australia and even Singapore and Hong Kong.
“If there’s one silver lining to the weak UK economy, it’s that many traditionally domestic UK small businesses have become international ones, as they cast their nets ever wider in search of customers and profit.
“The ability to ply your trade internationally has never been easier and it can massively boost a company’s bottom line.”
The problem is not where to find photos on Route 66. The problem is putting down the camera, especially during this centennial year, when the road is dressed up with more lights, banners, murals and fresh paint than it has seen for decades.
Stories, photos and travel recommendations from America’s Mother Road
Travelers may be tempted to just keep snapping. But for better results on every level, say hello and ask questions first. Here are a few more photo tips along with an east-to-west gallery of what our photographers and I found on the road:
You can’t be everywhere at dusk, when the neon signs blaze, so be strategic (and maybe plan for an early dinner or a late one).
Use a solid tripod (for long exposures), stay off the road, and be sure to try a variety of exposure times. (Neon is tricky.)
If you see a roadside image that needs your attention, pull over, park legally and step away from the vehicle. The result will be better and all will be safer.
Besides the freedom of road-tripping, the spirit of Route 66 is about independent businesses bucking the odds on the road less traveled. If we all take pictures without spending, those businesses won’t last long.
Views from Navy Pier in Chicago.
Millennium Park in Chicago.
Route 66 begins in downtown Chicago at Adams Street and Michigan Avenue. Early alignments put it on Jackson Boulevard. Signs mark the spot across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Art Institute of Chicago.
Cigars and Stripes BBQ in Berwyn, Ill., features a Muffler Man smoking a cigar and holding a jumbo bottle of barbecue sauce.
The Gemini Giant stands along Route 66 in Wilmington, Ill.
Atlanta, Ill., is home to the American Giants Museum — which celebrates the Muffler Men and Uniroyal Gals that were common roadside advertising features in the middle 20th century.
Springfield, Ill., is home to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library. Exhibits takes Lincoln from his Illinois childhood through to the Civil War and his assassination in 1865.
A barn along Route 66 near Carlinville, Ill.
The Wagon Wheel Motel on Route 66 in Cuba, Mo.
The Route 66 Car Museum’s collection includes about 70 vehicles, especially American and European sports cars. Pictured is a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.
Gary’s Gay Parita, once a service station, won fame over the decades for its hosts’ hospitality. It’s still a popular stop, 25 miles west of Springfield, Mo.
Rockwood Motor Court in Springfield, Mo., dates to 1929. It has been restored and continues to operate.
The Meadow Gold District in Tulsa, Okla.
This fiberglass Rosie the Riveter figure went up on 11th Street in Tulsa in 2025.
Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios occupies a former service station on 11th Street — a.k.a. Route 66 — in Tulsa.
Soda pop bottles line the walls of Pops 66 in Arcadia, Okla.
A car travels down a stretch of the Meadow Gold District in Tulsa, Okla.
The Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza features a bronze sculpture called “East Meets West,” just off the now-closed Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge.
The Round Barn in Arcadia, Okla., stands along Route 66.
National Route 66 Museum and Elk City Museum Complex, Elk City, Okla.
The fastidiously restored U-Drop Inn, a Streamline Moderne filling station and cafe in Shamrock, Texas, is one of the architectural standouts of Route 66. It doesn’t sell gas, though.
Visitors to the Cadillac Ranch art installation in Amarillo, Texas, are allowed to spray-paint the 10 Cadillacs half-buried in the ground there.
The Midpoint Cafe in Vegas, Texas, celebrates the halfway point along Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles.
A license plate spotted in Albuquerque.
La Cita, a sombrero-topped restaurant, is one of the most popular eateries in Tucumcari, N.M. It was founded in 1940 and moved to its current location in 1961.
Motel Safari in Tucumcari, N.M., is one among a handful in town that have renovated and upgraded to attract contemporary travelers along Route 66.
Michela Franceschilli and her mom, Carla, came from Rome for their second trip exploring Route 66. They are standing by the Blue Swallow Motel, in Tucumcari, N.M.
From Old Highway 66 near Laguna, N.M., Casa Blanca Road leads to Enchanted Mesa and Acoma Village.
The exterior of Duran Central Pharmacy in Albuquerque.
The combination plate, Christmas-style, at Duran Central Pharmacy.
El Vado Motel is a rescue-and-recovery story on Central Avenue in Albuquerque.
Signs and murals line the roadside as Old Highway 66 passes through Grants, N.M.
The West Theatre in Grants, N.M.
The Painted Desert Trading Post stand west of Chambers, Ariz. The restored building and a stretch of old Route 66 are on private property behind a gate. Travelers call or text a number on the gate to ask for access.
Signage along old Route 66 in Holbrook, Ariz.
The Painted Desert portion of Petrified Forest National Park includes broad vistas and richly varied mineral colors.
Scenes from Route 66 in Williams, Ariz.
Angel & Vilma Delgadillo’s Original Route 66 Gift Shop on Route 66 through Seligman, Ariz.
Aztec Motel and Creative Space in Seligman, Ariz.
Route 66 merch in Seligman, Ariz.
Tin Can Alley is a compound of five rental Airstream trailers in Kingman, Ariz.
The stretch of old Route 66 between Kingman and Topock in western Arizona is known as “Arizona Sidewinder” for its 191 turns, often without guardrails. The old mining town of Oatman, known for its feral donkeys, is on the way.
Oatman, Ariz., is known for its roaming burros, Old West-style storefronts and busy weekends. It stands on a curvy stretch of Route 66 that attracts many motorcyclists and off-road enthusiasts.
El Rancho Motel Sign on the outskirts of Barstow, Calif.
Wigwam Motel off Route 66.
The iconic Roy’s sign stands over old Route 66 at Amboy, Calif., in San Bernardino County. These days Roy’s operates as a gas station, gift shop and snack bar, not a cafe or motel.
The fiberglass statue known as Chicken Boy stands on the roof of artist, designer and gallerist Amy Inouye’s studio on Figueroa Street in Highland Park.
The interior of the Magic Lamp Inn.
The Magic Lamp Inn in Rancho Cucamonga.
Mitla’s Cafe in San Bernardino.
Foothill Drive-In sign on the campus of Azusa Pacific University.
A portion of Route 66 that runs parallel with I-15.
Signs of Route 66 through the town of Oro Grande, Calif.
Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch.
The interior of the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood.
The historic train car at the Formosa Cafe.
Mel’s Drive-In diner in Santa Monica.
Route 66 memorabilia at Mel’s Drive-in diner.
Route 66 Burger at Mel’s Drive-In, a popular stop for Route 66 travelers.
The Santa Monica Pier, which marks the western end of Route 66.
Memorabilia for sale on the Santa Monica Pier.
Scenes from the Santa Monica Pier and the end of Route 66.
A sign marking the end of Route 66 on the Santa Monica Pier.
SACRAMENTO — One of Gavin Newsom’s top goals as he winds down his final year as California governor is to leave the state with a balanced budget.
After years of the state spending more money than it brings in, it’s Newsom’s last opportunity to fix a chronic deficit or dump the problem on the next governor.
How far he goes to solve the state’s structural spending imbalance will define his legacy as a steward of trillions in taxpayer dollars. As a potential candidate for president in 2028, he could also have a political incentive to do as little as possible.
“Any cuts you make are going to cause people to scream,” said Darry Sragow, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Any increases in taxes are going to cause people to scream and in terms of what’s best for a presidential run, it would be nice if people weren’t screaming.”
As California’s 40th governor, Newsom expanded publicly funded healthcare to income-eligible undocumented immigrants, increased state-subsidized child-care slots and provided free meals for schoolchildren among a wishlist of progressive wins since he took office in 2019.
His achievements have helped struggling Californians live in an increasingly unaffordable state and given him bona fides to tout to voters if he launches a bid for the White House.
But the state could never afford to pay for existing services and the new programs that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers enacted, according to an analysis of ongoing state spending since before the pandemic released by the Legislative Analyst’s Office last week.
Spending from the state’s principal operating fund has grown about $100 billion since Newsom’s first full fiscal year in office in 2019-20, mostly due to the growing cost of existing programs that he inherited. State spending has outpaced California’s strong revenue growth by about 10%, creating a perennial budget shortfall — a structural deficit — that Newsom and the Democratic-led Legislature solve with largely temporary fixes each year.
Instead of making across-the-board program cuts or raising taxes to align spending with revenue, Democrats have tapped into reserves designed to preserve social services for the state’s most disadvantaged communities during economic downturns.
While the California economy remains stable and state revenue has increased, Newsom and lawmakers have taken $12.2 billion from the rainy day fund. Democrats have borrowed $28 billion more from other state funds to cover their spending in recent years, according to the LAO.
“Taken together, these trends raise serious concerns about the state’s fiscal sustainability,” Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek wrote in a review of Newsom’s January budget proposal.
Fiscal watchdogs have warned that the spending trends will leave California in a precarious position if the stock market tanks and tax receipts bottom out.
Personal income taxes are driving higher-than-expected revenue now, which analysts attribute to an artificial intelligence boom on Wall Street, and suggest the state could have no deficit in the upcoming year. In January, the Newsom administration anticipated significant operating deficits in the years ahead: $27 billion in 2027-28, $22 billion in 2028-29 and $23 billion in 2029-30.
“This issue is really whether they’re going to take seriously the structural deficit that is several years in the making now, where the spending has outpaced revenue, and to address that, they’re going to either have to make some fairly deep cuts or raise revenue and or both,” said former state Controller Betty Yee, who worked as a budget aide under Gov. Gray Davis and recently dropped her own campaign for governor. “But they have to be real. I think resorting to these one-time solutions has really exacerbated the problem.”
H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance, said the governor is looking to solve the budget problem with more than a temporary fix.
“Although he is still finalizing his proposal that he’ll put forth to the Legislature, as he has said, he wants those solutions to be durable, and he wants them to have an impact beyond a single fiscal year,” Palmer said.
To stabilize California’s budget, Democrats will probably have to raise taxes or fees to generate new revenue and cut programs, according to the LAO. At least 40 cents for every dollar in revenue is dedicated to education under the state Constitution, requiring policymakers to find between $30 billion and $60 billion annually in additional revenue to cover projected shortfalls in 2027-28 and beyond if relying on new taxes alone.
President Trump’s cuts to healthcare are adding to the problem.
HR 1 will add $1.4 billion in state costs to the general fund. Newsom’s January budget proposal did not include a plan to help millions of low-income Californians who are expected to lose access to healthcare under the federal cuts.
To temper those cuts in California, other groups proposed a new tax on billionaires that appears poised to qualify for the November ballot.
Spearheaded by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the initiative would apply a one-time 5% tax on taxpayers with assets exceeding $1 billion. If approved by voters, the tax would generate roughly $100 billion, which would fund healthcare programs.
The measure has divided unions and Democrats at the state Capitol.
Newsom has criticized the initiative, citing concerns that increasing taxes on the wealthy will have the opposite intended effect and drive the highest earners out of California. Under a progressive tax structure, the state budget is dependent on income taxes paid by the ultra-rich on earnings largely from capital gains.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, have already purchased residences in Florida, along with others looking to escape the tax if it goes through in November. Billionaires launched their own ballot measure campaign to undercut the tax proposal.
State lawmakers are also considering avenues to raise revenue, which include repealing a “water’s edge” tax break. Under the change, multinational companies would no longer be allowed to shield the income of their foreign subsidiaries from state taxes. California loses about $3 billion in revenue from the tax break each year.
In its budget plan released in April, the state Senate proposed a new fee on the largest corporations in the state to provide $5 billion to $8 billion annually for Medi-Cal.
The upper house said 42% of Medi-Cal enrollees are full-time workers who are not enrolled in their company’s healthcare plan because their wages are low enough to qualify for state-subsidized healthcare. As a result, corporations aren’t paying for healthcare for many of their employees and instead taxpayers are picking up the bill through Medi-Cal.
SEIU California, the powerful state union council representing over 700,000 workers, endorsed the plan. The union said Trump’s tax policy will reduce corporate taxes by $900 billion, while 3 million Californians lose healthcare.
“In this urgent moment, California’s workers need to see our leaders show us what they’re made of,” said Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California. “The Senate is showing the courage to demand corporations pay their fair share, rather than making working people pay with their lives.”
The change is being described as a more politically palatable “fee” and not a tax.
“We explored multiple revenue options, and this was the one that felt more narrow, it felt more focused, and it also felt like it was directly going for the subsidy that’s being lost because of the Trump HR 1 cuts,” said Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón (D-Goleta), who leads the upper house of the Legislature.
Limón said her caucus believes it’s important to address potential revenue streams because of the depth of federal healthcare reductions.
“If we don’t address the structural deficit, we are looking at severe cuts,” she said. “You are looking at people without health insurance. You are looking at hospitals closing down. You are looking at medical providers not being able to take more patients. You are looking at our emergency rooms over capacity, with not enough medical providers. I mean, you’re looking at a place that’s really, really, really difficult, and we feel like we have to, at least, look at what are viable options that are conditional on these cuts coming.”
Newsom has not commented publicly on the Senate’s plan. As governor, he’s been reluctant to embrace new taxes and fees.
Newsom could reject all the proposals for new taxes or fees and continue what he’s done before: take advantage of higher-than-expected tax collections, shift funds around, delay program implementation and borrow money to knock the deficit down to zero, or forecast a surplus, for his last budget year that begins July 1.
If he doesn’t take on California’s larger budget imbalance, then the problem would be the next governor’s to solve. A stock market crash, or economic recession, could force his successor to make drastic cuts across the board with limited reserves to support programs.
Kicking the can again would cement Newsom’s fiscal legacy as a governor who championed bold headline-making policies that bolstered the safety net for low-income Californians, but who failed to provide a solution to pay for his agenda.
“Not only has he not come up with a plan, he has pretended we don’t need one,” said Patrick Murphy, a professor of public affairs at the University of San Francisco.
Newsom’s interest in running for president could seemingly discourage him from slashing the budget and raising attention to the state’s financial woes, Sragow said. Newsom is setting himself up as a potential front-runner for his party. He has said he remains undecided about officially launching a 2028 campaign.
As a Democrat from California, his opponents would automatically label him as financially irresponsible and tax-happy. Calling out the massive budget problem on the horizon, raising taxes and making painful cuts will give them ammunition.
“There’s a long list of things that he’s going to be charged with, and this is likely to be one more,” Sragow said. “But I guess the question is, is he going to be charged with a political misdemeanor or a political felony?”
Former state Sen. Steve Glazer said Newsom is standing on political quicksand either way. State budget projections are based on assumptions about the future that often don’t bear out, leaving his choices exposed to criticism that he went too far, didn’t do enough, and everything in between.
“Whatever the governor decides to do in his May revise and in his final budget, it’s fraught with political risks, because it can be manipulated so easily by all sides,” Glazer said.
If Newsom ignores the spending problem, his successor could blame him for California’s financial woes when they take office in January and provide their own outlook of the state’s fiscal future. At the time, Newsom could be trying to convince America to make him the nation’s next president.
Murphy said Newsom has championed major policies and been reluctant to back off them later when revenue doesn’t pencil out.
In terms of spending, he’s governed similarly to the men who led California before him, with the exception of Jerry Brown, who cut programs to reduce a deficit he inherited in his second stint in the governor’s office and left Newsom with a surplus.
“It’s not all that different than most of the governors have done, which is finding it very hard to say no and finding it very hard to take on a tough choice of going to the ballot to ask for more money or raise taxes,” Murphy said.
Deukmejian left a budget disaster for his successor, Gov. Pete Wilson. Deukmejian publicly claimed he passed a balanced budget in his final year and blamed an economic downturn for the problems Wilson encountered.
When Wilson announced a record $13-billion budget deficit early in his first year in office in 1991, he said the Persian Gulf War, an economic downturn and natural disasters added to a structural deficit in the budget.
The Legislature and Deukmejian, Wilson said, had “papered over” the problem.
Until a couple of seasons ago, it was usually an outfield player who would go to ground to stop play.
It was being used for two distinct reasons.
Either to break up the momentum of the opposition by causing a stoppage in play, or for the coach to give instructions to his players. Sometimes it has been both.
English football attempted to combat this by insisting that any player who receives treatment must leave the field for 30 seconds.
It had some positive results, but managers just switched focus and told the goalkeeper to ask for treatment.
A team cannot play without a goalkeeper, so it became a risk-free method of impacting the opposition, or getting the opportunity to talk to your team.
There is nothing a referee can do about it, as they cannot accuse a player of faking an injury. If it turned out the player was genuinely injured there could be serious repercussions.
So the game has been stuck in a doom loop.
Goalkeepers go down, the other 10 players rush to the technical area for a team talk.
As soon as the coach has delivered his message, the keeper miraculously gets to his feet.
It has been a theme during Leeds‘ season, starting in November when Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma went down as the West Yorkshire club were in the ascendancy at Etihad Stadium.
Sir David Jason has opened up on the prospect of an Only Fools and Horses revival, saying ‘let’s go for it’
14:02, 25 Apr 2026Updated 14:03, 25 Apr 2026
Only Fools Horses was a huge hit for the BBC(Image: Getty Images)
Television icon Sir David Jason has spoken candidly about a potential revival of Only Fools and Horses – but acknowledges there’s one significant obstacle to resurrecting the beloved sitcom.
The BBC programme ran for seven series and 16 Christmas specials between 1981 and 2003 and is frequently voted the UK’s greatest ever sitcom. Only Fools transformed Sir David and co-star Nicholas Lyndhurst, who portrayed wheeler dealer brothers Derek and Rodney Trotter, into household names.
However, while there have been spin-offs in the subsequent 23 years, alongside a successful stage production, there hasn’t been a return to fresh TV episodes.
Sir David, 86, declared “let’s go for it” – but only if they “get a good script”. The actor believes this might prove somewhat problematic as the programme’s creator, John Sullivan, passed away in 2011. The Only Fools star described the scriptwriter as “a genius”.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “But the problem (with a TV revival) is that the man who created it is no longer with us. He wrote every episode and just happened to be a genius.
“I’m not so sure that we have a writer clever enough to take on his mantle. No one could write characters like he could. Providing we have a good script, let’s go for it!” reports the Express.
The Only Fools creator died in April 2011, six weeks after contracting viral pneumonia. Only Fools and Horses The Musical, penned by Paul Whitehouse and John Sullivan’s son Jim Sullivan, enjoyed a West End run spanning more than four years before concluding in April 2023. The programme centred on the Trotter brothers, market traders from working-class Peckham in south-east London, chronicling their schemes to strike it rich fast.
Sir David also shared his thoughts on cancel culture, as Only Fools and Horses repeats now feature trigger warnings. He revealed no one has criticised the programme to him directly.
The actor continued: “Not one person has ever complained about any show that I have done. No one has said they didn’t believe in it or didn’t enjoy it.”
Meanwhile, Sir David delivered a heartbreaking eight-word response after viewing a lost Only Fools scene.
The actor reunited with Tessa Peake-Jones, who portrayed his on-screen partner Raquel Turner. The duo filmed a new docuseries, Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive. The two-part programme featured the show’s stars watching previously unseen material from more than 10 classic episodes.
Grantchester actress Tessa has revealed that David made an emotional remark about the cast being “so young and so successful” while revisiting footage of himself and his co-stars.
Speaking on Lorraine, she shared: “David Jason was very, very poignant about it. There was one bit where he was like, ‘We were so young and so successful then.’ It’s quite depressing.”
James McClean admits his career is in jeopardy due to a long-standing hip injury and will explore the possibility of surgery to fix the problem.
The 37-year-old returned to Derry City this season, but says the Brandywell’s astroturf surface has acerbated the issue and received medical advice that he “has no business being on a football pitch”.
The Candystripes’ surface is in the process of being replaced with the grass surface at Derry GAA’s Celtic Park set to host at least five games until it is ready, beginning with Friday’s Premier Division clash against Shamrock Rovers [20:00 BST].
McClean, who was sent off for two yellows in the 2-2 draw against Dundalk on 10 April, is theoretically free to play, but is focused on what could be a “last chance for me to hopefully get a surgery”.
“I was told by a specialist 10 days ago that my body currently ‘has no business being on a football pitch’ due to the severity of the damage to my hip,” he posted on social media.
“I respect his honesty and his expert opinion, but I have never been one to lay down without a fight.
“Tomorrow’s appointment is a last chance for me to hopefully get a surgery – if it’s even a possibility – one which will allow me to do what I have dreamt of doing, and that’s being able to contribute while in an acceptable physical state to do so. That is playing for a club I love in Derry City.”
The former Republic of Ireland international, who spent 15 years at English and Welsh clubs after first leaving the Brandywell in 2011, said he wanted to set the record straight about the “hell” he has gone through due the hip problem.
“For the past few years, I have been playing through difficulties with my hip and though I have managed and played through the pain, the impact of training and playing on astro has sped up the damage much faster than I ever anticipated,” he explained.
“The past six weeks have been hell – pain is something I have been able to get on with and play with throughout my career, but it is the restriction and not being able to move which is what I am struggling with physically obviously, but also mentally.”
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell, and it looks like the Dodgers won’t be needing Tatiana Tate to be a live trumpeter for a while.
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Well, we knew some bad news had to hit the Dodgers eventually, and it did on Monday when they put new closer Edwin Díaz on the injured list because of “loose bodies” in his right elbow. He will have surgery and will be out until sometime after the All-Star break.
Díaz signed a three-year, $69-million deal with the Dodgers before the season, and after a great debut, has steadily declined. He has a 10.50 ERA and has given up nine hits and walked five in six innings, striking out 10. He has four saves. Let’s look at each game:
March 27 vs. Arizona 1 IP, 0 hits, one walk, two strikeouts, save
March 28 vs. Arizona 1 IP, save
March 31 vs. Cleveland 1 IP, one hit, one ER, one walk, two strikeouts
April 5 at Washington 1 IP, one strikeout, save
April 7 at Toronto 1 IP, one hit, one walk, three strikeouts, save
April 10 vs. Texas 1 IP, four hits, three ER, one walk, two strikeouts, blown save, win
April 19 at Colorado 0 IP, three hits, three ER, one walk
We kept hearing from Díaz and the Dodgers that he was healthy, but his fastball had lost about two miles per hour, and he went nine days without pitching. The Dodgers are known for not always being 100% forthcoming about injuries (I’m pretty sure their health advisor is the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”).
And then on Monday we hear about “loose bodies.” Loose bodies in the elbow are small fragments of bone or cartilage which are floating in the joint.
At the moment, Díaz joins names that include Don Stanhouse (2-2, 5.04 ERA) and Kirby Yates (4-3, 5.23 ERA) among terrible free agent reliever signings by the Dodgers. Tanner Scott was terrible last season, led the league in blown saves and didn’t pitch in the postseason, but has rebounded so far this year (of course, it’s still early).
I thought after Yates and Scott were so bad last season that the Dodgers would wait a while before offering big money to a reliever. But no. You have to figure they will be shy now.
Of course, Díaz could recover from this and come back to be a great closer. But right now, yikes.
So who will be the new closer? The guess here is that Dave Roberts will go with whoever the matchups dictate. Their best relievers this season have been Alex Vesia, Jack Dreyer and Scott. Blake Treinen pitched well until his last outing. Same with Will Klein.
So, looks like another season of bullpen uncertainty. We should all be used to it by now. But just think: Closer injured, Mookie Betts injured, Kyle Tucker not hitting as expected and the Dodgers are still 16-6 (on pace to win 118 games) and have the best record in baseball.
And of course those pesky San Diego Padres are right there with them at 15-7, the third-best record in baseball.
Welcome, Jake Eder
The Dodgers brought left-hander Jake Eder up from the minors to replace Díaz. Eder, 27, was with the Angels last season, where he went 0-1 with a 4.91 ERA in 18 1/3 innings, walking nine and striking out 15. He was selected out of Vanderbilt in the fourth round of the 2020 draft by the Miami Marlins.
Of course, we know one thing if he’s with the Dodgers, and sure enough: He missed the 2022 season after Tommy John surgery. The Marlins traded him to the White Sox in 2023 and he had an 11.42 ERA in five starts in double A. In 2024, he had a 6.61 ERA in 24 minor-league starts. His contract was purchased by the Angels before the 2025 season, and they traded him to Washington on July 30. The Dodgers purchased his contract on April 1.
Dalton Rushing is amazing
Dalton Rushing has 12 hits this season. Seven of them are home runs. In 27 at-bats, he is hitting .444/.496/1.296. He is one behind Max Muncy for the most home runs on the Dodgers. He is tied for fourth in the NL in homers, but everyone he is tied with or trailing has at least 50 more plate appearances.
He has 13 RBIs, tied for third on the team with Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández, trailing Andy Pages (21) and Freddie Freeman (14). They all have at least 50 more plate appearances.
At this point, I’d play him every day until Freeman comes back from paternity leave and strongly consider starting him at DH when Shohei Ohtani is the starting pitcher. This run won’t last forever, but might as well ride it out while you can.
Davey Lopes remembered
I’m a little behind on this, but the Dodgers honored Davey Lopes before the first home game they played after he died. They played a video and had a moment of silence for him.
I think he deserves a patch on the uniform, but, the Dodgers must think otherwise.
Charley Steiner says thanks
After the last newsletter, where readers gave their best wishes and shared their favorite Charley Steiner moments, Steiner sent along the following:
“This has all been so very flattering. I’m feeling better and stronger. The messages were so kind, flattering and overwhelming.”
Up next
Tuesday: Dodgers (Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 2-1, 2.10 ERA) at San Francisco (Landen Roupp, 3-1, 2.38 ERA), 6:45 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Wednesday: Dodgers (Shohei Ohtani, 2-0, 0.50 ERA) at San Francisco (Tyler Mahle, 0-3, 7.23 ERA), 6:45 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Thursday: Dodgers (Tyler Glasnow, 2-0, 3.24 ERA) at San Francisco (Logan Webb, 2-2, 5.40 ERA), 12:45 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
A woman who moved from the Cotswolds to London over two decades ago has said that despite her vibrant life that there has been one massive downside of being based in the UK’s capital
A woman who moved from the Cotswolds to London has said she wouldn’t move back(Image: Getty)
There has been a noticeable ebb and flow in UK living patterns in recent years, as thousands of Britons weigh up whether they prefer city or countryside life.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many left urban centres in favour of the wide open spaces and cleaner air of the countryside, though some later returned when restrictions were lifted and they missed the convenience and amenities of city living.
As the cost of living crisis has continued, the debate over whether to stay in cities or relocate to the countryside has remained ongoing. One woman, who moved from the Cotswolds to London to run a pub in the East End, has explained why she has no intention of returning.
Artist and mother-of-five Pauline Forster, 76, runs The George Tavern on Commercial Road in Tower Hamlets, having bought the building for £500,000 in 2003 when she was 53.
More than 20 years and a major renovation later, the Grade II listed building — which had once been earmarked for demolition — is still standing and thriving. She has said that despite the high cost of living in London, she values the space her property provides for those who need it.
She told The Times: “There’s room here for whoever needs it, including my five sons. I like the scale and space of it — why would you buy a terraced house when you can get all this?
“I’ll admit that the bills, wages and utility bills are horrendous, and have rocketed in the time I have been here. I do have a mortgage but if I live to 80, I’ll have paid it off. I don’t really care because I’ll never stop working and the George will continue well after I’ve gone.”
Pauline added firmly that “nothing” would tempt her back to countryside living, saying the stimulating environment of London is both what she wants and what she needs.
However, while Pauline has chosen to remain in the capital, others have taken a different approach, opting to live outside the city while still commuting in for work.
Olivia Newton, 37, works in London but lives in South Hams in Devon with her husband Will.
Despite a four-hour commute and £150 off-peak train fare, she says she has no plans to move back to the city, largely because of the benefits the journey brings to her mental health and productivity.
She told The Times: “I once dreaded ‘the commute’ and that was from Shepherds Bush to my office in Shoreditch, but it’s become an integral and valuable part of my life in its own right.
“I get time to have a good think and finish off the deck I’ve been putting off, attempt to get to the end of my book club book and occasionally just zone out and watch the waves splash at the tracks as we pass through Dawlish.”
