Robert Luna seeks a second term as L.A. County Sheriff but faces nine challengers, including predecessor Alex Villanueva, whom he defeated in 2022.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Robert Luna is hoping to be the first L.A. County Sheriff to win a second term in more than 10 years. He points to a reduction in crime for the county during his term and says he brought stability after a series of one-term sheriffs since 2014.
Last year, deputy-patrolled areas of the county experienced a 12.5% drop in serious crimes from the previous year, including a drop of 12% in murders and 20% in auto thefts.
Perhaps the most vocal and well-known of Luna’s opponents is his predecessor, Alex Villanueva, who paints a picture of a department in disarray, with low morale and trouble in recruiting. Villanueva claims his return would keep deputies from leaving and appeal to new hires.
Former sheriff’s Lt. Eric Strong, who also served as chief of campus safety and security operations at the county probation office, has entered the fray once again after finishing third in 2022. Strong has called for increased transparency by the department, advocating for the agency to work with oversight bodies like the Office of Inspector General and the Civilian Oversight Committee.
“Nothing has really changed, and that’s why I’m running,” Strong said.
Mike Bornman, a retired former captain, also is vying for the job. He’s looking to lift morale inside the department, which he said has faced a series of challenges with social movements that have been “anti-cop,” such as the George Floyd protests of 2020 and calls to defund the police.
“There’s been no real pushback from law enforcement; there’s been nothing coming from this office relative to that,” Bornman said.
He said the department is struggling with difficulty in recruitment, significant overtime hours and deputies at risk of burnout.
Sgt. Karla Carranza is running again after an unsuccessful campaign in 2022. At one point assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., Carranza has made jail reform one of her top campaign focuses, promising to reduce violence and lower the risk of lawsuits and what she says are preventable inmate deaths.
Brendan Corbett, also running for the job, served as assistant sheriff during Villanueva’s tenure. He’s looking to restructure the department, focus resources on patrol and line functions and increase the reserve program.
Lt. Oscar Martinez, assigned to the department’s Palmdale station, is running to unseat his boss and criticizes Luna for fostering relationships with the county board of supervisors and oversight bodies, saying his focus should be on law enforcement, not politics .
“The sheriff is more interested in protecting the political establishment,” Martinez said. “Under my leadership, the mission of the sheriff’s department is to fight crime. Our job is not to fix politics.”
Andre White, a detective with about 11 years at the department, also vowed to take a “community-oriented approach” if elected.
Some voters may recognize Sonia Montejano, a former senior deputy in the department’s court services division, as the court bailiff in the television court program “Judge Joe Brown.”
Montejano filed paperwork for the position and listed her personal website on campaign forms. Her website, however, makes no mention of her campaign or position on issues involving the department. She did not respond to requests for comment.
The 19-year-old contestant and his best friend Jo, 19, from Liverpool are the youngest competitors taking on the challenge of racing against one another across more than 12,000km from Sicily to Mongolia.
In pursuit of the £20,000 prize, the pair embarked on another leg of their journey during tonight’s (April 30) episode, which marks the halfway point of the race.
Together with their fellow competitors, they tackled the longest leg of the race, travelling through the world’s largest landlocked country, Kazakhstan, and onwards into Uzbekistan.
Midway through their journey, they seized the opportunity to visit a local gym and try their hand at judo, as Kush is a keen Muay Thai practitioner back home, reports the Liverpool Echo.
However, the experience stirred up memories of his late father, who tragically took his own life during lockdown.
Speaking directly to camera, he began: “Coming to this gym, it means a lot to me. It’s more than just throwing and hitting fighting. There’s a lot of meaning behind it.”
In a deeply personal moment, he revealed: “I think back to memories with my dad. I found it sick to do what your dad does. Being in the gym, I wonder what he’s thinking. He would be standing on the side with a particular sort of smirk on his face, watching me do judo throws.”
Clearly emotional, Kush recalled: “I remember the day he passed. It was locked down and it was a real big shock. He had really poor mental health and he took his own life. You never forget that shock factor.
“I still think about him all the time. Being on this journey has brought back little moments and I wish I could sort of show who I am now because when you’re 14, I didn’t know who I was and I was still a child.
“I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger and I feel like, if I could sort of show him what I’ve learn’t…” The 19 year old was unable to finish his sentence as he dissolved into tears.
Viewers watching from home were left deeply moved by the heartbreaking moment, taking to social media to share their reactions. One fan wrote: “Poor Kush. He’s a lovely lad, they both are. #RaceAcrossTheWorld.”
Another said: “Kush opening up on the loss of his father at just 1 year old-oh man #RaceAcrossTheWorld.” A third wrote: “kush is breaking my heart omg #raceacrosstheworld.”
Yet another commented: “Damn! Kush lost 2 dads at such a young age. I’m sure they’re proud of him #RaceAcrossTheWorld.” While another added: “Such a heartbreaking leg for Kush and Joe – what humble lads they are #RaceAcrossTheWorld.”
Race Across the World is available to stream on BBC iPlayer
Who: Arsenal vs Fulham What: English Premier League Where: Emirates Stadium, London, United Kingdom When: Saturday, May 2, at 5:30pm (16:30 GMT) How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on Al Jazeera Sport from 13:30 GMT in advance of our live text commentary stream.
For all the talk of Arsenal having blown their Premier League title hopes after being reeled in by Manchester City, the truth is that come Saturday, they could have re-established a six-point lead to pile the pressure on Pep Guardiola’s side.
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City’s 2-1 victory over Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium on April 29 meant that, having trailed by 10 points a few weeks earlier, they were able to knock Mikel Arteta’s side off the summit for the first time since October.
Momentum appeared to have shifted completely, but the fixture schedule may have come to Arsenal’s rescue as they try to clinch a first English crown since 2004.
How can Arsenal re-establish their Premier League lead so quickly?
With City otherwise engaged in FA Cup semifinal action last weekend, Arsenal ground out a 1-0 home win over Newcastle United to end a four-match losing streak in domestic competitions.
On Saturday, they host London rivals Fulham while City do not play again in the league until Monday, when they face a tough-looking trip to European-chasing Everton.
While City would have two games in hand before they kick off at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, the prospect of again having to make up a six-point gap with absolutely no margin for error would be a serious test of their resolve.
How do Arsenal and Fulham shape up for Premier League clash?
According to data analysts Opta, Arsenal are still favourites to end the season on top – but that could all change if they stumble against Marco Silva’s Fulham.
Sitting in 10th place with four games, Fulham are still very much in the hunt for European qualification and will be looking to exploit any Arsenal fatigue after Arteta’s side’s 1-1 draw at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League semis on Wednesday.
“We will go there with no fear, and play for the badge,” Fulham midfielder Josh King said.
Stat attack – Fulham at Arsenal
History will be a considerable comfort, however, to Arsenal fans struggling to cope with the title-race tension.
Fulham have played 32 times away to Arsenal in all competitions and never won.
City’s record at Everton is equally impressive, though, losing none of their last 18 in all competitions and winning 15 of them and drawing three.
Whatever the outcome of Arsenal’s derby with Fulham, a City win at Everton would then give them the chance to crank up the pressure as their next league game at home to Brentford comes the day before Arsenal’s trip to West Ham United, a fixture being described as Arsenal’s toughest in the run-in.
What happened the last time Arsenal played Fulham?
Arsenal beat Fulham 1-0 in the reverse fixture between the sides earlier this season at Craven Cottage.
Leandro Trossard scored the only goal of the game on October 18, in the 58th minute.
The home side failed to register a shot on target, while Arsenal managed five and had a 63 percent share of possession.
When did Fulham last beat Arsenal?
The west London club secured a 2-1 home win in the Premier League two seasons ago.
Raul Jimenez and Bobby De Cordova-Reid scored the goals to turn the game around following Bukayo Saka’s fifth-minute opener.
Head-to-head
This will be the 67th meeting between the sides, with Arsenal winning 44 of the encounters and Fulham claiming the spoils nine times.
The first match between the sides came in 1904 in an FA Cup tie that Arsenal won 3-2.
The next game came 10 years later when the sides met in the league for the first time, with Fulham exacting revenge with a 6-1 home win in the old Division Two.
Arsenal team news
Both the German and fellow forward Eze were injured in the Premier League win against Newcastle last week, but the latter shrugged off his knock to appear as a substitute against Atletico.
Jurrien Timber and Mikel Merino are both definite absentees through injury, but Riccardo Calafiori returned to the bench for the Champions League game in midweek and could be in line for a start.
Former Tottenham winger Ryan Sessegnon could return from a knock sustained in Fulham’s last outing, but Alex Iwobi’s thigh problem means he will not face his former club.
The hit travel competition sees five intrepid teams embarking on the journey of a lifetime, spanning more than 12,000km across southern Europe and Central Asia. They will navigate seven checkpoints on their way to Hatgal in remote northern Mongolia.
Cousins Puja and Roshni were the first pair to be eliminated earlier this month, with more dramatic twists in store.
Sibling duo Katie and Harrison lost their lengthy lead last week, dropping all the way down to last place. In-laws Mark and Margo have charged into the lead for the first time, followed by childhood best friends Jo and Kush, and father-and-daughter pair Molly and Andrew.
Ahead of a new instalment airing on Thursday (April 30), Jo and Kush appeared on BBC’s Morning Live, where they spoke to hosts Holly Hamilton and Rav Wilding about their experience on the show.
During the interview, Kush revealed a hidden struggle he faced during the race, which viewers wouldn’t have known about.
“I think the hardest part is the fact that you sacrifice everything. You’ve got no home life, no reminders of home, no [home] comforts. Everything is to do with the race, and I think that started to get a bit consuming at times,” he said.
“You’re going to sleep and thinking about the race. Every day, every action and decision you make is to advance your race, and I really struggled with that at times. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function.”
Holly then discussed a show “controversy” after Jo and Kush notably decided against giving money to their competitors Molly and Andrew.
The presenter said: “There was one point, as well, where you had to make a decision about whether or not to give money to one of the other teams. There was a bit of controversy around that.”
Kush replied: “People come up to us and they’re so 50/50. I had one person come up to me a few days ago at work, saying, ‘Oh, you should have given them [the money]. Why didn’t you give them the euros?'”
Jo added: “At the end of the day, it is a competition. The game’s a game. Obviously, we love Andrew and Molly. We actually gave them the €10 back the other day, and they gave us £10 back, so we made a little transaction there!”
Tonight’s episode will see the teams face the longest leg of the race so far. They will travel through the world’s largest landlocked country, Kazakhstan, and into Uzbekistan, navigating the vast Kazakh steppe with its endless horizons and limited English speakers.
One racer soon becomes overwhelmed after a string of missed connections and fraught taxi negotiations, while another pair take part in an authentic Kazakh coming-of-age celebration.
Race Across the World is available to stream on BBC iPlayer
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday sharply limited a part of the Voting Rights Act that has forced states to draw voting districts to help elect Black or Latino representatives to Congress as well as state and local boards.
In a 6-3 decision in Louisiana vs. Callais, the court ruled that creating these majority-minority districts may amount to racial discrimination that violates the 14th Amendment.
When weighing what the Voting Rights Act requires, “we start with the general rule that the Constitution almost never permits the federal government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court.
Alito said states may draw election districts for partisan advantage but may not use race as a basis for redistricting.
The ruling in a Louisiana case appears to clear the way for Republican-led states across the South to redraw their election maps and eliminate voting districts that favor Black or Latino candidates for Congress, state legislatures and county boards.
UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said, “It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” adding that the decision makes the Voting Rights Act a “much weaker, and potentially toothless law.”
Hasen said it’s unclear how the decision will affect the November election because in many states early voting has already started and primaries have already taken place.
But the ruling’s long-term consequences for minority representation in Congress, state legislatures and local government are almost “certainly” going to be felt in 2028, Hasen said.
Republican leaders in states across the South have already signaled they intend to move quickly to redraw congressional maps in the wake of the ruling.
Alabama Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall said the state will “act as quickly as possible” to ensure its congressional maps “reflect the will of the people, not a racial quota system the Constitution forbids.” Marshall called the decision a recognition of how much the South has changed since the civil rights era.
“The court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality,” he said in a statement.
Florida was already in motion before the ruling came down. But Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the decision and said it was all the more reason for state lawmakers to redraw its congressional maps, in a manner that could give Republicans up to four more seats in Congress.
The proposed congressional maps, drawn by DeSantis’ office, were first unveiled to Fox News on Monday. On Wednesday, both chambers approved the maps, and readied them for DeSantis’ final approval.
In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves had already called lawmakers into a special session at the end of May in anticipation of a court ruling on the Voting Rights Act. In a post on X, Reeves underscored the ideological underpinnings to the ruling’s potential implications.
“First Dobbs. Now Callais. Just Mississippi and Louisiana down here saving our country!” Reeves wrote.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol after the Supreme Court ruling.
(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call / Getty Images)
At issue was how to ensure equal representation for Black and Latino citizens.
About one-third of Louisiana’s voters are Black, but the state seeks an election map that will elect white Republicans to five of its six seats in the House of Representatives.
Lower courts said that map violated the Voting Rights Act because it denied fair representation to Black residents.
The state had one Black-majority district, in New Orleans.
Two years ago, judges upheld the creation of a second Black-majority district that stretched from Shreveport to Baton Rouge on the grounds that it was required under the law.
The state’s Republican leaders appealed and argued that race was the motivating factor in drawing the second district.
Alito and the conservatives agreed and called that district an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
The three liberals dissented. The consequences of the ruling “are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” said Justice Elena Kagan, adding that it will allow “racial vote dilution in its most classic form.”
She said the decision means “a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power. Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic.”
But she said states across the South may draw electoral districts that deprive Black voters of equal representation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.
The decision was the latest example of a partisan political dispute in which the court’s six Republican appointees vote in favor of the Republican state plan, while the three Democratic appointees dissent.
The ruling is likely to have its greatest impact in the Southern states, where white Republicans are in control and Black Democrats are in the minority.
The court’s divide over redistricting is similar to the long dispute over affirmative action.
For decades, university officials said they needed to consider the race of applicants to achieve diversity and equal representation.
But in 2023, the court by a 6-3 vote struck down college affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina and ruled race may not be used to judge applicants.
The historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 succeeded in clearing the way for Black citizens to register and vote across the South, but it took longer for Black candidates to win elections.
The dispute was highlighted in a 1980 case from Mobile, Ala. Its three commissioners were elected to six-year terms, and each of them ran countywide.
Even though one-third of the county’s voters were Black, white candidates always won.
The Supreme Court upheld this arrangement as legal and constitutional. In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall said Black residents were left with the right to cast meaningless ballots.
In response, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 to say states must give minorities an opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.
Four years later, the Supreme Court interpreted that to mean that states had a duty to draw voting districts that would elect a Black or Latino candidate if these minorities had a sufficiently large number of voters in a particular area.
In recent years, the court’s conservatives, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, have chafed at the rule on the grounds it sometimes required states to use race as a factor for drawing election districts.
Alito’s opinion adopted that view and said states are not required or permitted to use race as a basis for drawing districts.
Hours after the ruling came out, President Trump met with reporters in the Oval Office and said he had not yet seen the decision. He was visibly excited, however, when a reporter explained the decision favored Republicans.
“I love it!” he said. “This is very good.”
Former President Obama said in a statement that the court’s decision “effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit racial bias.”
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in Los Angeles, also denounced the decision.
“The Supreme Court’s decision blesses racially discriminatory gerrymandering, and dismantles the legal protections for minority voters,” said Nina Perales, the group’s vice president for litigation. It “openly invites states to dilute minority voting strength, and undermines our democracy.”
Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.
The nation’s second-largest school system, with about 390,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.
In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.
Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.
The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.
Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.
L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.
Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.
Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.
The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at the union’s expense.
UTLA is the most reliable funder of school board campaigns — and the union’s spending is not controlled by candidates.
Also exerting influence in recent elections has been the district’s other largest union: Local 99 of Service Employees International Union. It represents some 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, gardeners, cafeteria workers and technical support staff. This union has yet to endorse candidates.
A potential but diminished source of election-funding firepower would be charter school advocates — who once routinely outspent the unions. Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield — a charter school ally who makes his own calls about whom to support — has been a big spender inrecent elections, typically as a counter to teachers-union-endorsed candidates. He has not committed to being involved in this school board election cycle.
The material below was assembled through reporting and surveys provided to candidates. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.
Three seats are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, but the District 6 race is essentially a foregone conclusion: The only name on the ballot is two-term incumbent Kelly Gonez.
The nation’s second-largest school system, with close to 400,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.
In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.
Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.
The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.
Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.
L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.
Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.
Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.
The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at that union’s expense.
The material below was assembled through reporting and a survey provided to Gonez. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.
After watching Manchester City slip to a 3-2 defeat by Brighton on Saturday, Arsenal fans started to believe they had a chance.
And Slegers’ team made sure to capitalise on the opportunity with seven unanswered goals against Leicester, improving their goal difference to 33 – six behind City.
Leah Williamson’s glancing header – the Gunners’ seventh against Leicester – also took their tally to 103 goals under Slegers. No WSL team has scored more since she was appointed – initially as interim boss – in October 2024.
“Clean sheet, seven goals scored, different scorers – it was a great night for us,” Slegers said to Sky Sports.
“You saw so many players playing the Arsenal way, we played attractive football and we were very brave in everything we did.”
What will also boost Arsenal’s belief is their squad’s strength in depth.
With the second leg of their Women’s Champions League semi-final against Lyon awaiting on Saturday, Slegers rested Williamson, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Mariona Caldentey, Caitlin Foord and Alessia Russo against the Foxes.
Their replacements did the job.
On her 100th WSL appearance, Maanum scored the opening goal and assisted two more, while Smilla Holmberg bagged her first two goals in an Arsenal shirt.
Stina Blackstenius has often had to play second fiddle to Russo, but the Swede, who scored the winning goal in last season’s Champions League final, showed her quality with two goals in the space of nine minutes.
“Everyone knows their role and brings their strengths. There are such high levels of communication and trust within the team, on the pitch, off the pitch,” Slegers added.
My colleagues Gustavo Arellano and Mark Z. Barabak joined me to decide who the winner was, or if there was a winner at all.
Arellano: The real MVP in this debate? State Supt. Tony Thurmond.
He brought up his family story — child of a Panamanian immigrant who lost his parents young, someone familiar with “government cheese” as sustenance growing up — in a way that didn’t sound forced or pedantic.
He usually stayed within the time limits that were barely enforced by moderators. And he kept knocking down Chad Bianco again and again, drawing applause when he brought up the Riverside County sheriff’s takeover of hundreds of thousands of ballots.
Thurmond is the only gubernatorial candidate currently holding a statewide position, a former Richmond City Council member and Assembly member. “Elect someone with a lived experience,” he told the audience in his closing statement.
So why has Thurmond polled so low again and again to the point that he keeps not getting invited to debates and therefore not getting in front of California voters?
California has never elected a Black governor — in fact, the state is notorious for not voting in Tom Bradley in 1982 even though polls showed him leading George Deukmejian all the way to Election Day (the phenomenon of voters telling pollsters what they think they want to hear instead of what they actually feel is now known as the Bradley Effect).
As California’s Black population keeps shrinking, it would’ve been wonderful to see Thurmond do better than he has.
Chabria: Gustavo is spot on with his take on Thurmond. He came across as polished, capable and knowledgeable. But also, he’s just too far down in the polls for any kind of comeback.
In my mind, though, Xavier Becerra was the clear winner. No, he didn’t blow the other candidates away.
But he landed more than one punch that will almost certainly be on social media feeds for weeks to come, especially when he went at Republican Steve Hilton. Early on, he called President Trump “Hilton’s daddy.” Later, he quipped at Hilton, “We don’t need a talking head for Fox News to tell us how the government works.”
The debate was chaotic in more than one moment, but Becerra managed to get more than his share of airtime and use it wisely. Tom Steyer, the other Democratic front-runner, mired himself in wonk-talk. He wanted to get deep into policy, and got lost in complicated issues such as oil refineries.
Steyer didn’t have a single memorable line, though his closing statement did redeem him somewhat. He called himself the “change maker,” and promised, “if you want change, there is only one person on this stage they are afraid of” — they being tech titans, oil companies and other gods of industry.
It was the same for Katie Porter and Matt Mahan, who didn’t do anything wrong, but also, didn’t break out.
But those back-and-forths of Becerra and Hilton are priceless because they’re quick and shareable. I won’t be surprised to see voters drift Becerra’s way, even if only a bit.
Barabak: No runs, no hits, no errors. Seven men — and one woman — left standing.
I didn’t see, or hear, anything that seems very likely to drastically shake up or dramatically reorder the governor’s race. No breakout performance that will launch any of the candidates into clear-cut front-runner status. No major gaffes to leave any of the contestants sprawled on the killing floor.
So to that extent, I would score Becerra as the evening’s (modest) winner. He’s clearly having a moment, surging from political near-death to the top tier in polls. (Though, let’s be clear, it’s still a muddle, with several candidates bunched in the 15%-20% support range.)
There have been suggestions Becerra needs to show a bit more fight and he did so Tuesday, in particular taking on Hilton. Some of his jabs seemed a bit forced and stagy. (That line about Trump as “Hilton’s daddy.”)
Better, as Anita noted, was the jab from the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden cabinet secretary about a Fox “talking head” explaining how government works.
I found Porter to be crisp and authoritative on policy; Steyer to be repetitive (I’m the only change agent on this stage, look how much money is being spent to stop me — though it’s a small fraction of the sum he’s sunk into his vanity-cruise campaign); Mahan and Antonio Villaraigosa to be largely afterthoughts, and Bianco to have all the warmth and appeal of the grouchy old man telling kids in the neighborhood to get off his damn lawn!
The Riverside County sheriff seemed not to be running for governor of California, but rather mayor of MAGA-ville, a strategy apparently intended to nab one of two spots in the June primary, allowing him to go on to crushing defeat in November.
I agree that perhaps the night’s most surprising performance came from Thurmond. The state schools superintendent is mired in bare single digits in polls and only just made the debate stage after being left out of last week’s meetup in San Francisco.
His chances of being California’s next governor are somewhere between zero and nil, which is why he escaped serious scrutiny. That said, he made the most of the 90 minutes on stage, laying out his compelling up-from-poverty life story and seeming to relish taking on Bianco in particular.
Too little, too late. But Thurmond certainly acquitted himself well.
One judge claims his colleagues have adopted a “gangster mentality” in order to shut him up.
Another compared the state board accusing him of serious misconduct to “the Russian mafia.”
Judicial elections are usually sleepy affairs, subject to little political fanfare or interest. But two battles on the June ballot in Los Angeles have raised the temperature this campaign season and invited questions about the lengths members of the insular local bench will go to protect their own.
Lawyers who aspire to become judge often run for open seats. The challengers in these races, however, say they specifically targeted incumbents they believe are unfit for the office, which carries an annual salary of more than $244,000.
One of the contests could unseat 84-year-old Judge Robert Draper, who is seeking reelection despite having spent the last three years relegated to a room at the Santa Monica courthouse without a computer or caseload, which two other judges described to The Times as a “closet.”
In 2023, then-Presiding Justice Samantha Jessner said Draper was “unable to carry out the duties and responsibilities of a judge” due to deteriorating mental and physical health, according to a letter she sent to the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance.
Draper denied all wrongdoing in an interview with The Times, and said that although he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he remains fit for the bench. He has also been accused of sexual harassment and making improper and biased comments by the judicial commission. He is contesting those claims. A hearing that could result in his removal began Monday and is expected to last into early May.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Thompson at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The other incumbent fighting to save his seat is Judge Pat Connolly, 61, a former prosecutor who has drawn support from several other sitting L.A. County judges. But his opponent, Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Thompson, has called Connolly a “rogue judge” who needs to be replaced.
Connolly has been disciplined multiple times in his 18-year judicial tenure for improper comments toward litigants and, in one case, exhibiting bias against a defense attorney against whom he was weighing contempt charges, according to state judicial commission records.
Thompson, who gained notoriety for his role winning a rape conviction against Harvey Weinstein, purchased the rights to the domain name “patconnolly4judge.com,” which now redirects to one of the commission’s admonishments of Connolly.
“What I see is a man who repeatedly prioritizes his own goodwill over that of the community and the public he is serving … a man who has been repeatedly disciplined for prioritizing his own interests,” said Thompson, who has been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party.
In a bizarre turn, the race was linked to the recent shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner after conservative influencers posted a picture of a Thompson campaign sign on the Torrance lawn of the suspected gunman, Cole Tomas Allen.
Thompson lives next door to the Allen family and described the suspect’s parents as great neighbors. He said he didn’t know their son and dismissed “internet trolls” for trying to tie his campaign to political violence.
This year’s election has sparked conversations about the unwavering support incumbent judges seem to enjoy among their colleagues.
Despite the concerns about Draper’s health, a political action committee run by fellow judges gave $72,500 to his campaign, state election finance records show. The PAC gave the same amount to Connolly.
Judge Maria Lucy Armendariz, who oversees the PAC, did not return a call seeking comment.
“The PAC has some explaining to do here. Why is there this show of support for someone who is facing so many challenges?” asked Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Loyola Law School. “It doesn’t reflect well on the bench.”
Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal Khan Valbuena at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Draper’s opponent is Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal Khan Valbuena, a refugee from Pakistan who works in the Hollywood mental health court. Khan Valbuena believes his lived experience as a gay Muslim who has faced bigotry will bring a compassionate perspective to a bench some complain is overrun with old-school tough-on-crime prosecutors.
But he also expressed concern about Draper’s mental decline after meeting him for lunch earlier this year.
“His honor had exemplified disorganized thought behavior, tangential thought … things I see on a day-to-day basis [in mental health court],” Khan Valbuena said, while acknowledging that he is not a doctor.
The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. issued its ratings for every judicial candidate last week. Connolly graded best among the judges in the contentious races, described as “well qualified.” Thompson and Khan Valubena were rated as “qualified.” Draper was one of only three candidates labeled “unqualified.”
In 2022, Judge Eric Taylor said he noticed a sharp change in Draper’s behavior that included sending “abusive” and “incoherent” e-mails to colleagues that contained racist and profane language, according to a letter Taylor sent to the state judicial commission.
“He has demonstrated a flagging handle on reality,” Taylor wrote.
Draper was accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and callous behavior all over the course of one hearing. According to the state judicial complaint and testimony at Draper’s removal hearing on Monday, the judge allegedly stroked a female lawyer’s hair after going on a tangent to a Black attorney about “Black history, Black football players, the Civil Rights Act, and the Black Lives Matter movement,” even though the case had nothing to do with those issues.
Judge Robert Draper outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Los Angeles.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Later in chambers that same day, he made crude remarks to a group of female attorneys while reflecting on his time as a civil attorney, recalling how male lawyers would deride female secretaries, insisting they learn to “f— better than they could type,” according to testimony given by attorney Janice Brown at Draper’s hearing.
Brown told the review panel that Draper’s behavior left her “aghast” and “perplexed.”
Draper denied much of what was in the complaint. He says that he never touched a lawyer’s hair, and that the comments about Black culture were meant to express his pride at racial progress in America. He criticized the Commission on Judicial Performance.
“This is like the Russian mafia, it’s like Germany,” he said. “There’s no due process for any judge.”
Draper’s attorney, Ashley Posner, said his client would routinely walk up seven flights of stairs when he was assigned to the downtown Stanley Mosk courthouse and remains sharp.
“Things were set up to portray him in the worst light possible … he’s been portrayed as a bigot. He’s been portrayed as doddering and demented, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Posner said.
In court on Monday, Posner suggested the complaint was part of a broader campaign to force Draper to retire and accused the L.A. County Superior Court’s leadership of ageism. A court spokesperson said they could not comment on personnel matters.
The race between Connolly and Thompson has also focused heavily on alleged misconduct.
Connolly’s past admonishments by the state commission include complaints that he yelled at attorneys for appearing remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge also told a recently acquitted defendant that he knew the man was guilty, records show.
“I don’t think it’s as much what I’ve said as how I have said it. I think that they have taken issue with the terms that I’ve used,” Connolly said, noting he has never been accused of ethical violations or moral impropriety.
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Pat Connolly at the Compton Courthouse.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
A legal expert raised questions in 2023 about the propriety of Connolly seeking to disqualify a fellow judge from ruling on a petition to resentence a convicted cop killer that Connolly had prosecuted in the late 2000s. The state commission is also currently reviewing two additional complaints against Connolly, according to e-mails seen by The Times. Connolly said he couldn’t comment on either situation.
In an interview with The Times, Connolly said he was surprised by the “venom” Thompson had injected into the race.
He said he sees himself as a fair jurist with a knack for finding creative solutions to cases that balance public safety and alternatives to incarceration. In 2022, court records show, he negotiated a plea deal for an NFL player facing prison time for weapons charges, ordering him to organize sports camps for underprivileged youth.
“I’m one of those who listens to both sides, who gives both sides the opportunity to voice their positions,” he said.
Connolly enjoys the support of many sitting judges and law enforcement leaders, including former Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and the head of the court’s criminal division, Ricardo Ocampo.
Thompson says some of Connolly’s allies on the bench have come after his supporters.
When Thompson launched his campaign, he published an endorsement from L.A. County Superior Court Judge Scott Yang on his campaign website. Within weeks, Thompson said, Yang asked him to take the endorsement down, claiming he was being pressured by other judges.
Yang, who presides over a court in the Antelope Valley, said his colleagues on the bench exhibited a “gangster mentality” when they told him to withdraw his endorsement in a judicial election, according to a text message reviewed by The Times.
“They were going to target him. They were going to run at him. They were potentially going to make false disciplinary reports around him,” Thompson said.
Connolly was not accused of being involved in the alleged harassment and declined to discuss the matter. Yang did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A court spokesperson said they had not received any reports of threats made against Yang, but a law enforcement source said Yang told them he was harassed by fellow judges over his endorsement of Thompson. The source spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the bench.
The conflict has generated whispers among L.A. County judges, one of whom requested anonymity due to concerns of backlash for speaking publicly. Word of the threats against Yang, the judge said, left some fearing they too could face retribution for breaking ranks.
“It’s totally concerning,” the judge said. “How different is that than the deputy gangs?”
Last week’s meet-up in San Francisco didn’t provide the fireworks or memorable moments the candidates, and many voters, were hoping for — but it did manage to remind us all that ballots will hit mailboxes in coming days and decisions must be made.
Ahead of the forum at Pomona College in Claremont, a trio of our Times columnists — Gustavo Arellano, Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria — weigh in with a cheat sheet on what to look for, what to expect and why it matters.
Chabria: I’ll start us off with the obvious — let’s hope Tuesday gives us at least one breakout candidate who comes with some fire and vision.
After last week’s debate, there was lots of social media posturing about who won and who trolled whom the best. But as one of the six people who actually watched, I can tell you it was mostly bland with no clear winner.
That’s in large part because many of the Democrats have only slivers of daylight between their policies, and ditto for the two Republicans.
So my hope is that at least a single candidate ups their game and comes to voters with not just attacks, but something that inspires, something that sets them apart. This far into the race, that hope is slim, but I’m keeping it alive.
What are your hopes and dreams — and maybe fears — going into this?
Barabak: I know I sound like a broken record. (Google it, kids.) Anita, you and I, in particular, have gone round and round on this one. But I don’t feel a particular need for inspiration from the guys and gal that are running for governor. If I want inspiration, I’ll go back and reread the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Or listen to a Grateful Dead show from May of ’77.
Give me someone who can work with the Legislature, and as difficult as it may be, President Trump, to get stuff done.
Pursue a “California First” agenda, to borrow a phrase. Put voters and their interests ahead of ego, careerism and personal ambition. Start by pledging, if elected, to serve a full four-year term and not run for president so long as they’re serving as governor.
Of course, that kind of promise can be broken. (See then-Gov. Pete Wilson, who made that vow when he sought reelection in 1994, then turned around and — unsuccessfully — sought the White House in 1995.)
At least we’d have them on the record.
Arellano: I’m all for this morass of democracy. A small part of me wants two Republicans to make it into the general election because the California Democratic Party deserves a meteor-like extinction event. No GOP statewide elected official since Schwarzenegger. Supermajority in Sacramento for most of a decade.
And what do they have to show for their one-party rule? This.
But then I hear Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton mewl, and I’m suddenly hoping alongside Anita that someone vanquishes their foes with an unassailable vision. Problem is, I think all the candidates have reached their ceiling. The only one who has any chance of showing us something new is Xavier Becerra, who needs to drop his Dudley Do-Right shtick for a second and channel the inner cholo we all know is in him.
Instead, he was at a fundraiser in Fullerton over the weekend with professional Latinos — you should’ve been kicking it with my cousins in Anaheim who were watching their Dodgers slaughter the Cubs, loco, because they’re the ones who’ll make or break you.
Chabria: How the first potential Latino governor is failing to excite Latino voters is exactly what I’m talking about. If you don’t give voters something to be excited about, they don’t vote, and our fragile democracy needs every voter it can get.
But if we are forced to vote on nuance, let’s do it informed. Here are some questions I hope these candidates have to answer:
For San José Mayor Matt Mahan, funded in the mega-millions by tech bros, it’s not enough to promise to regulate artificial intelligence, or billionaire influence, for that matter. Tell us what those regulations look like and tell us how you reconcile your own politics with those of big donors such as Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, who has called Gen Z the “loser generation.”
For billionaire investor Tom Steyer, who has said he will reform Proposition 13 (which limits property taxes) for corporate land owners: What assurances do homeowners have that they won’t be next?
And I agree with you, Gustavo, Becerra is coming across as resolutely bland, but to Mark’s point, he’s using that to position himself as drama-free and experienced. So in an era when fraud and abuse are the words of the day, how does Becerra explain not catching fraud in his own office?
Mark and Gustavo, what are the topics you hope candidates will be grilled on?
Arellano: Slight correction, Anita — California already had a Latino governor: Romualdo Pacheco, the lieutenant governor who replaced Newton Booth in 1875 when the latter became a U.S. senator. Pacheco — a Latino Republican! — served all of 10 months before becoming a Congress member.
Issues? Immigration, of course. I want each one to address the state’s undocumented immigrants for 90 seconds in whatever matter they choose. Water: Believe in climate change or not, but our supply is shrinking faster than the gubernatorial chances of Thurmond. And since I believe that the more random the question, the more you learn about who a candidate truly is: What’s the best song about California, and why? Anyone who says “California Girls” or “California Gurls” deserves disqualification, even if both songs rock.
Barabak: Not an issue, per se. What I’d like to see is a bit of backbone.
The next governor is going to have to make some tough decisions, especially around spending priorities and/or cuts to the state budget. Inevitably, the next governor is going to make some people unhappy. And I’m not talking about just those members of the opposite party, or folks who didn’t vote for them.
So I’d like each of them to name an issue where, for the good of the state, they’re willing to take on their friends and allies, knowing they’ll be displeased. If you’re a Democrat, name something you would do that would, say, tick off organized labor. And for Republicans Bianco and Hilton, what’s an area where you’re willing to say to Trump, “Sir” — the president imagines everyone bowing and calling him sir — “you’re dead wrong about this and California needs to go its own way, whether you like it or not.”
Arellano: Good luck seeing any candidate buck their masters. I think we need to lower our expectations way, way, well, lower. So a simple question to conclude: Who needs to do the most tonight besides Mahan’s beard? I think it’s my fellow Orange Countian, Katie Porter. She’s now to the right of Steyer and left of Becerra, which means she needs to peel off supporters from both of them and grab undecideds if she wants to advance. Not sure how she can pull that off — but if anyone can bring necessary fire, it’s her.
Chabria: Porter definitely has a lot on the line.
One standout moment for her, Steyer or Becerra — good or bad — could tilt this very-much-undecided race — not so much because people will be watching, but because it will fuel the social media and advertising sure to follow. These next two debates are high-stakes, not just to avoid a Biden performance, but to do something, anything, that fires up momentum.
Politics ain’t beanbag, as the old saying goes, and it’s time to bring the heat. So in the spirit of Gustavo’s song request, I’ll leave it with these lyrics from the Rivieras (or the Ramones, if you prefer): We’re out there having fun, in the warm California sun.
Barabak: Not to be the pooper at the party but I think we shouldn’t overstate the import of tonight’s debate. For one thing, as Anita suggested, the audience will be exceedingly small — minuscule, even, relative to the state’s 23 million registered voters.
We know, from experience, that most folks will take away what they do based not on the debate itself but rather the coverage of it and whatever soundbites, memes, chatter and advertising it produces — and that’s only to the extent people are paying attention.
So, yes, what’s said and done in Pomona, will matter some. But we’re still five weeks away from election day, and I suspect many folks will be waiting at least another week or three to start focusing on the race and finally make up their minds.
I’ll end with something that Jerry Garcia sang: All good things in all good time.
SACRAMENTO — Xavier Becerra seems like the type of steady, trustworthy fellow you’d like your daughter to marry. But she’s attracted to a charming party animal.
Then the flashy dude does something really stupid and repulsive. Daughter is jarred into her senses and decides to size up the unexciting but reliable guy.
That’s how I’m seeing the suddenly captivating contest to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.
OK, it’s not a perfect analogy. Becerra is 68, been happily married for 37 years and the couple have three grown children. But the principle’s the same: He’s the safe choice. The hot other character merely fooled lots of people for a while.
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“People are looking for something stable,” Becerra answered when I asked. “Everybody likes pizzazz and glitter. Then all of a sudden their hero falls from grace. And they look for who they can trust.”
Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine, says: “Democrats had a near-death experience with Swalwell. They don’t seem to be in the mood to take more risks.”
Schnur calls Becerra “this year’s version of Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.” He’s the safe choice. “Sometimes being ‘none of the above’ is good enough.”
Since Swalwell’s collapse, the once-floundering Becerra has had a meteoric rise in the polls.
A survey conducted for the state Democratic Party showed Becerra rising by 10 points from single digits to tying Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund founder turned climate warrior. Close behind was former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter.
Steyer and Porter are both liberals in their ideology and personalities. Neither are flamethrowers, but they‘re fiery. In contrast, Becerra also is an ideological liberal, but with a low-key demeanor that might cause one to mistake him for a political moderate.
San José Mayor Matt Mahan is clearly a Democratic centrist. But in this era of intense polarization, moderation may be a hard sale. At least, it has been so far for Mahan.
Among those six Democratic and Republican candidates, Becerra boasts by far the most outstanding political resume.
He was U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services under President Biden. Before that as state attorney general, California’s mild-mannered “top cop” showed his aggressiveness by suing the first Trump administration 123 times and winning the vast majority of cases. He also served 12 terms in Congress from Los Angeles and became part of the Democratic leadership. And he served one term in the state Assembly.
“He talked in very vague generalities,” the former political operative says, but adds: “In the middle of the other candidates’ drama and emotional outbursts, he seemed very calm and safe.”
Some pundits and pols have been calling on Becerra to show more fire. But that’s not him. He’s guarded and understated. It’s how he’s wired. If he attempted a personality change, it probably wouldn’t work. There’s a risk of it seeming contrived and phony.
But Becerra should be more specific on issues. Exactly how would he make life better for Californians?
His basic answer when asked how he’d solve a given problem pestering California is essentially: Trust me. I’ll meet with all sides and figure it out.
That’s not just a cop-out. It’s his pragmatic modus operandi.
That reserved style prompted this shot during the debate from Porter, who tends toward specificity:
“Mr. Becerra, you have all these lovely plans. But there are never any numbers, any revenue plan, any details. … The how, the why and how much, it’s all missing.”
Becerra responded with some rare emotion: “That’s very rich to hear from someone who’s never had to actually run a government.” The former Cabinet secretary said he’d balanced four federal HHS budgets that were larger than the California state budget.
I asked Becerra about some issues last week. Here’s partly what he said:
Housing costs: Expedite building by streamlining more regulations. “We’ll continue to have rules, but let’s make them smart rules.”
Gas prices: Keep more refineries from closing. “Let them know they can operate and produce and not lose money. That’s an easy one.”
High-speed rail: ”We’re going to build the bullet train, but not this bullet train. It’s too expensive. Sit everybody down and come out with a position.”
Banning new gas cars by 2035: Is Newsom’s goal realistic? “Seeing what I see, no. We can’t make it by ‘35, but we can make it.”
But let’s be honest. Elections usually turn more on likability than policy positions.
“Decency may be a quality that goes a long way” in the governor’s race, says longtime Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. “In part that’s because of the Swalwell revelations and also because of Trump, who’s not decent. Decency may be what people are looking for.”
But Democrats are riled up by Trump and they’re also demanding backbone and fight.
Many are eyeing Becerra as someone perhaps worth partnering up with. A bit more passion from him could help sustain their interest.
After winning his first race for Congress in 1992, 34-year-old Xavier Becerra credited a wave of community supporters in Los Angeles, many Latino, for backing his upstart campaign, saying he hoped his win was proof that grassroots politics was more valuable than “heavy dollars.”
More than 30 years later, Becerra, 68, is again an upstart candidate — this time for California governor. Again he is facing monied competition — including from chief Democratic rival Tom Steyer, a self-funded billionaire — and relying on Latino and other grassroots support.
California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra speaks during a campaign event in Los Angeles on April 18.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
“You are the people power that it takes,” he told a crowd of supporters at a recent “Fighting for the California Dream” town hall in Los Angeles. “California wasn’t built by billionaires. It was built by your families. It was built by our families.”
That Becerra is still fighting in the race — and drawing new people to his events — reflects a remarkable and hard-to-explain turnaround for a campaign that appeared all but dead less than a month ago, then bounded back into contention after Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped from the race and resigned from Congress amid sexual assault allegations.
Before Swalwell’s collapse, Becerra’s biggest splash in the race came in March, when USC excluded him and other low-performing candidates from a planned debate. The criteria left every candidate of color out, and after Becerra and others complained, the forum was canceled.
A California Democratic Party tracking poll, released in early April before the Swalwell scandal broke, showed Becerra near the bottom of the field with 4% support among likely voters. In a party poll taken after it broke, Becerra’s support jumped to 13% — the biggest increase of any candidate.
Certainly some of Swalwell’s supporters shifted to Becerra, but political observers are still pondering why so many did — and not to Steyer, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter or other Democrats with single-digit support, such as former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or San José Mayor Matt Mahan.
Whatever the answer, Becerra’s surge has sparked fresh interest in his candidacy. It also has raised questions about his time as California attorney general, when he sued the first Trump administration more than 120 times, and U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, when he backed the Biden administration’s strict COVID-19 rules and oversaw the agency’s response to a massive influx of unaccompanied minors at the southern border.
It has also put a growing target on Becerra’s back — including at Wednesday night’s gubernatorial debate, when rivals criticized him as a “D.C. insider” with poorly detailed plans for the state — and sparked hope among many Latinos that California will elect one of them as governor for the first time in state history, sending a strong message of resistance to the intensely anti-immigrant Trump administration.
Of course, Becerra faces hurdles. Steyer, a hedge fund founder who has donated more than $130 million to his own campaign, has been ahead of him in polling, as have two Republicans: Silicon Valley entrepreneur and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, who has President Trump’s endorsement, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Only the top two candidates in the June 2 primary advance to the November election.
Still, Becerra now has a path to victory, one that did not exist even a month ago, and new funding. Many Democratic voters remain undecided, and many — shocked by the Swalwell scandal — are looking for another Democratic front-runner to back.
In an interview with The Times, Becerra said he’s the man for the job, because “California needs a work horse, not a show horse.”
Xavier Becerra, left, gathers with other candidates for Los Angeles mayor in 2000.
(Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)
Rising wave of Latino political power
A Sacramento native and the son of a Mexican immigrant mother and a Mexican American father, Becerra graduated from Stanford Law School and served as a deputy to California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp before being elected in 1990 to the California Assembly.
In 1993, Becerra entered Congress on a rising wave of Latino political power and the heels of a fractious presidential election in which former White House aide Pat Buchanan challenged President George H.W. Bush in the Republican primary on a stridently anti-immigrant, “America First” message — one Trump repurposed in both 2016 and 2024.
It was a defining political moment for Latinos across the country, and for Becerra personally, said Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
“He certainly has been and is part of the incorporation of Latinos into California history and California politics, and it really begins in the early ’90s,” Guerra said. “His rise and political career is really a reflection of the rise and political incorporation of Latinos.”
In 1994, Becerra helped oppose Proposition 187, a state initiative to deny undocumented immigrants access to public education and healthcare. In 1996, he sharply criticized the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which cut federal benefits for many legal immigrants. By 1997, Becerra — just 39 — was chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first Latino member to serve on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
By 2016, Becerra, 58, was the highest-ranking Latino in Congress when then-Gov. Jerry Brown tapped him to replace a Senate-bound Kamala Harris as California attorney general. There, Becerra played a key role in defending the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, against Republican attacks.
Then-U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra arrives for a hearing to discuss reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
(Greg Nash / Associated Press)
Criticism and praise
In a rush of endorsements in recent days, Becerra’s supporters have lauded his executive experience, calling him a “proven leader” who, amid constant threats from the Trump administration, is “ready to fight back on day one.”
Becerra’s critics also have pointed to his leadership record, but to highlight what they contend are glaring failures.
Steyer spokesman Kevin Liao alleged Becerra was “absent, ineffective, or too late” in responding to COVID-19 and other public health crises as health secretary, and that California “cannot afford incompetence, or someone who disappears when things get hard.”
The remarks echoed others made during the pandemic, including by Eric Topol, who is executive vice president of Scripps Research in La Jolla, a professor of translational medicine and a cardiologist. During the pandemic, Topol accused Becerra of being “invisible” in the fight to control it. In a recent interview, he said he still believes that.
Topol said the Biden administration’s COVID response was defined by poor data collection and “infighting” among agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, including on vital issues such as when Americans should receive booster shots and how long they should isolate after infection.
Becerra “basically took a very absent, low profile — didn’t show up, didn’t harmonize the remarkable infighting,” Topol said. “The buck stops with him.”
Dr. David A. Kessler, the Biden administration’s top science official on COVID-19 and now a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at UC San Francisco, fiercely defended Becerra, crediting him with rolling out some 676 million vaccines and steering the nation out of a wildly unfamiliar health crisis with substantial success — what Kessler called a “historical achievement” that proved government “can do big things.”
Kessler said Becerra rightly assessed that the country needed to hear from medical experts, not politicians, and so deferred at times to the doctors, epidemiologists and vaccinologists he smartly surrounded himself with and trusted — but he was never absent. “He enabled us. He was there. Anything I needed, he helped deliver,” Kessler said.
Becerra said there were a lot of people involved with the COVID-19 fight, including a White House team launched before his confirmation as health secretary. Still, it was his agency that ultimately led the response, and helped bring the pandemic to an end, he said.
“At the end of four years, when we had put some 700 million COVID shots into the arms of Americans and pulled the country and our economy out of the COVID crisis, it was HHS — and I was the secretary of HHS,” he said.
Becerra’s rivals in the governor’s race also have attacked him for how he responded to an influx of unaccompanied immigrant minors during the pandemic. They allege Becerra rushed their release to relatives and other sponsors while ignoring concerns from career health staff that some of those placements weren’t safe — resulting in thousands of kids being lost to the system, forced into child labor or trafficked.
The criticism stems in part from a sweeping New York Times investigation that found the health department couldn’t find some 85,000 children it had released, that Becerra had relaxed screening processes for sponsors and that placement concerns from career health staff went ignored or were silenced.
The investigation by reporter Hannah Dreier found that thousands of the 250,000 or so migrant children who arrived in the U.S. between early 2021 and early 2023 had “ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws.”
Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra holds a news conference in Border Field State Park in San Diego in 2017.
(Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times)
It found there were many signs of “the explosive growth of this labor force,” and that staff had repeatedly flagged concerns about it in reports that reached Becerra’s desk. It also reported that, during a staff meeting in the summer of 2022, Becerra had pressed staff to move children even more quickly through the process, comparing them to factory parts.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line,” Becerra said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the newspaper.
Danni Wang, another Steyer spokesperson, said children “were handed to gang members, traffickers, and abusers because [Becerra] stripped the background checks that had protected them for years.”
Becerra said the controversy is one he has addressed publicly for years, including in multiple congressional hearings. He said his team worked diligently to properly vet sponsors and do right by the thousands of children in their care, despite Congress failing to provide the budget needed to restore a system of licensed care facilities that the first Trump administration had dismantled.
“It was a wreck. They had closed facilities, they had fired the licensed caregivers. And remember, this was during COVID, [when] you didn’t want anyone to be near each other,” he said. “How do you take care of thousands of kids in a center that could house maybe 50 kids?”
He said he led an aggressive push to stand up temporary facilities — including in places like the San Diego Convention Center — while rebuilding the licensed care facilities Trump had dismantled and working to place kids into the community as quickly and safely as possible.
Ron Klain, who served as Biden’s chief of staff for the first two years of the administration, said Becerra helped lead the administration out of the crisis by being “an outspoken advocate” for the children in its care.
“Xavier was very, very insistent in meetings and very outspoken on the risk that some of these people [the kids] were being placed with were not the proper people to place them with, and pushed hard for more rigor in the process,” Klain said.
Becerra also has faced criticism and questions related to the federal indictment of his former chief of staff Sean McCluskie, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud after authorities accused him of stealing some $225,000 from Becerra’s dormant state political campaign account.
Becerra was not implicated in the scandal — which he’s previously described as a “gut punch” — and said he did everything he could to ensure McCluskie and others were held accountable once it came to light, including by providing “testimony and documents” to the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Hilton has said the scandal, which also implicated a former aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom, showed that “corruption has become totally ingrained and systemic” under Democratic rule in California.
Looking ahead
Experts said Becerra’s long resume will help him stand out in a race with less experienced competitors and no household names — and that Californians electing a Latino for the first time, as the Trump administration conducts one of the largest ever deportation campaigns, dismantles immigrant rights and targets people on the street based largely on their looking and sounding Latino, would be a major political moment.
Becerra said his extensive experience should matter to voters, because such experience will be necessary in the pivotal and no doubt chaotic Trump years ahead, when “pizzazz and dazzle” will matter less than steady competence from “someone who’s actually been in the midst of that hurricane” before.
“It helps to have gone through these things. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I’ve done it successfully,” he said. “I’ve proven that, whether it was taking on Donald Trump toe to toe as the [attorney general], whether it was getting us out of COVID working closely with the White House to deploy the resources and get that done, we made it happen.”
Samsung Electronics union members hold placards with the words ‘Abolish upper limit’ during a protest outside the company’s semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, 23 April 2026. The union has announced plans to launch an 18-day general strike from 21 May to 07 June, which could result in losses for the company of up to 30 trillion won (17.34 billion euros). Photo by HAN MYUNG-GU / EPA
April 26 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s race for dominance in high-bandwidth memory, a key component for artificial intelligence chips, is diverging as SK hynix consolidates its lead while Samsung Electronics faces mounting labor tensions.
Industry analysts say the competition is increasingly defined not just by technology, but by timing – with early execution and customer alignment proving decisive in securing long-term market share.
SK hynix recently received a corporate innovation award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, recognizing its leadership in developing and mass-producing successive generations of HBM chips. The company has capitalized on surging demand driven by AI computing, strengthening partnerships with major global clients.
SK hynix is rapidly expanding sales of its HBM3E products while simultaneously preparing for next-generation HBM4, supplying samples to key customers and advancing toward mass production. Analysts say early validation and supply relationships formed at this stage are likely to shape long-term market positioning.
In contrast, Samsung is attempting to close the gap through its own HBM4 development but faces internal challenges. Labor disputes over performance-based bonuses have escalated, with unions warning of a general strike. Industry observers say the tensions could affect not only production but also research, development and customer engagement.
HBM products require close collaboration with customers on customized designs and process validation, making speed of initial response a critical factor. Delays in testing or supply can lead to lost contracts, while early entry into supply chains often results in long-term partnerships.
Analysts warn that Samsung’s internal disruptions could weaken its ability to respond during what they describe as a “golden time” in the rapidly expanding AI semiconductor market. If supply stability and development pace falter, customers may shift toward multi-vendor strategies, potentially solidifying SK hynix’s advantage.
Experts also point to structural issues behind repeated labor disputes, including disagreements over performance-based compensation. They suggest moving beyond short-term negotiations toward a more transparent system based on objective metrics such as return on invested capital, total shareholder return and economic value added.
Such reforms, they say, could help prevent prolonged conflicts and support the company’s competitiveness in a fast-moving global market.
LONDON — The fabled two-hour barrier for a marathon has been broken, officially, in an once-inconceivable achievement in sports.
Not by one runner, but two.
In a race for the ages, Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds on Sunday, shattering the previous men’s world record by an astonishing 65 seconds.
“What comes today is not for me alone,” the 29-year-old Sawe said, “but for all of us today in London.”
Just 11 seconds further back was Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who — running in his first-ever marathon — also covered the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) course in under 2 hours.
Completing the podium was Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who broke the previous world-record time — set by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 — by seven seconds, finishing in 2:00:28.
In an exhilarating sight, Sawe ran quicker as the marathon went on, covering the second half of the race in 59 minutes and 1 second. He pulled clear with Kejelcha after 30 kilometers and then made his solo break in the final two kilometers, sprinting along the finish on The Mall to loud cheers.
Sabastian Sawe of Team Kenya runs ahead of Yomif Kejelcha of Team Ethiopia during the London Marathon on Sunday in London.
(Warren Little / Getty Images)
Sawe, who retained his title in London, said it was a “day to remember for me” and thanked the huge crowds who lined the streets of the British capital to witness what might be regarded as a feat marking the peak of human physical achievement.
“I think they help a lot,” he said, “because if it was not for them you don’t feel like you are so loved … with them calling, you feel so happy and strong.”
Under two hours has been done before — unofficially
Breaking two hours in a marathon has been a long time coming — and has been done before.
However, when Eliud Kipchoge — the Kenyan long-distance great — achieved the feat in Vienna in 2019, it was in a specially tailored race called the “1.59 Challenge” that was arranged by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe in favorable conditions, on a 6-mile (9.6-kilometer) circuit, and using rotating pacemakers.
That meant it wasn’t classed as an official race setting, so Kipchoge’s time of 1:59:40 didn’t go in the record book.
In any case, Sawe surpassed that time by 10 seconds on a mostly flat course across London in dry, sunny conditions.
Sabastian Sawe, of Kenya, smiles and holds up his adidas shoe with his world-record marathon time written on it Sunday in London.
(Alex Davidson / Getty Images)
“The goalposts have literally just moved for marathon running,” Paula Radcliffe, a former winner of the London Marathon, said during commentary of the race for the BBC.
At the turn of the century, the world’s best time for the men’s marathon was 2:05:42, set by Khalid Khannouchi in Chicago in 1999.
Khannouchi broke his own record by four seconds in 2002 — the last time the fastest men’s marathon was run in London — and it has been whittled down gradually over the last 24 years by a succession of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners, including Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kipsang, Kipchoge and most recently Kiptum.
Assefa wins fastest-ever women’s-only marathon
A record was also set in the women’s race, with Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa pulling away with about 500 meters remaining to win in 2:15:41 and defend the title in the fastest-ever time in a women’s-only marathon.
However, it was 16 seconds slower than the course record set by Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race.
Tigst Assefa celebrates as she crosses the finish line during the London Marathon women’s race in a record time Sunday.
(Ian Walton / Associated Press)
Kenya’s Hellen Obiri was 12 seconds back in second place in a personal-best time on her London debut and compatriot Joyciline Jepkosgei was third, a further two seconds adrift. It was the first time three women have run under 2 hours, 16 minutes in a marathon.
“I screamed when I finished because I knew I was breaking the world record,” Assefa said.
“I felt much healthier today and have worked really hard on my speed and all my training has paid off.”
Swiss double in wheelchair races
In the wheelchair races, there was a Swiss double with Marcel Hug powering to a sixth straight men’s title — and eighth in total — and Catherine Debrunner beating Tatyana McFadden in a close finish to defend the title.
THE London Marathon always sees a host of celebrities run alongside the general public, but it didn’t get off to a great start for Harry Judd.
The McFly star took to Instagram on Sunday morning to reveal he had forgotten some essentials.
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Harry Judd forgot his bib for the London MarathonCredit: Instagram/HarryjuddHarry’s wife Izzy came to the rescueCredit: Instagram/HarryjuddGordon Ramsay paid tribute to daughter Tilly who is running itCredit: Instagram/Gordongram
He said: “Really great start to the marathon day, I was about four stops into my journey to Greenwich and realised I had forgotten my bib number, my race number… so that’s good!”
Thankfully wife Izzy came to the rescue, as Harry filmed her pulling up in the car with their kids in the back.
He captioned the clip: “Family to the rescue”.
Harry isn’t the only famous face taking part, as singer Alexandra Burke shared snaps ahead of the race on her Instagram page.
She wrote: “I never take it for granted that I’m able to move my body and do things that challenge me!
“So grateful to be running for @melissabellfoundation & @parkinsonsuk today at the @londonmarath. wishing all the runners the best time out there today! #AllforyouMama #myangel.”
Alexandra’s run comes just hours after she performed on the first Britain’s Got Talent live semi-final.
Meanwhile chef Gordon Ramsay paid tribute to his daughter Tilly, who is running the 26.2 mile route around the capital.
Posing together with Tilly in her running gear, Gordon wrote: “Such a proud dad today watching my little girl @tillyramsay run her first ever marathon !!!!
“Thx to @flora and everyone who supported @feeding_britain on her incredible journey. Go get em kiddo !!.”
Joe Wicks has been training Daddy PigCredit: InstagramThe pair are raising money for the National Deaf Children’s SocietyCredit: PA
Elsewhere, Joe Wicks was running alongside none other than Daddy Pig from Peppa Pig, having trained him for the event.
The pair are raising money and awareness for the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), after Daddy Pig’s son George was diagnosed with moderate deafness.
Daddy Pig also ran the London Marathon in a special episode of Peppa Pig, which aired last week.
Spencer Matthews was pictured warming up the for 26.2 mile runCredit: Getty
Kenyan Sawe, 29, trod new ground in track and field as he crossed the finish line of the London Marathon along The Mall in an incredible time of one hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds.
It was an astonishing performance, achieving something that few thought was ever possible.
If that was not astonishing enough then second-placed Kejelcha of Ethiopia – running his first marathon – also dipped under the magical two-hour mark as he ran 1:59:41.
Arsenal would move six points clear of second-placed Manchester City if they beat Fulham in their home game next week, though City, who were in FA Cup semi-final action this weekend, would have two games in hand.
That is because Manchester City were playing in the FA Cup semi-final earlier on Saturday against Southampton and are not back in league action until Monday, 4 May when they play Everton.
Having that buffer of points built up by the time of City’s next game at Everton on Monday 4 May would be a huge boost for Arteta’s side given they went into this weekend off the top for the first time since October.
According to Opta, Arsenal have a 72.44% chance of lifting the Premier League trophy at the end of the season compared to the 27.56% chance of Manchester City.
“You can’t question their fight. Arsenal have given absolutely everything on that pitch today,” former Crystal Palace and Brighton striker Glenn Murray said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“Another huge three points for Arsenal to keep them top of the league.”
Arsenal are without a major trophy since the FA Cup triumph of 2020 which came in Arteta’s first season in charge.
And captain Martin Odegaard said that the effort the players put in is because every member of the team is doing what they can to get over the line.
“It was tough, very intense, very physical,” he told Sky Sports. “We did everything we could and we got the win, the most important thing was to bounce back with a win and get over the line with the three points.”
But for Odegaard, who played the full 90 minutes, and the rest of the squad attention quickly switches to the Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday.
“This schedule is crazy,” Odegaard added. “We just have to keep going. It is the end of the season, just leave everything out that we have inside, fight every single game and we just have to keep going.
“That’s where we want to be but it is going to go all the way to the end. We are ready for it and we will fight every single day.”
Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park has raised more than $1.2 million for her reelection campaign in the city’s June 2 primary, more than double the amount collected by challenger Faizah Malik, according to finance reports filed this week.
Malik, a civil rights attorney, reported raising roughly $454,000 in her bid for the District 11 seat that skirts along the Westside, including Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Venice and Westchester, the reports show.
At nearly $1.7 million, the money raised in the race is the highest for the eight council seats, out of 15 total, on the ballot in the June 2 primary. Any candidate who wins a majority in the election will win the seat outright, otherwise the top two vote-getters will compete in the Nov. 3 general election.
Two of the eight races are open seats to replace termed-out incumbents, and in five other races, incumbents Eunisses Hernandez, Park, Hugo Soto-Martínez, Tim McOsker and Katy Yaroslavsky posted large fundraising leads against their challengers. One incumbent, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, is running unopposed.
In the west San Fernando Valley’s 3rd District, three candidates are seeking to replace termed-out Councilmember Bob Blumenfield.
Insurance company founder Tim Gaspar was leading the pack in fundraising, reporting nearly $430,000. Barri Worth Girvan, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, has raised about $235,000. Tech entrepreneur Christopher Robert “CR” Celona was far behind with about $12,300.
In Council District 1, which includes Highland Park and Pico-Union, incumbent Hernandez topped the field with about $319,000 in contributions. Challenger Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles police commissioner, reported raising about $182,000.
Among other challengers in the race, Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and longtime City Council aide, reported about $75,000 in contributions. Raul Claros, founder of a nonprofit called California Rising, listed $70,500 in contributions and entrepreneur Nelson Grande reported raising about $55,000.
There are six candidates vying to replace incumbent Curren Price in the 9th District, which includes USC and communities along the Harbor Freeway corridor.
Jose Ugarte, a former deputy chief of staff for Price, led the field in reported financial contributions, amassing $477,000.
Estuardo Mazariegos, head of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Los Angeles, reported roughly $200,000 in contributions and Elmer Roldan, director of a nonprofit, has raised about $114,000.
Entrepreneur Jorge Nuño and therapist Martha Sanchez trailed with about $25,000 and $13,000, respectively. Educator Jorge Hernandez Rosas did not report any contributions.
In the other races:
Yaroslavsky reported raising about $431,000 for her 5th District seat, which includes Westwood, Palms and Hancock Park. None of her opponents, Henry Mantel and Morgan Oyler, reported raising more than $35,000.
McOsker reported raising 242,000 for his 15th District seat in San Pedro. Challenger Jordan Rivers, a community organizer, told The Times he did not raise any funds.
Soto-Martínez reported raising more than $170,000. The three challengers in the race — Colter Carlisle, Dylan Kendall and Rich Sarian — reported a combined $152,000.
The outcome of the Park-Malik contest in District 11 will be determined in the June 2 primary because there are only two candidates in the race.
In a statement, Councilmember Park credited her fundraising lead to her efforts to clear homeless encampments.
“I raised an historic number of donations from local Westside residents because I’ve been on the ground since Day One solving our number one priority: getting people off the streets into housing and treatment and removing dangerous encampments from our neighborhoods,” Park said. “Residents, workers and visitors all see the difference.”
Kendall Mayhew, communications director for Malik’s campaign, said in a statement that Park and her supporters are spending unprecedented money because “we are winning and they simply don’t know what else to do.”
“What our campaign has demonstrated so far, and what we will demonstrate at the ballot box in just a few weeks, is that corporate money cannot defeat an honest, people-powered campaign,” Mayhew said.
The fundraising totals reported this week represent money given by individual donors, who are limited to contributions of no more than $1,000 in this election cycle. While the reports offer a glance at fundraising, money is also coming in through independent expenditures, which have no limit on how much can be given.
For example, in District 1, the L.A. County Federation of Labor has reportedly spent more than $226,000 in support of Hernandez. Calanche is also receiving supporting funds: the Fix Los Angeles PAC Supporting Calanche, Ugarte and Park for City Council 2026 has spent about $46,000 on her campaign to unseat Hernandez.
Xavier Becerra needed to land a knockout punch, even more so than the five other candidates for California governor he was facing at Wednesday night’s debate.
Instead, he fired off some slaps.
He needed to roar about his many accomplishments in his 35-year career in Sacramento and Washington, to distinguish himself from the relative political neophytes around him.
Instead, Becerra recited his resume with the vigor of someone rattling off his LinkedIn page.
Instead, he offered the oratory equivalent of a pat on the shoulder.
No candidate had more at stake that night than Becerra, who went from an afterthought to a contender after Eric Swalwell dropped out and resigned his congressional seat over sexual assault allegations.
Five weeks ago, Becerra and other candidates of color were protesting their exclusion from a USC debate because they were all polling so low. Now, the 68-year-old has a chance to become California’s first Latino governor.
This possibility seems to have uncorked California’s silent majority — the rancho libertarians turned off by hard-right politics but also the wokoso politics they feel have left them behind. The people who yearn for an unglamorous, competent leader after eight years of all-about-me Gavin Newsom and a decade of Donald Trump.
Becerra’s campaign, once as rudderless as a leaf in a river in a race so chaotic for Democrats that many feared two Republicans would win on June 2 and face each other in the general election, suddenly latched onto a palpable wave.
At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend, I saw people sporting Becerra campaign buttons who had just come from a rally that was expected to draw a few hundred but instead had over 2,000 RSVPs. On social media, friends who had never especially cared for state politics suddenly declared they were for Becerra and fought off their more lefty pals who think he’s a Latino Ned Flanders not up for this fraught moment.
Unglamorous and competent are Becerra’s middle names, and they were on display at the debate — for better and mostly worse. This was his chance to show both his new followers and undecided voters that they could trust him as California’s next governor.
But where he needed to be limber like a prizefighter, the former California attorney general was as tightly wound as a Rolex.
While the other candidates pressed their palms against the podiums, ready to pounce on every question, Becerra clasped his hands like an altar boy. When he did gesture, his movements never went further than the span of his shoulders.
As the others grinned and grimaced at their rivals’ responses, Becerra was as stone-faced as Buster Keaton. He stumbled more than he should have — how could someone in his position mistake Iraq for Iran when criticizing Trump’s Middle East quagmire? — and rarely seemed at ease, as if the weight of the moment and the good luck of his surge had suddenly hit him at the worst possible time.
Candidates in California’s gubernatorial race, from left, Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco, and Steve Hilton look on during a debate Wednesday, April 22, 2026, in San Francisco.
(Jason Henry / Associated Press)
Becerra’s supporters say a level-headed leader is what California needs. But voters almost never go for what they need — they pick what they want. And California wants someone who’s loud, or at least louder than Becerra. There’s a reason why strident partisans like Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton and progressives Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have consistently placed high in the polls, while moderates like Becerra, his frenemy Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose mayor Matt Mahan have lagged.
The weird thing is that Becerra does know how to brawl. Wallflowers don’t go from a working class Mexican immigrant family to Stanford Law School. Wimps don’t survive the ruthlessness of Eastside politics as an outsider to become a congressmember at just 34. Cowards don’t file over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration as California’s top prosecutor or tackle the coronavirus pandemic as President Biden’s health secretary.
I’ve only encountered the Sacramento native a few times but always came away impressed. In small crowds, he makes people laugh and tear up. He’s quick with ripostes, righteous in off-the-cuff remarks and has a do-gooder aura that never comes off as sanctimonious.
We saw hints of that Becerra at the debate. To Hilton, he quipped, “You can be a talking head and not worry about the consequences of what you do” after the former Fox News host babbled on about how one-party ruled had failed California.
After Porter accused him of not offering hard numbers for his economic plans, Becerra responded that he has balanced federal budgets larger than California’s. “It’s easy to say you haven’t done this; it’s easier to prove that you actually have,” he concluded.
But after Becerra described the evils of racial profiling by law enforcement and Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, ranted that California politicians need to stop thinking so much about race, it was Porter who responded with a verbal haymaker as Becerra silently looked on.
You don’t fight as a choirboy in a battle royale. Becerra wasn’t bad at the debate but he also wasn’t great — and that won’t win this race.
Voters want someone who’ll do the job, yes — especially if it comes with no drama. They also want to elect someone they think is a human, not a joyless bureaucrat. So how did Becerra respond to the debate’s last question about what was the last series you’ve streamed?
Becerra flashed his biggest smile of the night. It was such a softball query that even a kindergartener could have slammed it à la Shohei Ohtani.
“I wish I could tell you I had time to watch streaming shows,” he replied.
Dude. We’re all overworked, but everyone I know unwinds by watching mindless drivel (my current obsession is “Vanderpump Villa”). We all need to relax, even for a moment. As my dad says when he sees me filing one columna after another and urges me to take a break, “El trabajo nunca se acaba pero uno sí se acaba.”
Work never ends, but people do.
Xavier, you know you’re on the wrong side of California when the only other candidate with a similar answer was Bianco, who said he doesn’t watch television at all.
Being careful has served you well, but this is the greatest opportunity of your life. You don’t have to suddenly become a flamethrower, but some sparks would help. It’s six weeks until the primary, so time to throw down — channel your inner cholo and go get what should be yours.
Kudus is awaiting further assessment on a quad injury that could require surgery. Ghana risk losing their key creative figure if recovery takes longer than expected. His availability remains uncertain as crucial decisions loom. The Ghana international has been out for more than three months after limping out of Spurs’ 1-1 draw with Sunderland on 4 January.
Eder Militao (Real Madrid and Brazil)
Militao has been ruled out for the rest of Real Madrid’s season after suffering a hamstring tear. The 28-year-old centre-back is targeting a return for the World Cup, but Brazil’s medical staff are cautious given his recent history of muscle injuries.
Reece James (Chelsea and England)
England defender James is once again dealing with hamstring issues while sidelined at Chelsea. Having missed the past two major tournaments, his hopes depend on avoiding further setbacks. The 26-year-old sustained the injury in a 1-0 Premier League defeat by Newcastle in March. Any delay in recovery would put his place in serious doubt.
Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich and Canada)
Canada’s talisman is once again struggling with the recurring muscle issues that have plagued his recent seasons at Bayern Munich. His explosive pace is central to Canada’s threat, but his body seems to be pushing back at the worst possible moment. If he is not fully fit, Canada’s chances take a massive hit.
WASHINGTON — Reporters assigned to travel aboard Air Force Two were told to prepare for an early morning departure on Tuesday for Islamabad until an unexplained delay — followed by a detour by Vice President JD Vance to the White House — revealed clues that something was wrong.
Iranian diplomats had not yet responded to U.S. proposals intended to form the basis of a new round of talks. Some were questioning whether they would attend at all. Had he departed as planned, Vance risked a humiliation, spending hours flying to Pakistan only to be stood up on arrival.
A crisis meeting at the White House led President Trump to announce an indefinite extension to a ceasefire deadline that had been set as a pressure tactic. Now, unable to bring the Iranians to heel, that pressure was suddenly off.
It was an early lesson for Vance in the many ways high-stakes diplomacy can veer off-course.
“There are obvious risks for Vance,” said Chester Crocker, who served as an assistant secretary of State in the Reagan administration, “being associated with failure or with a dubious deal.”
Trump’s aides are clear on the stakes in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and an end to the war. Control of the Strait of Hormuz could determine global oil prices for years. Any final deal will shape whether Americans ultimately conclude the fight was worth it — and could sway the outcome of the midterm elections.
But for America’s lead negotiator, the stakes are also personal.
Vance, a diplomatic novice, has found himself at the helm of an effort rife with political risk that has stymied seasoned diplomats ahead of an anticipated run for president.
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The potential payoff is substantial, placing Vance at the center of an international stage with the power to end a historically unpopular war.
But he also may be forced to attach his name to a nuclear deal that provides Tehran access to billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in exchange for limits on its nuclear work that will ultimately expire over time, under conditional monitoring access for international inspectors — an agreement with striking echoes to a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by a Democratic administration that was disparaged by his party for over a decade.
Vance is negotiating not on his own terms, but on behalf of a mercurial president whose decisions will ultimately determine whether an agreement can be reached. And the Iranians know that Trump’s days in office are numbered, with Vance, a war skeptic, possibly in line to succeed him.
One U.S. official familiar with the negotiations said the vice president is “a pragmatist,” realistic about the prospects of a deal.
“What he has to gain is an image that he can operate effectively on the world stage on a fraught issue. Even if he will give credit to the president, he will be seen as capable of resolving really hard, security-related problems,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran diplomat on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who served in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations. “What he has to lose is that he was given the role and did not succeed.”
Failure could raise doubts about his statecraft. But even success at the negotiating table could result in an agreement that turns off Republican voters he may need in a 2028 presidential bid.
“Vance is put in an impossible position,” said Arne Westad, a professor of history at Yale.
“Any deal with the current Iranian regime will be seen as problematic by many Republicans,” Westad said. “If he fails to secure a deal, he will be attacked by those who want an end to the U.S. war — and be seen as ineffective by the president.”
Reputation ‘on the line’
Trump has publicly acknowledged that Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who has consistently opposed U.S. military engagements in the Middle East, had reservations over launching the Iran war in the first place. “He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,” the president told reporters in March. “I think he was maybe less enthusiastic.”
For that reason, according to Iranian state media reports, Vance was seen by Tehran as their preferred interlocutor in negotiations. Iranian officials expressed gratitude when, during fevered talks ahead of the initial announcement of a ceasefire, they learned that Steve Witkoff, the president’s roving negotiator, had recommended that the vice president be included in the delegation — an exceptional gesture that marked Washington’s highest-level engagement with the Islamic Republic in history.
Republican strategists said Vance’s participation is a demonstration that Trump trusts him, an essential trait for any future Republican presidential nominee and aspiring heir to the MAGA movement.
“It’s rare that a vice president has been put in the position of directly negotiating with a foreign adversary,” said Terry Nelson, a longtime Republican media strategist. “We are engaging a very senior political leader in negotiations with a country that has killed U.S. soldiers and sown chaos in the region. I do think it’s an indication of our resolution and seriousness.”
Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster who has consulted Republican senators and governors for more than three decades, said the vice president’s appointment as lead negotiator “elevates Vance as Trump’s heir-apparent even more than before.”
“Whether that becomes a plus or a minus depends on the outcome of the negotiations,” Ayres added, “and Trump’s ultimate standing with the Republican electorate, both of which are unknowns.”
Talks are currently deadlocked over long-standing demands from Tehran that its leadership has held since the early 2000s, when previously undisclosed nuclear activities first triggered international alarm over Iran’s expanding program.
Iran has periodically accepted temporary limits on its nuclear work — pausing uranium enrichment during talks and, under the 2015 deal, committing to a prolonged cap on enrichment at levels beyond any clear civilian need. But it has always insisted on a “right to enrich” on its own soil, rejecting U.S. attempts to permanently end the program as a foreign attempt to thwart Iran’s scientific progress.
Returning from the first round of ceasefire negotiations, Vance dismissed that position, articulated to him in Islamabad by the speaker of Iran’s Parliament.
“He said, ‘We refuse to give up the right to enrichment,’” Vance said. “And I thought to myself, you know what, my wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn’t jump out of an airplane, because she and I have an agreement that she’s not going to do that, because I don’t want my wife jumping out of an airplane.”
Echoes of a broken deal
The 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — negotiated by veteran, nonpolitical U.S. diplomats and nuclear scientists over two years of near-constant negotiations — removed roughly 98% of Iran’s nuclear stockpile from the country, while keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure largely in place, save for the decommissioning of a heavy-water plutonium reactor that could have provided Tehran with a second path to a nuclear bomb.
Under the agreement, Iran consented to limit its use of advanced centrifuges for 10 years, and to restrict uranium enrichment to below weapons-grade levels for 15 years. Inspectors from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency were granted unprecedented access to monitor the program, though some of these enhanced inspection measures were set to expire after roughly two decades.
In exchange, Iran regained access to tens of billions of dollars of its frozen assets, and settled a long-standing legal dispute with Washington that led the Obama administration to transfer $400 million in cash to Tehran. The episode prompted scandal on the political right, which accused Democrats of fueling terrorism through the funding of Iran’s proxy militias.
Now, after just two weeks of negotiations, the Trump administration is already acknowledging that a final deal with Iran would rely on a familiar formula: temporary caps on Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for substantial sanctions relief. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.
Iran comes to the talks with added leverage today, able and willing to disrupt the flow of 20% of the world’s energy through the Strait of Hormuz. And the United States is negotiating alone, without its former partners in the “P5+1” — Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany — at its side.
Anna Kelly, principal deputy press secretary at the White House, told The Times that “after Democrats like Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama weakened our country on the world stage, President Trump has effectively restored American strength with the help of Vice President Vance, who is doing a great job leading the United States in negotiations with Iran.”
“The president and his entire national security team have an incredible track record in making good deals for our country, and the American people can rest assured that the United States will not enter any agreement that does not put our national security interests first,” Kelly said.
Matt Gorman, a longtime Republican strategist and chief communications officer at Targeted Victory, said the JCPOA was viewed particularly critically because it “was negotiated in peacetime.”
“Vance would essentially be ending a war, if successful, and that allows him to make a very different argument,” Gorman said.
The vice president is currently polling as the front-runner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, ahead of Marco Rubio, who — despite serving as Trump’s secretary of State and national security advisor — is not directly involved in the Iran talks.
Vance’s role at the negotiating table could help position him as a peacemaker, Crocker noted, distinguishing him from advocates of the war entering the presidential primaries.
But Vance “has been tasked by a president incapable of staying on message, with limited stores of credibility with adversaries as well as allies and a disregard for the complexities of the issues,” said Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. “His task? A credible end to the war without clear objectives.”
“At best, this will be a faux-gilded JCPOA 2.0. Victory will be declared to no applause. On the line is not just Vance’s own reputation, but a demerit in his run for the 2028 presidency,” Bodine added. “The Iran portfolio was no gift.”
