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WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration are increasingly anxious that an ongoing standoff with Democrats over reopening the government may drag into Thanksgiving week, one of the country’s busiest travel periods.

Already, hundreds of flights have been canceled since the Federal Aviation Administration issued an unprecedented directive limiting flight operations at the nation’s biggest airports, including in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Washington, D.C.

Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, told Fox News on Thursday that the administration is prepared to mitigate safety concerns if the shutdown continues into the holiday week, leaving air traffic controllers without compensation over multiple payroll cycles. But “will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go? That is yet to be seen,” the secretary said.

While under 3% of flights have currently been grounded, that number could rise to 20% by the holiday week, he added.

“It’s really hard — really hard — to navigate a full month of no pay, missing two pay periods. So I think you’re going to have more significant disruptions in the airspace,” Duffy said. “And as we come into Thanksgiving, if we’re still in a shutdown posture, it’s gonna be rough out there. Really rough.”

Senate Republicans said they are willing to work through the weekend, up through Veterans Day, to come up with an agreement with Democrats that could end the government shutdown, which is already the longest in history.

But congressional Democrats believe their leverage has only grown to extract more concessions from the Trump administration as the shutdown goes on.

A strong showing in races across the country in Tuesday’s elections buoyed optimism among Democrats that the party finally has some momentum, as it focuses its messaging on affordability and a growing cost-of-living crisis for the middle class.

Democrats have withheld the votes needed to reopen the government over Republican refusals to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits. As a result, Americans who get their healthcare through the ACA marketplace have begun seeing dramatic premium hikes since open enrollment began on Nov. 1 — further fueling Democratic confidence that Republicans will face a political backlash for their shutdown stance.

Now, Democratic demands have expanded, insisting Republicans guarantee that federal workers get paid back for their time furloughed or working without pay — and that those who were fired get their jobs back.

A bill introduced by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, called the “Shutdown Fairness Act,” would ensure that federal workers receive back pay during a government funding lapse. But Democrats have objected to a vote on the measure that’s not tied to their other demands, on ACA tax breaks and the status of fired workers.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, has proposed passing a clean continuing resolution already passed by the House followed by separate votes on three bills that would fund the government through the year. But his Democratic counterpart said Friday he wants to attach a vote on extending the ACA tax credits to an extension of government funding.

Democrats, joined by some Republicans, are also demanding protections built in to any government spending bills that would safeguard federal programs against the Trump administration withholding funds appropriated by Congress, a process known as impoundment.

President Trump, for his part, blamed the ongoing shutdown for Tuesday’s election results earlier this week, telling Republican lawmakers that polling shows the continuing crisis is hurting their party. But he also continues to advocate for Thune to do away with the filibuster, a core Senate rule requiring 60 votes for bills that fall outside the budget reconciliation process, and simply reopen the government with a vote down party lines.

“If the filibuster is terminated, we will have the most productive three years in the history of our country,” Trump told reporters on Friday at a White House event. “If the filibuster is not terminated, then we will be in a slog, with the Democrats.”

So far, Thune has rejected that request. But the majority leader said Thursday that “the pain this shutdown has caused is only getting worse,” warning that 40 million Americans risk food insecurity as funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program lapses.

The Trump administration lost a court case this week arguing that it could withhold SNAP benefits, a program that was significantly defunded in the president’s “one big beautiful bill” act earlier this year.

“Will the far left not be satisfied until federal workers and military families are getting their Thanksgiving dinner from a food bank? Because that’s where we’re headed,” Thune added.

As California voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballot on a measure that could block President Trump’s national agenda, state officials ridiculed his unsubstantiated claims that voting in the largely Democratic state is “rigged.”

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump said on Truth Social just minutes after polling stations opened Tuesday across California.

The president provided no evidence for his allegations.

“All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review,” the GOP president wrote. “STAY TUNED!”

Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed the president’s claims on X as “the ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE.”

His press office chimed in, too, calling Trump “a totally unserious person spreading false information in a desperate attempt to cope with his failures.”

At a White House briefing Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, without providing examples, that California was receiving ballots in the name of undocumented immigrants who could not legally vote.

“They have a universal mail-in voting system, which we know is ripe for fraud,” Leavitt told reporters. “Fraudulent ballots that are being mailed in in the names of other people, in the names of illegal aliens who shouldn’t be voting in American elections. There’s countless examples and we’d be happy to provide them.”

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for more details.

Political tension across the nation is high as California voters cast ballots on Proposition 50, a plan championed by Newsom to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 election to favor the Democratic Party. The measure is intended to offset GOP gerrymandering in red states after Trump pressed Texas to rejigger maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.

California’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, called Trump’s allegation “another baseless claim.”

“The bottom line is California elections have been validated by the courts,” Weber said in a statement. “California voters will not be deceived by someone who consistently makes desperate, unsubstantiated attempts to dissuade Americans from participating in our democracy.”

Weber noted that more than 7 million Californians have already voted and encouraged those who had yet to cast ballots to go to the polls.

“California voters will not be sidelined from exercising their constitutional right to vote and should not let anyone deter them from exercising that right,” Weber said.

Of the 7 million Californians who have voted, more than 4.6 million have done so by mail, according to the secretary of state’s office. Los Angeles residents alone have cast more than 788,000 mail-in ballots.

Leavitt told D.C. reporters Tuesday that the White House is working on an executive order to combat so-called “blatant” election fraud.

“The White House is working on an executive order to strengthen our election in this country,” Leavitt said, “and to ensure that there cannot be blatant fraud, as we’ve seen in California with their universal mail-in voting system.”

Trump has long criticized mail-in voting. As more Democrats opted to vote by mail in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the president repeatedly made unproven claims linking mail in voting with voter fraud. When Trump ultimately lost that election, he blamed expanded mail-in voting.

In March, Trump signed an executive order requiring that Attorney General Pam Bondi “take all necessary action” against states that count absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day. Most states count mail-in or absentee ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

Over the last month, the stakes in the California special election have ratcheted up as polls indicate Proposition 50 could pass. More than half of likely California voters said they planned to support the measure, which could allow Democrats to gain up to five House seats.

Last month, the Justice Department appeared to single out California for particular national scrutiny: It announced it would send federal monitors to polling locations in counties in California as well as New Jersey, another traditionally Democratic state that is conducting nationally significant off-year elections.

The monitors, it said, would be sent to five California counties: Los Angeles, Kern, Riverside, Fresno and Orange.

While Trump is often a flame-thrower on social media, he has largely been silent on Proposition 50, aside from a few Truth Social posts.

In late October, the president voiced skepticism with California’s mail-in ballots and early voting — directly contradicting efforts by the state’s GOP leaders to get people to vote.

“No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

Over the weekend, Trump posted a video purporting to show a member of the San Joaquin County’s Sheriff Dept. questioning election integrity in California.

Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report

On Tuesday, voters will determine the fate of redistricting measure Proposition 50. But if you’re eager to vote in person, you don’t have to wait. You can easily pop into the polls a day early in many parts of California.

Where to vote in person on Monday

In Los Angeles County alone, there are 251 vote centers that will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday. (They’ll also be open again on Tuesday, election day, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.) At vote centers, you can vote in person, drop off your vote-by-mail ballot, or even register to vote and cast a same-day provisional ballot, which will be counted after officials verify the registration.

“Avoid the rush,” said Dean Logan, the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk. “Make a plan to vote early.”

Also on Monday, San Diego County’s 68 vote centers are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Orange County’s 65 vote centers from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Riverside County’s 55 vote centers and Ventura County’s nine vote centers between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

All of those vote centers also will be open on election day Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Other populous counties with a similar vote center system include the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, Fresno, San Mateo, Stanislaus, Sonoma, Placer, Merced, Santa Cruz, Marin, Butte, Yolo, El Dorado, Madera, Kings, Napa and Humboldt.

Other counties have fewer in-person polling locations on Monday

San Bernardino County, however, only has six designated early voting poll stations. They’re open on Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and also on election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Otherwise, San Bernardino County residents who want to vote in person on Tuesday can go to their assigned neighborhood polling location.

In Santa Barbara County, if you’ve lost or damaged a vote-by-mail ballot, you can request a replacement ballot through county’s elections offices in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria or Lompoc. Otherwise, voters can cast ballots at their assigned neighborhood polls on Tuesday.

How to drop off your vote-by-mail ballot

All Californian registered voters were mailed a vote-by-mail ballot. There are various ways to drop it off — through the mail, or through a county ballot drop box or polling place.

Ballot drop box or polling place

Be sure to get your ballot into a secured drop box, or at a polling place, by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. You can look up locations of ballot drop-off boxes at the California secretary of state’s or your county registrar of voters’ website (here are the links for Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties).

In L.A. County alone, there are 418 drop boxes.

You can drop off your ballot at any polling place or ballot drop box within California, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Mailing your ballot

You can also send your ballot through the U.S. Postal Service. No stamps are needed. Note that your ballot must be postmarked by Tuesday (and received by the county elections office within seven days).

But beware: Officials have warned that recent changes to the U.S. Postal Service earlier this year may result in later postmarks than you might expect.

In fact, state officials recently warned that, in large swaths of California — outside of the metros of Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento area — mail that is dropped off at a mailbox or a post office on election day may not be postmarked until a day later, on Wednesday. That would render the ballot ineligible to be counted.

As a result, some officials are recommending that — at this point — it’s better to deliver your vote-by-mail ballot through a secure drop box, a vote center or a neighborhood polling place, rather than through the Postal Service.

“If you can’t make it to a vote center, you can go to any post office and ask at the counter for a postmark on your ballot to ensure you get credit for mailing your ballot on time,” the office of Atty. Gen. Robert Bonta said.

Most common reasons vote-by-mail ballots don’t get counted

In the 2024 general election, 99% of vote-by-mail ballots were accepted. But that means about 122,000 of the ballots, out of 13.2 million returned, weren’t counted in California.

Here are the top reasons why:
• A non-matching signature: 71,381 ballots not counted.
• Ballot was not received in time: 33,016 ballots not counted.
• No voter signature: 13,356 ballots not counted.

If the voter didn’t sign their ballot, or the ballot’s signature is different from the one in the voter’s record, election officials are required to reach out to the voter to resolve the missing or mismatched signature.

Other reasons included the voter having already voted, the voter forgetting to put the ballot in their envelope, or returning multiple ballots in a single envelope.

Did you forget to register to vote in California’s special election on Tuesday? There is still time.

California allows same day registration. Eligible citizens are allowed to cast a conditional ballot and once their eligibility to vote is verified, the vote will be counted.

Tuesday is the last day to vote on Proposition 50, a measure that would approve new congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats in the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission.

Prospective voters can visit a polling place on Tuesday to register and then cast a ballot.

Nov. 2 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday renewed his call for support of a ballot initiative that would redraw congressional voting maps in the state.

Proposition 50 would change district boundaries to potentially favor Democrats, a reaction, Newsom has said, to a similar move by Texas Republicans that would benefit the GOP.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Newsom said “the rules of the game have changed,” criticizing President Donald Trump for pushing the Texas initiative and accused him of “rigging” the 2026 midterm elections.

Newsom said he is “deeply confident” that California voters will approve Proposition 50 at the polls in a Nov. special election.

Democrats have moved away from a pledge by former first lady Michelle Obama, who said in 2016 that “when they go low, we go high,” in response to aggressive campaign rhetoric by then presidential candidate Donald Trump that leveled personal attacks against Democrats.

“I would love to go back to that,” Newsom said in the interview. “But politics has changed. The world has changed. The rules of the game have changed.”

“We want to go back to some semblance of normalcy, but you have to deal with the crisis at hand,” he said.

Newsom, who has said he is considering a bid for the White House in 2028, has also been critical of Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration in big cities across the country, including in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Portland.

Trump has claimed illegal immigration is responsible for rampant crime in those cities, despite a lack of evidence to back up his assertions.

Newsom signed on to an Oregon lawsuit to stop National Guard troops from patrolling Portland and has described the deployments as a “breathtaking abuse of power.”

He has also predicted the outcome of the Proposition 50 vote could shape the 2026 midterm elections.

D66 party says no time to waste as begins challenge of finding three coalition partners on fractious centre-ground.

Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten has claimed victory in a cliffhanger election dominated by immigration and housing after seeing off far-right contender Geert Wilders, saying his win proved populism can be beaten.

The 38-year-old head of the D66 party, which won the most votes in this week’s general election, is now set to become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister of the European Union’s fifth-largest economy.

“I think we’ve now shown to the rest of Europe and the world that it is possible to beat the populist movements if you campaign with a positive message for your country,” he said on Friday, as tallying from news agency ANP showed he was on course to win.

The pro-EU, liberal D66 tripled its seat count with an upbeat campaign and a surge in advertising spending, while Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party lost a large part of the support that had propelled him to a shock victory at the previous poll in 2023.

D66, which currently has 26 seats but could gain one more when every vote is counted, is now expected to lead talks to form a coalition government, a process that usually takes months.

The party will need to find at least three coalition partners to reach a simple majority in the 150-seat lower chamber of parliament, with the centre-right CDA (18 seats), the liberal VVD (22) and the left-wing Green/Labour group (20) viewed as contenders.

But there are questions about whether the VVD and Green/Labour will work together. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said before the election an alliance with Green/Labour “would not work” and she wanted a centre-right coalition.

On Monday, the Green/Labour group will elect a new leader after former EU Vice President Frans Timmermans stepped down.

On Friday, Jetten urged mainstream parties from the left to the right to unite. “We want to find a majority that will eagerly work on issues such as the housing market, migration, climate and the economy,” he said.

‘Serious challenges’

Reporting from Amsterdam, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said Jetten faced “serious challenges” as informal coalition talks got under way, given that his party holds a razor-thin lead of only thousands of votes over Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party.

Jetten, an enthusiastic athlete who once ran as a pacemaker to Olympic champion Sifan Hassan, had said there was no time to waste “because the Dutch people are asking us to get to work”.

Wilders said Jetten was jumping the gun, pointing out that the results would only become official once the Electoral Council, rather than ANP – which collects the results from all municipalities in the Netherlands – had decided.

“How arrogant not to wait,” he wrote on X.

Although all mainstream parties had already ruled out working with him, Wilders had said he would demand to have a first crack at forming a coalition if his party was confirmed to have the most votes.

Although he saw support collapse, other far-right parties like the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a nationalist party that wants to withdraw from the EU’s Schengen system of open borders, performed well.

Confirmation of the result will come on Monday, when mail ballots cast by Dutch residents living abroad are counted.

Party leaders will discuss the next steps on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Back from a week abroad, President Trump is calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government after a monthlong shutdown, breaking with majority Republicans who have long opposed such a move.

Trump said in a post on his social media site Thursday that “THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER.”

Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself into the shutdown debate — bringing the highly charged demand to end the filibuster — is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators toward their own compromise or send the chamber spiraling toward a new sense of crisis.

Trump has long called for Republicans to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections, dating all the way back to his first term in office. The rule gives Democrats a check on the 53-seat Republican majority and enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of health care subsidies.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and most members of his Republican conference have strongly opposed changing the filibuster, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed them to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.

Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, and his spokesman, Ryan Wrasse, said in a statement Friday that the leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.”

Broad GOP support for filibuster

Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so.

“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah posted on X Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments and echoing the sentiments of many of his Senate Republican colleagues. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”

Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago. But they ultimately didn’t have the votes after enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.

Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call.” He criticized Democrats for pushing to get rid of it when they had power.

“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are “the president’s anger at the situation.”

Little progress on shutdown

Trump’s call comes as the two parties have made little progress toward resolving the shutdown standoff while he was away for a week in Asia. He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.

While quiet talks are underway, particularly among bipartisan senators, the shutdown is not expected to end before next week, as both the House and Senate are out of session. Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the health care subsidies while Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.

As the shutdown drags on, from coast to coast, fallout from the dysfunction of the shuttered federal government is hitting home: Alaskans are stockpiling moose, caribou and fish for winter, even before SNAP food aid is scheduled to shut off. Mainers are filling up their home-heating oil tanks, but waiting on the federal subsidies that are nowhere in sight.

Flights are being delayed with holiday travel around the corner. Workers are going without paychecks. And Americans are getting a first glimpse of the skyrocketing health care insurance costs that are at the center of the stalemate on Capitol Hill. Money for food aid — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out this weekend.

“People are stressing,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce.

“We are well past time to have this behind us.”

Money for military, but not food aid

The White House has moved money around to ensure the military is paid, but refuses to tap funds for food aid. In fact, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” signed into law this summer, delivered the most substantial cut ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, projected to result in some 2.4 million people off the program.

At the same time, many Americans who purchase their own health insurance through the federal and state marketplaces, with open enrollment also beginning Saturday, are experiencing sticker shock as premium prices jump.

“We are holding food over the heads of poor people so that we can take away their health care,” said Rev. Ryan Stoess during a prayer with religious leaders at the U.S. Capitol.

“God help us,” he said, “when the cruelty is the point.”

Deadlines shift to next week

The House remains closed down under Johnson for the past month and senators departed for the long weekend on Thursday.

That means the shutdown, in its 30th day, appears likely to stretch into another week if the filibuster remains. If the shutdown continues, it could become the longest in history, surpassing the 35-day lapse that ended in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his demands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The next inflection point comes after Tuesday’s off-year elections — the New York City mayor’s race, as well as elections in Virginia and New Jersey that will determine those states’ governors. Many expect that once those winners and losers are declared, and the Democrats and Republicans assess their political standing with the voters, they might be ready to hunker down for a deal.

“I hope that it frees people up to move forward with opening the government,” Thune said.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matt Brown and Josh Boak in Tokyo contributed to this report.

INDIO, Calif. — A Riverside County criminal grand jury indicted the longtime mayor of Coachella on nine counts, including one felony charge of violating conflict of interest rules related to government contracts and four felony counts of perjury.

Steven Hernandez, 42, who has served on the Coachella City Council for nearly two decades, pleaded not guilty Thursday morning at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.

Hernandez was a rising politician in Riverside County and Coachella, an agricultural city of 42,500 people about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles. If convicted as charged, Hernandez would be barred from public office for life and face more than seven years in state prison, according to Riverside County Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin.

Hernandez was raised in Coachella by his grandparents, who were migrant farmworkers. He was first elected to the council in 2006, becoming an integral part of a powerful group of Latino politicians in the valley east of Palm Springs. Under his leadership, the city made major infrastructure investments in its downtown, including an expanded library, a new senior center and a new fire station.

But Hernandez allegedly benefited from some of the votes he cast from the dais, catching the attention of the Riverside County District Attorney’s office.

The indictment, unsealed Thursday, charges Hernandez with several misdemeanors for using his role as a public official to influence governmental decisions in which he had a financial interest. Among those were votes, cast between 2021 and 2023, to use pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act funds to rehabilitate the downtown fire station, as well as votes on a commercial project known as Fountainhead Plaza, an affordable apartment community called the Tripoli Mixed-Use project, and a transit hub near downtown.

It also charges Hernandez with a felony for “willfully and unlawfully” approving a contract in which he had a financial interest when when he voted for an agreement between the city and the Coachella Valley Assn. of Governments’ Housing First program, which serves chronically homeless people.

An Assn. of Governments spokesperson said the organization has fully cooperated with the district attorney’s office and grand jury and “there has never been an implication from investigators that the investigation had anything to do with actions by elected officials serving in their CVAG capacity.”

The perjury charges relate to claims made by Hernandez on his Statement of Economic Interests public disclosure forms, also known as the Form 700, the district attorney said.

The indictment named 13 witnesses who testified before the criminal grand jury, including a city council member, the city’s economic development director, a former council member and a former city manager.

Hernandez will remain mayor of Coachella “until otherwise notified,” according to city spokesperson Risseth Lora.

Along with serving on the city council, Hernandez works as the chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez. He was placed on “indefinite administrative leave” from the county, Perez said in a statement Wednesday, adding: “Although we are still waiting on more details, it’s our understanding that the charges are unrelated to his role in our office.”

Hernandez surrendered to Riverside County Sheriff officials at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside on Tuesday and posted $112,500 bail. He appeared before Riverside County Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan on Thursday morning. Wearing a navy suit, he clasped his hands behind his back as his attorney entered the plea.

He donned sunglasses as he left the courtroom.

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

About a week ago, I was chatting with friends at a gathering when I realized I had before me a diverse range of political ideologies. “How are you guys voting on Prop 50?” I asked.

I received a range of answers, including folks who wanted more information before casting their ballot and those who remained conflicted. As a journalist, I don’t share how I vote on, well, anything, and I also don’t tell people how they should vote. But I want to encourage you to vote.

If you, like my friends, remain conflicted or want more information, what better way to work those feelings out than out on the trail? Using a strategy known as temptation bundling — where you pair something you enjoy with something you’re perhaps procrastinating — you could download a few political podcasts beforehand and listen as you hike (leaving one earbud out) or invite a few pals and talk out your thoughts on Prop 50 as you hike along.

Here you’ll find three great hiking areas near ballot drop boxes. We aren’t forced to vote in one specific place here in L.A. County, so let’s take full advantage of that.

The Glendale Sports Complex and Verdugo Mountains from the Catalina Verdugo Trail.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

1. Area around the Glendale Sports Complex

Ballot drop-off point: Glendale Adult Sports Office

Hikers have a few options when adventuring around the Glendale Sports Complex, including the 2-mile Catalina Verdugo Trail loop. This trail leads hikers through the San Rafael Hills around the Glendale Sports Complex. It’s not an escape from urban life, but it is well-maintained and has much to appreciate, including native trees like laurel sumac, lemonade berry, oak trees, toyon and ceanothus. You can run your fingers through the zesty California sagebrush as you consider your podcast’s or friend’s points on our current political dynamic.

At 1.25 miles on the trail, you have the choice to continue up to the Ridge Motorway, or you can go down .7 of a mile back via the Catalina Verdugo Trail. The Ridge Motorway continues upward, offering ocean views, before connecting with the Descanso Motorway and several other trails.

The accessible alternative is the Mountain Do Trail that runs around the border of the sports fields. You can extend your journey beyond the Mountain Do Trail, which I drew out via CalTopo here. It’s overall a wide path with a gentle slope and a few picnic tables where it’d be nice to take a break and consider how to complete your ballot.

Native California wildflowers in the scenic Alta Vicente Reserve in spring 2024.

(Kendra Frankle / For The Times)

2. Palos Verdes Nature Preserve

Ballot drop box location: Rancho Palos Verdes City Hall

The Palos Verdes Nature Preserve is actually 15 individual preserves totaling about 1,500 acres. That includes the Alta Vicente Reserve, 55 acres around and below Rancho Palos Verdes City Hall where a ballot drop box is located.

The Alta Vicente Reserve features a few different trails that can be turned into a 2-mile loop. If you want to further your adventure, you can hit one of the trails that remains open despite landslides. Regardless, you’ll be treated to gorgeous ocean views, a sight that always helps me think.

Those seeking an accessible option can take the Seascape Trail and see the Point Vicente Lighthouse or try the Terranea Beach Trail.

After hiking and voting, you can also visit the Point Vicente Interpretive Center to learn about local flora and fauna. It is open daily and also features a fun gift shop.

Visitors to Vasquez Rocks Natural Area walk up the photogenic rock formation.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

3. Vasquez Rocks Natural Area and Nature Center

Ballot drop box location: Vasquez Rocks Natural Area and Nature Center

Vasquez Rocks Natural Area is one of those places you can visit over and over, and keep seeing something new. I enjoy taking the Apwinga Loop Trail, a 3.4-mile trek where you’ll pass massive pancake-like rock formations along with the park’s appropriately named “Famous Rocks.” This trail connects with others in the park, including the Bobcat Trail, Tokupar Ridgetop Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail as it descends into the canyon.

The Juniper Meadow Walking Loop is about a half mile and is an accessible loop. Its trailhead is near the parking lot where visitors can see the park’s iconic geography. Hopefully, the high desert atmosphere provides you with ample time and space to consider the choice you’d like to make on your ballot!

The good news is, if these trails aren’t calling to you, there are voting centers and ballot drop boxes all over L.A. County. It doesn’t matter where you go — just that you vote!

3 things to do

Gladys Samuel, from Long Island, N.Y., visits the community altar at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. Grand Park pays tribute to the cultural tradition of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, every year.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

1. Observe Day of the Dead around L.A.
Several local parks are hosting Día de los Muertos events, including from 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday at Grand Park. The event, titled Noche de los Muertos, is a closing ceremony that will feature music, dancing, lanterns and a community mercado. Nature for All and other local groups will host a Día de los Muertos event from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Marson Park in Panorama City. Participants can help build a community altar and design mini paper altars. San Gabriel River Park will host its Día de los Muertos event from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Learn more about additional park Day of the Dead events at L.A. County Park’s Instagram page.

2. Hike with an almost full moon in L.A.
The Sierra Club Angeles Chapter will host a 5-mile moderate hike from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday through Griffith Park. Guests should arrive by 6:45 p.m., allowing for extra time because of the park’s Haunted Hay Ride. For additional details and to sign up, visit meetup.com.

3. Do the most for the least tern in Huntington Beach
OC Habitats, a local conservation nonprofit, will host a dune preservation work day at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at Huntington State Beach. Volunteers will pick up trash and remove invasive species to help improve the nesting habitat of the endangered California least tern. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

I am terrified to report that it’s tarantula mating season, meaning these eight-legged furry residents will be far easier to spot on the trails. Times staff writer Lila Seidman wrote — in a story I was almost too scared to read — that in California, “October is typically a prime mating month for the bulky, hirsute spiders. Natural cues are key, with autumn’s initial precipitation generally triggering the march. Experts suspect males are following pheromones to hunkered-down females.” Although I will never personally find out, some parts of the tarantula feel almost like sable fur, Seidman wrote. “They’re soft like kitties,” said Lisa Gonzalez, program manager of invertebrate living collections at the county Natural History Museum.

I will take my chances trying to pet the fuzzy tummies of my actual cats because, regardless of how reasonable it is, their fangs scare me less! (I am much less of a wiener when it comes to literally any other spider — judge me not!)

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

If like me, you’ve never been to Big Sur, now is the time for Southern Californians to go. My colleague Christopher Reynolds reports that because Big Sur’s South Coast highway remains closed, there’s a rare window of solitude: “empty beaches, dramatic cliffs and nearly empty trails for six months.” Whaaaaa? Amazing. Let’s take full advantage of this opportunity and support local businesses in the process!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate is meeting Thursday to vote on various bills, though the House-passed bill to reopen the government is not on the agenda.

Thursday is Day 30 of the federal government shutdown with votes scheduled for 11:45 a.m. EDT. Democrats are holding out for funding for marketplace health insurance plans, and Republicans want to continue without the funding, leading to the 30-day impasse. The longest government shutdown in history was 34 days.

The Senate has voted on the funding bill 13 times.

The Senate will first look at a resolution on the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska involving lease sales of land. The second is on a bill sponsored by Democrats that confronts the use of an emergency declaration that President Donald Trump used to create tariffs.

A report released Thursday from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the federal government shutdown has cost businesses that contract with the government $12 billion in the first four weeks.

The Chamber is sending the report to members of Congress. It says that 65,000 small businesses are losing about $3 billion per week. Those businesses include providers of high-tech machinery, office supplies, and landscaping services, the report said.

“The Chamber is again calling on Congress to immediately pass the continuing resolution to reopen and fund the government,” Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, wrote in a letter to Congress. “We also urge Congress to consider ways to help make federal contractors, especially small business contractors, whole.”

The Senate this week passed resolutions to block Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and Canada, which were approved with the backing of some Republicans. The bills aren’t expected to make it through the House of Representatives.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday that bipartisan discussions on opening the government have “picked up,” saying there’s a “higher level of conversation.”

“But there are a lot of rank-and-file members that continue, I think, to want to pursue solutions and be able to address the issues they care about, including healthcare, which … we’re willing to do, but it obviously is contingent upon them opening up the government,” Thune said.

“The open-enrollment period is beginning on Saturday and tragically the Republicans have won their battle to increase health care costs on the American people. That is the result of the position that they’ve taken in this negotiation. Now we know that the American people’s health care costs are going to go up because the Republican Party in Washington is refusing to extend the Obamacare tax credits,” The Hill reported Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said. Bennet is a member of the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over health insurance tax subsidies.

The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Trump has falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants use them. People here without proper documentation are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, according to the federal healthcare.gov website.

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a resolution Tuesday evening that would nullify President Trump’s tariffs on Brazil, including oil, coffee and orange juice, as Democrats tested GOP senators’ support for Trump’s trade policy.

The legislation from Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, passed on a 52-48 tally.

It would terminate the national emergencies that Trump has declared to justify 50% tariffs on Brazil, but the legislation is likely doomed because the Republican-controlled House has passed new rules that allow leadership to prevent it from ever coming up for a vote. Trump would almost certainly veto the legislation even if it were to pass Congress.

Still, the vote demonstrated some pushback in GOP ranks against Trump’s tariffs. Five Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — all voted in favor of the resolution along with every Democrat.

Kaine said the votes are a way force a conversation in the Senate about “the economic destruction of tariffs.” He’s planning to call up similar resolutions applying to Trump’s tariffs on Canada and other nations later this week.

“But they are also really about how much will we let a president get away with? Do my colleagues have a gag reflex or not?” Kaine told reporters.

Trump has linked the tariffs on Brazil to the country’s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro. The U.S. ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year, according to the Census Bureau.

“Every American who wakes up in the morning to get a cup of java is paying a price for Donald Trump’s reckless, ridiculous, and almost childish tariffs,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Republicans have also been increasingly uneasy with Trump’s aggressive trade policy, especially at a time of turmoil for the economy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last month that Trump’s tariff policy is one of several factors that are expected to increase jobless rates and inflation and lower overall growth this year.

In April, four Republicans voted with Democrats to block tariffs on Canada, but the bill was never taken up in the House. Kaine said he hoped the votes this week showed how Republican opposition to Trump’s trade policy is growing.

To bring up the votes, Kaine has invoked a decades-old law that allows Congress to block a president’s emergency powers and members of the minority party to force votes on the resolutions.

However, Vice President JD Vance visited a Republican luncheon on Tuesday in part to emphasize to Republicans that they should allow the president to negotiate trade deals. Vance told reporters afterwards that Trump is using tariffs “to give American workers and American farmers a better deal.”

“To vote against that is to strip that incredible leverage from the president of the United States. I think it’s a huge mistake,” he added.

The Supreme Court will also soon consider a case challenging Trump’s authority to implement sweeping tariffs. Lower courts have found most of his tariffs illegal.

But some Republicans said they would wait until the outcome of that case before voting to cross the president.

“I don’t see a need to do that right now,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, adding that it was “bad timing” to call up the resolutions before the Supreme Court case.

Others said they are ready to show opposition to the president’s tariffs and the emergency declarations he has used to justify them.

“Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive, “ said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Republican leader, in a statement. ”The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule.”

His fellow Kentuckian, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, told reporters, “Emergencies are like war, famine, tornado. Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power. And it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

In a floor speech, he added, “No taxation without representation is embedded in our Constitution.”

Meanwhile, Kaine is also planning to call up a resolution that would put a check on Trump’s ability to carry out military strikes against Venezuela as the U.S. military steps up its presence and action in the region.

He said that it allows Democrats to get off the defensive while they are in the minority and instead force votes on “points of discomfort” for Republicans.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

Polls suggest anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party on course to win largest number of seats.

People in the Netherlands are voting in a high-stakes snap election dominated by immigration and housing issues that will test the strength of the far right, which is on the rise across Europe.

Voting began at 7:30am (06:30 GMT) on Wednesday, and polls suggested anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party (PVV) are on course to win the largest number of seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. However, three more moderate parties are closing the gap, and half the electorate is undecided.

After the results are known, parties have to negotiate the makeup of the next coalition government in a system of proportional representation that means no party can reach the 76 seats needed to govern alone.

The key question is whether other parties will work with Wilders – known as the “Dutch Trump”, a reference to the United States president – who sparked the elections by pulling the PVV out of a fractious four-way coalition and collapsing the previous government in a row over immigration.

All mainstream parties have ruled out a partnership with him again, finding his views too unpalatable and viewing him as an untrustworthy coalition partner. It seems likely that the leader of the party that polls second will most likely become prime minister.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said the election campaign had been “dominated by calls to limit immigration” with “some violent protests against refugee centres”.

In a pre-election interview with the news agency AFP, Wilders said people were “fed up with mass immigration and the change of culture and the influx of people who really do not culturally belong here”.

“The future of our nation is at stake,” he said.

Rob Jetten – leader of the centre-left D66 party, which wants to rein in migration but also accommodate asylum seekers – told Wilders that voters can “choose again tomorrow to listen to your grumpy hatred for another 20 years or choose with positive energy to simply get to work and tackle this problem and solve it”.

Frans Timmermans, a former European Commission vice president who now leads the centre-left bloc of the Labour Party and Green Left, said in the final debate before the elections that he was “looking forward to the day – and that day is tomorrow – that we can put an end to the Wilders era”.

Beyond immigration, the housing crisis that especially affects young people in the densely populated country has been a key campaign issue.

The electoral commission has registered 27 parties and 1,166 candidates running for the House of Representatives.

That means a big ballot paper because it bears the names of all the parties and the candidates on each party’s list.

Polls close at 9pm (20:00 GMT).

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A yearlong investigation into suspected fraudulent voter registration forms submitted ahead of last year’s presidential election produced criminal charges Friday against six street canvassers and the man who led their work in Pennsylvania.

The allegations of fraud appeared to be motivated by the defendants’ desire to make money and keep their jobs and was not an effort to influence the election results, said Pennsylvania Atty Gen. Dave Sunday.

Guillermo Sainz, 33, described by prosecutors as the director of a company’s registration drives in Pennsylvania, was charged with three counts of solicitation of registration, a state law that prohibits offering money to reach registration quotas. A message seeking comment was left on a number associated with Sainz, who lives in Arizona. He did not have a lawyer listed in court records.

The six canvassers are charged with unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, forgery and violations of Pennsylvania election law. The charges relate to activities in three Republican-leaning Pennsylvania counties: York, Lancaster and Berks.

“We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election for any one candidate or party,” Sunday said in a news release. Prosecutors said the forms included all party affiliations.

In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges on Friday, investigators said Sainz, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”

The chief executive of Field+Media Corps, based in Mesa, Ariz., said last year the company was proud of its work to expand voting but had no information about problematic registration forms. A message seeking comment was left Friday for the CEO, Francisco Heredia. The Field+Media Corps website did not appear to be operative.

Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, an effort to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The affidavit said Everybody Votes “fully cooperated” with the investigation and noted its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.

“The investigation confirmed that we hold our partners to the highest standards of quality control when collecting, handling and delivering voter registration applications,” Everybody Votes said in a statement emailed by a spokesperson.

Sainz, who managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024, is accused of paying canvassers based on how many signatures they collected. The police affidavit said Sainz told agents with the attorney general’s office earlier this month he was unaware of any canvassers paid extra hours if they reached a target number of forms.

“Sainz had to be asked the question multiple times before he stated he was not aware of this and that ‘everyone was an hourly worker,’ ” investigators wrote.

One canvasser said she created fake forms to boost her pay and believed others did, too, according to the police affidavit. Another told investigators that most of the registration forms he collected were “not real.” A third reported that when she realized she was not going to reach a daily quota, “she would make up names and information,” police wrote, “due to fear of losing her job.”

The investigation began in late October 2024, when election workers in Lancaster flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Authorities said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.

In a separate but related investigation, authorities in Monroe County late Friday filed voter registration fraud charges against three canvassers who worked for Field+Media Corps last year. All three defendants were charged with forgery, perjury, unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, identity theft and election law violations.

The suggestion of criminal activity related to the election came as the battleground state was considered pivotal to the presidential election, and then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the news. At a campaign event, he declared there was “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.

Scolforo writes for the Associated Press.

JERUSALEM — Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a vote in Israel’s parliament the previous day about the annexation of the occupied West Bank, saying it amounted to an “insult” and went against the Trump administration policies.

Hard-liners in the Israeli parliament had narrowly passed a symbolic preliminary vote in support of annexing the West Bank — an apparent attempt to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Vance was still in the country.

The bill, which required only a simple majority of lawmakers present in the house on Wednesday, passed with a 25-24 vote. But it was unlikely to pass multiple rounds of voting to become law or win a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu, who is opposed to it, also has tools to delay or defeat it.

On the tarmac of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport before departing Israel, Vance said that if the Knesset’s vote was a “political stunt, then it is a very stupid political stunt.”

“I personally take some insult to it,” Vance said. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

Netanyahu is struggling to stave off early elections as cracks between factions in the right-wing parties, some of whom were upset over the ceasefire and the security sacrifices it required of Israel, grow more apparent.

While many members of Netanyahu’s coalition, including the Likud, support annexation, they have backed off those calls since U.S. President Trump said last month that he opposes such a move. The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. and Israeli ally in the push to peace in Gaza, has said any annexation by Israel would be a “red line.”

The Palestinians seek the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future independent state. Israeli annexation of the West Bank would all but bury hopes for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians — the outcome supported by most of the world.

Gaza’s reconstruction and Palestinians’ return

Vance also unveiled new details about U.S. plans for Gaza, saying he expected reconstruction to begin soon in some “Hamas-free” areas of the territory but warning that rebuilding territory after a devastating two-year war could take years.

“The hope is to rebuild Rafah over the next two to three years and theoretically you could have half a million people live (there),” he said.

The war caused widespread destruction across the coastal Palestinian enclave. The United Nations in July estimated that the war generated some 61 million tons of debris in Gaza. The World Bank, the U.N. and the European Union estimated earlier this year that it would cost about $53 billion to rebuild.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed at least 68,280 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Intense U.S. push toward peace

Earlier this week, Vance announced the opening of a civilian military coordination center in southern Israel where some 200 U.S. troops are working alongside the Israeli military and delegations from other countries planning the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza.

The U.S. is seeking support from other allies, especially Gulf Arab nations, to create an international stabilization force to be deployed to Gaza and train a Palestinian force.

“We’d like to see Palestinian police forces in Gaza that are not Hamas and that are going to do a good job, but those still have to be trained and equipped,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of his trip to Israel.

Rubio, who is to meet with Netanyahu later on Thursday, also criticized Israeli far-right lawmakers’ effort to push for the annexation of the West Bank.

Israeli media referred to the nonstop parade of American officials visiting to ensure Israel holds up its side of the fragile ceasefire as “Bibi-sitting.” The term, utilizing Netanyahu’s nickname of Bibi, refers to an old campaign ad when Netanyahu positioned himself as the “Bibi-sitter” whom voters could trust with their kids.

In Gaza, a dire need for medical care

In the first medical evacuation since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, the head of the World Health Organization said Thursday the group has evacuated 41 critical patients and 145 companions out of the Gaza Strip.

In a statement posted to X, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on nations to show solidarity and help some 15,000 patients who are still waiting for approval to receive medical care outside Gaza.

His calls were echoed by an official with the U.N. Population Fund who on Wednesday described the “sheer devastation” that he witnessed on his most recent travel to Gaza, saying that there is no such thing as a “normal birth in Gaza now.”

Andrew Saberton, an executive director at UNFPA, told reporters how difficult the agency’s work has become due to the lack of functioning or even standing health care facilities.

“The sheer extent of the devastation looked like the set of a dystopian film. Unfortunately, it is not fiction,” he said.

Court hearing on journalists’ access to Gaza

Separately on Thursday, Israel’s Supreme Court held a hearing into whether to open the Gaza Strip to the international media and gave the state 30 days to present a new position in light of the new situation under the ceasefire.

Israel has blocked reporters from entering Gaza since the war erupted with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

The Foreign Press Association, which represents dozens of international news organizations including The Associated Press, had asked the court to order the government to open the border.

In a statement after Thursday’s decision, the FPA expressed its “disappointment” and called the Israeli government’s position to deny journalists access “unacceptable.”

The court rejected a request from the FPA early in the war, due to objections by the government on security grounds. The group filed a second request for access in September 2024. The government has repeatedly delayed the case.

Palestinian journalists have covered the two-year war for international media. But like all Palestinians, they have been subject to tough restrictions on movement and shortages of food, repeatedly displaced and operated under great danger. Some 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“It is time for Israel to lift the closure and let us do our work alongside our Palestinian colleagues,” said Tania Kraemer, chairperson of the FPA.

Brito and Lee write for the Associated Press. Lee reported from Washington. AP writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.

Body finds that chatbots provide biased advice, including by leading voters to the hard-right Party for Freedom.

The Netherlands’s data protection watchdog has cautioned citizens against consulting with artificial intelligence on how to vote, warning that popular chatbots provide a “highly distorted and polarised view” of politics.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday that an increasing number of voters were using AI to help decide who to vote for, despite the models offering “unreliable and clearly biased” advice.

The watchdog issued the warning as it released the results of tests conducted on four popular chatbots – ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral, and Grok – in the run-up to parliamentary elections on October 29.

The research found that the chatbots more often recommended parties on the fringes of the political spectrum when asked to identify the three choices that best matched the policy preferences of 1,500 fictitious voter profiles.

In more than half of cases, the AI models identified the hard-right Party for Freedom (PVV) or left-wing Green Left-Labour Party as the top choice, the watchdog said.

Parties closer to the political middle ground – such as the right-leaning People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and the centre-left Democrats 66 – were recommended much less often, according to the watchdog.

Meanwhile, some groupings, including the conservative Christian Democratic Appeal and left-leaning Denk, were “almost never suggested”.

Monique Verdier, deputy chair of the authority, said that voters who turned to AI risked being encouraged to vote for parties that do not align with their preferences.

“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections. We therefore urge voters not to use AI chatbots for voting advice because their operation is neither transparent nor verifiable,” Verdier said in a statement.

“Additionally, we call on chatbot providers to prevent their systems from being used as voting guides.”

The October 29 election comes after the PVV, led by anti-immigration firebrand Geert Wilders, pulled its support for the government after its coalition partners refused to back a 10-point plan to radically curtail immigration.

Wilders’s PPV, which scored one of the biggest upsets in Dutch political history by winning the most seats in the 2023 election, has consistently led opinion polls before next week’s vote.

While the PPV is on track to win the most seats for a second straight election, it is all but certain to fall far short of a parliamentary majority.

The other major parties in the Netherlands, which has been governed by coalition governments without interruption since the 1940s, have all ruled out supporting the PPV in power.

Lockheed Martin has received a new full-rate production contract, valued at $233 million, for Block II IRST21 infrared search and track sensors to go into pods for U.S. Navy and U.S. Air National Guard fighters. For the Navy, in particular, this is a notable move forward given the reliability and quality control issues the service has faced with its podded configuration of the IRST21 for years now.

The Navy officially declared initial operational capability (IOC) with its version of the IRST21, also known by the designation AN/ASG-34A(V)1, back in November 2024. Limited operational evaluations, including as part combat operations in the Middle East, had been ongoing since at least 2020.

The Navy’s pod, developed for use on the service’s the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets consists of a modified FPU-13/A drop tank with the IRST sensor in a redesigned front section, as you can learn about more in this past TWZ feature. Air Force F-15C/D Eagles, which are now in the process of being retired, and F-16C/D Vipers, have been flying for years with IRST21s integrated into modular, multi-purpose Legion Pods from Lockheed Martin. Legion Pods with IRST21s are part of the sensor suite for the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle IIs, as well. Though they have the same IRST sensor at their core, which allows for shared contracts like the one announced today, the Navy and Air Force efforts are distinct, with major differences in the respective pod designs.

The Navy’s pod, developed for use on the service’s the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets consists of a modified FPU-13/A drop tank with the IRST sensor in a redesigned front section, as you can learn about more in this past TWZ feature. Air Force F-15C/D Eagles, which are now in the process of being retired, and F-16C/D Vipers, have been flying for years with IRST21s integrated into modular, multi-purpose Legion Pods from Lockheed Martin. Legion Pods with IRST21s are part of the sensor suite for the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle IIs, as well.

As designed, the ASG-34A(V)1 has long been set to offer a valuable new way for Navy Super Hornets to spot and track airborne threats. IRST systems offer particular advantages when it comes to detecting stealthy crewed and uncrewed aircraft, as well as missiles, designed to evade traditional radars. IRSTs also scan passively, so they do not send out signals that can alert an opponent to the fact that they are being tracked, and are also immune to expanding adversary electronic warfare capabilities. The information from IRSTs can also be fuzed with that from radars, datalinks, and other passive sensors to provide major synergistic capabilities.

When carried by a Super Hornet, “the IRST acts as a complementary sensor to the aircraft’s AN/APG-79 fire control radar in a heavy electronic attack or radar-denied environment,” according to the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation. “It operates autonomously, or in combination with other sensors, to support the guidance of beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles.”

IRST systems, in general, have experienced a renaissance within the U.S. military amid a steadily growing ecosystem of stealthy aerial threats, especially emanating from China. IRST technologies are also evolving, including with the emergence of systems that can be distributed around an aircraft using smaller individual sensors, which are also sometimes less complex and costly.

The Navy’s particular efforts to field this capability for its Super Hornets, which trace all the way back to 2007, have faced hurdles. The service only formally initiated work on the improved Block II IRST21 in 2018, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional Watchdog. A Block II prototype pod first flew on a Super Hornet the following year.

Quality control and reliability issues continued to dog the program afterward, as you can read more about here. Following the IOC declaration, a full-rate production decision was expected to come in January 2025, but was delayed.

“The program reported that it would not reach a full-rate production decision by its baseline schedule threshold in January 2025 due to delays incurred during flight testing,” according to a GAO report published in June 2025. “IRST officials told us that operational tests were delayed by 2 months due to software defects that caused IRST pods to falsely report overheating.”

“Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) officials told us that the defect was relatively easy to fix and would likely have been addressed during developmental testing had the program allocated more time for that testing,” the GAO report added. “The program now expects a full-rate decision in June 2025. This is the second time the program breached its baseline schedule in the past 3 years.”

GAO’s June 2025 report also said that DOT&E remained of the view that “the pods were extremely unreliable.”

“These officials said that the program improved pod reliability as it made software updates but only managed to achieve 14 hours mean time between operational mission failures – short of the 40 hours required,” the report said. “As such, DOT&E officials said that deploying the IRST pods without improving their reliability would transfer risk to the Navy’s fleet. Program officials noted that IRST initial capability was achieved without any noted limitations.”

“IRST Block II operational flight test events demonstrated tactically relevant detection ranges against operationally relevant targets and the ability to translate these long-range target detections into stable system tracks to facilitate weapons employment,” DO&TE had said in its own most recent annual report, covering work done during the 2024 Fiscal Year. “The Navy must continue to improve the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet’s operating software and address existing deficiencies to effectively integrate IRST into aircraft fire control solutions.”

“IRST Block II demonstrated significant reliability problems during operational testing. Throughout the test period, IRST Block II suffered from hardware and software deficiencies, which required the aircrew to restart the pod multiple times,” that report added. “Troubleshooting and repair often exceeded the abilities of Navy maintenance crews and required assistance from Lockheed Martin. Many of these problems were discovered during integrated and operational test after the Navy completed a minimal developmental test program with the representative hardware.”

It is curious to note that there has been no commensurate reporting of reliability or other issues with the IRST21/Legion Pod combination that has been seen flying on Air National Guard F-15s and F-16s for years now. At the same time, whether or not the Air Force has experienced any troubles with those IRST pods is not entirely clear.

To what degree remaining issues on the Navy side have been addressed and/or mitigated is also unclear, and TWZ has reached out the service, as well as Lockheed Martin, for more information.

The decision now to move ahead with full-rate production of the IRST21 is certainly a new vote confidence, especially when it comes to the Navy program.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The Japanese legislature, known as the Diet, is set to meet for an extraordinary session to vote for the next prime minister.

The vote on Tuesday follows the collapse of a 26-year-old partnership earlier this month between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the smaller Komeito party after Sanae Takaichi took the helm of the LDP.

The LDP has been the dominant force in Japanese politics since the 1950s, but over the past two years, it has lost its majority in both legislative houses after failing to address a series of problems, including a major corruption scandal and Japan’s cost-of-living crisis.

Now, the LDP is at risk of losing power completely unless it can bring another opposition party to its side.

Some Japanese media reports suggested on Sunday that the LDP had reached an agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin) to form a coalition that would ensure that Takaichi is elected prime minister. But details of the partnership remain unclear, and the two sides have yet to confirm it.

Who is Sanae Takaichi, and why is she controversial?

Takaichi, 64, is the former protege of late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a member of the LDP’s conservative faction.

She was chosen to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as head of the LDP after he stepped down in September. Takaichi ran on a platform of aggressive fiscal expansion to resolve Japan’s ongoing economic problems.

Takaichi is also known as a foreign policy hawk who wants to strengthen Japan’s military, and she holds conservative views on same-sex marriage.

Following her election as LDP leader on October 4, the LDP and Komeito held policy negotiations. They hit an impasse when Takaichi failed to address Komeito’s concerns about corporate donations, according to Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies.

The disagreement follows a recent LDP scandal that revealed that party members had diverted more than 600 million yen (approximately $4m) of donations to a slush fund.

“[Takaichi] didn’t give them what they considered a serious answer on their concerns about corruption scandals, and they wanted more serious regulations around funding, especially corporate donations,” he told Al Jazeera.

Can Takaichi still become the next prime minister?

Takaichi still has the chance to become Japan’s first female prime minister, but experts say it will take some horse-trading.

The LDP has 196 seats in the lower house of the Diet, and Takaichi needs at least 233 seats to secure a majority. She could do this by negotiating with one of Japan’s other opposition parties, like the Japan Innovation Party.

Conversely, if opposition parties worked together, they could form a new government, but experts like Kazuto Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, say this would be challenging due to ideological disagreements.

The situation is very different from 2009, when the LDP last lost power, to a unified opposition, for three years.

“If the opposition is able to rally for the unified candidate, it is possible that Takaichi will lose, but more likely, Takaichi will win not by majority but as the first of the two candidates [in a run-off vote],” Suzuki said.

“But even if Takaichi wins, she is based on a very small minority,” he said. “It will be extremely difficult for Takaichi and the LDP to conduct policies of their own.”

Who could challenge Takaichi for the top job?

Experts say that Takaichi’s most likely challenger is Yuichiro Tamaki, 56, the leader of the conservative Democratic Party for the People (DPFP).

While the party holds 27 seats, it could secure a majority if it cooperated with the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), which holds 148 seats, and the Japan Innovation Party, which holds 35 seats.

The DPFP and the CDP were once part of the same party but split due to ideological differences over foreign policy and the future of Japan’s military.

The Japan Innovation Party and the DPP also clash over policies like economic reform and deregulation, according to Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international studies at Japan’s International Christian University.

“There are a lot of contradictory positions that will make it unlikely they can form a coalition,” Nagy said.

In a more likely scenario, the Japan Innovation Party will form a coalition with the LDP, he said. They share views on major policy concerns like the United States, China, Taiwan, immigration, and the future of the imperial family.

What does this mean for Japan and the LDP?

Experts say the LDP will likely retain its hold over the government for now, but Takaichi will be a much weaker prime minister than many of her predecessors.

“The bigger question is whether she will survive more than a year, and there are external factors like the US relationship and [US President Donald] Trump’s unpredictability, and internal factors such as the direction of the economy and whether she’ll make decisions about Yasukuni shrine,” said Nagy, referring to the shrine to Japan’s war dead that includes war criminals.

Takaichi will also have to find a way to work with Japan’s other parties, and that means negotiating or softening her stance on more controversial policies.

Kanda University’s Hall said this could be a watershed moment for Japanese politics, especially if the opposition parties can retain their support from voters.

“We have a situation where there are several centre-right parties, there’s a far-right party, and there are a few smaller left-wing parties. There just simply isn’t the math for one party to put together a stable coalition with a partner that agrees with it on the big issues,” he told Al Jazeera.

“With this kind of multi-party democracy, they’re going to have new norms develop, where parties are more willing to compromise if they want to form a government – and if they don’t… then we’ll see no-confidence votes that oust prime ministers,” he said.

Sixteen-year-olds now have the right to vote in all UK elections, as part of sweeping election reforms. Supporters believe this change will modernise democracy and say the young generation is already engaged with issues like climate change, education, and the economy. Opponents, however, argue that 16 is too young to make such weighty political decisions and warn that it could weaken the integrity of the electoral system.

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Guests:

Cameron Holt – Member of Youth Parliament, Bassetlaw

Thomas Brochure – Co-director, Make It 16 NZ

Nuurrianti Jalli – Researcher, Oklahoma State University

WASHINGTON — President Trump is showing little urgency to broker a compromise that would end the government shutdown, even as Democrats insist no breakthrough is possible without his direct involvement.

Three weeks in, Congress is at a standstill. The House hasn’t been in session for a month, and senators left Washington on Thursday frustrated by the lack of progress. Republican leaders are refusing to negotiate until a short-term funding bill to reopen the government is passed, while Democrats say they won’t agree without guarantees on extending health insurance subsidies.

For now, Trump appears content to stay on the sidelines.

He spent the week celebrating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal he led, hosted a remembrance event for conservative activist Charlie Kirk and refocused attention on the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, his administration has been managing the shutdown in unconventional ways, continuing to pay the troops while laying off other federal employees.

Asked Thursday whether he was willing to deploy his dealmaking background on the shutdown, Trump seemed uninterested.

“Well, look, I mean, all we want to do is just extend. We don’t want anything, we just want to extend, live with the deal they had,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Later Thursday, he criticized Democratic health care demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, “then we can have serious conversations about health care.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that approach before leaving for the weekend, saying Trump is “ready to weigh in and sit down with the Democrats or whomever, once the government opens up.”

Thune said he’d also be willing to talk, but only after the shutdown ends.

“I am willing to sit down with Democrats,” Thune posted on social media Friday.

“But there’s one condition: End the Schumer Shutdown. I will not negotiate under hostage conditions, nor will I pay a ransom,” he added.

Frustration is beginning to surface among rank-and-file Republicans, with bipartisan conversations breaking out on the Senate floor as members look for ways to move things forward. Still, even those Republicans admit little happens in Congress without Trump’s direction.

Leaving the Capitol on Thursday, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “We’re not making much headway this week.” For things to progress, Murkowski acknowledged Trump may need to get more involved: “I think he’s an important part of it.”

“I think there are some folks in his administration that are kind of liking the fact that Congress really has no role right now,” she added. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

Trump has not been slowed by the shutdown

While Congress has been paralyzed by the shutdown, Trump has moved rapidly to enact his vision of the federal government.

He has called budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has taken the opportunity to withhold billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and lay off thousands of federal workers, signaling that workforce reductions could become even more drastic.

At the same time, the administration has acted unilaterally to fund Trump’s priorities, including paying the military this week, easing pressure on what could have been one of the main deadlines to end the shutdown.

Some of these moves, particularly the layoffs and funding shifts, have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown, ruling that the cuts appeared politically motivated and were carried out without sufficient justification.

And with Congress focused on the funding fight, lawmakers have had little time to debate other issues.

In the House, Johnson has said the House won’t return until Democrats approve the funding bill and has refused to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Democrats say the move is to prevent her from becoming the 218th signature on a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on releasing documents related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

So far, the shutdown has shown little impact on public opinion.

An AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Democratic Party, similar to an AP-NORC poll from September. Four in 10 have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Republican Party, largely unchanged from last month.

Democrats want Trump at the table. Republicans would rather he stay out

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said Republicans have shown little seriousness in negotiating an end to the shutdown.

“Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point,” Schumer said Thursday.

Frustrated with congressional leaders, Democrats are increasingly looking to Trump.

At a CNN town hall Wednesday night featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both repeatedly called for the president’s involvement when asked why negotiations had stalled.

“President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,” Sanders said.

Ocasio-Cortez added that Trump should more regularly “be having congressional leaders in the White House.”

Democrats’ focus on Trump reflects both his leadership style — which allows little to happen in Congress without his approval — and the reality that any funding bill needs the president’s signature to become law.

This time, however, Republican leaders who control the House and Senate are resisting any push for Trump to intervene.

“You can’t negotiate when somebody’s got a hostage,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who added that Trump getting involved would allow Democrats to try the same tactic in future legislative fights.

Trump has largely followed that guidance. After previously saying he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health insurance subsidies, he walked it back after Republican leaders suggested he misspoke.

And that’s unlikely to change for now. Trump has no plans to personally intervene to broker a deal with Democrats, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The official added that the only stopgap funding bill that Democrats can expect is the one already on the table.

“The President is happy to have a conversation about health care policy, but he will not do so while the Democrats are holding the American people hostage,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Thursday.

A product of the Congress Trump has molded

In his second term, Trump has taken a top-down approach, leaving little in Congress to move without his approval.

“What’s obvious to me is that Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t do much without Donald Trump telling them what to do,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

His hold is particularly strong in the GOP-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson effectivelyowes his job to Trump, and relies on his influence to power through difficult legislative fights.

When Republicans have withheld votes on Trump’s priorities in Congress, he’s called them on the phone or summoned them to his office to directly sway them. When that doesn’t work, he has vowed to unseat them in the next election. It’s led many Democrats to believe the only path to an agreement runs through the White House and not through the speaker’s office.

Democrats also want assurances from the White House that they won’t backtrack on an agreement. The White House earlier this year cut out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.” And before he even took office late last year, Trump and ally Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan funding agreement that both parties had negotiated.

“I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in.”

Both parties also see little reason to fold under public pressure, believing they are winning the messaging battle.

“Everybody thinks they’re winning,” Murkowski said. “Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing. And that’s what’s happening right now. The American public is losing.”

Cappelletti and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.