The stocking stuffer is one of the toughest of holiday challenges: a small gift, but not an impersonal one, and ideally something on the more affordable end of the spectrum. But the stocking stuffer is also an opportunity, a chance to be a little playful, and maybe a bit silly in our gift-giving prowess.
The list here runs the gamut. There are tech-savvy items, contemplative presents and, yes, even a lighthearted option or two. Stickers, anyone? That’s because gift giving should be fun. You’re here, I hope, looking to be inspired, and that’s why this list prioritized variety. Here are some ideas to hopefully provide a bit of gift-giving motivation this holiday season.
Editor’s note: If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated. Prices and availability are subject to change. In some cases, listed websites may use location-based pricing.
Voter ballots were mailed to all registered California voters starting Oct. 5. But if you prefer to vote in person, here’s what you need to know about casting your ballot ahead of and on election day, Nov. 3.
How can I vote in person now?
The first vote centers opened for early in-person voting on Oct. 24 but only in Voter’s Choice Act counties. L.A. County is among the 30 VCA counties where you can vote in person early.
But in-person early voting expands significantly Saturday, with locations open across the state.
To find your polling location, you can visit your county elections official’s website or the secretary of state’s website here.
You have until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, to cast your vote in California’s general election. The Times has answers to last-minute questions about the voting process.
Here’s what you need to know:
What are the key races to watch?
The California governor’s race has narrowed down from six contenders to two top candidates: Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who has a long résumé in California electoral politics and received an endorsement from outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom. Steve Hilton is a Republican immigrant, an ally of President Trump and a former senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron. Your guide to the race for California governor can be found here.
In the Los Angeles mayoral race, incumbent Karen Bass faces a reelection challenge from Councilmember Nithya Raman, who was, until recently, a close ally of the mayor. In October during the only televised debate between the candidates, Bass portrayed Raman as someone who wasn’t ready to lead the city; Raman continues to allege the mayor is “missing in action” and that a vote for Bass would put the city in a position of further decline. Your guide to the L.A. mayor’s race can be found here.
What is on the ballot?
There are several races, ballot measures, local district seats and statewide races that Southern Californians must decide on.
Most of the attention will be on the races for California governor and mayor of Los Angeles.
Residents of the city of Los Angeles have several other items to consider, including:
Los Angeles County residents will be asked to vote on:
On the ballot are 14 statewide propositions including:
Voters will decide on six local congressional district seats and other statewide races including:
Six state congressional district seats are on the ballot including:
Is it too late to vote by mail?
No. You can return your vote-by-mail ballot by:
Dropping it off in the return envelope at a secure official drop box now through the close of polls on Nov. 3.
Dropping it off in person at a polling place, vote center or county elections office by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.
Dropping it off at the post office. To ensure your ballot is postmarked by election day, mail it at least by Thursday — five days before Tuesday’s election. If mailing on election day, get a hand-stamped postmark from a postal employee at a United States post office.
What is the deadline to return a vote-by-mail ballot?
To be counted, vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before election day, Nov. 3, and received by your county elections office by Nov. 10.
How do I check if I’m registered to vote?
To find out if you’re registered to vote, visit the secretary of state’s website. You’ll need to enter a California driver’s license or identification number or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
How do I register to vote? Can I register on election day?
Eligible citizens who need to register or re-register to vote within 14 days of an election can complete this process at county elections offices, polling places or vote centers and fill out their ballot the same day.
To find an early voting location, use the secretary of state search tool here. You can find your local polling places here.
Your submitted ballot will be processed and counted once the county elections office has completed the voter registration verification process.
Where is the closest drop box?
Secure ballot drop-off locations opened Oct. 5. You can visit the Los Angeles County Office of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s website here to find a ballot box near you.
As Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy came under fire for releasing an attack ad featuring his Democratic competitor’s estranged mother, a mysterious news site was running a Facebook ad boosting the controversial video.
The Buckeye Bulletin, which bills itself as an Ohio-based news platform committed to “reliable journalism” and “strong editorial standards,” popped up suddenly this spring and began pumping out a steady stream of pro-Ramaswamy content.
The publication’s articles have no bylines. There is no list of staff. The website does not feature digital advertisements, nor does it prompt readers to subscribe, but there is also no disclosure of who is funding it.
A closer look at the Buckeye Bulletin’s Meta advertising data shows that its Facebook and Instagram accounts are managed by the Lincoln Media Foundation, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Orange County-based Lincoln Club — the oldest and largest conservative donor organization in California. IRS documents show that the club and foundation are associated organizations and share at least two key executives.
Meta’s advertising data shows that the Lincoln Media Foundation manages the Instagram and Facebook accounts for the Buckeye Bulletin.
(Meta)
The Buckeye Bulletin, Lincoln Club and Lincoln Media Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.
The Bulletin appears to be a partisan site posing as a local news outlet ahead of the midterm elections, a strategy political scientists refer to as “pink-slime” journalism.
This is not the first time a “pink-slime” outlet has been linked to the Lincoln Media Foundation. In 2024 Max Read, director of civic innovation for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, identified seven such alleged outlets.
With the exception of one Los Angeles-focused site, those outlets all targeted critical states for the 2024 presidential election such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Read reported that the media group had spent more than $63,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads, resulting in up to 18 million impressions during the last election cycle.
“[The sites were] very clearly designed to try to influence the information environment ahead of the presidential election,” Read told The Times. “They had all been started early in the year and used advertising on Meta platforms to juice their engagement numbers.”
When asked by The Times to take a look at the Buckeye Bulletin, Read said it appeared to be “pretty much copy and paste the same tactic that they used in 2024, even down to the aesthetics of the Facebook page and Instagram account.”
“It seems like they realized this worked at some level in 2024 and is worth doing again this year,” he said.
Earlier this year, CalMatters identified another outlet tied to the Lincoln Media Foundation called the California Courier, which had been circulating Facebook advertisements criticizing Gov. Gavin Newsom and the statewide redistricting ballot measure Proposition 50.
Since the Buckeye Bulletin’s Facebook and Instagram pages launched in March, the outlet has shared posts touting endorsements of Ramaswamy — a biotech billionaire and former presidential candidate — as well as his platform for addressing Ohio’s healthcare crisis and his stance on religious freedom in schools.
Simultaneously, the outlet’s social media posts have highlighted the refusal of his opponent — Amy Acton, Ohio’s former public health director — to debate, comments on how she “shut down” the state’s economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and a video with a watermark from right-wing political activist Laura Loomer.
This week, the outlet turned attention to Ramaswamy’s controversial campaign ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur. In the ad, Arthur calls her daughter a liar and urges voters not to support her.
However, the ad did not acknowledge that Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted for raping Acton when she was a child — an omission that drew fierce condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans, including Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. Others, including President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan, have defended the ad.
Arthur and her husband fled to Pennsylvania after his 1978 indictment where he died in 2004 without having been brought back to Ohio to face the charge.
Peppered in between political content on the Bulletin’s social media feeds is a smattering of reels related to non-political news, often featuring videos lifted directly from local TV stations. These other posts are used to create a “veneer of genuine local journalism,” Read said.
The language on the Bulletin’s About Us page displays markers of artificial intelligence such as generic mission statements, polished but repetitive phrasing and vague claims about journalistic standards with no details about the publication’s staff.
Of the last 30 posts shared on the Bulletin’s Facebook as of 5 p.m. Friday, 21 were about state or national politics and 10 were about the gubernatorial race. Engagement on the posts dealing with Ramaswamy and Acton is consistently strong for a page with around 5,600 followers.
For example, a Wednesday post on Ohio State Medical Assn.’s PAC endorsing Ramaswamy received more than 770 likes, 260 comments and 150 shares. Another video posted Wednesday with the label “Amy Acton refuses to debate, says mother is lying about her” received more than 4,800 likes, 1,500 comments and 500 shares.
Meanwhile, a non-political Wednesday post on a chemical explosion in Toledo received two likes, no comments and no shares.
The unassuming social media scroller or person who clicked onto the website would have no clue of the Buckeye Bulletin’s apparent connection to a group of wealthy Southern California Republications.
The Lincoln Media Foundation was started by leaders of the historic Lincoln Club, which was founded in 1962 and once counted John Wayne and former President Richard Nixon as members.
Today, the club describes itself as being home to “the most prominent business and thought leaders” in California and says it offers members the opportunity to meet world leaders and “experience their hobbies come to life through a combination of extravagance and leisure.”
The foundation notes that it uses a digital approach to reach communities left out of the national conversation, but its website does not disclose providing funding to any news outlets.
IRS records show that the nonprofit’s financial activities kicked up dramatically in 2024, the latest year for which data are available. The Lincoln Media Foundation reported $3.88 million in revenue in 2024, compared with $738,000 in 2023, $453,000 in 2022 and $415,000 in 2021.
The Buckeye Bulletin’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have spent just over $10,000 boosting posts this year, according to Meta’s ad library.
That’s barely a drop in the bucket in Ohio, where hotly contested races for governor and U.S. Senate have drawn hundreds of millions in spending. But presenting a slanted political view under the guise of local news tends to offer more bang for your buck than traditional advertisements, said Georgia Kernell, an associate professor in the departments of communications and political science at UCLA.
“Voters are so sick of ads; they’re getting tons of clear paid advertisements on the radio, on the television and on their social media feeds now,” she said. “Anything that can kind of look different is going to be more likely to keep their attention.”
Presenting as a traditional news source also increases the likelihood of viewers believing that the information presented is well-researched, she said.
Nik Usher, associate professor of communications at the University of San Diego, said it’s unclear how much influence pink-slime journalism is having on voting behavior, but political strategists are willing to try any new approach to possibly make a difference in tight races.
“This is one strategic effort to throw more spaghetti at the wall, hoping it’ll stick,” Usher said.
Creators of these partisan sites further stand to benefit from the fact that artificial intelligence tools are constantly scraping content from news websites without paywalls.
Researchers at NewsGuard recently found that leading AI chat bots are citing pink-slime websites nearly half the time when users ask questions about candidates and issues in the midterm elections.
Democrats and Republicans have increasingly leveraged pink-slime journalism to influence voters in the past few election cycles.
In 2020, the New York Times identified a network of 1,300 news sites that paid freelance writers to produce biased content for Republican groups and corporate public relations firms. In 2024, the left-leaning Star Spangled Media group used a site called the Morning Mirror to promote down-ballot Democratic candidates, according to research from Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
More recently, the evolution of AI has increased the ease with which these websites can be populated with content, eliminating the need to pay writers and automating the production of social media posts.
Usher described pink-slime websites as “explosive bombs for public trust” that take advantage of the gap created by the loss of independent local papers and further diminish expectations for news to be fairly reported.
“Once these sorts of sites are pointed out to the public it further undermines distrust in political institutions, political parties, the news media,” Usher said, “especially when AI is associated with this kind of stuff.”
IF you’re desperate for a getaway but don’t want to spend loads, it might be time to look beyond the usual high street holiday agents.
We’ve found a lesser-known booking site where you can bag entire package holidays from just £118, hotel rooms from £16 a night, and flights for as little as £9.
Your next holiday could be closer than you think with these bargain getawaysCredit: Alamy
Browse cheap holidays, flights and hotels on Opodo
Opodo acts as a massive travel search engine, scouring hundreds of airlines and millions of hotels to pull together some of the absolute cheapest deals on the internet.
As a travel writer who scours the internet each week for the cheapest holidays for Sun readers, these are some of the lowest travel fares I’ve ever seen.
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So whether you’re after a quick weekend city break, a week-long beach escape, or even a solo travel retreat – here’s our guide to the very best travel bargains on Opodo right now.
Package holidays
Package hols are where you get the most bang for your buck on Opodo, as you can save up to 40% extra by booking your flights and hotel together through the website.
Or you can click here to browse all cheap package holidays.
Mallorca – from £121pp
Boat sailing, Majorca island, Spain. Cala MarmolCredit: Getty
With flight times around two and a half hours, Mallorca is an easy hop away for some autumn sun, with pleasant October temperatures of around 24C.
Spend your days exploring the winding, cobbled streets of Alcudia’s Old Town, hiking the spectacular Serra de Tramuntana mountains, or soaking up the sun on the pristine white sands of Es Trenc.
Browse Mallorca holidays from £121pp
Tenerife – from £147pp
Playa de las Teresitas in TenerifeCredit: Getty
The flight to Tenerife is only four hours from the UK, yet it still reaches highs of 26C in October.
Once you’re there, stroll the volcanic beaches of Costa Adeje, enjoy €3 tapas in traditional tavernas, hit up award-winning waterpark Siam Park or even go whale watching.
Browse Tenerife holidays from £147pp
The Algarve – from £118pp
Beautiful village of Carvoeiro in the Algarve, PortugalCredit: Getty
Autumn is the perfect time to visit Portugal‘s stunning southern coast, offering warm highs of 25C without the overwhelming summer crowds.
Wander around the bustling Olhao fish market, hike along dramatic coastal cliffs to see the spectacular rock formations, or simply relax on the golden sands of Praia dos Pescadores right by Albufeira’s old town.
Browse Algarve holidays from £118pp
Rome – from £119pp
You don’t need a huge budget to experience Rome, especially with Opodo offering package holidays from £119pp.
In the Italian capital the streets themselves are their own attraction. Soak up the atmosphere at the Spanish Steps, or toss a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain.
Browse Rome holidays from £119pp
Flights
You could fly to Barcelona from £9 if you’re signed up to Opodo PrimeCredit: Getty
Opodo offers super cheap flights to destinations in Europe and beyond, but they get even cheaper if you join Opodo Prime.
For example, you can bag a one-way flight to Barcelona for £24 each way, but if you’re signed up to Opodo Prime this sinks down to £9.
It costs £8.99 a month and also gets you discounts on hotels, so if you like to go on holiday regularly, it could save you some serious cash.
