Politics

California water agency considers spending $141 million on Delta tunnel project The powerful board of Southern California’s largest urban water supplier will soon vote on whether to continue funding a large share of preliminary planning work for the state’s proposed water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The 38-member board of the Metropolitan Water … Read more

Trump’s promises to conservatives raise fears of more book bans in U.S. The national furor in recent years around banning books on race and gender in public schools is intensifying as President-elect Donald Trump threatens to shut down the Department of Education, emboldening conservatives to end “wokeness” in classrooms. Battles over books in school libraries … Read more

President-elect Donald Trump arrives before the launch of a SpaceX Starship rocket Tuesday in Boca Chica, Texas. (Brandon Bell / Associated Press) Hello and happy Thursday. There are 60 days until the inauguration, and today I’m wondering if size matters. I’m referring, of course, to the size of Donald Trump’s win. The president-elect — and … Read more

Members of the Oath Keepers on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press) Out of more than 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, David Dempsey is among the most notorious. Dempsey, of Van Nuys, was accused by … Read more

Pete Hegseth is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) A woman told Monterey police that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, took her phone, blocked her from leaving his hotel room and sexually assaulted her, according to a newly released police report. On Wednesday evening, the … Read more

Rep. Loretta Sanchez gestures on the steps of a congressional office building in Washington during orientation week for new members of Congress. (Alex Garcia / Los Angeles Times) Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s easygoing, neighborly style has won over Orange County voters for two decades, but that blessing has come with a nettlesome curse: the occasional, stinging … Read more

In the Navajo Nation in Ganado, Ariz., local organizer Maria Calamity shows a resident where to sign a card pledging to vote in the November presidential election. (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press) A new study has found that systemic barriers to voting on tribal lands contribute to substantial disparities in Native American turnout, particularly for … Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, closes a door to a meeting with Vice President-elect JD Vance and Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members at the Capitol on Wednesday. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted Wednesday against releasing a report on the panel’s … Read more

Texas state Sen. Dawn Buckingham, shown at a 2022 Trump rally in Conroe, Texas, sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump last week offering a parcel of state-owned land near the U.S.-Mexico border as a staging area for mass deportations. (Jason Fochtman / Associated Press) Texas is offering a parcel of rural ranchland along the … Read more

The vast open rotunda soared above them as they waited by the hundreds to register and cast absentee ballots inside City Hall, the 19th century landmark modeled after a long-forgotten Dutch guildhall. It was a predominantly African American crowd, and people sang “We Shall Overcome.” But Yuri Nielsen was unmoved. Sitting on a hard chair … Read more