Politics

I watched the Wednesday night’s presidential debate with a group of wine-sipping West Coast Obama fans who were stunned by the way Mitt Romney dominated the stage. Over the 90 minutes of the debate, Romney submerged the right-wing image he had adopted in the Republican primary race and came off as a reasonable, moderate technocrat … Read more

1 Democrats are on defense as Republicans try to wrest control of the House in the Nov. 8 midterm elections. California, despite its deep-blue tilt, offers chances for both parties to flip seats. Going into this election year, California was home to two of the nation’s most vulnerable GOP incumbents; redistricting made their districts even … Read more

From left, Donald Trump, Bayrock Group founder Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater in New York in 2007. (Mark Von Holden / WireImage) Working from a 24th-floor office in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, Felix Sater spent years trying to line up lucrative deals in the United States, Russia and elsewhere in Europe with Donald Trump’s real estate … Read more

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with reporters at the White House, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Washington. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The Trump administration said Wednesday it is suing Maine’s education department for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is … Read more

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell tweeted that he had made an “error in judgment” by reporting an unverified story about President Trump’s finances. (Associated Press) MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday retracted his story about supposed Russian ties to President Trump’s finances and apologized for reporting it — just as Trump’s lawyer had demanded. O’Donnell said, however, he … Read more

Vice President Kamala Harris, shown in 2023, is suddenly the front-runner to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) Kamala Harris is making history yet again — this time in a manner few could have envisioned. She already has blazed trails: As San Francisco’s first female district attorney. As California’s first … Read more

Robert Everton Cushman Jr., commandant of the Marine Corps during the final years of the Vietnam War and a deputy director of the CIA when the agency was criticized for Watergate-era activities, is dead. Gen. Cushman, one of the most highly decorated combat veterans of World War II, died of what appeared to have been … Read more

President Trump pauses during a news conference Sunday at the White House. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press) President Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for president and in his first year in the White House, according to a report Sunday in the New York Times. Trump, who has fiercely … Read more

Publishing magnate Malcolm S. (Steven) Forbes Jr. said Wednesday that he will enter the Republican presidential race, using his personal fortune to campaign for higher economic growth and lower taxes. “I’m going to do it,” he said in a telephone interview from his office in Bedminster, N.J. “The need is there.” Forbes, a soft-spoken multimillionaire, … Read more

It looks disgusting, like a severed human tongue, and it secretes sticky slime. Yet it has become a college mascot, and now a state legislator is bucking to give this seemingly ignoble creature instant respectability by elevating it to the enviable status of–are you sitting down?–California’s official mollusk. Yes, the lowly banana slug, a snail … Read more