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      Lots of cash. First in the polls. California’s Senate race is Adam Schiff’s to lose

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      Adam Schiff looked like a front-runner when he first announced he was running for the US Senate more than a year ago, and he hasn’t stopped looking like one since.The California congressman from Los Angeles, best known for his withering critiques of Donald Trump and the threat the former president poses to US democracy, hasn’t always been able to match the charisma of his two leading Democratic rivals, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. His continuing support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, broadly in line with the Biden administration’s, has created divisions among his constituents and opened up one of the few significant policy differences in the race.But as the clock ticks down to the 5 March primary, that has yet to make an appreciable difference in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat. Schiff has out-raised his opponents by significant margins, allowing him to bombard the airwaves with campaign ads. He has raked in the lion’s share of endorsements from fellow party members, labor unions, newspapers and others.Opinion polls long had him leading, narrowly, but now suggest he may be breaking away from the rest of the pack. The most recent surveys show Schiff at least five points ahead of his competitors. Porter and Republican Steve Garvey are neck-and-neck for second place – though it’s highly unlikely the former baseball star would prevail in the general election in November given Democrats’ dominance in the state. Lee lags behind.In an election year when many voters say they fear for the future of the republic, a contest in a reliably blue state featuring three generally well-regarded Democratic members of Congress (plus one near-unelectable Republican neophyte) can seem a bit of a luxury.But the pressure cooker dynamics of national politics have arguably played into Schiff’s hands. As the leading voice on the first of Trump’s two impeachments and as a congressional investigator into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Schiff has won widespread admiration and near-heroic status within his own party.As the Los Angeles Times wrote in endorsing Schiff over what it called his “smart, experienced, savvy” Democratic opponents: “Given the increasingly authoritarian statements from Donald Trump, the possibility he could return to the White House and the Republican Party’s lockstep loyalty to him, the Senate needs Schiff.”Schiff himself has played up his anti-Trump credentials, calling the ex-president “the gravest threat to our democracy” in a recent debate in response to a question about what made him different from his fellow Democrats. And he has only been helped by the obvious loathing he inspires, as Trump and his Republican partisans routinely call him “shifty”, a “lowlife”, and, without evidence, a “stone-cold liar”.View image in fullscreenWhen the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to censure Schiff last June – on the partisan-driven grounds that he had threatened national security and was “undermining our duly elected president” – it proved to be a fundraising boon for Schiff’s Senate campaign that cemented the significant financial advantage he was already enjoying over his rivals.Rick Wilson, a former Republican political operative now working for the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said Schiff had a singular ability to drive Trump Republicans to distraction because of his skill, much of it learned from his pre-congressional experience as a prosecutor, to marshal facts, zero in on what matters and lay out the stakes in clear, persuasive language.“Adam Schiff is one of the people who understood where the bodies were buried,” Wilson said. “He presented a combination of intelligence and wit that gave the Trump people a tremendous amount of heartache … I don’t mean this to be facetious, but they hate smart people. I say, tell me who you hate and I’ll show you who you fear.”Still, the race is about more than Trump, and Schiff has talked a lot about other issues close to the heart of California voters, including homelessness, affordable housing, health care costs and the environment.Since the election has played out largely as a contest among Democrats – with Garvey providing a sideshow more than a serious threat – it also presents voters with questions about the direction they want to set for the party, both in the Golden state and across the country.Feinstein, who died in office last September, was an old-school centrist, and whoever replaces her will hew significantly to her left. Still, in an age of deep partisan polarization, do voters want a pragmatist, as Schiff styles himself, or a firebrand? Someone who falls somewhere in the political middle of his party, like Schiff, or the most progressive voice possible?View image in fullscreenMany voters will remember that, for close to 30 years, California had two female senators – first Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who overlapped from 1993 to 2017, then Feinstein and Kamala Harris, who overlapped until Harris became vice-president in 2021. Are they ready to revert to two male ones – Alex Padilla and, potentially, Schiff?Democratic voters in California are also consistent in saying that diversity matters, which explains why Gavin Newsom, the state governor, made a point of naming a Black woman, the veteran labor organizer and voting rights activist Laphonza Butler, to complete Feinstein’s term after her death. Butler is not competing to hold on to the seat. Does it matter, then, that Schiff is not only a man, but a white man?“A majority … of Democratic party voters participating in the primary are women and a majority are people of color. So, yeah, these things are on our minds,” said Aimee Allison, a California-based political activist whose group She the People champions progressive Black and Latina women running for office. “This is not just about the politics of representation. For Californians under 35, in particular, it’s about representation, plus life experience, plus the policies a candidate is advocating – all three things.”Allison is supporting Lee, and in her mind the race might look very different if it weren’t for the money and the establishment support that Schiff has been able to rake in.“White guys get more money in politics,” she said. “That doesn’t make Adam Schiff special. It’s just the bias of the system, the bias in the minds of people with money … One of the reasons women of color are defeated in primaries is because existing elected officials weigh in against them, both publicly and behind the scenes. When someone like Nancy Pelosi puts her support behind Schiff, it has huge downstream effects.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchiff’s financial advantage has certainly been significant. As of 31 December, he had outspent all his opponents and still had $35m in cash on hand, more than all the other candidates put together. That financial edge is now playing out on the airwaves, especially in expensive media markets like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Schiff’s recent campaign ads present Garvey, not Porter or Lee, as his competition. “Two leading candidates for Senate,” the ad begins. “Two very different visions for California.”Since Garvey does not have enough money for his own television ad campaign, this has been widely interpreted as an attempt by the Schiff team to boost the Republican’s candidacy in the hope that he will come in second on 5 March and thus qualify for the general election under California’s top-two primary system.“It’s disappointing that Adam Schiff is playing cynical, anti-democratic political games to avoid a competitive election in November,” an incensed Porter wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Voters deserve better.”This, though, is how politics in California is often played. When Newsom first ran for governor in 2018, his camp ran an ad similarly designed to boost the leading Republican over his closest Democratic rival and attracted similar complaints. With Porter restricted in the number of ads of her own she can afford to run – some of which have boosted a different Republican candidate in an apparent attempt to dilute Garvey’s support – it arguably does not damage Schiff so much as boost the perception that this is his race to lose.View image in fullscreenIndeed, Schiff has run more like an incumbent than a challenger for an open seat, pointing to his record over 23 years in the House and calling himself “an effective leader who can get things done and deliver for California”.While Porter has leaned heavily into her reputation as a populist crusader against corrupt corporate leaders, and Lee has often shown up to debates with cheering fans from her grassroots and union support base, Schiff has sought to make a virtue of his careful manner and calm demeanor by embracing the idea that he is a trusted establishment candidate.At a candidates’ forum last fall, Schiff pointed to his temperament as its own political asset, recounting how a Republican colleague in the House often complained how difficult it was to argue against his progressive positions because “you sound so damn reasonable”.One issue where Schiff has taken criticism is his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – a position in line with the Biden administration’s, but one decried by many young progressives who have staged demonstrations at party and campaign events and warned the candidates they will be punished at the polls if they do not denounce Israel’s military campaign.Lee argues forcefully that the deaths of more than 29,000 Palestinians have done nothing to enhance Israeli security or to achieve the US policy goal of a two-state solution. Schiff, though, has been unapologetic in his support for Israel. “I don’t see how there could be a lasting peace as long as a terrorist organization is governing Gaza and threatening to attack them over and over and over again,” he said in a debate last week, “nor do I see how there can be a permanent ceasefire while that is true.” In an earlier statement he went further, pinning blame for the high civilian death toll in Gaza on “Hamas’ actions”, and calling on Congress to approve emergency assistance to the Netanyahu government.Polling since 7 October suggests the issue has yet to hurt Schiff or provide any boost to Lee, despite indications that it has alienated many non-white Democratic voters across the country and split the party along generational lines. More than 1 million Jews live in California, and that may help Schiff, who is himself Jewish, gain as much support as he has lost elsewhere.As the primary looms, Schiff is focusing much of his campaigning energy on partisan politics. In a flurry of tweets and television appearances over the past few weeks he has blasted the Republicans for blowing up the bipartisan deal on border security, denounced the GOP’s willingness to flirt with Russian intelligence operatives and ridiculed them for their impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary.His message to voters after the final primary debate on Monday was not about the candidates he’d just sparred with, but about another, more prominent candidate for national office whom he has taken on again and again. “Trump has made me his public enemy No 1,” he declared flatly. “And I wear that as a badge of honor.” More

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      Former congressman Jeff Fortenberry’s conviction reversed by appeals court

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      An appellate court on Tuesday reversed a 2022 federal conviction against former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry, ruling that the Republican should not have been tried in Los Angeles.Fortenberry was convicted in March 2022 on charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. He resigned his seat days later after pressure from congressional leaders and Nebraska’s Republican governor.In Tuesday’s ruling, the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit wrote that the trial venue of Los Angeles was improper because Fortenberry made the false statements during interviews with federal agents at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in his lawyer’s office in Washington.“Fortenberry’s convictions are reversed so that he may be retried, if at all, in a proper venue,” the decision said.A federal jury in Los Angeles found the nine-term Republican guilty of concealing information and two counts of making false statements to authorities. He vowed to appeal from the courthouse steps.Fortenberry was charged after denying to the FBI that he was aware he had received illicit funds from Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent.At trial, prosecutors presented recorded phone conversations in which Fortenberry was repeatedly warned that the contributions came from Chagoury. The donations were funneled through three straw men at the 2016 fundraiser in Los Angeles.The case stemmed from an FBI investigation into $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions to four campaigns from Chagoury, who lived in Paris at the time. Chagoury admitted to the crime in 2019 and agreed to pay a $1.8m fine.It was the first trial of a sitting congressman since the Democratic representative Jim Traficant of Ohio was convicted of bribery and other felony charges in 2002.Fortenberry and his wife, Celeste Fortenberry, praised the court’s decision.“We are gratified by the ninth circuit’s decision,” Jeff Fortenberry said in a statement. “Celeste and I would like to thank everyone who has stood by us and supported us with their kindness and friendship.”Representatives from the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles did not have an immediate comment. More

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      Attack on Aipac president’s home in LA investigated as hate crime – reports

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      A protest outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) president’s Los Angeles home is reportedly being investigated as a possible hate crime after social media videos showed demonstrators igniting smoke devices and spattering fake blood.According to reports by the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets, Aipac president Michael Tuchin’s home in the Brentwood section was vandalized Thursday on Thanksgiving by protesters who also pounded pots in the driveway and held up a sign that read: “Fuck your holiday, baby killer.”The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) confirmed it had responded to the block where Tuchin’s house is. The department posted on X – formerly known as Twitter – that protesters “caused a disturbance” weeks after the Israel-Hamas war that erupted in October.“West LA officers responded [and] took crime reports for vandalism/hate crime [and] assault [with a] deadly weapon,” the department added. “Investigations are on-going. No arrests have been made at this time.”The Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, added in a separate post that she has spoken with Tuchin – an attorney by profession – about the “disturbing” case.Bass wrote: “Hate and violence will not be tolerated in our city. LAPD will continue to work with city and business leaders to keep Angelenos safe.”Bass later removed Tuchin’s name from the post, saying it was “for the safety of those involved”. Police said they do not identify the victims of possible crimes and declined to formally identify Tuchin as the target of the demonstrators.Video posted by Sam Yebri, a former Los Angeles city council candidate, showed smoke billowing in the street as people yelled.Yebri said that “pro-Hamas activists committed a terroristic hate crime in Brentwood, throwing smoke bombs at [and] vandalizing the home of the national president of one of America’s leading Jewish organizations”.“This is what happened in Nazi Germany before the ovens and [crematoriums],” Yebri said, clearly referring to the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust during the second world war.A neighbor of Tuchin’s told NBC that when he realized the private property was being attacked by demonstrators he – as a Jew – felt compelled to intervene.“They put red paint on the car, on the driveway, on the windows,” the neighbor said. “They were terrorizing our neighbor.”The neighbor, who declined to be identified, said that during the confrontation he was hit from behind with a steel pole. Police officers called to the scene made the demonstrators march back down the street.On Friday, the police department declared a citywide tactical alert “to ensure sufficient resources to address any incident”. There were more pro-Palestinian protests planned that day.Groups protesting against the war Israel launched in Gaza in response to Hamas’s deadly 7 October attack against Israel have criticized how authorities and media have addressed the protest at the home of Tuchin, who led a successful bankruptcy-related restructuring of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.“Media is in lockstep with LA elected officials & the LAPD to spin this protest as an ‘antisemitic hate crime,’” J-Town Action と Solidarity – which describes itself as a local grassroots collective – wrote on X. J-Town accused news organizations and officials of downplaying Tuchin’s role with Aipac.Los Angeles, home to large populations of Jews and Palestinians, has seen increasing tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.Earlier this month, the parking lot of the iconic Canter’s Deli was defaced with “Free Gaza” and “Israel’s only religion is capitalism”. Similar messages were also scrawled close to a nearby synagogue and condemned by Bass as an “unacceptable rash of hate”. More

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      ‘Almost a troll of the legacy’: Reagan’s spirit looms over Republican debate

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      Tourists posed for photos beside the presidential seal, peered inside the cockpit, studied the nuclear football and gazed at a desk where a “Ronald Reagan” jacket slung over the chair, page of handwritten notes and jelly bean jar made it appear as if the 40th US president could saunter back at any moment.Air Force One is the star attraction at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. But on Wednesday it is competing for attention with a curving Starship Enterprise-style stage set featuring seven lecterns and microphones for the second Republican presidential primary debate.The Reagan library describes this as “the Super Bowl” of Republican debates, against the dramatic backdrop of the Boeing 707 that flew seven presidents and close to the granite gravesite where Reagan was buried in 2004, looking across a majestic valley towards the Pacific Ocean.“As a new field of Republicans make their case to be the next President, the legacy of Ronald Reagan looms larger than ever,” the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, which sustains the library, said in an email statement that will be put to the test at 9pm ET. For there are some who argue that Reagan would no longer recognise a Republican party that now belongs to Donald Trump.“There are no more Reagan Republicans,” said Jason Johnson, a political analyst and professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore. “Having this debate at the Reagan Library is almost a troll of the legacy of actual Republicans in the party because they are no more. The last real Republicans in the party were probably Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The rest of these people are frauds, clowns and sycophants.”Reagan and Donald Trump are the two best US presidents of the past 40 years, according to Republicans surveyed recently by the Pew Research Center (41% said Reagan, who held the office from 1981 to 1989, did the best job while 37% said Trump did). Neither man will be at the two-hour debate – frontrunner Trump is skipping it again – yet both will help to frame it.Several candidates have been straining to drape themselves in Reagan’s political finery. Former vice-president Mike Pence often talks of how he “joined the Reagan revolution and never looked back”, and took his oath with his hand on the Reagan family Bible. This week Pence received the endorsement of five senior Reagan administration officials who praised his stances on limited government, lower taxes, individual freedom, strong defence and abortion restrictions.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has fondly recalled Reagan’s “optimistic, positive revolution” while also approvingly recalling his decision to fire more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981: “He said, you strike, you’re fired.” Scott’s campaign has promoted a quotation from Senator Mike Rounds: “Tim Scott is the closest to Ronald Reagan that you’re going to see.”Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has asserted that it is this generation’s “time for choosing”, a nod to Reagan’s 1964 speech that made him a breakout conservative leader and paved the way for his election as governor of California. In the first debate, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called himself “the only candidate in this race, young or old, black or white, to bring all of those voters along to deliver a Reagan 1980 revolution”.Even Trump has recently begun referencing Reagan as he seeks to navigate the electorally awkward territory of abortion restrictions after the fall of Roe v Wade, stating that “like President Ronald Reagan before me, I support the three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother”.The Reagan Library and Museum, unabashedly laudatory with little discussion of the former president’s record on race relations or Aids, leaves no doubt as to his status as a political touchstone. It chronicles his rise from small-town Illinois (“Almost everybody knew one another”) to General Electric to Hollywood, where his role as football player George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American earned him the nickname “the Gipper” – and the myth-making was under way.A bumper sticker that says “Win it for the Gipper” features in a display on the 1980 presidential election, as does a campaign poster with the pre-Trump slogan: “Let’s make America great again.” The Reagan revolution was assured when he beat Jimmy Carter by 10 percentage points in the popular vote and took 44 of the 50 states – unthinkable in today’s polarised politics.Visitors see a replica of Reagan’s Oval Office, a display of first lady Nancy Reagan’s fashion and a paean to the trickle-down economics now rejected by Joe Biden as a failed economic philosophy, accompanied by the celebrated Morning in America campaign ad and a piano version of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA – now familiar as Trump’s walk-on song at rallies.There is a gallery devoted to Reagan’s “peace through strength” approach to the cold war and “evil empire” of the Soviet Union, including a replica of the Berlin Wall and statues of Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Among his quotations: “We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.”Jonathan Alter, an author of presidential biographies, said: “Unlike Trump, where it’s all about him, where it’s a cult of personality, with Reagan it was heavily ideological. It was all about trying to restore limited government with a strongly anti-communist foreign policy. So it was cut spending, cut taxes, increase defence. That was their agenda and that became the animating idea of the Republican party.”After he left the presidency, Reagan told the Republican national convention: “Whatever else history may say about me … I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.”There has, many would argue, been a significant shift in tone in the Republican party since then. At last month’s first Republican debate in Milwaukee, Pence insisted: “We’re not looking for a new national identity. The American people are the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, idealistic, hard-working people the world has ever known.”Ramaswamy retorted: “It is not morning in America. We live in a dark moment. And we have to confront the fact that we’re in an internal sort of cold, cultural civil war.”This once unthinkable repudiation of Reagan implied that the 40th president’s “shining city on a hill” has given way to the 45th president’s “American carnage”. Bill Kristol, a founding director of the Defending Democracy Together political group and former Reagan administration official, said: “I talked with someone 10 years ago. He was a prominent person who said, ‘I wonder if the mood of America is changing.’ I said something conventional about Reagan Republicans.”Kristol went on: “He said, ‘I don’t think that stuff would work any more. The country’s getting more and more pessimistic.’ I said, ‘Well, the voters still want to have hope and an upbeat message.’ He said, ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Trump, in the way he’s a good demagogue, saw that. You wouldn’t be penalised for being down. Quite the opposite.”Perhaps the area in which Reaganism is closest to being nothing more than a museum piece is foreign policy. Trump has embraced the old foe, Russia, and called Vladimir Putin a “genius”. He has dragged the party towards “America first” isolationism and anti-interventionism. Ramaswamy has vowed to cut off financial support to Ukraine in its war against Russia.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman, said: “Reagan believed we were an example for the rest of the world and charged out to help spread freedom around the rest of the world. The fact that the Republican party has become pro-Putin under Trump – Ronnie just wouldn’t understand it. It goes against everything he believes.”Reagan signed a law granting legal status to nearly 3 million immigrants. Walsh added: “This is very much a-build-a-wall-around-America, keep-everybody-out kind of Republican party. Reagan had a lot of flaws … [but] we were the city on the hill and we welcome all who want to come here.”David Prosperi, an assistant press secretary to Reagan, said: “When Ronald Reagan was running for president he said, ‘I didn’t leave the Democratic party. The Democratic party left me.’ I think today he might just say, ‘This Republican party has left me’.”But there is a school of thought that the former film star Reagan and former TV star Trump have more in common than their devotees would like to admit.Reagan’s critics say he cut taxes for the rich and sowed distrust in government. He spun exaggerated yarns about a “Chicago welfare queen” and a “strapping young buck” using food stamps to “buy a T-bone steak”. In a call with President Richard Nixon he referred to African UN delegates as “monkeys”.Reagan launched his 1980 election campaign with a speech lauding “states’ rights” near the site of the notorious Mississippi Burning murders of three civil rights workers – seen by many as a nod to southern states that resented the federal government enforcing civil rights. Once in office, Reagan opposed affirmative action and busing programmes.Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University, said: “While it’s right to be alarmed by the way in which Trump has moved things into an unprecedented realm, we’d be mistaken to believe this is somehow entirely brand new. I know that the ‘never Trump’ crowd in the Republican party have created this kind of fictitious version of Reagan that was wholly different from Trump. But there are elements of this here.”Reagan arguably tapped into the same populist forces that Trump would later fully unleash. Kruse added: “Reagan, before the presidency, ran for governor of California, where he was very much seen as a backlash candidate, the voice of white resentment. As president, it was much more of a dog whistle approach. Trump is loudly screaming what Reagan said softly with a smile.” More

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      Another bus with dozens of migrants from Texas arrives in Los Angeles

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      Another bus carrying asylum seekers arrived in downtown Los Angeles from a Texas border city early on Saturday, the second such transport in less than three weeks.The bus, which arrived at about 12.40pm at Los Angeles’s Union Station from Brownsville, Texas, held 41 people including 11 children who were with their families, according to a statement from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (Chirla).The busload of people were welcomed by a collective of faith and immigrants’ rights groups and transported to St Anthony’s Croatian Catholic church, where they were given water, food, clothing, medical checkups and initial legal immigration assistance.The office of Los Angeles’ mayor, Karen Bass, was not formally notified but became aware of the bus on Friday, said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, in a statement.The asylum seekers came from Cuba, Belize, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela. According to a statement from Chirla, most of those on the bus are seeking to reunify with family members or sponsors. Six of them need to fly to Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for Chirla.Cabrera said the group “was less stressed and less chaotic than the previous time”, referring to the busload of people who arrived at the same major transit hub on 14 June. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, claimed responsibility for that move in a tweet that read: “Small Texas border towns remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border”.Abbott has not mentioned the latest bus – and an attempt to contact him was not immediately returned – but posted figures in a tweet on Saturday that claimed the Texas national guard and state troopers have “apprehended more than 386,000” asylum seekers. “While Biden ignores the border crisis, Texas is stepping up to fill the gaps he created,” Abbott said.Bass tweeted: “Los Angeles believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity and will continue to do so.”Bass said that after she took office last year, she directed city agencies to begin planning for a possible scenario in which LA “was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Chirla and our partners in Los Angeles are organized and ready to receive these asylum seekers when they get here,” said Angélica Salas, Chirla’s executive director, in a statement. “If Los Angeles is their last destination, we will ensure this is the place where they get a genuine and humane reception.”Earlier in June, the state of Florida picked up three dozen migrants in Texas and sent them by private jet to California’s capital, catching shelters and aid workers in Sacramento by surprise. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, held Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, responsible for the flights of asylum seekers, which came in two waves, and appeared to threaten to file kidnapping charges after the first incident in which a group of migrants was dumped at a Sacramento church. More

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      Los Angeles councilman faces criminal charges including embezzlement

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      Prosecutors charged a Los Angeles city councilman with 10 counts, including embezzlement and perjury, on Tuesday in the latest criminal case to upend the scandal-plagued governing board of the nation’s second-largest city.Curren Price Jr faces five counts of embezzlement of government funds, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest, according to the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office.Price was charged for having a financial interest in projects that he voted on as a council member, and having the city pay nearly $34,000 in medical benefits for his now wife while he was still married to another woman, the Los Angeles county district attorney, George Gascón, said in a statement.Between 2019 and 2021, Price’s wife allegedly received payments totaling more than $150,000 from developers before Price voted to approve projects, according to Gascón’s statement. He also is accused of failing to list the money his wife received on government disclosure forms.“This alleged conduct undermines the integrity of our government and erodes the public’s trust in our elected officials,” Gascón said.Price called the charges “unwarranted”.In a letter to the Los Angeles city council president, Paul Krekorian, Price said he was stepping down from committee assignments and leadership responsibilities “while I navigate through the judicial system to defend my name”.“The last thing I want to do is be a distraction to the people’s business,” he wrote.The council and city government have been shaken by a series of recent scandals.In March, former Democratic city councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas – a one-time legislator, county supervisor and a fixture in local politics for decades – was found guilty in federal court of seven felonies, including conspiracy, bribery and fraud.Last year, a racism scandal that shook public trust in Los Angeles government triggered the resignations in October of then city council president Nury Martinez and a powerful labor leader, Ron Herrera.After an FBI investigation, two other former city council members pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in recent years.Former mayor Eric Garcetti, who left office in December, was shadowed by sexual harassment allegations against one of his former top aides.To residents, the cumulative effect “makes the whole body politic of LA look rotten, look illegal”, said Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.At a time when the city is struggling with an out-of-control homeless crisis, crime, and soaring housing and rent costs, “it makes everything harder,” Regalado said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA criminal complaint said a consulting firm operated by Price’s wife received a series of payments from companies incorporated or co-owned by Thomas Safran & Associates, GTM Holdings/Works and GTM Holdings, before the councilman voted to approve funding for the companies’ projects.Emails seeking comment from those entities were not immediately returned on Tuesday evening.Price was first elected to the council in 2013 and currently serves as its president pro tempore. His district includes South Los Angeles and parts of the city’s downtown. His term is set to expire in 2026.Price, who is Black, has successfully navigated changing demographics in his district – which has become increasingly Latino – and is known for being attentive to communities that are diverse.The councilman had attended a city council meeting earlier on Tuesday.Mayor Karen Bass’s office said in a statement that she had not seen the charges but was “saddened by this news”.Price’s attorney, David Willingham, declined to comment, saying he had not seen a copy of the criminal complaint.The charges were first reported on Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times. More

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      Half a million kids out of class as LA school workers strike for better pay

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      Tens of thousands of workers in the Los Angeles unified school district, accompanied by teachers, walked off the job on Tuesday over stalled contract talks for higher pay and better working conditions, shutting down the nation’s second-largest school system.The strike, which is expected to last three days, upended the lives of more than 500,000 students and their families from schools in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers demanded more support at a time when educators in the city and elsewhere are struggling to afford to live where they work.The latest strike comes years after a swirl of educator activism swept across the country, from Oklahoma to Chicago to Los Angeles itself, as teachers take more aggressive labor action to compel districts to improve working conditions during contract negotiations. In 2019, tens of thousands of teachers walked out of Los Angeles schools for six days and demanded higher wages, smaller class sizes, and more support staff.This time, the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 30,000 teachers’ aides, special education assistants, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other support staff, led districtwide demonstrations. Support workers, who earn, on average, $25,000 a year, with many living in poverty and working limited hours, have demanded a 30% pay raise and more staffing.In what Los Angeles schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho called a “historic” offer, the district has proposed a pay increase of more than 20% over multiple years, with a 3% bonus and “massive expansion of healthcare benefits”, he said on Fox 11.Despite last-minute efforts to avert the strike, talks failed. The district’s support workers, who bring students to and from school, clean schools and feed students every day, have been working without a contract since June 2020.The strike started on Tuesday morning from a bus yard, with workers chanting for better wages and increased staffing in a steady rain before dawn. Some held signs that read: “We keep schools safe, Respect Us!”The district has more than 500,000 students from Los Angeles and all or part of 25 other cities and unincorporated county areas. Nearly three-quarters are Latino.Parent Danielle Peters rallied with union members outside Hancock Park elementary school, along with her children, Jack, 10, and Ella, seven. She said it was wrong that school workers earn as little as $15 an hour, a wage Peters remembers earning for babysitting.“They are underappreciated, they are underpaid, and they have the most important job in the world,” she said of support staff. “We care about them, and this is the least we can do.”Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, pledged solidarity with the strikers.The union’s 2019 strike resulted in a contract settlement, but teachers continue to negotiate with the district after that contract expired in June 2022. Teachers are asking for a 20% pay increase over two years, more targeted support for Black students, and more housing aid for low-income families, as they frame their demands around meeting the rising cost of living in Los Angeles county and the need for increased support in the years of the Covid-19 pandemic.On Friday, the teachers union informed the district that it was terminating its contract, allowing teachers to strike alongside SEIU workers and adding pressure on ongoing negotiations.“These are the co-workers that are the lowest-paid workers in our schools and we cannot stand idly by as we consistently see them disrespected and mistreated by this district,” the UTLA president, Cecily Myart-Cruz, told a news conference.Myart-Cruz was joined by Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat and Senate candidate, who said the strikers were earning “poverty wages”.“People with some of the most important responsibilities in our schools should not have to live in poverty,” Schiff said.On the picket lines, Danielle Murray, a special education assistant, told KABC-TV working conditions had been declining every year.“We’re very understaffed,” Murray said. “The custodial staff is a ghost crew, so the schools are dirty. They’re doing the best they can.”She added: “Some people are saying, ‘If you want more money, get a better job.’ Well, some of us have bachelor’s degrees, but we choose to work with a special population that some people don’t want to work with. We want to make a difference to these students.”Superintendent Alberto M Carvalho accused the union of refusing to negotiate and said that he was prepared to meet at any time day or night. He said on Monday a “golden opportunity” to make progress was lost.“I believe this strike could have been avoided. But it cannot be avoided without individuals actually speaking to one another,” he said.Local 99 said on Monday evening that it was in discussions with state labor regulators over allegations that the district engaged in misconduct that has impeded the rights of workers to engage in legally protected union-related activities.“We want to be clear that we are not in negotiations with LAUSD,” the union said in a statement. “We continue to be engaged in the impasse process with the state.”Those talks would not avoid a walkout, the statement said.During the strike, about 150 of the district’s more than 1,000 schools are expected to remain open with adult supervision but no instruction, to give students somewhere to go. Dozens of libraries and parks, plus some “grab and go” spots for students to get lunches also planned to be open to kids to lessen the strain on parents now scrambling to find care.“Schools are so much more than centers of education – they are a safety net for hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles families,” the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement on Monday. “We will make sure to do all we can to provide resources needed by the families of our city.”Workers, meanwhile, said striking was the only option they had left.Instructional aide Marlee Ostrow, who supports the strike, said she was long overdue for a raise. The 67-year-old was hired nearly two decades ago at $11.75 an hour, and today she makes about $16. That isn’t enough to keep pace with inflation and rising housing prices, she said, and meanwhile her duties have expanded from two classrooms to five.Ostrow blames the district’s low wages for job vacancies that have piled up in recent years.“There’s not even anybody applying because you can make more money starting at Burger King,” she said. “A lot of people really want to help kids, and they shouldn’t be penalized for wanting that to be their life’s work.” More

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      Eric Garcetti confirmed as US ambassador to India after contentious 20-month fight

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      Eric Garcetti, the former mayor of Los Angeles, was confirmed on Wednesday as the nation’s next ambassador to India, 20 months after he was first nominated by Joe Biden and after weathering doubts about his truthfulness in a sexual harassment scandal involving a top adviser during his time at City Hall.The 52-42 vote in a divided Senate gave the administration a long-sought victory in filling one of the country’s highest-profile diplomatic posts.The president “believes that we have a crucial and consequential partnership with India and that Mayor Garcetti will make a strong and effective ambassador,” said a White House spokesperson, Olivia Dalton, after the vote.The session began with uncertain prospects for Garcetti, a two-term, progressive Democrat first nominated to the prominent diplomatic post by Biden in July 2021.With several Democratic defections, Garcetti’s fate rested with enlisting Republicans in a chamber often divided along partisan lines. He secured seven GOP votes to advance the nomination to a final vote.The Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine said, “I met with him personally. He clearly has an enormous amount of expertise about India. India’s been two years without an ambassador, and that is far too long. And I am going to support him.”The vacancy in the ambassadorship has left a significant diplomatic gap for the administration at a time of rising global tensions, including China’s increasingly assertive presence in the Pacific region and Russia’s war with Ukraine.India, the world’s most populous democracy, is continuing to buy oil from Russia, while western governments move to limit fossil fuel earnings that support Moscow’s budget, its military and its invasion of Ukraine. Russia also provides the majority of India’s military hardware.The nomination has been freighted with questions about what the former mayor knew, and when, about sexual harassment allegations against his friend and once-close adviser, Rick Jacobs. A lawsuit alleges that Jacobs frequently harassed one of the then-mayor’s police bodyguards while Garcetti ignored the abuse or laughed it off.Garcetti, the son of the former Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti, has repeatedly denied the claims. Jacobs has called the allegations against him “pure fiction”. The case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.At a Senate committee hearing in December 2021, Garcetti said, “I never witnessed, nor was it brought to my attention, the behavior that’s been alleged … If it had been, I would have immediately taken action to stop that.”Wednesday’s vote tested Democratic loyalty to Biden, and also measured assessments of Garcetti’s judgment and trustworthiness, stemming from the City Hall allegations that shadowed him in the #MeToo era.“I think we can find somebody that will do the job better,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, one of the Democrats who signaled opposition to Garcetti.Garcetti also failed to win over Democrat Mark Kelly of Arizona, who said he had “serious concerns”.Garcetti’s confirmation follows a contentious tenure at Los Angeles City Hall framed by the twin crises of homelessness and the pandemic, rising crime rates and sexual harassment and corruption scandals. The Los Angeles area, once known for boundless growth, has seen its population decline.The former mayor, who took office in 2013, has been credited with continuing a transit buildup in a city choked with traffic, and establishing tougher earthquake safety standards for thousands of buildings.An Ivy Leaguer and Rhodes scholar, he spent two decades in city government either as mayor or a city councilman and took a circuitous path toward the diplomatic corps. Ambassadorships are frequently a reward for political supporters.Garcetti considered a 2020 White House run but later became part of Biden’s inner circle, emerging as a widely discussed possibility to join Biden’s cabinet. He took himself out of the running after many of the plum jobs had been filled, saying the coronavirus crisis at the time made it impossible for him to step away from City Hall. More