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      California Educator Is Charged With Molesting 8 Children

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      David Braff was first accused of misconduct years ago but has since held a series of school jobs. The authorities are investigating the possibility of additional victims. A Los Angeles assistant principal was arrested on Friday and charged with molesting eight children between 2015 and 2019, while he was working as an elementary school counselor in Ventura County. The defendant, David Lane Braff Jr., 42, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., is accused of molesting children aged 6 to 10 in an office at McKevett Elementary School in the Santa Paula Unified School District, roughly 70 miles west of Los Angeles. The charges emerged out of a cold case sexual abuse unit, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said. He noted that officials at McKevett Elementary had reached out to authorities at the time of the alleged incidents.Nevertheless, Mr. Braff has held several jobs in public education since and has also volunteered in a number of programs for children.Mr. Nasarenko described an “extensive search for the possibility of other victims at other school sites and locations.” “This shakes the very foundation of the notion of a school site as a safe learning environment,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Newsom Heads to California Counties That Voted for Trump

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that residents were frustrated by economic problems and said that Democrats needed to address their concerns.On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom will make the first of three post-election visits to California counties that Donald J. Trump won in the presidential race, reaching out to working-class voters in the Central Valley who remain frustrated by economic woes.The appearance in Fresno, to unveil a new economic development system, comes as interviews and polls have shown that economic and class divisions were key to Mr. Trump’s return to power.With Democrats still mulling over their presidential and congressional losses, Mr. Newsom said in an interview on Wednesday that his party needed to learn from the recent election and to address the struggles of American workers.“A lot of people feel like they’re losing their identity or losing their future,” Mr. Newsom said. “Message received.”A leading Democrat who has been viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, California’s governor has long been a pointed critic of Mr. Trump. Over the past two and a half weeks, he has indicated that he expects his state and the Trump administration to repeat the pitched battle they waged during Mr. Trump’s first term, when California sued the federal government more than 120 times.The governor’s immediate response after the Nov. 5 election was to call his state’s Democrat-dominated legislature into an emergency special session that would start in December. Mr. Newsom urged Democrats to “stand firm” against expected efforts by Mr. Trump to deport immigrants, further limit reproductive rights and weaken environmental regulation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El gobernador de California aplaza su decisión sobre los hermanos Menendez

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      Gavin Newson dijo que esperará a que el nuevo fiscal de distrito del condado de Los Ángeles haga su propia revisión sobre el caso antes de considerar la petición de una nueva sentencia.El gobernador de California, Gavin Newsom, dijo el lunes que no tomaría una decisión sobre la concesión de clemencia a Lyle y Erik Menendez, quienes mataron a sus padres en su casa de Beverly Hills en 1989, sino hasta después de que el fiscal de distrito entrante en el condado de Los Ángeles lleve a cabo su propia revisión del caso.El actual fiscal del distrito, George Gascón, pidió al juez en octubre que volviera a sentenciar a los hermanos, que fueron declarados culpables de asesinato en primer grado y condenados a cadena perpetua sin libertad condicional. Por ese entones, los hermanos solicitaron clemencia al gobernador, y Gascón escribió una carta en apoyo de la petición.Pero Gascón perdió su candidatura a la reelección este mes frente a Nathan Hochman, un ex fiscal federal que prometió ser más duro con la delincuencia, y el cambio en el liderazgo ha arrojado algunas dudas sobre si la petición seguirá adelante.“El gobernador respeta el papel del fiscal de distrito para garantizar que se haga justicia y reconoce que los votantes han confiado en el fiscal electo Hochman para llevar a cabo esta responsabilidad”, dijo el despacho de Newsom en un comunicado el lunes. “El gobernador se remitirá a la revisión y análisis del fiscal de distrito electo del caso Menendez antes de tomar cualquier decisión de clemencia”.Hochman ha dicho públicamente que llevará a cabo su propia revisión del caso después de asumir el cargo el 3 de diciembre, y que podría pedir al juez del Tribunal Superior de Los Ángeles que supervisa la petición que retrase una audiencia prevista para el 11 de diciembre.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Menendez Brothers Clemency Decision Is on Hold, Newsom Says

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said he would hold off deciding whether to grant clemency to Lyle and Erik Menendez until after the incoming Los Angeles County district attorney reviewed the case.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Monday that he would not make a decision on granting clemency to Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989, until after the incoming district attorney in Los Angeles County conducted his own review of the case.The current district attorney, George Gascón, asked a judge in October to resentence the brothers, who were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Around the same time, the brothers petitioned the governor for clemency, and Mr. Gascón wrote a letter in support of the request.But Mr. Gascón lost his re-election bid this month to Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who vowed to be tougher on crime, and the change in leadership has cast some doubt on whether the resentencing bid will move forward.“The governor respects the role of the district attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” Mr. Newsom’s office said in a statement on Monday. “The governor will defer to the D.A.-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”Mr. Hochman has said publicly that he will conduct his own review of the case after he is sworn into office on Dec. 3, and that he may ask the Los Angeles Superior Court judge overseeing the resentencing petition to delay a hearing scheduled for Dec. 11.“Once I take office on Dec. 3, I look forward to putting in the hard work to thoroughly review the facts and law of the Menendez case, including reviewing the confidential prison files, the transcripts of the two trials and the voluminous exhibits, as well as speaking with the prosecutors, defense attorneys and victim family members,” Mr. Hochman said in a statement on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Are the Next Leaders of the Democratic Party?

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      Democrats will soon have a leadership vacuum, and there will be no shortage of highly ambitious governors, senators and transportation secretaries looking to fill it.American presidential elections tend to be a zero-sum game for the parties and their voters. Win, and everything is great. Lose, and your party is rudderless, leaderless and powerless.So it goes for the Democrats after Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat to former President Donald J. Trump. Questions about who will lead the party, and in what direction, will be hotly debated as officials explore what went wrong and forge plans to oppose the next Trump administration.Jockeying has already begun, and not all ambition may be rewarded. Appearing too eager to seize the opportunity presented by Ms. Harris’s defeat could backfire if Democrats are not ready to move forward. But if the period after the 2016 election is any guide, scores of Democratic figures and groups will try to fill the leadership void created as President Biden leaves office.Four years is a very long time in politics. In that time, Barack Obama went from a state senator to a presidential nominee. In even less time than that, Mr. Trump transformed from being a reality show figure pushing a racist lie about Mr. Obama to president himself. It is not out of the question that the Democrats’ next leader is not someone on the nation’s radar today.With those caveats, here’s a look at six groups of people who could determine which direction Democrats take as the second Trump administration unfolds.Kamala Harris and Tim WalzMs. Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota campaigning in August in Philadelphia. In his own concession speech last week, Mr. Walz signaled that he was eager to remain relevant in the party.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California Shifts Rightward on Crime in an Election Fueled by Frustration

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      Voters in the Democratic-run state overwhelmingly approved a measure to impose harsher sentences for crimes and were on their way to ousting two progressive district attorneys.California has shown no signs of going Republican anytime soon, but in Tuesday’s elections the reliably liberal state lurched to the right in ways that might surprise other Americans.Fed up with open-air drug use, “smash-and-grab” robberies and shampoo locked away in stores, California voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure, Proposition 36, that will impose harsher penalties for shoplifting and drug possession. Voters in Oakland and Los Angeles were on their way to ousting liberal district attorneys who had campaigned on social justice promises to reduce imprisonment and hold the police accountable. And statewide measures to raise the minimum wage, ban the forced labor of inmates and expand rent control, all backed by progressive groups and labor unions, were heading toward defeat.Amid a conservative shift nationally that included Donald J. Trump’s reclamation of the White House, voters in heavily Democratic California displayed a similar frustration, challenging the state’s identity as a reflexively liberal bastion.And Mr. Trump appears to have gained ground in California compared with four years ago, based on initial election returns, despite facing Vice President Kamala Harris in her home state. (She was still ahead by nearly 18 percentage points after a vote count update on Thursday, but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 by 29 points.)The mood this year was “very negative about the direction of the country especially, but also the state,” said Mark Baldassare, who is a political scientist and the statewide survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California. “Lots of concerns about the direction of the economy, and worries about the cost of living and public safety.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Hits Coachella, Campaigning Once Again in a Blue State

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      Both presidential campaigns agree that seven swing states are likely to determine the outcome of this year’s election. California, which has not voted for a Republican in a presidential race since 1988, is not one of them.But that did not prevent former President Donald J. Trump from heading there anyway on Saturday evening to hold a rally in Coachella, which is better known for its annual music festival with headliners like Lana Del Rey and Bad Bunny than it is for being a stop on a presidential campaign trail.It was an unusual choice 24 days before the election. In 2020, Mr. Trump lost the state by more than five million votes to President Biden. Four years earlier, Mr. Trump lost the state to Hillary Clinton, who got more than 60 percent of the vote. The last Republican to win the state was George H.W. Bush.Although Mr. Trump is not expected to be competitive in California, the rally showed that he could turn out a crowd. Throngs of people at Calhoun Ranch, where it was held, braved the desert sun and temperatures that hovered near 100 degrees, with several attendees requiring medical attention for heat-related illnesses.“I want to give a special hello to Coachella,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, before putting on a red Make America Great Again cap for protection from the desert sun.Mr. Trump then spoke for about 80 minutes in a rambling speech. He criticized California, Vice President Kamala Harris’s home state, as an incubator of failed liberal policies; disparaged the physical appearance of Representative Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment trial of him and is now running for Senate; used a crude nickname to refer to the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom; and took a number of detours to praise the billionaire Elon Musk and to criticize President Biden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Newsom Tacks to the Middle With California in the Spotlight

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      While Donald J. Trump has attacked California as too liberal for the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed several bills that could have become political fodder.For much of the past year, conservatives have considered Gov. Gavin Newsom of California a perfect symbol of liberal excess, a well-coifed coastal governor with national aspirations whose state seemed to embrace undocumented immigrants while homeless encampments proliferated on the streets.It was Mr. Newsom who was invited to debate Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Fox News last November. It was Mr. Newsom whose political action committee ran ads in Republican states to criticize their policies on abortion rights.But Mr. Newsom, a business owner, often governs more from the middle than his critics acknowledge. And over the past month, as he has sifted through hundreds of bills that the heavily Democratic Legislature sent his way to sign or veto by this Monday, his decisions indicate a more centrist shift than usual.With Vice President Kamala Harris, a former senator from California, in a hotly contested race for the White House, Republicans have aimed a spotlight on her and Mr. Newsom’s home state. As such, the governor has been under pressure to make sure that California’s lawmakers don’t give them more ammunition for political attacks.The national political stakes are highMr. Newsom approved many measures that were in keeping with what most Americans would expect in California. There were big bills to address the state’s ongoing housing crisis; labor bills to protect the earnings of child influencers and the likenesses of Hollywood performers; and an outright ban on all plastic bags at retail stores.There was legislation to name the Dungeness crab as the official state crustacean, the banana slug as the official slug, and the black abalone as the official seashell. There was a bill pushed by celebrities like Woody Harrelson and Whoopi Goldberg that will allow Amsterdam-style “cannabis cafes” to open.There was a measure that will require health insurers to cover infertility treatment, including in vitro fertilization, as Democrats have attacked Republicans nationally for restricting access to fertility services.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More