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  • A seemingly cursed Big Sur hiking trail finally reopens. But for how long?

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    Even in picturesque California, few landscapes are as stunning – or as fragile – as Big Sur. The constant storms and seismic activity that forged its dramatic cliffs and canyons also make its infrastructure a nightmare to maintain.

    The primary road through the region, world-famous Highway 1, which clings to cliffs high above the Pacific Ocean in postcard worthy fashion, is almost constantly closed by landslides, isolating communities and stranding weary travelers.

    Local hiking trails don’t fare much better.

    The Pfeiffer Falls Trail intersects with the Valley View Trail, a lovely loop that provides gorgeous views of the state park clear out to the Pacific.

    (Lisa Winner / Save the Redwoods League)

    So, as if they had just taken a deep breath and crossed their fingers, California State Parks officials announced this week that one of the region’s most beloved hikes, the Pfeiffer Falls Trail, will finally reopen after a towering redwood collapsed in a 2023 storm taking out its signature pedestrian bridge.

    The trail, a .75 mile stroll that cuts through Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and ends with a stunning view of a 60-foot waterfall, is one of the prime draws for a park that attracts roughly 750,000 people each year.

    For such a short walk, the trail has a long history.

    In 2008, the 162,818-acre Basin Complex Fire devastated much of the route and surrounding forest. It took $2 million and nearly 13 years to complete a renovation project — removing aged and damaged concrete, rerouting the trail and constructing the bridge — to finally reopen the hike in June 2021.

    About 18-months later, that storm arrived and a towering redwood crashed the party.

    The Pfeiffer Falls Bridge in 2023 after a fallen tree damaged the structure

    The Pfeiffer Falls Bridge in 2023 after a giant redwood fell on part of the structure, closing the trail.

    (California State Parks)

    The tree splintered a 15-foot section of the bridge. Crews salvaged much of the original structure but replaced the damaged section with fiber-reinforced polymer in the hope of making the span stronger and more resilient to its unforgiving environment.

    “It’s unfortunate that the trail had to close so soon after our original renovations,” said Matthew Gomez, senior parks program manager for Save the Redwoods League, a non-profit that helped with the repairs. “But our close partnership with California State Parks allowed us to rebuild the bridge better than ever.”

    It is a truly spectacular hike. Enjoy it while it lasts.

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    Jack Dolan

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  • Following Resignation Of Former Senator Bonham, Oregon Republican Party Elects New Senate Minority Leader – KXL

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    SALEM, Ore. – Oregon Senate Republicans on Monday elected Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, as their new caucus leader.

    Starr succeeds Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, who had served as Minority Leader since 2023. Senator Bonham has announced he’s resigning from the Senate in October.

    “Daniel Bonham’s service as caucus leader has been exceptional,” Starr said in a statement. “He has always punched above his weight class, and he leaves huge shoes to fill. Senator Bonham inspires us to keep looking ahead, and I will always treasure his friendship.”

    Starr rejoined the Senate in 2025 after previously serving in both the Oregon House and Senate from 1999 to 2014. He currently represents Oregon’s 13th Senate District, which includes parts of Yamhill and Washington counties.

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    Grant McHill

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  • Commentary: Finally some fairness in redistricting fight. In Utah, a judge stands up for voters

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    It’s been more than 60 years since Utah backed a Democrat for president. The state’s last Democratic U.S. senator left office nearly half a century ago and the last Utah Democrat to serve in the House lost his seat in 2020.

    But, improbably enough, Utah has suddenly emerged as a rare Democratic bright spot in the red-vs.-blue redistricting wars.

    Late last month, a judge tossed out the state’s slanted congressional lines and ordered Utah’s GOP-run Legislature to draw a new political map, ruling that lawmakers improperly thumbed their noses and overrode voters who created an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering.

    It’s a welcome pushback against the growing pattern of lawmakers arrogantly ignoring voters and pursuing their preferred agenda. You don’t have to be a partisan to think that elections should matter and when voters express their will it should be honored.

    Otherwise, what’s the point of holding elections?

    Anyhow, redistricting. Did you ever dream you’d spend this much time thinking about the subject? Typically, it’s an arcane and extremely nerdy process that occurs once a decade, after the census, and mainly draws attention from a small priesthood of line-drawing experts and political obsessives.

    Suddenly, everyone is fixated on congressional boundaries, for which we can thank our voraciously self-absorbed president.

    Trump started the whole sorry gerrymandering business — voters and democracy be damned — by browbeating Texas into redrawing its congressional map to try to nab Republicans as many as five additional House seats in 2026. The paranoid president is looking to bolster his party ahead of a tough midterm election, when Democrats need to gain just three seats to win a House majority and attain some measure of control over Trump’s rogue regime.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Texas with a proposed Democratic gerrymander and perhaps you’re thinking, well, what about his attempted power grab? While your friendly columnist has deplored efforts to end-run the state’s voter-established redistricting commission, at least the matter is going on the ballot in a Nov. 4 special election, allowing the people to decide.

    Meantime, the political race to the bottom continues.

    Lawmakers in Republican-run Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio may tear up their congressional maps in favor of partisan gerrymanders, and Democrats in Illinois and New York are being urged to do the same.

    When all is said and done, 10 or so additional seats could be locked up by one party or the other, even before a single ballot is cast; this when the competitive congressional map nationwide has already shrunk to a postage stamp-sized historic low.

    If you think that sort of pre-baked election and voter obsolescence is a good thing, you might consider switching your registration to Russia or China.

    Utah, at least, offers a small ray of positivity.

    In 2018, voters there narrowly approved Proposition 4, taking the map-drawing process away from self-interested lawmakers and creating an independent commission to handle redistricting. In 2021, the Republican-run Legislature chose to ignore voters, gutting the commission and passing a congressional map that allowed the GOP to easily win all four of Utah’s House seats.

    The trick was slicing and dicing Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous and densely packed, and scattering its voters among four predominantly Republican districts.

    “There’s always going to be someone who disagrees,” Carson Jorgensen, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, said airily as lawmakers prepared to give voters their middle finger.

    In July 2024, Utah’s five Supreme Court justices — all Republican appointees — found that the Legislature’s repeal and replacement of Proposition 4 was unconstitutional. The ruling kicked the case over to Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson, who on Aug. 25 rejected the partisan maps drawn by GOP lawmakers.

    Cue the predictable outrage.

    “Monday’s Court Order in Utah is absolutely Unconstitutional,” Trump bleated on social media. “How did such a wonderful Republican State like Utah, which I won in every Election, end up with so many Radical Left Judges?”

    In Gibson’s case, the answer is her appointment by Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican who would be considered a radical leftist in the same way a hot fudge sundae could be described as diet food.

    Others offered the usual condemnation of “judicial activism,” which is political-speak for whenever a court decision doesn’t go your way.

    “It’s a terrible day … for the rule of law,” lamented Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is apparently concerned with legal proprieties only insofar as they serve his party’s president and the GOP, having schemed with Trump allies in their failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

    In a ruling last week rejecting lawmakers’ request to pause her decision, Gibson wrote that “Utah has an opportunity to be different.”

    “While other states are currently redrawing their congressional maps to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with the intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful.”

    That’s true. Utah can not only be different from other states, as Gibson suggested.

    It can be better.

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    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • News Analysis: ‘The party is in shambles.’ But some Democrats see reasons for optimism

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    WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party’s standing in public opinion polls has sunk to its lowest point in more than 30 years. Many of the party’s own voters think their leaders aren’t fighting hard enough against President Trump. In one survey, the words they used most often were “weak” and “tepid.”

    “The party is in shambles,” said James Carville, the political strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House after a similar bout of disarray a generation ago.

    And yet, in recent weeks, the beleaguered party has begun to exhibit signs of life.

    Its brand is still unpopular, but its chances of winning next year’s congressional elections appear to be growing; in recent polls, the share of voters saying they plan to vote Democratic has reached a roughly 5% lead over the GOP. Potential presidential candidates, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, are competing noisily for the title of fiercest Trump-fighter. And they have an ace in the hole: As unloved as the Democratic Party is, Trump is increasingly unpopular, too, with an approval rating sagging to 40% or below in some polls.

    “There’s no requirement that people love the Democratic Party in order to vote for it,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said last week. “In an era of negative partisanship, people are motivated to vote more by dislike of the other party than by love for their own.”

    So Carville, despite his diagnosis of “shambles,” thinks things are looking up in the long run.

    “The Democratic Party’s present looks pretty bad, but I think its future looks pretty good,” he said. “I think we’re going to be fine.”

    He cited several straws in the wind: the Democrats’ new energy as they campaign against Trump; the encouraging poll numbers on next year’s congressional elections; and an impressive bench of up-and-coming leaders.

    “The talent level in the current Democratic Party is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Whoever comes out on top of that competition is going to be a pretty strong candidate.”

    But that nomination is three years away — and meanwhile, Democrats face daunting hurdles. For one, Trump has pressed Texas and other Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to cement GOP control of the House of Representatives — an effort that could succeed despite Newsom’s attempt to counter it in California.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a measure to redraw California’s congressional map to aid Democrats.

    (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

    The Democrats, by comparison, remain leaderless and divided — arguing over the lessons of their 2024 defeat and debating how to regain their lost support among working-class and minority voters.

    In a historical sense, the party is going through a familiar ordeal: the struggle a party normally faces after losing an election.

    So Carville and other strategists have sketched out variations of what you might call a three-step recovery plan: First, get out of Washington and rally public opposition to Trump. Second, focus their message on “kitchen table issues,” mainly voters’ concerns over rising prices and a seemingly sluggish economy. Third, organize to win House and Senate elections next year.

    “We have to do well in 2026 to demonstrate we’re not so toxic that people won’t vote for us anymore,” said Doug Sosnik, another former Clinton aide.

    They’re arguing over the lessons of defeat and debating how to regain lost support among working-class and minority voters.

    In battling Trump, they say they’ve found a starting point.

    “We’ve found our footing. We’ve gone on the offensive,” argued Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who spent most of the summer campaigning across the country. “Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for billionaires have given us a message we can unite around.”

    They still have plenty of differences over specific policies — but a spirited debate, some say, is exactly what the party needs.

    “The most important task of the Democratic Party is to organize … the most robust debate Democrats have had in a generation,” said William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former Clinton aide who argues that the party needs to move to the center.

    Here’s what most Democratic leaders agree on: They’ve heard their voters’ demands for a more vigorous fight against Trump. They agree that they need to reconnect with working-class voters who don’t believe the party really cares about them. They need to cast themselves as a party of change, not the status quo. And they need to begin by regaining control of the House of Representatives next year.

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) says the Democrats have "found our footing."

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) says the Democrats have “found our footing.”

    (Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)

    Most Democrats also agree that they need to focus on a positive message on economic issues such as the cost of living — to use this year’s buzzword, “affordability.”

    But they differ on the specifics.

    Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have focused on “fighting oligarchy,” including higher taxes on the wealthy and government-run health insurance.

    Khanna, a Silicon Valley progressive, is campaigning for a program he calls “economic patriotism” — essentially, industrial policies to spur investments in strategic sectors.

    Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a blunt-spoken populist, wants to make capitalism do more for ordinary workers. “Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “We’re afraid of saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.’”

    And from the party’s centrist wing, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describes his program as “build, baby, build,” arguing that Democrats should focus on making housing affordable and expanding technical and vocational education.

    A sharper debate has opened over social and cultural issues: Should Democrats break with the identity politics — the stuff Republicans deride as “woke” — that animates much of their progressive wing? Moderate Democrats argue that “wokeness” has alienated voters in the center and made it impossible to win presidential elections.

    “I think there’s a perception that Democrats became so focused on identity that we no longer had a message that could actually speak to people across the board,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NPR last month.

    The controversy over transgender women and girls in women’s sports has become an early test. Newsom, Buttigieg and Emanuel have broken with the left, arguing that there’s a case for barring transgender women from competition. “It is an issue of fairness,” Newsom said on his podcast in March.

    Their statements prompted fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates. “I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” Emanuel joked in an interview with conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly in July.

    Other Democrats have tread more cautiously. “We need to make a compelling economic vision … our first, second and third priority,” Khanna said. Meanwhile, be said, “we can stay true to our values.”

    Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin was blunter. “We have to stand up for every LGBTQ kid and their family who want to play sports like any other kid,” he said last week.

    Those battles will play out over the long campaign, already in its first stirrings, for the next presidential nomination — the traditional way American political parties settle on a single message.

    “It takes time for a party to get up off the mat,” acknowledged Sosnik, the former Clinton strategist. “We didn’t get here overnight. We’re not going to get out of it overnight.”

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    Doyle McManus

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  • Judge rules Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn for the 2026 elections

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    The Utah Legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled Monday that the Republican-controlled body circumvented safeguards put in place by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.Related video above — Get the Facts: Redistricting or Gerrymandering? The current map, drawn in 2021, divides Salt Lake County — the state’s population center and a Democratic stronghold — among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins.District Court Judge Dianna Gibson made few judgments on the content of the map but declared it unlawful because lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The nature of the violation lies in “the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government,” Gibson said in her ruling.New maps will need to be drawn quickly for the 2026 midterm elections. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections official, asked the courts for the case to be finalized by November to leave time for the process before candidates start filing in early January. But appeals promised by Republican lawmakers could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the U.S. House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for President Donald Trump in 2018.Trump has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting battle, but so far only California has taken action to offset GOP gains in Texas.

    The Utah Legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled Monday that the Republican-controlled body circumvented safeguards put in place by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.

    Related video above — Get the Facts: Redistricting or Gerrymandering?

    The current map, drawn in 2021, divides Salt Lake County — the state’s population center and a Democratic stronghold — among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins.

    District Court Judge Dianna Gibson made few judgments on the content of the map but declared it unlawful because lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. The nature of the violation lies in “the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government,” Gibson said in her ruling.

    New maps will need to be drawn quickly for the 2026 midterm elections. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections official, asked the courts for the case to be finalized by November to leave time for the process before candidates start filing in early January. But appeals promised by Republican lawmakers could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.

    The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the U.S. House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for President Donald Trump in 2018.

    Trump has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting battle, but so far only California has taken action to offset GOP gains in Texas.

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  • Texas’ Republican-controlled House approves new maps to create more winnable GOP congressional seats

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    It’s been over 24 hours since Republican Texas House Speaker Dustin Burr said Democrats would be released into the custody of *** designated Department of Public Safety officer after Monday’s session. The doorkeeper will lock the doors, while other Democrats complied. State rep Nicole Collier refused. I am exercising my constitutional right to oppose. Instead. Settled in at her desk to spend the night. Collier posted on social media that she refused to sign away my dignity. I feel like this is wrong, that they are exercising this type of control over another person. It’s un-American. Texas House conservatives aim to put *** redistricting bill on the floor Wednesday after the redistricting committee voted to advance new congressional maps. GOP. Efforts to redraw maps would likely create 5 more GOP leaning seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. In order to secure the vote, Republicans need *** quorum of lawmakers, which Democrats had previously skipped out on by leaving the state. Their 15 day standoff ended Monday when they returned, and Democratic legislators in California agreed to consider employing similar. Districting maneuvers as Republicans have done in Texas. We didn’t ask for this fight. They brought this fight to us, and California cannot stand down if other states are attempting to cheat and rig the election in 20. On Tuesday, the California Senate committee voted 4 to 1 to advance *** bill that redraws that state’s congressional boundaries. I’m Sherelle Hubbard reporting.

    Texas Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward approving new congressional maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, spurring what’s likely to be a national battle over redistricting.The approval by the Texas House of Representatives came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s election. The maps need to be approved by the state Senate and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official.Texas state legislative Democrats delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing the state earlier this month in protest, and were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s session.The approval of the Texas maps is likely to prompt California’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature to approve a new House map creating Democratic-leaning districts. Unlike in Texas, the California map would require approval by voters in November before it becomes official.Democrats have also vowed to sue to challenge the new Texas map and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month.

    Texas Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward approving new congressional maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, spurring what’s likely to be a national battle over redistricting.

    The approval by the Texas House of Representatives came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s election. The maps need to be approved by the state Senate and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official.

    Texas state legislative Democrats delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing the state earlier this month in protest, and were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s session.

    The approval of the Texas maps is likely to prompt California’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature to approve a new House map creating Democratic-leaning districts. Unlike in Texas, the California map would require approval by voters in November before it becomes official.

    Democrats have also vowed to sue to challenge the new Texas map and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month.

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  • Obama applauds Newsom’s California redistricting plan as ‘responsible’ as Texas GOP pushes new maps

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    Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the wake of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections. “I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this doesn’t go into effect.”While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,” Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”According to organizers, the event raised $2 million for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates, one of which has filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn districts. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder, who served as Obama’s attorney general and heads up the group, also appeared.The former president’s comments come as Texas lawmakers return to Austin this week, renewing a heated debate over a new congressional map creating five new potential GOP seats. The plan is the result of prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives. Texas Democratic lawmakers delayed a vote for 15 days by leaving the state in protest, depriving the House of enough members to do business.Spurred on by the Texas situation, Democratic governors, including Newsom, have pondered ways to possibly strengthen their party’s position by way of redrawing U.S. House district lines, five years out from the Census count that typically leads into such procedures.In California — where voters in 2010 gave the power to draw congressional maps to an independent commission, with the goal of making the process less partisan — Democrats have unveiled a proposal that could give that state’s dominant political party an additional five U.S. House seats in a bid to win the fight for control of Congress next year. If approved by voters in November, the blueprint could nearly erase Republican House members in the nation’s most populous state, with Democrats intending to win the party 48 of its 52 U.S. House seats, up from 43.A hearing over that measure devolved into a shouting match Tuesday as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats, and a committee voted along party lines to advance the new congressional map. California Democrats do not need any Republican votes to move ahead, and legislators are expected to approve a proposed congressional map and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required voter approval.Newsom and Democratic leaders say they’ll ask voters to approve their new maps only for the next few elections, returning map-drawing power to the commission following the 2030 census — and only if a Republican state moves forward with new maps. Obama applauded that temporary timeline.”And we’re going to do it in a temporary basis because we’re keeping our eye on where we want to be long term,” Obama said, referencing Newsom’s take on the California plan. “I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.”___Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAPSee more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the wake of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections.

    “I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this doesn’t go into effect.”

    While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,” Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”

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    According to organizers, the event raised $2 million for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and its affiliates, one of which has filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn districts. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder, who served as Obama’s attorney general and heads up the group, also appeared.

    The former president’s comments come as Texas lawmakers return to Austin this week, renewing a heated debate over a new congressional map creating five new potential GOP seats. The plan is the result of prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives. Texas Democratic lawmakers delayed a vote for 15 days by leaving the state in protest, depriving the House of enough members to do business.

    Spurred on by the Texas situation, Democratic governors, including Newsom, have pondered ways to possibly strengthen their party’s position by way of redrawing U.S. House district lines, five years out from the Census count that typically leads into such procedures.

    In California — where voters in 2010 gave the power to draw congressional maps to an independent commission, with the goal of making the process less partisan — Democrats have unveiled a proposal that could give that state’s dominant political party an additional five U.S. House seats in a bid to win the fight for control of Congress next year. If approved by voters in November, the blueprint could nearly erase Republican House members in the nation’s most populous state, with Democrats intending to win the party 48 of its 52 U.S. House seats, up from 43.

    A hearing over that measure devolved into a shouting match Tuesday as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats, and a committee voted along party lines to advance the new congressional map. California Democrats do not need any Republican votes to move ahead, and legislators are expected to approve a proposed congressional map and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required voter approval.

    Newsom and Democratic leaders say they’ll ask voters to approve their new maps only for the next few elections, returning map-drawing power to the commission following the 2030 census — and only if a Republican state moves forward with new maps. Obama applauded that temporary timeline.

    “And we’re going to do it in a temporary basis because we’re keeping our eye on where we want to be long term,” Obama said, referencing Newsom’s take on the California plan. “I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.”

    ___

    Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Powerful labor coalition backs redrawing California’s congressional map in fight with Texas and Trump

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    One of California’s most influential labor organizations endorsed redrawing the state’s congressional maps to counter President Trump’s effort to push Republican states, notably Texas, to increase his party’s numbers in Congress in next year’s midterm election.

    The California Federation of Labor Unions voted unanimously Tuesday to support putting a measure on the ballot in November. The proposal, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many of the state’s Democratic leaders, would ask voters to temporarily change congressional district boundaries that were drawn by an independent redistricting commission four years ago, with some conditions.

    Republicans could potentially lose up to a half dozen seats in California’s 52-member delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. After it returns for its summer recess on Aug. 18, the California Legislature is expected to vote to place the measure on the statewide ballot in a special election.

    “President Trump has said that Republicans are ‘entitled’ to five more congressional votes in Texas. Well, they aren’t entitled to steal the 2026 election. California’s unions refuse to stand by as democracy is tested,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the federation, said in a statement. “California Labor is unified in our resolve to fight back against President Trump’s anti-worker agenda.”

    Redistricting — the esoteric redrawing of the nation’s 435 congressional districts — typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. census tallies the population across the nation. Population shifts can result in changes in a state’s allocation of congressional seats, such as when California lost a seat after the 2020 census the first time in the state’s history.

    The political redistricting process had long been crafted by elected officials to give their political parties an edge or to protect incumbents — sometimes in brazen, bizarrely shaped districts. Californians voted in 2010 to create an independent commission to draw congressional maps based on communities of interest, logical geography and ensuring representation of minority communities.

    The ballot measure being pushed by Newsom and others would allow state lawmakers to help determine district boundaries for the next three election cycles if Texas approves a pending measure to reconfigure districts to increase Republican-held congressional seats in that state. Line-drawing would return to the independent commission after the 2030 census.

    The California Federation of Labor is committed to spending several million dollars supporting a mid-decade redistricting ballot measure, on top of what it already planned to spend on competitive congressional races next year, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the strategy.

    A spokesperson for several organizations devoted to fighting any effort to change the state’s redistricting process said that Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire, and who bankrolled the ballot measure to create the independent commission, is committed to making sure it is not weakened.

    “While Charles Munger has been out of politics since 2016, he has said he will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting,” said Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition. “His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard.”

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Commentary: Newsom vows Texas will be ‘neutered’ by California. Will voters let him do it?

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom made a ballsy threat this week to Texas legislators who are trying to gerrymander voting maps in favor of Republicans.

    “Whatever they are doing will be neutered here in the state of California, and they will pay that price,” Newsom said. “They’ve triggered this response. And we’re not going to roll over, and we’re going to fight fire with fire.”

    The “we” in that sentence is you, California voters, who may soon be asked to fix the Texas menace via the ballot box. If Newsom has his way, voters in November would face some version of an if/then question: “If Texas cheats on their voting maps, then (and only then) should California cheat on ours?”

    In these days of creeping authoritarianism, it’s a fair query, but also one rife with personal interests and risks large enough to remake American democracy, or even inadvertently crush it.

    But such is the state of our union that even those determined to preserve it are ready to throw out its basic tenets — myself included, sort of — and cause a national kerfuffle by considering remaking voting maps to supposedly benefit, if not a party, democracy as a whole.

    “This is something that we have just never seen before, right?” Mindy Romero told me Tuesday. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

    Romero is against gerrymandering, but also agrees that we are in “unprecedented times,” a phrase that doesn’t seem to do justice to the daily trampling of democratic safeguards by our president.

    Most of you are aware by now that the Texas Legislature, allegedly after pressure from President Trump, is contemplating redrawing its voting maps in the hopes of scooping up more seats for Republicans in Congress during the 2026 midterms — the very election that Democrats are praying will deliver them control of at least one chamber.

    With the possibility that this Texas two-step could hand Trump an even more solidly compliant Congress, Newsom has come up with a plan to gerrymander our own maps. But to make it (hopefully) legal, he needs voters to go along with it because this ain’t Texas, and we don’t ignore rules. We bend them.

    Whoever thought redistricting could be this exciting? But stay calm, redistricting nerds: It remains boring to the majority of voters, which is both the problem and the brilliance of the plan — you have to engage voters, but also not so much that they think too deeply.

    The difference between Texas and California is our ballot initiative process, which would ultimately make voters responsible for any gerrymandering here. In Texas, it’s backroom stuff.

    But will voters go for it? For many, it will come down to simple choices that miss the complexity of what is being asked: California vs. Texas, Newsom vs. Trump, democracy vs. authoritarianism.

    Romero warns that once you smash a norm, even for a virtuous reason, it’s hard to get it back. She worries that despite Newsom’s claim that the rigged maps would disappear in 2030, the gerrymandering might remain.

    California has one of the best systems in the country right now for nonpartisan redistricting, with an independent commission that draws lines without regard to party.

    It was put in place because decades of gerrymandering left voters disenchanted.

    In the 1980s, political icon Phillip Burton allegedly wrangled an infamous gerrymander that still shows just how bad things could be. He did it in part to protect the seat of his brother, John Burton ( a colorful fellow who served in both the state Legislature and Congress before becoming chair of the California Democratic Party) creating a district that wound around the Bay Area in a nonsensical fashion to scrape up the necessary votes.

    “Oh, it’s gorgeous,” Phillip Burton described that questionable territory to the Washington Post at the time. “It curls in and out like a snake.”

    That was just the way business was done before our redistricting commission was put in place in 2008, with a hefty push by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who remains a vocal critic of gerrymandering and who has vowed to fight Newsom’s plan.

    But that nonpartisan system was hard won, and in reality, neither party really loved the idea.

    “We’ve gone through this and in cooler times,” Romero pointed out. “The Democrats and the Republicans in California did not want independent redistricting. Let’s make that clear. But a lot of people came together and worked towards this.”

    So while any upcoming ballot measure will likely focus on the righteousness of fighting fire with fire, it’s also true that the Democratic party and some Democratic politicians would hope to reap personal gain from such a vote.

    As much as this might be about saving democracy, politics is always about personal and party gain. Some California state legislators would surely desire to win a newly drawn seat in Congress. And, of course, there are Newsom’s political ambitions.

    “It’s really difficult to disentangle people that may be sincerely scared for our democracy” from those “that may be jumping on this, seeing it as a political opportunity. And I think we have to be really honest about that,” Romero said.

    That’s the choice that voters will ultimately be asked to make.

    But we also can’t ignore the precarious nature of the times, and the reality that our checks and balances are disintegrating. Do we save election integrity and maybe risk democracy, or try to save democracy and risk election integrity?

    Two paths lead into the dark. Do voters follow Newsom or Trump?

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Cumbiatón returns to Los Angeles right in time for Pride season

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    Picture it, West Hollywood, the tension is high in the air as this year’s Project Drag contestants battled each other, one act after the other. Los Angeles Blade was on hand as guest judge for this particular evening, with TV show characters being the theme of the night. Project Drag, created in 2013 by nightlife personality Tony Moore, is THE drag competition when it comes to representing local drag queens. Even though this evening’s edition marked just a few weeks into the competition, it was clear these queens wanted to win…badly.

    LØRELEI, no stranger to a spotlight, took the stage dressed as Smurfette and launched into a frenzy of dancing (backup dancers in tow). Halfway through her act with a dizzying array of jumps and jazz hands, she leapt into the air and smack dab into the DJ! The audience gasped as she teetered on the edge of the DJ’s station. Would she crash into the DJ, taking the whole setup with her? Or would she fall back and crash into the audience? Gravity had its way, and she crashed into the floor in a blurred mess of yellow hair and red high heels. Was this the end of LØRELEI’s time with Project Drag? Like the showperson she is, she turned the moment into a bit, not knowing that weeks later, she would take home the crown.

    Even though LØRELEI wanted the win so much, she came to the competition a consummate performer, mixing her theatre world with her drag skills to put on truly unique acts. She is a true drag queen in the sense that she’s not just about looks. She can command an audience, she is a successful podcast co-host of SHABLAM!, and she co-founded and runs Dionysia, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing long-form theatrical works by drag artists. Oh, and did we mention she’s been touring around the nation with the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch? When did she even have time to do the competition? It’s what she does, she makes the show go on.

    We chatted with this fabulous queen after her win, in between cities on her current tour.

    What was your first exposure to drag?

    I was always a theatre kid since I was 10, and I was introduced to drag in small doses through Musical Theater. A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots – seeing queer representation in this particular medium was formative to my understanding of drag, and knowing that one day I wanted to be a famous drag queen. Through high school, I would dress in drag for Halloween, and by the time I got to college, I started to hit club nights that were 18+ in drag.

    What was your first professional drag gig? How did it go?

    I remember my first “big-time” professional gig was at Queen Kong with the Boulet Brothers back when they produced parties at Precinct in 2018. I competed in their star-search competition, placing 2nd in the Top 3 alongside Kornbread Jete (RPDR S14) and Charles Galin (King of Drag S1). After that, I was added to the rotation as a performer at Queen Kong until they finished producing the party in 2019. My very first booking with them after the competition was a “Satanic Lady Gaga” night, and I performed “Applause” as Charles Manson. I was so nervous, and I was corseting so tight, I think at that age I was corseting down to 21 inches – so I hate to say this, but I threw up onstage during my performance. The audience was shocked – and I was shocked too. But I kept performing and made it work. Around this time, Dragula was picking up speed, and we had seen the likes of Vander Von Odd vomiting on screen as part of the performance, so many thought that what I did was incredibly punk, and I just kinda ran with it. It’s one of my cringiest memories in drag – but I remember after my number, the Boulets came to check in with me and make sure I was okay, and they told me that I did a great job and that they loved the number. The show must go on, I guess!

    What sets your drag apart from other Queens?

    What sets me apart the most from other queens are my inventive performance ideas. I am a conceptual performer with a sense of humor that I express through writing and staging, and many of my performances feel like short-form theatre shows. My palette of references steers away from conventional drag pageantry, and gears more toward the avant-garde, the meta-theatrical and the bizarre. Every performance has a new character, so you never know what to expect from a Lorelei show – but I guarantee that no matter what you will be entertained. 

    You are the winner of Project Drag! What did going through this competition teach you most about yourself? 

    That no matter how cunty you think you are, there is always room to grow. It taught me not to be afraid to try things that might make you uncomfortable. Being in a competition like Project Drag requires you to be vulnerable and receptive to critique, it requires you to risk failing despite your best efforts. There were plenty of times that I fumbled in the competition – literally. One week I fell clear off of the DJ stand (shoutout to my Smurfette performance). But there were also many successes – I won two challenges before hitting the finale, and those were celebratory moments that demonstrated the best of what my drag could be. You have to take the good with the bad, and if you don’t ever swing big, you’ll never get that pay off to celebrate your drag. You have always be a student of the world, and look for ways to constantly improve your craft. 

    What were your biggest challenges in making it through the competition?

    I would say the schedule of the competition was probably the hardest part – this was an 11-week competition, with challenges that are comparable to Drag Race, including group challenges and design challenges. Our weeks were spent crafting, rehearsing, spending, working incredibly hard to stay on top of our game every week, while still balancing life obligations like work or our health. 

    Personally, I was competing in Project Drag while also traveling out of town every weekend as a cast member in the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Version brunch show. During the competition, I traveled to cities like Albuquerque, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and Austin. Every week, I’d fly out after work on Friday, perform brunch shows on Saturday and Sunday, fly back home Monday morning, and then compete in Project Drag that same night. From Tuesday to Thursday, I balanced my day job, other drag gigs, and prepped as much as I could for the next week’s challenge—before hopping on another flight Friday and doing it all over again.

    It was incredibly challenging, but that’s how badly I wanted to win. Looking back, I’m truly grateful for the experience. With everything I managed to juggle, I can honestly say this was the most drag I’ve ever done in my life—and I love living a life that’s so deeply connected to my craft.

    What do you plan to do with your title?

    I will probably leverage this title as rage bait against my haters for the rest of my life! And also — of course, I want to use this title to platform my own personal creative journey of making drag performance pieces, but also I would like to use it to platform other artists I work with. There are so many drag artists who helped me win Project Drag because they believed in my vision, and I want to give back to those friends and the community at large. With this title, I hope I can be a beacon for drag artists who may feel limited by the artistic scope of doing drag in a club or bar and are looking to bring their artistry to new arenas, like stages, art galleries, and alternative performance spaces. I hope to create new avenues for drag artists to incubate their ideas and develop performances that push the limits of our industry. 

    Theater and drag are two major components of your life. How do your drag and theatre aesthetics complement each other?

    I’ve always considered myself a theatre artist, using drag as my medium. Drag has an important role in theatre traditions all around the world, and I think it is the chosen responsibility of a handful of drag artists to continue that performance tradition and innovate upon it as time passes. I’m inspired by artists like Taylor Mac, John Cameron Mitchell, Hibiscus – who use drag and playwriting as a means of distilling their ideas and insights about the world. In the future, I hope I can produce more theatrical work that uses drag as a means of storytelling, and infiltrate the theatre industry with new works that feature drag artists onstage.

    What is your biggest mission in running Dionysia?

    My biggest mission in running Dionysia is to create a collective of theatre artists and drag artists who help each other in producing more long-form theatrical works that feature queer voices. I would say most theatre queens are known for impersonating or re-creating famous theatre productions onstage, like doing Liza Minnelli or Wicked-themed drag brunch. However, my goal with Dionysia was to make an incubator for drag artists to bring in their own original material and collaborate with others to bring it to life onstage. It’s all about innovating new works to then perform onstage, submit to festivals or grants, and hopefully grow the skill set of each individual artist. 

    How can the queer community best support the drag community?

    The queer community can help support the drag community by joining us at our events, and thus helping us promote our work of creating safe spaces at a time when being queer in public is becoming politicized once again. As drag artists, we do more than just perform onstage: we offer our image and our visibility as a means of indicating to others that we are creating a space that is sacred for our community. As drag artists, we share stories, we contribute to local culture, we help to preserve community and tradition, and we always appreciate audiences who at minimum come to enjoy the show because it motivates us to continue our work. Tipping helps too! 

    How has being a drag queen changed your life the most?

    Being a drag queen has changed my life for the better because it has galvanized my life behind the guiding principle of liberation for obviously queer people, but really of all marginalized people. To me, being able to do drag feels like a proclamation of my freedom – my ability to be whoever I want, when I want. Everyone should have that freedom. I think of that age-old adage “no one is free until we are all free” – and it makes me realize that while I have the liberty to express myself, there are people around the world who don’t have that privilege. I think drag queens in general are especially attuned to the pursuit of justice, and that has helped to guide my life in the direction of being in service to others. Freedom for me means freedom for all – from the USA, to Palestine, no matter who you are or where you’re from. 

    We also love your podcast SHABLAM! What do you love most about the podcast? 

    Of course I love the opportunity on SHABLAM! to discuss my thoughts and opinions, but the best part is being able to do it with my co-host Annie Biotixx. Annie and I have been friends and collaborators for a long while now, and she always keeps me motivated to produce my best work. She competed in Project Drag 5, and although she didn’t make it as the winner of her season, she was a rock for me in my season of Project Drag, providing her support and guidance through all the challenges. She was even featured in my winning finale number! She’s an incredible host and drag queen here in Los Angeles, and a high-value theatre aesthete. Collaborating with her is effortless, and makes my job of showing up each week to record very easy. 

    What do you want listeners to walk away with after listening to SHABLAM?

    At the end of the day, I want listeners to walk away feeling like they belong to an online community that supports them. Ultimately it’s a comedy podcast, so I always want people to laugh – but humor is such a great tool for building community. I feel through recording SHABLAM!, we are sharing our jokes, our vocal stims, whatever makes us laugh to build a shared language that we can use to identify who is part of this online community, and who share our values and principles. We create a space for people to find each other!

    What are your biggest challenges in being a drag queen in SoCal?

    Compared to other cities, I think the SoCal drag scene, particularly in Los Angeles, is uniquely suited to support many different types of drag, thanks to our sprawling geography. From West Hollywood to Downtown, from the Valley to the Inland Empire, there are countless pockets around LA that each celebrate a distinct style of drag. This diversity makes it possible for many people to pursue and succeed in drag.

    However, that same strength also presents a challenge: everyone is looking to succeed, and the scene is highly competitive. The geography that fosters diversity also makes it difficult to make a name for yourself across all these different drag communities. Successful drag queens in SoCal know how to navigate between these various pockets. They show up professional, prepared, and with a strong point of view that sustains them over time. It takes patience, tenacity, and a commitment to continually growing your skill set and network. 

    You are touring with Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch Version! What Taylor Swift song most speaks to you presently and why?

    Yes! I’ve been listening to a lot of her music for our show, and I would say that the song that speaks to me the most… on tough days, it’s “Anti-Hero” from Midnights. I think any artist can relate to the feeling of self-sabotage, and as I get older, I realize I have a lot of learning to do. But on good days – I believe in “Karma” from Midnights. I feel at ease in knowing that the universe is working for me, and what is meant for me will not pass me by. Winning Project Drag has amplified both of those feelings, and I know in my heart that this title was meant for me.

    Do you get up to any shenanigans (wink, wink) while on tour?

    My PARENTS are going to want to read this article, you FREAK! Lol, I’m kidding – yes, of course, there are plenty of shenanigans, and if you are interested, might I direct you to Season 2 of my podcast SHABLAM! Where, in addition to dissecting Project Drag week-to-week in real time, we discuss my escapades while on the road. Last thing I’ll say is get tested, get on PrEP, remember that undetectable = untransmittable! Mwah!

    What kind of legacy do you want to create with your theatre and drag?

    I’d like to leave a legacy as a thought leader in the school of theatre and drag. I want to hybridize performance theory, queer history and drag performance to create innovative works that push the limits of how drag can be used in storytelling. I want to be added to the canon of drag artists who are lauded by the global theatre community, and leave in my legacy a collection of dramaturgically astute, advanced works of drag theatre. 

    What is your message to the community this Pride season?

    Where do I even begin with all the chaos that has ensued in Los Angeles since the election of our current administration? ICE raids terrorizing our communities and kidnapping our neighbors is a crime beyond comprehension. It has rightfully left many of us feeling scared and hopeless, but I encourage the community to remain firm in our pursuit of justice and to fight back against Facism! Donate, Protest, Educate, Engage – do whatever you can to make it clear to any authoritative power that Los Angeles will not be fucked with! Especially the queer community! Today, we stand on the shoulders of queer ancestors who have endured similar treatment of threats and intimidation, and we have persevered. We will always be here! And no human is illegal on stolen land!

    Follow LØRELEI on IG.

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    Gisselle Palomera

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  • Why Republicans are expected to take control of the Senate

    Why Republicans are expected to take control of the Senate

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    Republicans are expected to retake control of the U.S. Senate, creating obstacles for Vice President Kamala Harris if she is elected president and a potential glide path for former President Trump’s agenda if he wins the White House.

    The GOP’s edge is created by a number of factors. Several of the Democratic senators up for reelection were initially elected during years favorable to their party, such as the 2006 backlash to then-President George W. Bush or during then-President Obama’s successful 2012 reelection campaign — and are facing headwinds for the first time.

    “The nature of the calendar of Senate elections almost always gives one party or other an advantage in every cycle. Democrats have a lot more seats up this year and so they’re working at a disadvantage,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.

    “One other way of looking at it is that 2018 was Trump’s first midterm election, and it ended up being a very good year for the Democrats,” Schnur added. “But now many of the senators who benefited from that climate six years ago are facing a much more difficult challenge this year.”

    Additionally, Republicans recruited a number of wealthy candidates who have self-funded their campaigns or raised large sums of money. For example, Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is being challenged by GOP Sen. Eric Hovde, who has put $20 million into his campaign, more than her last two rivals spent combined, said Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analyst of races.

    “Our current projection is Republicans picking up between two and five seats,” Taylor said.

    Democrats currently control 51 seats of the 100-member Senate because the three independents in the body caucus with Democrats. Republicans control 49 seats.

    Which states are the best pickup opportunities for Republicans?

    One of the Senate’s three independents is Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who is retiring. Republicans are expected to easily win this open seat in a state Trump carried by nearly 70% of the vote in 2020.

    Montana, where Republican businessman Tim Sheehy is challenging Democratic incumbent Jon Tester, is also expected to be a likely GOP pickup. Sheehy leads Tester by an average of 6.5 percentage points in recent polling compiled by Real Clear Politics.

    Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown was also believed to be vulnerable in a challenge by Republican businessman Bernie Moreno. The race is in effect tied in recent polling. Democrats have been hammering Moreno over a statement he was caught making on camera saying abortion rights shouldn’t be an issue for women over age 50. Taylor points to a new Iowa poll that showed a Democratic shift among older women that could boost Brown if it is happening in Ohio.

    What other states are being watched closely?

    Wisconsin’s Baldwin has a 1.4-point edge over Hovde in recent polling, according to Real Clear Politics. Contests in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada have similar tight contests, though the two Western states show an interesting dynamic:

    Democrats Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada have narrow leads over their Republican challengers, but both outpace how Harris is expected to do in their respective states.

    GOP incumbents are facing notable challenges in the red states of Texas and Nebraska.

    In Texas, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz holds a 4-point lead over Democratic Rep. Colin Allred in recent polling, but the race is tight for such a traditional Republican state.

    In Nebraska, incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer narrowly leads independent union leader Dan Osborn.

    What does control of the Senate mean for the next president?

    Schnur and Taylor agreed that a Republican-controlled Senate would allow Trump to enact the policies he has discussed throughout his campaign.

    “If it’s a Republican Senate, you could certainly see Republicans passing a lot of Trump’s priorities — no tax on tips, tariffs, following his foreign policy guidelines,” Taylor said.

    Schnur added that the filibuster would almost certainly be eliminated and the body would become “almost an assembly line” for Trump’s judicial nominees.

    The exact opposite is true if Harris wins the White House, they said.

    “If President Harris was given a Republican Senate, she would be the first president in almost 40 years not to take office with a Congress of the same party,” Schnur said. “So from Day One, it would be much more difficult for her to move her agenda forward.”

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    Seema Mehta

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  • ‘Celebrity A’ accused of raping 13-year-old during a VMAs afterparty hosted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, lawsuit alleges

    ‘Celebrity A’ accused of raping 13-year-old during a VMAs afterparty hosted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, lawsuit alleges

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    When Sean “Diddy” Combs was charged last month in a federal sex-trafficking probe, it unleashed a wave of lawsuits detailing how the music industry mogul allegedly drugged and assaulted men and women for years undeterred.

    But the piecemeal allegations leveled in the criminal and civil cases stopped short of answering an essential question that’s been hinted at by attorneys, investigators and internet sleuths: Who else was involved?

    This week, for the first time, celebrities other than Combs have been accused in civil lawsuits of participating in assaults during parties hosted by the Bad Boy Records founder. The stars, however, have not been identified by name.

    A federal lawsuit filed this week in the Southern District of New York involves a woman, identified as Jane Doe, who says she was 13 when she was raped by Combs and a male celebrity, identified only as Celebrity A, while a female celebrity, referred to as Celebrity B in court papers, watched.

    The woman alleges in the legal filing that the night of Sept. 7, 2000, began with her outside Radio City Music Hall in New York City, trying to talk her way into the Video Music Awards. She approached several limousine drivers, including one who claimed to work for Combs, she said.

    “He told her that Combs liked younger girls and she ‘fit what Diddy was looking for,’” the lawsuit states. The driver invited her to an afterparty and told her to return later that night.

    When she did, the driver took her to a large white house with a gated U-shaped driveway and, once inside, she was told to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the suit says. A luxurious party was unfolding inside. Waitstaff carried trays of drinks, loud music blasted throughout the house and partygoers were snorting cocaine and using marijuana, according to the lawsuit.

    After finishing one drink — a concoction of orange juice, cranberry juice and something bitter — she says she began to feel lightheaded and found an empty bedroom to rest. Combs walked into the room with two celebrities. He approached her “with a crazed look in his eyes, grabbed her and said ‘You are ready to party!’” the lawsuit states.

    The unnamed male celebrity raped the girl, while Combs and the unidentified female celebrity allegedly watched. Combs then raped the girl as the other two celebrities watched, according to the lawsuit.

    Combs’ attorneys denied the latest allegations in a statement.

    “The press conference and 1-800 number that preceded [Sunday’s] barrage of filings were clear attempts to garner publicity,” they said. “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman.”

    Attorney Tony Buzbee, who is representing more than 100 people who say they were victimized by Combs, has previously vowed to name celebrities who had been involved in the alleged sexual abuse. He said during a news conference last month that the names contained in the suits would “shock.”

    “Many of you came here thinking or hoping or perhaps believing that I may start naming names,” Buzbee said last month. “That day will come, but it won’t be today.”

    But it hasn’t happened.

    Several sources involved in representing Hollywood A-listers told The Times they feared their clients being implicated even by mere association with Combs. Many have clients who went to Combs’ parties.

    Buzbee, they allege, is playing on the fear of implication. The Texas-based attorney has already claimed to have made deals with “a handful” of notable individuals who could be linked to Combs.

    Buzbee did not return a phone call from The Times seeking additional comment.

    David Ring, who has represented sex crime survivors in some of California’s biggest cases, said that not naming celebrities who may have been involved in wrongdoing gives the victims’ lawyers leverage to negotiate settlements.

    “If they are publicly identified, the celebrity will likely dig in and deny all charges and fight until the end,” he said. “However, if they are given the opportunity to quickly settle and prevent their name from ever being announced publicly, many of them will jump at that opportunity.”

    In another lawsuit Buzbee filed this week against Combs, a personal trainer identified only as John Doe alleges he was drugged and forced to perform oral sex on an unnamed male celebrity during an awards show afterparty at Combs’ house in the Hollywood Hills in June 2022.

    “While in and out of consciousness, individuals at the party forced Plaintiff into sexual acts with both men and woman. Plaintiff’s physical disposition made it impossible for him to reject their advances or otherwise control his body. These individuals, including Combs, essentially passed Plaintiff’s drugged body around like a party favor for their sexual enjoyment,” the lawsuit states.

    U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered Buzbee this week to file a motion seeking to allow the personal trainer to proceed in the case using a pseudonym. He also required a declaration to be filed under seal “disclosing his identity and the identity of any party that is not named in the complaint to the court.”

    Combs, 54, remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied multiple abuse claims that have been outlined in at least 18 civil lawsuits filed against him in the past year.

    The criminal case laid out by federal prosecutors alleged an extensive network that would have required multiple people to recruit victims, organize the sex performances called “freak-offs,” clean up and cover tracks to avoid outside scrutiny.

    “Combs did not do this all on his own,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in announcing the charges. “He used his business and employees of that business and other close associates to get his way.”

    Federal prosecutors said early this month that Combs may face a superseding indictment that would open the door to more charges for Combs and possibly other defendants.

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    Hannah Fry, Richard Winton

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  • In Coachella, Trump returns to a favorite theme: Bashing California

    In Coachella, Trump returns to a favorite theme: Bashing California

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    With just 23 days left until election day and voters already casting ballots, former President Trump rallied supporters in the California desert while railing against the state’s Democratic leadership, notably his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Trump blasted California as having “the highest inflation, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, the most homelessness, the most crime, the most decay and the most illegal aliens.”

    “Other than that, you’re doing quite well, actually,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.”

    Trump painted California as a lawless, dystopian state, and at times correctly touched on the economic struggles faced by many residents. But his comments also were peppered with distortions and falsehoods, including his claim that California has brownouts and blackouts “every day,” presumably because of power shortages.

    The former president spoke shortly after 5 p.m. on a polo field at Calhoun Ranch, just outside the city of Coachella, but supporters lined up hours earlier in the scorching desert heat to attend.

    Trump stands before supporters at the rally at Calhoun Ranch.

    (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

    As they spent hours in temperatures that reached 100 degrees, they sought shade in the few spots they could, and large tanks of ice quickly emptied as attendees grabbed fistfuls of cubes to put under their hats or fill water bottles. Multiple medical emergencies occurred during the rally.

    “Welcome to Trumpchella!” said state GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson, one of the warm-up speakers for Trump.

    Trump’s visit to the home state of Harris offers him another chance to bash the liberal policies of the Bay Area native as well as California itself — one of his favorite refrains on the campaign trail. Harris served as San Francisco’s district attorney before she was elected as California’s attorney general and to the U.S. Senate.

    And the Coachella Valley, home to a thriving agricultural industry and a large population of Latino farmworkers, provides a backdrop for Trump to highlight the region’s water and agricultural needs, as well as immigration. Latinos constitute almost 98% of Coachella, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

    Deriding California as a “sanctuary state” for immigrants as he spoke to thousands of supporters, Trump said, “The people of California are not going to take it any longer.”

    He repeatedly tied immigrants — many of whom, he said, come from “dungeons of the Third World” — to criminal activity, though studies show that immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than U.S.-born residents. He blasted Harris, whom President Biden tasked with addressing the root causes of immigration from three nations in Central America, as a failed “border czar.”

    “Kamala Harris got you into this mess and only Trump will get you out of it,” he said.

    Trump criticized California as being horribly mismanaged, primarily blaming Harris and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, especially when it comes to crime, the high cost of living and water policy. The former president also threatened to cut off federal disaster aid for the state’s devastating wildfires if California’s leaders don’t make more water available to farmers and homeowners.

    “We’re going to take care of your water situation, force it down his throat, and we’ll say: Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have,” Trump said.

    Donning his red “Make America Great Again” hat to guard against the beating desert sun, Trump encouraged the crowd to vote in large numbers, to make the election “too big to rig.” He has repeatedly denied losing the 2020 election. “They are good at one thing. Which one thing?” he asked the crowd. “Cheating!” the crowd roared back.

    Trump also turned his ire against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the front-runner in California’s U.S. Senate race who led a successful House impeachment of Trump, before the Senate acquitted him. Trump called him “one of the least attractive human beings” and insulted the size of Schiff’s neck and head.

    Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) said that the “Coachella Valley is known for being a presidential playground,” noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigned in the valley, former President Obama came to golf, and Presidents Ford and Eisenhower retired in the region. Still, he called Trump’s decision to visit Coachella — in one of the bluest states in the country — “baffling.”

    Donald Trump speaks at an outdoor venue

    Trump addresses the crowd Saturday.

    (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

    “We are familiar with having presidents come and leave a mark here, and we respect and love them. … But ex-President Trump is different,” Ruiz said on a call from Coachella Valley, where he was spending the day talking to reporters. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect for the demographics that live here — not just in his vile rhetoric but also in his policies.”

    The rally venue is just outside the 41st Congressional District, where Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is challenging Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, who spoke at the rally. The race will be crucial in determining which party wins control of the House.

    Calvert, who was endorsed by Trump in the 2022 congressional election and on Saturday for his current campaign, voted against certifying the 2020 election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania though he acknowledged that Democrat Joe Biden won the presidency.

    “Welcome Trump,” Calvert told the rally crowd. “Show him some sanity still exists in California, and it’s right here in Riverside County.”

    Other speakers included Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, an ardent Trump ally, and Dennis Quaid, the actor who recently portrayed President Reagan in his namesake movie.

    Mary and Pete Venegas drove more than an hour from their Hemet home to see Trump, for whom they both plan to vote for the first time in November.

    Mary Venegas, a former Democrat who sat out the 2020 election because she was unenthusiastic about Biden, said Trump deserves “a second chance.” Wearing a red Trump T-shirt, she said she is now a registered Republican.

    “He made me do it,” she said, laughing, as she poked her husband, who runs a construction and landscaping business and said he supports Trump because of his business acumen.

    The visit marks Trump’s second trip to the Golden State in a month, after making a stop to talk to reporters at his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course in September sandwiched between two high-dollar fundraisers in Beverly Hills and the Bay Area.

    California GOP strategists granted anonymity to discuss the former president’s motivation said it included the notion that he wanted to increase his share of the popular vote — and despite California’s Democratic tilt, it is home to more than 5 million registered Republicans.

    Trump has announced that he will hold an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, another deeply Democratic state.

    At Saturday’s rally, mentions of Harris and Newsom from Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who was a delegate at the Republican National Committee, drew boos from the audience.

    “The downfall of public safety in California began over a decade ago with Gavin Newsom’s policies, and ideas under the watch of Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris,” Bianco said, mentioning Proposition 47, a state ballot initiative that reduced certain thefts and crimes to misdemeanors.

    Though Proposition 47 was put in place under Harris’ watch, she declined to wade into the political debate as attorney general. California voters will decide whether to roll back some of the 2014 measure when voting on Proposition 36 next month.

    Trump held a rally in Aurora, Colo., on Friday — a state he lost by more than 13 points in 2020. He has falsely claimed that Aurora had been taken over by Venezuelan gang members. He also paid a visit Friday night to Nevada.

    People cheer Donald Trump during an outdoor rally

    Trump acknowledges supporters’ cheers.

    (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

    During Saturday’s rally, Trump mentioned a new immigration policy, dubbed “Operation Aurora,” that he announced during Friday’s visit to expedite deportation of immigrant gang members. He also called for the death penalty for any immigrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer, a proposal that drew chants of “USA!” from the audience.

    On Thursday, while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, he insulted the city and warned that the situation in Detroit foreshadowed what would happen to the nation if Harris is elected president.

    “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s elected president,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.”

    Democrats in Michigan — one of the states likely to determine which party wins the White House — were apoplectic.

    “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities — something Donald Trump could never understand,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”

    Republicans from the state were stunned by Trump’s remarks as well.

    “Michiganders haven’t been this proud of the city of Detroit since Henry Ford put the world on wheels. The Lions and Tigers are flying high, the city has come back to life, and in comes Donald Trump to crap all over that progress,” said an exasperated GOP strategist who reached out to a Times reporter after hearing the remarks, and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I think he shouldn’t be surprised when they reward his comments by giving Kamala Harris their votes. And it won’t just be Detroit residents. It will be hundreds of thousands of voters who are deeply proud of their city.”

    Donald Trump walking off a stage at night.

    Trump exits the stage after the rally.

    (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

    Harris said Trump’s remarks about Detroit represent a trend.

    “My opponent, Donald Trump, yet again, has trashed another great American city when he was in Detroit, which is just a further piece of evidence on a very long list of why he is unfit to be president of the United States,” Harris told reporters Thursday in Las Vegas.

    Trump similarly criticized Milwaukee in a meeting with House Republicans shortly before the Republican National Convention was held there, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, earlier this year. He has also disparaged Philadelphia and Atlanta, both of which are in states that will determine which party wins the White House.

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    Faith E. Pinho, Seema Mehta

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  • UCLA investigating reports of 2 students drugged at parties near campus

    UCLA investigating reports of 2 students drugged at parties near campus

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    Police at UCLA have issued a crime alert after two students reported being drugged at recent parties near campus.

    The first incident occurred Thursday, when the first victim went to three different parties along Gayley Avenue and “developed symptoms which they did not believe were from alcohol,” according to the crime alert.

    That student reported the incident a couple days later.

    The second incident occurred in the 600 block of Gayley Avenue on Saturday when a student, after being handed a drink, also developed symptoms they did not believe to be from alcohol or marijuana, according to the alert. That student went to the emergency room and reported the incident later that night.

    No suspect description was provided, and the incidents are being investigated as off-campus aggravated assaults using drugs, police said.

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    Joseph Serna

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  • Newsom closes ceremonial roll call at DNC, kick-starts his advocacy for Harris

    Newsom closes ceremonial roll call at DNC, kick-starts his advocacy for Harris

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    CHICAGO — 

    Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered California’s delegate votes for Vice President Kamala Harris as her Democratic presidential nomination was celebrated during a symbolic roll call Tuesday night at the party’s national convention in Chicago.

    Surrounded by a sea of camera crews, reporters, delegates and politicians on the convention floor, the governor described Harris as a “star” that he had the privilege of watching for more than 20 years as she fought for criminal, racial, economic and social justice.

    “I saw that star get even brighter as attorney general of California, as United States senator and as vice president of the United States of America,” Newsom said.

    “Kamala Harris has always done the right thing, a champion for voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, the rights for women and girls. So Democrats and independents, it’s time for us to do the right thing, and that is to elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States of America.”

    Newsom and Harris are longtime friends, political allies and sometimes rivals, and the Harris campaign chose the Democratic governor to deliver California’s 482 delegate votes at the conclusion of the ceremonial roll call. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, held a campaign rally in Milwaukee and were not present at the convention.

    The brief, but high-energy moment marked Newsom’s only official speaking role at the four-day political event, where Democrats gathered to praise President Biden as the party’s past and lionize Harris as its future.

    Newsom has been a top surrogate for Biden, and his praise of the vice president at the event kick-started his role as an advocate for Harris. Before and after the roll call, the governor spoke with television stations at the request of the Harris campaign.

    Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) said it made sense for both politicians.

    “It shows that they understand that the Democratic Party is bigger than one person,” Kamlager-Dove said. “It’s about this idea. It’s about this energy. It’s about the values of the party. He was an incredible surrogate for Biden, so it only would make sense for that to translate to him passing the torch, the delegates, the number that puts her over the top, to Kamala Harris.”

    The governor, who struggles with formal speeches because of dyslexia, did not join former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and dozens of other luminaries who gave or are expected to deliver formal speeches in Chicago.

    Newsom’s aides said the governor was invited to speak on the first day of the convention, but decided to take his children to a school orientation in California on Monday morning before flying to Chicago. Newsom arrived at the convention just before Biden spoke late Monday evening.

    As he exited the floor Monday night after Biden’s speech, Newsom reflected on the address.

    “It’s an emotional speech because it’s the last big speech arguably that he will give at this stage,” Newsom said. “So, it’s sort of a weighty night: optimistic about the future, but it’s also a reflection about a remarkable career and a remarkable person.”

    As he walked from interviews to the floor Tuesday, Newsom said Harris has an opportunity in her convention speech this week “to paint a compelling picture” about an inclusive future, building off Biden’s testament to their past record.

    Newsom’s aides said the governor would continue to be “very active throughout the week at the convention making the case for” Harris and Walz.

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    Taryn Luna

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  • Brown Sugar Apple Dip – Oh Sweet Basil

    Brown Sugar Apple Dip – Oh Sweet Basil

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    Brown sugar apple dip is only 3 simple ingredients and it’s the most addicting and creamy fruit dip. I seriously can’t stop eating it! Be sure you have plenty of apples in the house because you’re going to be dipping them until the dip is gone!

    I served this brown sugar cream cheese apple dip last month at a baby shower and then forgot to ever post it. That’s kind of how life goes. I get so busy I suddenly realized I didn’t follow up on doing something. We served this dip with fresh apple slices and Cade seriously made sure that I left him his own personal serving at home.

    Anyway, none of that really matters when you’ve got brown sugar apple dip staring you in the face. Man, I love me some brown sugar! Shhhh…I always take a pinch or two and eat it plain. Do you??

    Sometimes it’s hard to think up something yummy for after school treats or something a little different to take to a party and I think this dip is the perfect thing.

    Ingredients for Brown Sugar Apple Dip

    There are only 3 simple ingredients needed and it all comes together in just 5 minutes. Here is your ingredients list:

    • Cream Cheese – the block style cream cheese is preferred, not the whipped spread, and it’s important that it’s at room temperature so it mixes easily with the sugar and vanilla
    • Brown Sugar – adds all the sweetness and balances the tanginess of the cream cheese
    • Vanilla Extract – adds delicious flavor

    The measurements for each of the ingredients can be found in the recipe card down below. You can’t beat the taste of this simple creamy mixture!

    What Apples are Best for Dipping?

    My favorite apple for dipping will forever and always be Honeycrisp apples. Braeburn, Envy, or Pink Lady apples are also super delicious. If you like your apples to be a little more tart, go for Granny Smith apples. They actually pair with the sweet brown sugar dip brilliantly.

    Can I Use Low Fat Cream Cheese?

    Yes, the low fat cream cheese works great, but I would avoid the fat free cream cheese.

    How Long Will Apples Keep?

    If stored properly, apples should keep for 2 months. Apples should be kept in the refrigerator.

    Are Apples Healthy?

    Apples are packed with antioxidants, flavonoids, and dietary fiber. The antioxidants in apples may help reduce the risk of developing cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.

    Apples do contain a fair amount of carbs. A 3″ diameter apple has about 25 carbs.

    a photo of a medium size serving bowl that is full of a thick and creamy brown sugar apple dip.

    How to Keep Apple Slices from Turning Brown

    Using sliced apples can be a little tricky because they brown so quickly, and then they are a little less appetizing. This is especially the case when you want to have sliced apples out at a party or gathering. I have a solution for you! Citric acid!

    Before serving the sliced apples, soak them in a water and citric acid. Citric acid can be found in lemon juice, orange juice or pineapple juice. For every 1 cup of water you use, add 1 tablespoon of your citric acid source.

    All of the apples should be covered with the water. Let them soak for about 5 minutes. Remove them from the water and let them drain. You can even pat them dry a little. This will help keep them looking fresh for at least a few hours.

    What Can I Dip in Brown Sugar Apple Dip?

    You don’t need to limit yourself to just apples! The apples are heaven in this dip, but there are all kinds of options. Here are some ideas:

    • Pretzels
    • Graham Crackers
    • Other Fruit (strawberries, bananas, pineapple, etc.)
    • Animal Crackers
    • Nilla Wafers

    As long as we are talking about mixing things up, you can also mix in some toffee bits to add a little crunch and even more caramel flavor. P.S. Have you tried our peanut butter toffee apple dip recipe?? Come to momma!!

    Storage Tips

    Creamy apple dip should be stored in the fridge in an airtight container. It will keep for about a week. It unfortunately doesn’t freeze well so you’re just gonna have to eat it all!!

    Whether you need a delicious recipe for an after school snack, game day, a baby/bridal shower, or a fun family gathering, this brown sugar apple dip is a great option! It’s a hit with kids and adults and loved by everyone!

    More Fruit Dip Recipes:

    Servings: 8 -10 servings

    Prep Time: 10 minutes

    Total Time: 10 minutes

    Description

    It’s creamy and delicious which is exactly what a fruit dip should be.

    Prevent your screen from going dark

    • Beat it all together with a hand mixer and continue to beat until fluffy!!

      8 Ounces Cream Cheese, 1 Cup Brown Sugar, 1 Tablespoon Vanilla

    Cover in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator.

    Serving: 2TablespoonsCalories: 208kcalCarbohydrates: 29gProtein: 2gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 6gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 29mgSodium: 97mgPotassium: 76mgSugar: 28gVitamin A: 381IUCalcium: 51mgIron: 1mg

    Author: Sweet Basil

    Course: 200+ Easy Appetizers Recipes, 30+ Easy Dip Recipes You Can’t Stop Eating

    Recommended Products

    a photo of an apple slice being dipped into a bowl full of a light brown creamy brown sugar apple dip.a photo of an apple slice being dipped into a bowl full of a light brown creamy brown sugar apple dip.

     

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    Sweet Basil

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  • If people could create a new body part, what would they choose? (20 GIFs)

    If people could create a new body part, what would they choose? (20 GIFs)

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    Bob

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  • Muddled mystery of Karlie Gusé who went missing near California desert

    Muddled mystery of Karlie Gusé who went missing near California desert

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    It’s been over 5 years since Karlie Gusé disappeared from her home in Chalfant Valley, California. She was 16 at the time. Karlie was born on May 13th, 2002 which would make her 22 years old today. Her story is one of mystery and intrigue that has left her family and police dumbfounded.

    By all accounts, Karlie was your everyday teenager. She had a boyfriend. She had plenty of friends. People knew who she was at school, and she was well-liked. However, things got murky during the weeks leading up to her disappearance.

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    Zach

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  • 15 most lovable stoner characters in the horror genre

    15 most lovable stoner characters in the horror genre

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    One of the greatest horror movie tropes of all time has got to be the mindless stoner who’s pretty much oblivious to everything going on around them. It’s a screenwriting tactic that’s worked for decades, and it doesn’t seem to be leaving the horror genre any time soon.

    We’ve compiled the 15 most lovable scary movie potheads from Chucky to Cabin Fever. All in celebration of those drug addicts that may or may not be gutted by the end of the film. Please enjoy.

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    Zach

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  • ‘Path to 218 runs through California’: State races pivotal in fight to control the House

    ‘Path to 218 runs through California’: State races pivotal in fight to control the House

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    Barring divine intervention or the West Coast falling into the sea, President Biden will handily win California in the November election.

    But should he — or presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump — secure a second term in the fall, the future of either’s policy agenda rests heavily on which party controls Congress, where Republicans currently hold a wafer-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

    With the Golden State home to some of the most hotly contested swing districts in the country, the House’s fate will almost certainly come down to California.

    The battle for the next two years of partisan political control will be waged door-to-door, from California’s beachside suburban cul-de-sacs to the tiny farm towns in the state’s fertile Central Valley.

    Those battlefields will look a lot like Bridgecreek Plaza — a sun-bleached shopping center a few hundred yards from a freeway onramp in Orange County’s Huntington Beach. The mall is home to a crystal store, several insurance brokers, a dentist and the local Republican Party headquarters.

    It’s also where about two dozen GOP faithful gathered on the morning of election day, bowing their heads for a quick prayer and pledging allegiance to a portable flag before turning their attention to Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party.

    Patterson was in a very good mood.

    When she was first elected to lead the party, in 2019, California Republicans were “essentially the third-largest party in the state,” having sunk below the share of voters registering “decline to state” under party preference.

    But Patterson had presided over a massive voter registration drive over the last five years, and the party had moved back into second. People across the country liked to dismiss “blue California,” she said, but they were forgetting that California has more registered Republicans than any other state.

    “California Republicans are the reasons why we have a House majority,” she added, to raucous cheering.

    That majority was what they hoped to hold on to, and the group would spend the morning of the March 5 primary election canvassing for Scott Baugh, a Republican attorney and former state Assembly member vying to push Democratic Rep. Katie Porter’s soon-to-be-open congressional seat back from blue to red.

    Scott Baugh is trying again to flip Orange County’s 47th District back to the red column. The seat is a chief target of state and national Republican efforts to maintain control of the House.

    (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

    The latest round of redistricting put more conservative enclaves such as Huntington Beach and Newport Beach into California’s 47th Congressional District, and Baugh lost to Porter only narrowly in 2022 despite being vastly outspent, making the coastal Orange County district one of the most competitive in the nation.

    The charismatic Porter will be out of the House picture after a failed Senate run; her seat is one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s three offensive targets in California and top priorities. And it’s equally prized by Democrats.

    In a country where enmity and distrust separate the two major political parties on most issues, California’s utmost importance to any November House strategy is one of the few things on which Republicans and Democrats can agree.

    California is home to 10 races rated as competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report — five of them in districts that are represented by Republicans but that President Biden won in 2020. In the months to come, both parties will be investing significant resources in those races, as national attention inevitably turns west.

    With an expected Biden-Trump rematch, voter turnout in 2024 is also likely to be supercharged compared with the 2022 midterm election. That could give an edge to Democrats, given the registration advantage that they hold in many of the competitive districts. Republicans gained one California House seat in the 2022 midterms, a nonpresidential election when turnout was substantially lower than when Biden and Trump topped the ballot two years prior.

    “At the end of the day, the path to 218 runs through California,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Dan Gottlieb, referring to the number of seats needed to garner a House majority.

    Dave Min, seen from the shoulders up in a blue suit jacket, looking up to his left against a backdrop of dark-wood columns

    Dave Min will face Baugh in November’s runoff for the 47th District seat, which Katie Porter is vacating. Min’s bruising primary battle for the crucial seat has already cost Democrats millions.

    (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

    Gottlieb was bullish on his party’s chances, citing the high turnout expected for the presidential election, along with strong Democratic candidates and “a bunch of dysfunctional and out-of-touch Republicans enabling the worst of their party’s chaos and dysfunction and extremism.”

    But Gottlieb’s GOP counterpart was equally roseate in his outlook, with National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen reveling in the ugly and expensive primary fights that consumed Democrats in several of the state’s most crucial swing districts.

    In the O.C. district where GOP volunteers fanned out for Baugh on primary morning, Democrats had sunk millions into a bruising primary battle between state Sen. Dave Min and fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss. Min ultimately emerged victorious, but only after surviving a barrage of negative advertising centered on his 2023 arrest for driving while intoxicated — arguably a gift to Republicans ahead of his fall battle with Baugh.

    “Extreme Democrats are stumbling out of their vicious primary fights broke and bested by Republicans, who saw a groundswell of support for a commonsense safety and affordability agenda,” Petersen said, adding that the primary results made clear the GOP was “playing offense in California” in a way that would set the stage for victories in November.

    Baugh, though, is not expected to go unscathed. In 2022, Porter’s ad campaign ripped the Republican for his antiabortion stance, as well as his work as a lobbyist and criminal charges he faced over campaign violations, for which he ultimately paid $47,000 in fines.

    In the San Joaquin Valley, there were last-minute fears that a bruising primary battle would lock Democrats out of one of the races where they have the best chance of flipping a seat, but those concerns proved overblown.

    Rudy Salas, backed by the Democratic establishment, vanquished fellow Democrat Melissa Hurtado to secure a spot in the fall against incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the 22nd Congressional District, but that race also put a dent in Democratic coffers.

    The November race will be a rematch of the pair’s 2022 runoff, when Salas lost to Valadao by several thousand votes. And Salas and Valadao won’t be the only rematch on the November ticket.

    In a heavily agricultural San Joaquin Valley district that includes all of Merced County and parts of Fresno, Madera, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, incumbent GOP Rep. John Duarte will once again face off against Democratic challenger Adam Gray. Duarte won the 13th Congressional District in the midterm election by fewer than 600 votes, one of the closest races in the nation.

    Several hundred miles southeast, in Southern California, Democratic challenger Will Rollins will again take on GOP incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving member of the California delegation. The recently redrawn 41st Congressional District stretches from the suburban Inland Empire, where Calvert has long lived, to Palm Springs, where Rollins and his partner make their home.

    The district’s new boundaries — which now include one of the largest concentrations of LGBTQ+ voters in the nation and liberal pockets of Californians in the desert — are far more friendly to Democrats. They also set up Rollins, who is gay, as a potent challenger to Calvert, who voted against LGBTQ+ rights in the past, but who says his views have since evolved.

    One race that will have some new blood this year, after the same pair of candidates dueled in three previous elections, is California’s 27th Congressional District in northern Los Angeles County.

    Once solidly Republican, the district has been reconfigured by redistricting, and has undergone a political transition driven by younger, more diverse transplants from L.A. seeking affordable housing in Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley. The district briefly switched from red to blue with former Rep. Katie Hill’s victory in 2018, but the young Democrat’s very public scandals and ultimate resignation helped hand the seat back to the GOP.

    Now-incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Garcia beat Democrat Christy Smith in a 2019 special election to fill the seat, then twice more for full terms in 2020 and 2022. He will face off against George Whitesides, a fresh Democratic challenger, in November.

    Ludovic Blain, executive director of the California Donor Table, a progressive group that pools donor funds, said his organization hopes to invest about $10 million in California House races in the fall, working with local nonprofits in key areas to turn out voters of color.

    They’ll be focusing on seven key races: the three aforementioned rematches, Porter’s open seat and two other Orange County races, and the Garcia-Whitesides matchup.

    One point of concern Blain raised is that Republican Steve Garvey’s place near the top of the ticket, facing off against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) in the Senate race, might affect Democrats in House races.

    Schiff engaged in a controversial strategy in the primary, boosting Garvey to lock out Porter and his other major Democratic challenger, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), whom Blain’s organization supported.

    It was a gambit that some in the Democratic establishment said would actually help Democrats in other tight races, since a less-competitive Senate race would siphon away far less money from the party’s coffers.

    But others, like Blain, argue that Garvey’s presence could hurt down-ballot Democrats. Plus, having him on the ballot may draw in moderate Republican and independent voters who remain sour on Trump.

    “Having Garvey, I think, does spike or further encourage Republican voters to turn out, and more importantly, to vote down the ticket,” Blain said.

    Patterson agreed. Unlike Trump, Garvey will likely campaign across the state, providing a lift for other Republicans while he’s at it.

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    Julia Wick

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