World Politics

Proposition 30 Election Results: California Secretary of State Calls Jerry Brown's Tax Hike Push 'Close Contest'

Update: L.A. County voters continue to come through for Governor Jerry Brown. At 12:26 a.m., with 46 percent of precincts reporting, L.A. voters back Prop. 30 with 58 percent of the vote. As of 10:47 p.m., Governor Jerry Brown and his Proposition 30 are still in the game. California Secretary of S ... More >>

Proposition 40 Absentee Ballot Election Results: Stupidest Measure on California's Nov. 6 Ballot Looking Like a Goner

With early results in, it looks like an embarrassing, costly, if not downright silly, re-do of California's 40 state Senate voting districts will not be required just a year after the California Citizens Redistricting Commission did a solid job of redrawing them. It all depends on how confused vot ... More >>

Assembly District 39's Dilemma

Alarcon, circling the drain over corruption charges? Or yes-man Bocanegra?

Will Felipe Fuentes and Gov. Jerry Brown Water Down Teachers' Evaluations?

California's education reform wars are popping up again -- this time over a controversial bill called AB 5, which reform activists say will water down teachers' evaluations. The grassroots group EdVoice has taken a full-page ad in today's A section of the Los Angeles Times to sound the alarm and g ... More >>

L.A. Activists Claim Fraud in Mexico's Presidential Election: Downtown Rally Planned for Saturday

Obama may have embraced Enrique Peña Nieto as Mexico's new president-elect this week (even before all the votes had been counted; awkward), but a coalition of immigrants in Los Angeles won't be so easily convinced. "We're very concerned by a growing list of situations... that seem to indicate that ... More >>

Richard Alarcon: Good Riddance and Hello

Making history by incessantly running for office

Should China Own the L.A. Subway?

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is getting desperate. His ambitious plan to squeeze 30 years of public-transit construction into a mere 10 -- by borrowing $10 billion or so from the federal government -- has been scoffed at and dismissed by Congressmembers for a few years now. But seeing as ... More >>

Beth Ditto Releases New Video, Would Want You to Contact our Local GOP about Their Attack on Planned Parenthood

Beth Ditto: Suck it, "Justify My Love"!​ In a world of wimpy indie boys, Beth Ditto is one of the greatest old-style rock'n'roll stars/icons at work. And she has a new video out, which pays homage to Madonna's "Justify My Love". But before you watch it, we're pretty sure vocal pro-choice adv ... More >>

Schwarzenegger's Chemical Romance

Angering environmentalists, Arnold rewrites his Green Chemistry initiative in his final days in office

California Election Results: Democrats Sweep Jobs You've Never Heard Of

"Bill" Lockyer, our once and future state treasurer​By Hillel Aron Hey, wasn't this was supposed to be a Republican tsunami/tidal wave/other oceanographic metaphor? Not in California, where Democrats are in the process of sweeping practically every important statewide race- and even most of ... More >>

William Harsh, Meg Whitman's Princeton-Attending Son, Charged With 'Careless' Driving

GawkerDid Meg Whitman spawn demon children?​In her $160 million or so of self-funded campaigning (yeah -- it's up to $160-mil-plus now), Meg Whitman boasts that she ran a major corporation, eBay, so she'll have no trouble making Sacramento more efficient and businesslike if she's elected Calif ... More >>

Five Reasons Meg Whitman Is Looking Like a Slight Favorite

​Republican candidate for governor and former Ebay doyenne Meg Whitman came to the Weekly's hometown of Culver City Tuesday, and though she didn't stop by the office, she was at nearby Function Drinks, a high-end beverage maker, for a town hall style meeting. (Function Drinks sample product: U ... More >>

Schwarzenegger Predicts Victory For Jerry Brown?

​So Patricia Sellers is an editor-at-large at Fortune, and as such she hangs out in L.A. restaurants where you might just happen to run into people like Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger.Upon bumping into Schwarzenegger on Monday at Le Pain Quotidien, Sellers asked the governor what he thoug ... More >>

Badlands: From Ground Zero of the Immigration Crisis Along the Mexican Border

Bob Dylan Banned in China Because of Bjork

LiuzhouLaowai​The Guardian reports that Malibu-resident Bob Dylan has had to cut his Asian tour short because the Chinese government prevented him from playing in Beijing and Shanghai. According to the UK paper (quoting Hong Kong's South China Morning Post): Dylan's planned tour of east Asia ... More >>

One Of Four City Hall Phone Lines Paid For But Unused

​It's not too surprising that a city that sends its mayor on a $120,000 trip to Europe during a mega-millions budget crisis isn't too thrifty when it comes to things like its telephone lines. But City Controller Wendy Greuel's latest audit is an eye-opener nonetheless: Among other things it fo ... More >>

Freed Journalists Arrive in Burbank

Perhaps  Burbank was the last destination Laura Ling and Euna Lee had figured for a fantasy getaway, but for the two Los Angeles journalists imprisoned in North Korea, it was the happiest place on earth. They and former president Bill Clinton arrived at Bob Hope Airport at dawn today, ending a ... More >>

Swine Flu: One U.S. Death, One Attempt to Change Flu's Name

As of 8 a.m. this morning one U.S. death, in Texas, has been attributed to the swine flu outbreak. The fatality was a Mexican toddler whose family was visiting the state. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 14 Californians are confirmed as being stricken by SF, while New York City lea ... More >>

Politics of Engagement

Letter From Moscow: Back in the USSR

You can't rely on the official media to learn much of what's going on in Russia. The government owns all Russian TV stations, on which never is heard a discouraging word. Jon Stewart-style political satire has disappeared from the airwaves. Those pundits who dared to challenge government policy have ... More >>

Confronting food shortages in Mexico

Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced an ambitious plan last week to confront rising food costs in Mexico and to prevent the type of shortages and inflation surges that threaten the stability of developing countries in other parts of the world. In Mexico, already hit hard by the rising cost ... More >>

Remembering Pakistan's Prodigal Daughter

Peter Landesman on his friend Benazir Bhutto and the darkness to follow

The Two Aristocrats

Mayor V. and Prez Fox take in L.A.

Crisis Counselors

On the Bolivian campaign trail with Carville & Co.

The French Revolt

Rejection of a corporate Europe

Our Russia, Ourselves

Sleeping with the enemy . . . then scolding her

Separate, Unequal — and Turned Away

What it’s like to be a Palestinian looking for a house in Jerusalem

Viktor vs. Viktor, Live From Independence Square

Democracy’s Heroes

Losing Our Shirts

An unhappy New Year looms for American apparel makers

Bush’s Middle East Problem

The case of an anti-war protester in Egypt

The 9/11 Cover-up

What did Bush know about the al Qaeda threat?

A Nuclear Standoff

Letters

Poet Against the War

Literature and Liberation

Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Teheran

The Man Who Would Be King

L.A. dreamer longs to sit on the throne in Equatorial Guinea

Still Dreamin’ in the Valley

Pro-breakaway troops long for simpler times

Personal Wars

Build a House, Go to Jail

Two Baja laborers led land invasions with their poor neighbors and brought down the wrath of a government intent on enforcing rules that protect the rich

The L.A. Connection

Anybody out there write a check to Vicente Fox lately?

Edging Toward War

Dealing with nuclear fears and rumors of 20 U.S. troops being held hostage

Osama in Pakistan

What an all-out search could mean for my country

War Against Oblivion

Zapatistas storm Mexico City — again

Out of the Past

Arabs and Jews revive their blood hatreds

Clinton's Wedge

China cracks the Democrats

Roots of Terror

The terrible price of independence in East Timor

U.N. Gets Chilly Welcome in Mexico

Government and rebels agree on disdain for global cops

Portrait of the Activist as a Young Man

The passionate life and tragic death of Terence Freitas

The Zapatistas Are Back

And they’re asking all of Mexico for an endorsement

Lost Generation

Israeli and Palestinian youth share bond