Politics
Calexico resoundingly ousts town’s first transgender mayor and a council ally
Voters in Calexico have resoundingly ousted the first out transgender member of the City Council and her council ally after a bitter recall campaign rife with accusations of transphobia and political cronyism in the struggling city on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nearly 74% of voters in the April 16 special election supported the recall of City Councilmember Raúl Ureña, according to early results released by the Imperial County registrar of voters Wednesday night. Ureña, who uses all pronouns but prefers “she,” publicly came out as transgender after taking office, becoming a target for harassment online and in person.
Nearly 73% of voters supported the recall of Councilmember Gilberto Manzanarez, another outspoken young progressive.
Roughly 77% of ballots received had been tallied by early Thursday, said Linsey Dale, the registrar of voters.
Both Ureña, 26, and Manzanarez, 30, said they believe the recall campaign — which thrust the almost entirely Latino city of 38,000 into America’s culture wars over gender identity — was largely motivated by transphobia. Recall organizers said that their campaign was rooted in concerns about rising homeless numbers and lagging economic development, and that Ureña’s personal life and sexuality were not factors.
After the election, Ureña said she remained “hopeful and optimistic, even with these results.”
“We will not give up on social justice in the Imperial Valley,” Ureña said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Calexico City Councilmember Gilberto Manzanarez says recall organizers unfairly blamed him and political ally Raúl Ureña for downtown blight that preceded their tenure.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
At a City Council meeting Wednesday night, Manzanarez said the city’s political old guard, some of whom were leaders in the recall movement, unfairly blamed the young council members for problems — such as the deteriorating downtown and understaffed police, fire and public works departments — that existed years before Manzanarez and Ureña were elected.
“It’s very easy to point to downtown and make sure that people understand that it’s not OK. How long has it been that way? Did it start being that way in 2022? Absolutely not,” said Manzanarez, who was elected in November 2022.
Maritza Hurtado, a leader of the recall campaign and former mayor, declined to comment on the results.
In a previous interview with The Times, Hurtado, a member of the City Council from 2010 to 2018, called Ureña and Manzanarez “toxic” left-wing activists. She said they dismissed downtown merchants’ concerns about crime, public drug use and rampant homeless encampments, focusing instead on what recall proponents saw as more frivolous projects, such as installing charging stations for electric vehicles that most people in town cannot afford.
Hurtado, 58, said Ureña used gender “as a card this whole time,” dismissing people with legitimate political grievances as transphobic and racist.
Turnout for the special election — which cost Calexico more than $128,000 — was about 23%, with an estimated 4,933 votes cast. Dale said that number could fluctuate, with additional ballots arriving by mail in coming days.
“Imperial County, unfortunately, and I hate to say this, we’re generally at the bottom end of the state when it comes to turnout,” Dale said. During the March 5 presidential primary, she noted, 22% of registered Imperial County voters cast ballots, the lowest turnout in California.
Still, she said, the Calexico special election “was very passionate on both sides, and I feel that it encouraged a lot of voters to come out who might not have done so before.”
Maritza Hurtado, a local businesswoman and former mayor of Calexico, helped lead the effort to recall two young progressives on the City Council.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
When they first came into office, Ureña and Manzanarez were hailed as young changemakers in Calexico, an impoverished town separated from the sprawling city of Mexicali, Mexico, by a steel border fence.
Ureña was first elected in 2020, at age 23, with 70% of the vote. In 2023, she held the rotating one-year title of mayor.
Ureña was ushered in to finish the term of David Romero, a council member who went to federal prison after taking bribes in exchange for providing a guaranteed city permit for a cannabis business. Another then-council member, Rosie Fernandez, had pleaded guilty earlier that year to driving under the influence; she was sentenced to probation and had to install a court-ordered alcohol-detection device in her vehicle. She later lost her bid for reelection.
In October 2022, state auditors released a scathing audit that said Calexico had been in the midst of a “financial crisis” for a decade and was at high risk for potential waste, fraud and mismanagement. Previous city councils, the audit said, approved budgets based on unreliable financial data, and the municipality overspent, pushing its general fund into a deficit from fiscal years 2014-15 through 2018-19.
Ureña was reelected in November 2022, a month after the audit was released. She and Manzanarez were the top vote-getters in an at-large contest for two seats.
Soon after, Ureña publicly came out as gender-fluid and transgender and started wearing dresses and makeup in official appearances. Ureña and Manzanarez were handed recall papers the following May.
Recall proponents cited a visible rise in homeless encampments in Calexico’s downtown as a major concern.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Manzanarez and Ureña regularly clashed with other council members and citizens, especially when they criticized the police. They and another council ally, Gloria Romo, often spoke during public meetings in Spanish without translation — infuriating some prominent recall supporters, who called it exclusionary.
In January, Hurtado served Romo with intent-to-recall papers, a signature-gathering effort still underway.
The ouster of Ureña and Manzanarez will leave two of the council’s five seats empty. At Wednesday’s meeting, City Atty. Carlos Campos said the two seats will be vacated once the City Council certifies the results. The council then will have 60 days to decide whether to fill the seats through special election or appointment.
Ureña said she and Manzanarez watched together as the first batch of election results came in Tuesday night. They had “a great party,” she said, even though it quickly became clear they would lose.
“I did not stop dancing,” Ureña said. “Nothing gets through my happiness.”
Politics
Republicans light cigars, cigarettes on burning photos of Khamenei to show support for Iranian protesters
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Republican lawmakers are jumping on a social media trend to show their support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., posted photos of themselves using burning photos of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light up a cigarette and a cigar respectively. Both lawmakers used the caption “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
The lawmaker’s images mirror a social media trend in which people are using burning photos of Khamenei to light cigarettes and cigars. The trend emerged as the people of Iran hold increasingly intense protests against the Islamic regime. The movement against the regime has seen increasing support from abroad as world leaders back the people of Iran.
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People gather during a protest on Jan. 8, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
Khamenei’s regime has started to crack down on protests and even instituted a sweeping internet blackout to try to quell the unrest. Some have posited that the internet blackout was also meant to impede the spreading of information about and visuals of abuses committed against protesters by regime-backed forces.
Recently, exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi has publicly urged President Donald Trump and the U.S. to back protesters in Iran as they fight the decades-old regime.
Sheehy told Fox News Digital that he takes the issue personally, saying that Iran has participated in the torturing, kidnapping and killing of Americans across the globe, “including friends of mine.”
“The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous b——- who have been chanting ‘death to America’ for the past 46 years. They have backed up this chant by kidnapping, torturing, and killing thousands of Americans all over the world, including friends of mine. For me, it’s personal; it’s time to take out the trash,” Sheehy said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital via email.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., showed his solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigarette. (Courtesy of Sen. Tim Sheehy’s Office)
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The senator also expressed his solidarity with the people of Iran and encouraged them to keep fighting the regime.
“To the Iranian people — we applaud your courage, keep fighting, and know we fully support your brave efforts to topple this evil regime,” he added.
Tenney’s office also spoke with Fox News Digital about the congresswoman’s post, praising the bravery of the people of Iran for standing up to the regime. Additionally, Tenney’s office expressed the congresswoman’s solidarity with the Iranian people.
“The bravery of the Iranian people in the face of decades of oppression by a brutal, extremist regime is extraordinary. Men and women across Iran are risking their lives to stand up to authoritarian mullahs who have denied them basic freedoms for generations,” Tenney’s office said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., showed her solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigar. (Courtesy of Rep. Claudia Tenney’s Office)
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“The congresswoman stands firmly with the Iranian people and their demand for dignity and self-determination, and believes their courage must be recognized and amplified. Today, the Iranian people finally have an ally in the White House, President Trump, who has made clear that the United States stands with those fighting for freedom against tyranny,” Tenney’s office added.
Trump has been vocal about his support for the people of Iran and has warned that the U.S. would be ready to step in if the regime used violence against protesters.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Jan. 10. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”
SACRAMENTO — California announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI on Wednesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom saying that the social media site owned by the billionaire is a “breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsenual sexually explicit AI deepfakes.”
Grok, the xAI chatbot, includes image-generation features that allow users to morph existing photos into new images. The newly created images are then posted publicly on X.
In some cases, users have created sexually explicit or nonconsensual images based on real people, including altered depictions that appear to show individuals partially or fully undressed. Others have generated images that appear to show minors, prompting criticism that there are not sufficient guardrails to prohibit the creation of child pornography.
The social media site has previously said “we take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
Newsom called the sexualized images being created on the platform “vile.” Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said his office will use “all tools at our disposal to keep Californians safe.”
“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said in a statement Wednesday. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further. We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”
Newsom signed a pair of bills in 2024 that made it illegal to create, possess or distribute sexually charged images of minors even when they’re created with computers, not cameras. The measures took effect last year.
Assembly Bill 1831, authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), expanded the state’s child-porn prohibition to material that “contains a digitally altered or artificial-intelligence-generated depiction [of] what appears to be a person under 18 years of age” engaging in or simulating sexual conduct. Senate Bill 1381, authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), amended state law to more clearly prohibit using AI to create images of real children engaged in sexual conduct, or using children as models for digitally altered or AI-generated child pornography.
new video loaded: Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
transcript
transcript
Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
The Supreme Court heard two cases from West Virginia and Idaho on Tuesday. Both concerned barring the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports teams.
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“It is undisputed that states may separate their sports teams based on sex in light of the real biological differences between males and females. States may equally apply that valid sex-based rule to biological males who self-identify as female. Denying a special accommodation to trans-identifying individuals does not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity or deny equal protection.” “West Virginia argues that to protect these opportunities for cisgender girls, it has to deny them to B.P.J. But Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect everyone. And if the evidence shows there are no relevant physiological differences between B.P.J. and other girls, then there’s no basis to exclude her.” “Given that half the states are allowing it, allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point, just the role of this court, jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still, as you say, uncertainty and debate, while there’s still strong interest in other side?” “This court has held in cases like V.M.I. that in general, classification based on sex is impermissible because in general, men and women are simply situated. Where that’s not true is for the sorts of real, enduring, obvious differences that this court talked about in cases like V.M.I., the differences in reproductive biology. I don’t think the pseudoscience you’re suggesting has been baked.” “Well, it’s not pseudo. It’s good science.” “It’s not pseudoscience to say boys’ brain development happens at a different stage than girls does.” “Well, with all respect, I don’t think there’s any science anywhere that is suggested that these intellectual differences are traceable to biological differences.” “Can we avoid your whole similarly situated argument that you run because I don’t really like it that much either? And I’m not trying to prejudice anyone making that argument later. But I mean, I think it opens a huge can of worms that maybe we don’t need to get into here.”
By Meg Felling
January 13, 2026
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