Politics
Commentary: For all the chatter by mayoral candidates, can anyone fix L.A.’s enduring problems?
I’m going to start this story on a quiet tree-lined street in Mar Vista, where a couple I met with on Thursday — the day after the L.A. mayoral debate — have a problem.
It’s not an unusual matter, as things go in Los Angeles. On both sides of the street, the sidewalk rises and falls, uprooted and cracked by shallow roots because over many decades, the trees were not properly maintained.
John Coanda, 61, who grew up in Los Angeles, was never bothered by torn-up sidewalks as a kid.
“In fact,” he said when he first emailed me about his predicament, “my friends and I sometimes used the ramping pavement as jumps for our bicycles.”
But his wife, Barbara, was diagnosed in 2024 with ALS, and she uses a wheelchair. When John pushes her, they can’t use the sidewalk if they want to go to the store or meet with friends, or just enjoy a nice pass through the neighborhood without getting into a vehicle.
So John pushes Barbara’s wheelchair in the street, which creates an obvious safety problem. And despite John’s best efforts to get City Hall to fix the sidewalks, he’s not expecting help anytime soon.
I’ll circle back to this story, but first, about that debate.
I recruited a half-dozen L.A. residents to watch and send me their thoughts about how the candidates tackled the important issues. And then I felt guilty for having done so, because the candidates didn’t do much tackling at all.
Candidate Spencer Pratt is shown on a television while journalists work during the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral debate at Skirball Cultural Center.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
They hit their talking points, for sure, and Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and TV personality Spencer Pratt each had their moments. But by the end of the debate, and two straight nights of gubernatorial debates as well, I came away thinking there were no clear winners, but there was a definite loser.
Voters.
This is the fault of the format more than of the candidates themselves. The deck is stacked against meaningful, substantive discussions, especially when moderators ask — as they did several times — for one-word answers.
“Moderator questions are so meaningless … and they make it easy for candidates to take potshots at each other,” said longtime political sage Darry Sragow. “The format is guaranteed to elicit nothing that matters.”
It’d be better to have single-issue debates, and to have candidates pressed for details by journalists who cover those issues and can push back against unrealistic promises and expose a lack of depth.
My debate watchers did some of that themselves. CSUN librarian Yi Ding had praise and criticism for each candidate, but was looking for concrete plans and didn’t get many.
Ding was also disappointed that two other mayoral candidates — Ray Huang and Adam Miller — were not invited to the debate, and I agree with her. Both have been polling low, but with so many undecided voters, and such high unfavorability ratings for Bass, they should have been in the mix.
Mike Washington, a retired pharmacist and West Adams resident, said Bass has done better than previous mayors on homelessness and he didn’t think Raman or Pratt came off as worthy of bumping her out of City Hall.
“The public would have benefited from more questions related to the challenges young people are facing,” said Juan Solorio Jr., president of the San Fernando Valley Young Democrats club. His colleague David Ramirez agreed, saying he was hoping for “more discussion about the cost of living for young adults,” but he and Solorio are both backing Bass.
West L.A. software developer Mike Eveloff asked the million-dollar question in one of his many observations during the debate:
“Why is LA spending record amounts on homelessness, fire, police, and infrastructure while results deteriorate? Streets and sidewalks crumble. Even the city emblem right in front of City Hall is deteriorated. With the World Cup and Olympics approaching, voters need to know: Do these leaders have the financial discipline and operational competence to manage a fourteen billion dollar city?”
Venice resident Dennis Hathaway, author of “An Octogenarian’s Journal,” said he thinks “these kinds of debates are pretty non-edifying.” And, as someone I wrote about two years ago regarding busted sidewalks in his neighborhood, he shared this lament about Thursday’s debate:
“No mention of broken sidewalks, potholed streets, other deteriorated infrastructure. To me, that’s a much more important subject than non-citizens voting in city elections.”
(Bass did say during the debate that there was a new infrastucture plan in place, and that’s a step in the right direction. But there was no discussion, and when you read the details, 2028 Olympics projects will be prioritized, and it’ll take years to figure out how to fund thousands of additional much-needed fixes.)
The Coandas live not far from Hathaway, and their lives have been upended first by Barbara’s diagnosis and then by John getting laid off in February from his job as a data analyst. Barbara still teaches French via Zoom, and John is tending to her needs. They started a Gofundme campaign to help pay their bills.
With Barbara in a wheelchair, John contacted the city’s Safe Sidewalks L.A. program last fall, and I think it’s fair to say that name is somewhere between a misnomer and a bad joke.
The “program” responded by email on Halloween, appropriately enough, informing him that under the City Council-approved “Sidewalk Repair Program Prioritization and Scoring System,” his request for help merits only 15 points out of a possible 45.
“Currently,” he was informed, “the estimated wait time for completion of an Access Request with a score of 15 is in excess of 10 years.”
Happy Halloween.
Over the years, responsibility for sidewalk repairs has shifted between the city and homeowners. There’s a rebate program available to people who repair their own sidewalks, but it’s capped at an amount that doesn’t always cover the costs. And ruptured pavement is keeping lots of lawyers busy with trip-and-fall lawsuits that cost the city millions each year.
Barbara Durieux Coanda, who has ALS, and her husband, John Coanda, make their way down the ramp in front of their home in Mar Vista.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Coanda told me he doesn’t have the funds at the moment to pay for repairs, and even if he did, there are several more sidewalk disaster zones on both sides of his street, so he’d still have to push his wife’s wheelchair in the street even if he fixed the cracks in front of his own house.
Barbara graciously said she thinks the city has other, higher priorities, but in November her husband contacted the office of Councilmember Traci Park, saying he was told that he would have to wait 10 years for repairs.
“Sadly,” he wrote, “I don’t think my wife will live that long.”
A Park staffer wrote back, saying, “The turnaround time does sound realistic given the budgetary crisis the city finds itself in.” But, the staffer added, maybe the council member’s office could “help move the needle on this request.”
Coanda said he’s been too busy with his wife’s issues to follow up. But Pete Brown, Park’s communications director, told me Friday afternoon that the office is exploring ways to pay for fixes that don’t take 10 years, including the use of discretionary funds.
I don’t know how that might play out, but I do know that L.A. doesn’t need another debate like the last one.
We need a mayor and council members who refuse to accept that it takes 10 years to create safe passage for a wheelchair.
In the national capital of broken sidewalks, we need concrete plans.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
1871, pursuant to the Ku Klux Klan Act, Grant declared martial law and suspended habeas corpus in nine hill counties of South Carolina, where the Klan was particularly intractable.
IV.
World War II
Habeas corpus rights were tested in two important contexts during World War II.
A. Hawaii
First, at the outset of hostilities with Japan, the Governor of Hawaii, then a territory, declared martial law and suspended habeas corpus, acting pursuant to the Hawaiian Organic Act. In 1946, the Supreme Court decided Duncan v. Kahanamoku, a challenge by a civilian against his arrest and conviction by a military tribunal. The Court ruled that the suspension of habeas rights and the trial were improper, because civilian courts in Hawaii were operating at the time of his conviction.
B. German saboteurs
Second, and more important, was the case of the trial of German saboteurs by military commission, which reached the Supreme Court as Ex Parte Quirin. In December 1941, eight German agents, including two U.S. citizens, were carried by U-boat across the Atlantic and landed on Long Island in New York and on Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida. Two turned themselves in to the FBI. The remainder were captured.
President Roosevelt, acting by executive order, established a military tribunal to prosecute the eight. All were convicted and sentenced to death, although President Roosevelt commuted the sentences of the two who had surrendered, leaving the other six to be executed.
The Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of the military tribunal, and held that it was allowable because of the specific nature of the defendants and the crimes alleged. Because they were unlawful enemy combatants in a time of war, they were subject to the jurisdiction and judgment of military tribunals, and even for the American citizens in the group the writ of habeas corpus was unavailable. The Supreme Court rested its opinion in part on the fact that, through its declaration of war, Congress had authorized the application of the laws of war to enemy combatants, effectively suspending any habeas rights for this class of individuals that would otherwise have existed.
V.
Global War on Terror
After the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the United States began holding detainees at Camp X-Ray, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. In 2002, some of these detainees began filing
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
EXCLUSIVE — President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs promise is facing challenges from a new analysis that argues the sweeping trade policy failed to revive manufacturing and instead slowed job creation in the U.S.
The report, obtained first by Fox News Digital, lands months after Trump’s signature economic policies was handed a blow when the Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs, and businesses are now seeking billions of dollars in tariff refunds.
Trump’s April 2025 global tariff rollout marked the largest U.S. tariff hike in decades, delivering on a signature economic promise that higher duties would spark a manufacturing renaissance, bring factory jobs back to the United States and reduce Americans’ reliance on foreign goods.
Researchers at the Advancing American Freedom Foundation argue those goals never materialized, and estimate in their report that the tariffs resulted in up to 1 million fewer jobs nationwide than would have been expected under pre-tariff trends.
TRUMP SAYS US WOULD BE ‘DESTROYED’ WITHOUT TARIFF REVENUE
President Donald Trump speaks during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Manufacturing — the industry the tariffs were intended to help — fared particularly poorly, according to the damning report. Researchers estimate the sector lost roughly 75,000 positions during the policy’s first year, or about 6,250 jobs per month.
“We can say with an over 90% confidence level that manufacturing lost jobs because of the tariffs,” Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital.
Stern argued the tariffs backfired because many American manufacturers rely on imported components and equipment.
“Most of the Americans that are importing are American businesses, especially American manufacturers and producers,” he said. “So the tariffs really ended up being a tax on high-end American manufacturing.”
‘WE WERE RIGHT’: HE TOOK TRUMP’S TARIFFS TO THE SUPREME COURT AND WON
Manufacturing was a central focus of President Donald Trump’s 2025 tariff policy and a new analysis examining its economic impact. (Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
If nothing else, the tariffs proved to be a windfall for Washington.
Duties climbed from $9.6 billion in March 2025 to $23.9 billion by May, according to Treasury data. By the end of the 2025 fiscal year, tariff collections reached $215.2 billion, roughly triple pre-tariff levels.
In January alone, duties totaled $30.4 billion, up about 242% from $8.9 billion a year earlier. Tariff revenue for the current fiscal year has already reached roughly $230 billion, more than four times the amount collected during the same period last year.
ONE YEAR LATER, TRUMP TARIFFS GENERATED BILLIONS AS REFUNDS TAKE SHAPE
FLOURISH CHART SHOWING TARIFF REVENUE: 29325373
But the report from AAFF, which was founded by former Vice President Mike Pence in 2021, contends the tariffs’ revenue success came at a cost.
Researchers found employment growth weakened across most sectors after the tariffs took effect, with manufacturing and trade-related industries among the hardest hit. Their analysis found a 99.9% probability that job growth slowed following the policy change.
When reached for comment about the report’s findings, White House spokesman Kush Desai did not address the claims, but instead took a swipe at the group, telling Fox News Digital: “Another useless memo is still not going to make Mike Pence relevant again.”
AFTER SUPREME COURT BLOW, TRUMP ADMIN LAUNCHES $166B TARIFF REFUND PORTAL
Beyond employment, the report points to higher costs for American households and businesses.
According to the report, about 90% of the tariff burden fell on U.S. importers rather than foreign producers. The authors estimate the average American family paid about $1,000 more in tariff-related costs during 2025.
Researchers estimate Trump’s 2025 tariffs resulted in up to 1 million fewer jobs than would have been expected under pre-tariff economic trends. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
While businesses are seeking refunds following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Stern argued that repayment cannot reverse broader economic damage caused during the tariff period.
“You can’t undo the damage. You can’t undo a factory,” Stern said. “There are many that closed in America because they couldn’t get their hands on products used for manufacturing.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The report concludes that the tariffs “unlawfully taxed American families, wiped out nearly a million jobs, and were ultimately ruled illegal.”
The findings add a new dimension to the ongoing debate over Trump’s trade agenda, challenging the argument that higher tariffs would revive domestic manufacturing and create American jobs.
Read the full report:
Politics
Commentary: This historic Nevada mining town has seen better days. Trump is excavating hope
TONOPAH, Nev. — Some years ago, Harry Chahal and his wife were on a trip to Las Vegas when, like countless motorists before and since, they passed through this high desert speck of a town.
Tonopah, built by the mining industry around 1900 and depleted as the gold, silver, lead and mercury petered out, is a remote way station about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. Signs on either side warn — ominously, given the unforgiving expanse ahead — that once you’ve left, the nearest gas station is not for another 100 miles or so.
As he passed through town, Chahal noticed something missing: a pizza parlor.
Pizza is not generally associated with Punjab, India, where Chahal — given name Harvarinderjit — is originally from. But he learned how to make pizza, and how much customers loved gobbling it up, while working at different gas station mini-marts around rural Nevada.
In that absence, Chahal saw opportunity.
He and his wife, Ravinder, moved to Tonopah and in 2015 opened Hometown Pizza in a vacant building on U.S. Route 95, which runs through the heart of town. Ten years later, they bought the Dream Inn Motel, a 39-room operation just up the road.
Views of the 47th president, from the ground up
Lately, Chahal has been sprucing up the motor inn: new cabinets, new furniture, fresh paint every few months. The reason is President Trump.
Tonopah and the surrounding desert, stretching farther than the eye can reckon, is verging on a boom, owing to vast reserves of lithium, boron and other sought-after materials and a Trump administration promise to turn the U.S., in the words of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, into “a mineral powerhouse once again.”
Chahal, 40, is a repeat Trump voter and even though he has issues with some of what the president has done — he’s not happy about the war with Iran and inflation has taken a decent-sized bite out of his pizza business — he feels his faith in Republicans in general and Trump in particular have paid off.
A registered nonpartisan, Chahal is fairly apolitical. “I vote for Republicans because they’re better for business,” he said as a lunch-time crowd of locals and folks passing through tucked into the $11.99 pizza-and-salad buffet. Here’s proof: In the last year, Chahal said, he’s seen motel occupancy increase significantly, from around 15 rooms rented each night to 25 or more.
Those fresh touches to the Dream Inn are Chahal’s investment in the future and a belief that, with Trump in office, even better times lie ahead.
Tonopah was built as a mining town around 1900. It’s fortunes have waxed and mostly waned.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
::
For much of its being, Tonopah relied on metal, minerals and other valuables scooped from the earth. Today, government is the largest employer.
But mining continues to hold fast to the town’s imagination.
A headframe — that’s the tower built directly over an underground mine shaft — is part of Tonopah’s logo. Mining-related sculptures, including statues of Jim and Belle Butler, who staked the first claim in the 20th century silver rush, dot the main thoroughfare. The high school’s athletes are called the “Muckers,” after those who shovel ore into underground rail cars.
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big tourist attraction, along with the Clown Motel and other lodging establishments supposedly haunted by the ghosts of dead miners and other paranormal phenomena. (Chahal says there are no apparitions at the Dream Inn.)
The Clown Motel, which draws visitors from around the world, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of dead miners.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Lately, however, mining is becoming more than just a part of nostalgic lore. It’s poised to again be a major boon to the local economy and the town’s 3,000 residents.
Plans are underway for a new lithium and boron mine at Rhyolite Ridge, approximately 30 miles southwest of Tonopah, in Nevada’s Silver Peak Range. (Lithium, most of which is now imported, is a vital ingredient in the batteries that store solar energy and power electric vehicles; boron is used, among other things, for bulletproof armor and vests.)
About 27 miles to the south of Tonopah, near the town of Goldfield, a new gold mine is set to open in 2028.
Joe Westerlund, Tonopah’s town manager, said fresh development and the prospect of hundreds of new, good-paying jobs are much welcomed. The median income here is about $37,000 annually, less than half the state average. The hospital in town closed in 2015. Venture off U.S. 95 and the rolling hills are flecked with weathered miner’s cottages and tumbledown homes no longer fit for habitation.
(A three-bedroom, two-bath home in a comfy subdivision on the north end of town can be had for around $250,000, but don’t hurry over to buy; inventory is low and could grow even leaner if demand for housing increases.)
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big local tourist attraction.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)
While some of the groundwork for the mining resurgence was laid during the Biden administration, Trump is credited with fostering a much friendlier regulatory environment, which promises even more opportunities for extraction.
“As soon as he got into office, things started loosening up. We had 15 drill rigs,” said Westerlund, who has lived in Tonopah since 1972. “I had never seen that before in my life.”
There are, of course, environmental concerns — about pollution, water supply, native habitat — but those worries haven’t gained much of a toehold. Nye County, which is home to Tonopah, isn’t exactly tree-hugger country — and not just because most of the land is scrub-filled desert. Trump carried Nye County all three times he ran, with landslide support ranging from 68% to 70%.
“This is a pro-Trump town,” Westerlund said, “and I feel like his policies are doing good for the town.”
Chahal stands ready to cash in, knowing firsthand what economic good times feel like.
The Mizpah hotel, opened in 1908, offers the plushest accommodations in town.
(Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times)
When he moved here in 2014, he and his wife were forced to stay in a motel for six months because workers finishing up a $1 billion solar energy project were taking up most of the living space. That’s the kind of extended-stay guest he’s after, not the tourists bedding at the Mizpah Hotel, the plushest resort in town, with its cut-glass chandeliers, Victorian furnishings and photo gallery of celebrities who’ve stayed the night.
“If I can rent 25 rooms a night, maybe 15 can be for the long term” of several weeks at a time, Chahal said. He’s done the math — $82 a night for a queen bed, single occupancy; $89 for a king — and likes how it pencils out.
::
Chahal came to the U.S. in 2006, after marrying Ravinder, who grew up in the Sacramento area. She had family in Punjab and was a regular visitor to India. The two met when they were 10 years old. Chahal became an American citizen in 2020.
Politically, Indian Americans lean heavily toward the Democratic Party. But in the tiny Nevada communities where the couple lived — Lovelock, Battle Mountain and Ely before Tonopah — there was little or no Indian American presence. So Chahal wasn’t acculturated into the party the way many others have been. Rather, he embraced the GOP gospel of lower taxes and less regulation.
Harry Chahal opened hometown pizza in 2015 after driving through town and seeing there was no pizza place.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)
Working seven days a week, Chahal has little time these days for politics, beyond voting. He isn’t particularly ideological or, for that matter, worshipful of Trump.
“Every coin has a head and a tail,” he said, flipping his wrist as though tossing a quarter in the air. He sees two sides to the president. “Maybe you’re angry for some things,” Chahal said. “Maybe you agree with some things.”
He supports the notion of tariffs as a way of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. He also laments that the pizza boxes he uses, which are made in China, once cost him 30 cents and now run almost 67 cents apiece.
He backs Trump’s promise to round up and deport violent criminals who are in the country illegally. But he’s also mindful of the important role immigrants play, especially in areas like farming and construction, in sustaining the U.S. economy.
Chahal criticized the heavy-handed enforcement that resulted in the killing of two protesters in Minnesota. But he blamed their deaths on overzealous ICE agents, not Trump.
Living in a town greatly shaped by outside forces — the fluctuation of commodity prices, the changing of presidential administrations, the shifting priorities emanating from Washington — Chahal is familiar with vicissitudes and the business cycles of boom and bust.
Not everything Trump has done has helped the mining industry.
His tariffs and inflation have greatly increased construction costs. Cuts to the federal workforce have slowed the oversight and approval processes. His hostility toward green energy has dampened the market for electric vehicles and made solar energy considerably less attractive.
But based on the talk around town, Chahal believes a more prosperous future is in the offing. He certainly hopes so, and he’s counting on the president to deliver.
If the Constitution allowed for a third term, Chahal said, he wouldn’t hesitate voting for Trump again.
-
Wisconsin10 minutes ago18 Wisconsin meat processors win infrastructure grants as June Dairy Month spotlights upgrades
-
West Virginia13 minutes agoMan facing multiple charges after two-day investigation
-
Wyoming18 minutes agoGet to know Wyoming’s state flower
-
Crypto25 minutes agoBitcoin Tops $66K as US-Iran Deal Triggers Risk-on Rally Across Markets
-
Finance28 minutes agoWhy Your Idle Cash Is Losing Value and How to Secure Much Higher Yields in 2026
-
Fitness33 minutes agoAdding Exercise to GLP‑1 Therapy Improves Long-Term Benefits, Multinational Study Finds – Health & Fitness Association
-
Movie Reviews43 minutes agoMovie Review – Unidentified (2025)
-
World55 minutes agoVideo: Russian Attack on Kyiv Damages Historic Orthodox Cathedral
