Politics

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. —  Between rows of portable toilets, a line of strangers waited to be baptized in an aluminum horse trough. One by one, they emerged from water heated all day by the Nevada sun, united in purpose as new soldiers for Donald Trump.Nearby, Christian rock blared from a large tent where pastors standing before the main stage prayed and laid hands on attendees of the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right religious roadshow now in its third year. Helmed by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — a supporter of the former president and a key figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and Clay Clark, an Oklahoma entrepreneur and podcaster, the whirlwind event melds the MAGA movement, election denial, QAnon conspiracy theories and doomsday prophecy. 1 2...

Kobi Danan’s Hollywood nightclub Sound is a home base for Israeli dance music expats in Los Angeles. Danan, who is Israeli, has lived in L.A. for two decades but cherishes the close-knit circle of musicians, DJs and festival industry pros that pass through his venue.Last weekend in Israel, Hamas fighters attacked the Supernova rave in the Negev desert, just a few miles away from the border with Gaza, as part of a broad offensive into Israel. Danan, 42, was intimately familiar with that area’s festival scene, now turned into a site of unimaginable grief. At least 260 people were killed, with hundreds more injured or kidnapped and still unaccounted for out of a crowd estimated at several thousand.“It’s affected me deeply,” Danan said. He said that a close Israeli friend who lives in L.A. was...

WASHINGTON —  Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday became the first speaker of the House in history to be ousted by a vote of the chamber, leaving Washington in chaos and dealing a potentially fatal blow to the Bakersfield Republican’s political career.The revolt against McCarthy was led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and a small group of hard-right Republicans who have complained that the speaker worked across the aisle too often. The 216-210 vote highlighted the divisions in the GOP and made clear that the party’s right wing will not tolerate leaders who compromise with President Biden and his allies.Gaetz and seven other Republicans joined with 208 Democrats to dump McCarthy.“Well, we heard McCarthy say he wanted us to bring it on,” Gaetz told reporters after the vote. “So I guess we did.”The result ...

Rays first baseman Yandy Diaz was criticized for taking the last regular-season game off Sunday when he was slightly behind Texas’ Corey Seager in the race for the American League batting title. Seager, who spent his first seven seasons with the Dodgers, went 0 for 4, dipping to .327, and Diaz won the title while idle. His post on X, formerly known as Twitter, was succinct: “I got it” Diaz seemed flustered early in the Rays’ 4-0 Game 1 loss to the Rangers. In the first inning, Seager, who went two for four with an RBI, pulled a one-hop rocket down the first-base line that ate up Diaz, who after retrieving the ball made a poor throw to pitcher Tyler Glasnow and was charged with an error. Diaz was out of position on a single by Leody Taveras that led to the first run of the game in the seco...

This is a drill. We repeat, this is a drill.The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Communications Commission will jointly conduct a nationwide test of the emergency and wireless alert systems on Wednesday morning, FEMA said in a news release.The test is expected to last 30 minutes beginning at 11:20 a.m. and will send notifications in English or in Spanish to cellphones as well as broadcast across televisions and radios.“The purpose of the Oct. 4 test,” FEMA said in a statement, “is to ensure that the systems continue to be effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level.” The system is used to alert the public to emergencies in their area, such as severe weather systems or other dangers and Amber Alerts.The test will trans...

“How did you go bankrupt?” a character asks in one of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novels. “Gradually,” was the famous response. “Then suddenly.”And so it is for the politically and morally bankrupt Kevin McCarthy.On Tuesday, he was voted out of his job as House speaker — a first in the nation’s history — in a summary execution induced by a small band of far-right Republicans, who were gladly aided and abetted by vengeance-minded Democrats.The moment, for all its drama, seemed ordained from the instant McCarthy barely won the position.Power and responsibility didn’t remold the man, or summon deep reserves of character and wisdom. There is a hollowness at McCarthy’s core, which has long been evident, and it left him empty and bereft as he fought to stay in power.He never cared much about pass...

WASHINGTON —  At 3:04 p.m. Tuesday, Laphonza Butler walked across the floor of the U.S. Senate, stood facing Vice President Kamala Harris and took the oath to defend the Constitution, making official her emergence as a powerful new figure in California’s leadership.At the same moment, on the other side of the Capitol, the fate of a long-tenured figure in the state’s power structure stood in the balance, as members debated Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s effort to keep his post.McCarthy’s longtime antagonist, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, missed the debate and the vote, which McCarthy lost. She was in San Francisco, “grieving the loss of her dear friend Dianne Feinstein,” her spokesperson said. “She is very saddened not to be there for this historic vote.”The landscape of California evolves through...

Five people were injured Tuesday in a shooting at Morgan State University in Baltimore, police said, an attack that marred homecoming celebrations at the historically Black college.None of the victims had life-threatening wounds, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at a news conference early Wednesday. The four men and one woman are between the ages of 18 and 22.Morgan State Police Chief Lance Hatcher said four of the victims were students at the university, according to the Associated Press.Authorities did not announce any arrests or indications of a suspect.Classes at Morgan State were canceled for Wednesday.Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, Baltimore police said on social media that they were responding to an active-shooter situation at the campus on Argonne Drive. About 40 minutes ...

Kevin McCarthy’s long career has been about calculating the odds and working the backrooms, but those traits, which barely won him the House speakership earlier this year, were not enough to stop several far-right Republicans from pushing him out of the job he had craved since he was a young California assemblyman from Bakersfield.The vote Tuesday to oust McCarthy was a humiliating and historic defeat that revealed the limits of his formidable powers of persuasion while further exposing an increasingly divided and rancorous Republican Party whose extremists have broken the bounds of convention for a radical agenda against President Biden that has no use for what they describe as McCarthy’s conciliatory — and weak — nature.McCarthy is a politician of affability and a master of fundraising. ...

As the baseball playoffs begin, let’s update the inspiring tale of Dennis Kasumba, an 18-year-old catcher from Uganda who dreams of playing in the major leagues.He was a 14-year-old orphan working in a slaughterhouse when he met Paul Wafula, a coach and former member of Uganda’s national baseball team. Wafula, who believes in the redemptive power of sports, made him an offer: If you leave the slaughterhouse and come to baseball practice, you’ll get fed. Go to school and you’ll get paid too. Times reporter Kevin Baxter and I chronicled Kasumba’s intense workouts using improvised equipment — car tires for weights — and how he earned about $1 a day mucking out cow pens, while barefoot, of mud, manure and urine. The story reported that he had been invited to play in the amateur MLB Draft Leagu...