Seema Mehta is a veteran political writer who is covering the 2024 presidential race as well as other state and national contests. She previously wrote about the 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008 presidential campaigns, as well as multiple gubernatorial, Senate, congressional and mayoral races. Mehta was a 2018-19 Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan, where she studied how automation and artificial intelligence are indelibly changing the nation’s identity, policies and politics. The Syracuse University graduate and East Coast native swore when she joined The Times in 1998 that she would only spend a few years on the Left Coast. Many years, a husband, a house and a few cats later, she can’t imagine living somewhere she couldn’t golf year-round.
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Former President Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden are spending their first days after leaving the White House in Santa Barbara County.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the chief of the inaugural transition, acknowledged the difficulty of overseeing the handoff of power to President Trump in the site where his followers sought to violently overturn his election defeat four years ago.
Hundreds of the world’s most powerful people — among them every living president as well as billionaire tech executives — were crammed cheek-by-jowl in the 7,200-square-foot Capitol Rotunda.
Most people who traveled to Washington to watch the event in person have been relegated to the Capital One Arena, a sports venue nearby, for a livestream of the official ceremony.
Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 47th president in a historic Inauguration Day.
President-elect Donald Trump, in perhaps his first official trip after being inaugurated Monday, will likely visit the Los Angeles area to survey wildfire damage late next week.
California Sen. Alex Padilla introduced several bills to increase firefighter pay, expand FEMA funding and include affordable housing as part of disaster response.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in one of her last public appearances in the role, signed her ceremonial desk drawer at the White House on Thursday, a tradition that dates back nearly a century.
Tenant advocates — and even some landlord groups — are calling for authorities to crack down on rent gouging in the wake of devastating fires. Some property owners, however, appear unfazed.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed an executive order suspending parts of the Coastal Act and the California Environmental Quality Act to aid homeowners rebuilding after losses in last week’s wildfires.