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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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced aggressive questions about his skepticism of vaccines and other issues during the first of two scheduled Senate confirmation hearings.
Questions about former Vice President Kamala Harris’ plans have swirled since she lost her presidential bid — notably about whether the former California senator and attorney general will run for governor next year.
With little power in Republican-led Washington, D.C., California Democrats struggle to mount a countereffort to President Trump’s agenda.
Former President Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services is strongly considering running for governor of California, according to allies.
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.