sunday morning

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) visited three Black churches in Los Angeles on Sunday morning to campaign for California’s redistricting effort, which could add five or six Democratic representatives to his ranks.

Amid a congressional deadlock over healthcare subsidies that has left the government shut down for more than two weeks, the minority leader returned to the Golden State to campaign for Proposition 50. The ballot measure would give his party more power against Republicans, who Jeffries said have refused to negotiate in the shutdown and otherwise.

“This is trouble all around us,” Jeffries told the congregation at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in West Adams — after poking fun at President Trump’s 2016 gaffe misspronouncing a book of the Bible. “Folks in the government who would rather shut the government down than give healthcare to everyday Americans. Wickedness in high places. And now they want to gerrymander the congressional maps all across the country to try to rig the midterm elections.”

The packed congregation — most wearing pink to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month — were receptive to his message.

“This is a way of trying to keep things equal,” said Kim Balogun, who was in Sunday’s crowd. “A level playing field.”

For many of its members, First AME is more than just a church. As the city’s oldest African American congregation, it has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights since its founding in 1872.

“This is family,” said Toni Scott, a retired special-education teacher who has been with First AME for 52 years. “As one of the church’s previous ministers used to say, ‘This is a hospital. People are sick; we come to be healed,’” she said.

When news reached L.A. that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, South African immigrants and anti-apartheid activists flocked to the church, anxiously awaiting the first sights of Mandela walking free. During the 1992 riots, First AME was a bastion of hope amid a sea of chaos.

“We thank you, God, for bringing us through dark times and chaotic times,” the Rev. Charolyn Jones said to the congregation on Sunday, “knowing that our church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was born out of protest.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, left, greets parishioners at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50,” Jeffries said.

(Ethan Swope / For The Times)

For Jeffries, the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress, the West Coast trip amid a congressional impasse was important.

“The African American churchgoing community has always been the foundation of the Black experience in the United States of America,” Jeffries said, who also visited the congregations of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in South L.A. and Resurrection Church of Los Angeles in Carson. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50.”

The state’s redistricting effort, Proposition 50, is part of a national fight over control of the U.S. House of Representatives, instigated by President Trump. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, but in June, Trump began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to yield five more likely GOP seats.

In response, Newsom proposed California temporarily depose of its independent redistricting commission, led by 14 citizens, to redraw the state’s maps and add five Democratic seats, effectively canceling out Texas’s move.

The Democratic-controlled state Legislature quickly produced redrawn maps and scheduled a Nov. 4 special election to put them up for a vote. Mail-in ballots are already in the hands of voters.

California Republicans, including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have slammed the initiative as a “big scam.” Schwarzenegger called Democrats hypocritical, arguing that while they call Trump a “threat to democracy,” they want to “tear up the Constitution of California” and “take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians.”

Jeffries noted that California was letting its citizens ultimately decide — unlike some Republican-led states.

“We said from the very beginning that we want to find bipartisan common ground whenever possible, but unfortunately, Republicans, from the beginning of this presidency, have adopted a take-it-or-leave-it, go-at-it-alone strategy,” he said, which is part of why, he added, Proposition 50 is so important.

In the current shutdown, Democrats said they will not vote for a funding bill unless it extends tax credits in the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire for many Americans at the end of the year and reverses cuts to Medicaid that Republicans passed in July’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

If the ACA credits expire, premiums would on average more than double for Americans on the enhanced tax credit, one health policy research firm found. But Republicans point out they come with a price: The Congressional Budget Office estimates they would cost the government $350 billion over the next decade.

The bill, which is now law, will cut Medicaid spending by $793 billion, the CBO estimated, and lead to 7.8 million Americans losing their insurance.

On the government shutdown, Richard Balogun, a member of Sunday’s First AME congregation, thinks fighting for healthcare is a worthwhile cause.

“Isn’t it amazing that in England, Australia … you can have national healthcare? Maybe you don’t get treated within the first hour, but you get treated,” he said. In America, “you have to ask yourself sometimes, if I’m going to the emergency room, can I afford that thousands of dollars I’m going to have to pay? That should not be the case in this country.”

A government shutdown has consequences: 2.3 million civilian federal employees are going without pay — roughly 750,000 of whom are furloughed. When the employees are back-paid after the government reopens, that’ll correspond to roughly $400 million of taxpayer money spent every day of the shutdown to pay employees who were not working, the CBO estimates.

Beyond National Park closures and air travel delays, food programs for low-income families could run dry without a funding bill. The Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) can see effects as soon as one week after a shutdown, the CEO of the National WIC Assn. said. Meanwhile, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) could also run out of funding further down the line.

Republicans blame Democrats for shutting down the government over their healthcare concerns, but Jeffries pinned it on Republicans, who’ve refused to negotiate.

To Scott, the pink her congregation was wearing to support breast cancer survivors only emphasized the importance of access to healthcare. (Jeffries sported a pink tie.)

“More people need to know what’s going on, so just having him go from church to church, mostly in the Black neighborhoods — that’s where we have the most people: in our churches,” Scott said. “Some may hear the word, see something on fake news, but we know in the church you’re going to hear truth.”

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Elon Musk said he’s carrying out his threat to form a new political party after his fissure with President Trump, announcing the America Party in response to the president’s sweeping tax cuts law.

Musk, once an ever-present ally to Trump as he headed up the White House advisory team, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, broke with the Republican president over his signature legislation, which was signed into law Friday.

As the bill made its way through Congress, Musk threatened to form the “America Party” if “this insane spending bill passes.”

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk said Saturday on X, the social media company he owns. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

The formation of new political parties is not uncommon, but they typically struggle to pull any significant support away from the Republican and Democratic parties. But Musk, the world’s richest man who spent at least $250 million supporting Trump in the 2024 election, could affect the 2026 elections determining control of Congress if he is willing to spend significant amounts of money.

His reignited feud with the president could also be costly for Musk, whose businesses rely on billions of dollars in government contracts and publicly traded company Tesla has taken a hit in the market.

It wasn’t clear whether Musk had taken steps to formally create the new political party. Spokespeople for Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, didn’t immediately comment Sunday.

As of Sunday morning, there were multiple political parties listed in the Federal Election Commission database that had been formed in the the hours since Musk’s Saturday X post with versions of “America Party” of “DOGE” or “X” in the name, or Musk listed among people affiliated with the entity.

But none appeared to be authentic, listing contacts for the organization as email addresses such as ” [email protected]″ or untraceable Protonmail addresses.

Musk on Sunday spent the morning on X taking feedback from users about the party and indicated he’d use the party to get involved in the 2026 midterm elections.

Last month, he threatened to try to oust every member of Congress who voted for Trump’s bill. Musk had called the tax breaks and spending cuts package a “disgusting abomination,” warning it would increase the federal deficit, among other critiques.

“The Republican Party has a clean sweep of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and STILL had the nerve to massively increase the size of government, expanding the national debt by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk said Sunday on X.

His critiques of the bill and move to form a political party mark a reversal from May, when his time in the White House was winding down and the head of rocket company SpaceX and electric vehicle maker Tesla said he would spend “a lot less” on politics in the future.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who clashed with Musk while he ran DOGE, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that DOGE’s “principles” were popular but “if you look at the polling, Elon was not.”

“I imagine that those board of directors did not like this announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities,” he said.

Price writes for the Associated Press.

Lakers superstar LeBron James will once again make NBA history by playing in his 23rd NBA season.

James exercised his player option for $52.6 million to play for the Lakers during the 2025-26 season, his agent and CEO of Klutch Sports Rich Paul told The Times on Sunday morning.

James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, had been tied with Vince Carter for the most seasons played in the NBA at 22. This will be James’ eighth season with the Lakers.

James, 40, is 50 games away from breaking Hall of Famer Robert Parish’s record for the most games played in the regular season.

James averaged 24.4 points per game last season, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds.

Fellow Laker Dorian Finney-Smith reportedly declined his $15.3-million player option and will pursue free agency, a person with knowledge of his decision told The Times. Finney-Smith, who is coming off a strong season with the Lakers, is expected to be pursued by multiple teams. He could still return to the Lakers. ESPN was first to report Finney-Smith’s decision.

Last week, Austin Reaves declined the team’s maximum offer of four years for $89 million, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Reaves, 27, still has two years left on his deal, for $13.9 million next season and $14.9 million in the 2026-27 season, and he holds a player option for the last year of his deal.

Lakers forward LeBron James (23) and teammate Austin Reaves react to a referee’s call during a 2025 NBA playoff game against Minnesota.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

He was third on the Lakers in scoring last season, averaging career-highs in scoring (20.2), assists (5.8), rebounds (4.5) and minutes per game (34.9). He shot 46% from the field and 37.7% from three-point range.

With the James and Smith player option questions resolved Sunday, the Lakers are focused on filling out their roster. They added an athletic wing player when they acquired Adou Thiero in a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who drafted him with the 36th pick in the second round.

The most pressing need for the Lakers remains a center, and they’ll have to look into free agency or via trade to acquire one.

The Lakers have the taxpayer mid-level exception of about $5.65 million to spend.

“As I said at the end of the year, we know one of the things we have to address is the center position and that’s clearly going to be one of our focuses as we begin the free-agency period,” Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, told Spectrum SportsNet after the second round of the draft Thursday. “… “So, we’re looking forward to just putting in the hard work and making sure we take care of all the needs on the roster to give [Lakers coach] JJ [Redick] the tools he needs for this team to be great next season.”

Roozbeh Farahanipour sat in the blue-green glow of his Westwood restaurant’s 220-gallon saltwater aquarium and worried about Iran, his voice accented in anguish.

It was Sunday morning, and the homeland he fled a quarter-century ago had been bombed by the U.S. military, escalating a conflict that began nine days earlier when Israel sprang a surprise attack on its perennial Middle Eastern foe.

“Anger and hate for the Iranian regime — I have it, but I try to manage it,” said Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek restaurant and two other nearby eateries. “I don’t think that anything good will come out of this. If, for any reason, the regime is going to be changed, either we’re facing another Iraq or Afghanistan, or we’re going to see the Balkans situation. Iran is going to be split in pieces.”

Farahanipour, 53, who’d been a political activist before fleeing Iran, rattled off a series of questions as a gray-colored shark made lazy loops in the tank behind him. What might happen to civilians in Iran if the U.S. attack triggers a more widespread war? What about the potential loss of Israeli lives? And Americans, too? After wrestling with those weighty questions, he posed a more workaday one: “What’s gonna be the gas price tomorrow?”

Such is life for Iranian Americans in Los Angeles, a diaspora that comprises the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Farahanipour, like other Iranian Americans interviewed by The Times, described “very mixed and complicated” feelings over the crisis in Iran, which escalated early Sunday when the U.S. struck three nuclear sites there, joining an Israeli effort to disrupt the country’s quest for an atomic weapon.

About 141,000 Iranian Americans live in L.A. County, according to the Iranian Data Dashboard, which is hosted by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. The epicenter of the community is Westwood, where the neighborhood’s namesake boulevard is speckled with storefronts covered in Persian script.

On Sunday morning, reaction to news of the conflict was muted in an area nicknamed “Tehrangeles” — a reference to Iran’s capital — after it welcomed Iranians who emigrated to L.A. during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In some stores and restaurants, journalists from CNN, Spectrum News and other outlets outnumbered Iranian patrons. At Attari Sandwich Shop, known for its beef tongue sandwich, the pre-revolution Iranian flag hung near the cash register — but none of the diners wanted to give an interview.

“No thank you; [I’m] not really political,” one middle-aged guest said with a wry smile.

Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA, said that any U.S. involvement in a military conflict with Iran is freighted with meaning, and has long been the subject of hand-wringing.

“This scenario — which seems almost fantastical in a way — is something that has been in the imagination: the United States is going to bomb Iran,” said Harris, an Iranian American who wrote the book “A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran.” “For 20 years, this is something that has been regularly discussed.”

Many emigres find themselves torn between deep dislike and resentment of the authoritarian government they fled, and concern about the family members left behind. Some in Westwood were willing to chat.

A woman who asked to be identified only as Mary, out of safety concerns for her family in Iran, said she had emigrated five years ago and was visiting L.A. with her husband. The Chicago resident said that the last week and a half have been very difficult, partly because many in her immediate family, including her parents, still live in Tehran. They recently left the city for another location in Iran due to the ongoing attacks by Israeli forces.

“I am talking to them every day,” said Mary, 35.

Standing outside Shater Abbass Bakery & Market — whose owner also has hung the pre-1979 Iranian flag — Mary said she was “hopeful and worried.”

“It’s a very confusing feeling,” she said. “Some people, they are happy because they don’t like the government — they hate the government.” Others, she said, are upset over the destruction of property and death of civilians.

Mary had been planning to visit her family in Iran in August, but that’s been scrambled. “Now, I don’t know what I should do,” she said.

Not far from Westwood, Beverly Hills’ prominent Iranian Jewish community was making its presence felt. On Sunday morning, Shahram Javidnia, 62, walked near a group of pro-Israel supporters who were staging a procession headed toward the city’s large “Beverly Hills” sign. One of them waved an Israeli flag.

Javidnia, an Iranian Jew who lives in Beverly Hills and opposes the government in Iran, said he monitors social media, TV and radio for news of the situation there.

“Now that they’re in a weak point,” he said of Iran’s authoritarian leadership, “that’s the time maybe for the Iranians to rise up and try to do what is right.”

Javidnia came to the U.S. in 1978 as a teenager, a year before revolution would lead to the overthrow of the shah and establishment of the Islamic Republic. He settled in the L.A. area, and hasn’t been back since. He said returning is not something he even thinks about.

“The place that I spent my childhood is not there anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t exist.”