LOS ANGELES

NEW GEOGRAPHY--In the ever-intensifying battle between red and blue, the consultants, fixers and self-serving media thrive, but America suffers.

“I THINK HE’S STILL MY PERSONAL LAWYER’--Rudy Giuliani speaks to members of the media during a White House Sports and Fitness Day at the South Lawn of the White House May 30, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

CLIMATE POLITICS-Global warming is on speed, especially in northern latitudes where an international team of scientists led by Igor Semiletov of Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia’s oldest technical institution, recently made a startling discovery aboard the Academic Mstislav Keldysh (photo above), the kind of discovery that sends chills down the spine, i.e., “methane bubbles boiling in water.” 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Immigrants are already essential to health care in California. But they will become even more important in the future.

GUEST WORDS-Trump is a master at speaking in codes. Certainly not Code Pink but codes that Nazis, white supremacists, Ku Klux Klaners anxiously await.

PERSPECTIVE-Familiarize yourself with the hashtag #OutNow, it is refusefacism.org’s message: “In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America!”

ALPERN AT LARGE--The old adage, repeatedly forgotten, remains true: "Point one finger at someone else, and four others are pointing right back at you." Kind of like that other old adage about "he who lives in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones."

GUEST COMMENTARY--The PG&E Blackout Con is all about threatening the judge in the PG&E bankruptcy case. The victims have joined with the bondholders to eliminate the equity of the stockholders who deserve nothing.

DEEGAN ON LA-Raw sewage has entered the calculus at the site of a New York developer’s dream of high-end housing, restaurants and retail called “Casitas Lofts,”  a project he hopes to situate along a stretch of the Los Angeles River near Atwater Village and Glassell Park.

THE REAL LA HOUSING CRISIS-It can be stressful being a tenant in LA these days. Don't take my word for it. Just ask the people living at 1719 Whitley in Hollywood (photo above).

JUSTICE LONG OVERDUE-Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s failure to charge Ed Buck for the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean was not because of a lack of evidence or probable cause.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-As animal psychologists note, animals have a concept of fairness and become upset when the rules are broken.

CLIMATE POLITICS--Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017, caused an estimated $90 billion in damage to the U.S. territory. (Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)

OTHER WORDS-My campus, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is in an uproar over a video to promote the school’s homecoming that features no students of color. 

JUSTICE-Are you a woman? Imagine if you were fired for wearing a skirt to work. Are you a man? Imagine getting fired for not wearing a skirt to work.

CITY LAB-Kieshaun White says that he doesn’t like to talk politics when it comes to the environment. He prefers to stick to the data.

BIG PHARMA POLITICS--Nothing in life is free, but too often things are more expensive for all of us, and make our lives more difficult because of that expense.

PLANNING WATCH-If City Hall’s density hawks and their cronies, both local and in Sacramento, had their way, they would unabashedly up-zone vast swaths of Los Angeles.

THE CITY--Last month Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, executive director of LA's Local Initiatives Support Corporation, sat down with Sen. Ben Allen, Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane, and public finance expert Larry Kosmont for a discussion about affordable housing and public transit.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-The next great political civil wars won’t be over race, the nation-state, religion or even class.

PERSPECTIVE-US President Donald Trump speaks to the press as he departs the White House in Washington, DC, for Florida on October 3, 2019. - Trump said Thursday he would "certainly" think about approaching Chinese leader Xi Jinping to investigate the US president's domestic political rival Joe Biden.