I’m Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I don’t want you to miss today. | |
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TOP STORIES‘Fundamental Meanness?’
Get ready for mock hand-wringing, political jockeying and backroom brinkmanship as the Senate Republicans try to wrest their version of Obamacare repeal into something passable. They’re planning to bring the plan, drawn up in secrecy, to a vote next week. Our assessment? The plan calls for “a drastic reduction in federal healthcare spending that threatens to leave millions more Americans uninsured, drive up costs for poor consumers and further destabilize the nation’s health insurance markets.” Here’s the spectacle so far: Four key conservative senators say they can’t vote for it unless the Affordable Care Act is more fully gutted. President Trump said it was still up for “a little negotiation.” Former President Barack Obama spoke out against its “fundamental meanness.” Dozens of protesters, many of them disabled, were arrested outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office where they staged a die-in. Get a side-by-side look at how both the Senate and House GOP plans compare to the status quo.
Our columnists’ thoughts:
— Michael Hiltzik: Senate GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill will cost lives, but fatten the wallets of millionaires.
— David Lazarus: Recipe for disaster: How not to cook up healthcare reform.
Lordy, There Are No Tapes
Oops, he did it again. Some 41 days after declaring on Twitter that fired FBI director “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” President Trump sought to set the record straight. “I did not make, and do not have,” any recordings of conversations with Comey, our commander in chief tweeted Wednesday. He left open the possibility that his sessions with the FBI chief could have been taped without his knowledge. Probably not the last we’ve heard about the subject … because there’s Twitter.
Riddle This One
On eight days in January, nine in February and 14 in March, California actually paid Arizona to take excess solar power off its hands. The winner? Arizona ratepayers who saved millions. Meanwhile, Californians still pay 50% more than the national average for power. It certainly raises questions about the state’s tumbled energy policy. State officials keep greenlighting new fossil fuel plants even while making California a champion of renewable energy. Our latest in the series on California’s power glut examines the sharp conflicts among major energy players over how best to weave new electricity sources into a system still dominated by fossil-fuel-generated power.
It’s Lonzo Time in Lakerland
Is this the start of Showtime 2.0? Lakers fans can only hope. As predicted by our basketball writers, the Lakers picked UCLA freshman Lonzo Ball with the No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft. Ball is a pass-first point guard not unlike a previous No.1 pick named Earvin Magic Johnson, who led the Lakers to five glorious championships. | |
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Bill Plaschke’s take: Lonzo Ball’s father, LaVar Ball, a man of bombast with a penchant for the melodramatic, was true to form last night, declaring, “Lonzo Ball is gonna take the Lakers to the playoffs his first year. Come see me when he does. I’ll have another hat on that says, ‘I told you so.’”
An Aggressive Dog, A Fatal Police Shooting
The fatal shooting of a Lancaster teen by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies early Thursday appears to be a tragic accident. Authorities said the dead 17-year-old, identified by family members as Armando Garcia-Muro, was trying protect deputies from his aggressive pit bull. Deputies firing to stop the dog fatally wounded Garcia-Muro. “He may have been struck by one of the skip rounds in what we’re calling an extremely, extremely unfortunate incident,” said Capt. Christopher Bergner. | |
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FLASHBACK FRIDAYSeveral decades before Twitter, the L.A. Times disseminated the news in less than 140 characters: In 1943, the paper created a billboard featuring a giant front page with a headline that changed daily. See it here. | |
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