Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement America is having a conversation with itself, in voices that ring with rage, despair — and, sometimes, hope. For nearly two weeks, street protests have, leaping cities and towns in an electrifying arc, reverberating far beyond the Minneapolis street corner where a white police officer of a black man, George Floyd, and kept it there for nearly nine minutes.That image — and all it evoked about America’s disturbing past and troubled present — was seared into the collective consciousness. Floyd’s last words — “I can’t breathe” — were at...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement America is having a conversation with itself, in voices that ring with rage, despair — and, sometimes, hope. For nearly two weeks, street protests have, leaping cities and towns in an electrifying arc, reverberating far beyond the Minneapolis street corner where a white police officer of a black man, George Floyd, and kept it there for nearly nine minutes.That image — and all it evoked about America’s disturbing past and troubled present — was seared into the collective consciousness. Floyd’s last words — “I can’t breathe” — were at...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Gavin Newsom was the first governor to , shutting down California’s economy, the world’s eighth-largest, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next day, Friday, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, followed suit. But not so in Texas and Florida, the nation’s second and third most populous states, where a small-government philosophy — less taxes, fewer regulation and a weaker safety net — has long held sway. About one-fifth of Texas’ 29 million people lacks health insurance, and nearly one-quarter of Florida’s 21 million...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement Gavin Newsom was the first governor to , shutting down California’s economy, the world’s eighth-largest, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next day, Friday, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, followed suit. But not so in Texas and Florida, the nation’s second and third most populous states, where a small-government philosophy — less taxes, fewer regulation and a weaker safety net — has long held sway. About one-fifth of Texas’ 29 million people lacks health insurance, and nearly one-quarter of Florida’s 21 million...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | In all his years walking into homes with a little white bottle of holy water, the Rev. Kristopher Cowles had never received a request like the recent one when a parishioner led him to a basement and pointed to a bed near a poster of the Virgin Mary and a carton of Clorox wipes. “Can you bless our quarantine room?” said Ciriaco Barrera, a 64-year-old pork worker who secluded himself in the spot earlier this year only to see the disease take hold of his wife and daughter. “We can’t let it get us again.”Cowles whispered a prayer and made the sign of...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | In all his years walking into homes with a little white bottle of holy water, the Rev. Kristopher Cowles had never received a request like the recent one when a parishioner led him to a basement and pointed to a bed near a poster of the Virgin Mary and a carton of Clorox wipes. “Can you bless our quarantine room?” said Ciriaco Barrera, a 64-year-old pork worker who secluded himself in the spot earlier this year only to see the disease take hold of his wife and daughter. “We can’t let it get us again.”Cowles whispered a prayer and made the sign of...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The hashtag began to appear on social media not long after the man first spoke on national television Wednesday: #JayBakerResign.As the nation clamored for answers in the deadly shootings of eight people at Atlanta-area spas — six of them women of Asian descent — the spokesman for the sheriff’s department in Cherokee County, Ga. seemed to play down the news.After the arrest of , a 21-year-old charged with murder for the deaths, Capt. Jay Baker told reporters that Long was having “a really bad day.” He described a man suspected of a...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The hashtag began to appear on social media not long after the man first spoke on national television Wednesday: #JayBakerResign.As the nation clamored for answers in the deadly shootings of eight people at Atlanta-area spas — six of them women of Asian descent — the spokesman for the sheriff’s department in Cherokee County, Ga. seemed to play down the news.After the arrest of , a 21-year-old charged with murder for the deaths, Capt. Jay Baker told reporters that Long was having “a really bad day.” He described a man suspected of a...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement They go by names , Wolverine Watchmen and the Three Percenters. They chat on Gab, Discord, 4chan and other social media. Heavily armed and , many vow to descend on polling places Nov. 3 .Armed, far-right groups have long echoed at the fringes of American politics, drawing white nationalists and other extremists to their ranks. But over the last four years — when with social justice movements — their voices have grown louder, their actions more brazen. The alleged plot revealed this week by extremists to was a stunning indication of...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement They go by names , Wolverine Watchmen and the Three Percenters. They chat on Gab, Discord, 4chan and other social media. Heavily armed and , many vow to descend on polling places Nov. 3 .Armed, far-right groups have long echoed at the fringes of American politics, drawing white nationalists and other extremists to their ranks. But over the last four years — when with social justice movements — their voices have grown louder, their actions more brazen. The alleged plot revealed this week by extremists to was a stunning indication of...WW…