Politics

In 2021, four years after finishing her last jail term and living in transitional housing in Riverside County, Erica Smith was ready for a permanent home. She’d saved enough to cover a security deposit and the first and last month’s rent for an apartment for her and her daughter.

More than 42,000 people died of gun violence in the United States during 2023. The Dec. 29 figure comes from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that touts itself as an independent data collection and research institute with no affiliation to any advocacy group.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to determine whether former President Donald Trump can keep running for the White House. Wednesday appealed a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that he’s ineligible for the presidency because he violated a rarely used constitutional prohibition on those who hold office having “engaged in insurrection.”

Social media has been rife in recent weeks with posts speculating that a judge is about to release a list of clients or co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Over the past three years, the world’s oldest democracy has been tested in ways not seen in decades. A sitting president tried to overturn an election and his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the winner from taking power. Supporters of that attack launched a campaign against local election offices, chasing out veteran administrators and pushing conservative states to pass new laws making it harder to vote.