Newsletter: Today: Repeal, Replace, Regroup: The Sequel

Senate Republicans have pressed pause on their healthcare overhaul plan. 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.

TOP STORIES

Repeal, Replace, Regroup: The Sequel

We’ve seen this drama before: an abrupt decision to postpone the voting on Republicans’ Obamacare overhaul in Congress. The delay-and-entice strategy resulted in passage of the House plan (which President Trump would later call “mean”). Now that the Senate is holding off on its bill for a few weeks, will the sequel play out the same way? This time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has roughly $200 billion with which to play, in an effort to get Republican holdouts on his side. As for Trump, he told senators at the White House: “This will be great if we get it done. And if we don’t get it done, it’s just going to be something that we’re not going to like. And that’s OK.”

More Politics

-- The White House’s warning on Syria’s chemical weapons is a test of Trump’s credibility, and of the intelligence community he attacks.

-- The Trump administration is at least two months away from starting construction of prototypes for a wall along the Southwest border. They’ll be built near the San Diego border fence.

-- Slightly more Europeans now view the United States unfavorably under President Trump than favorably, according to a survey. Trump will make a return visit to the continent early next month.

California and the Final Exit

Roughly one year ago, terminally ill Californians were given the ability to end their own lives by requesting lethal prescriptions from doctors. The End of Life Option Act made California the fifth state to allow patients with less than six months to live to do so. Now, we’re getting a first glimpse of how it is playing out. Data show 111 people took their own lives under the law from June to December last year; most of them were white, college-educated cancer patients older than 60. But the moral debate goes on.

The Accidental Community Organizer

Conservatives have long derided Barack Obama for his past as a “community organizer.” As president, he hoped to inspire a wave of Democratic officeholders and idealists. Now Trump is doing something Obama couldn’t while in the White House: mobilizing liberal activists, from the grassroots on up. Mark Z. Barabak takes a look at a movement “powered by social media and fired up by deep antagonism.”

CNN Becomes the Object of Trump’s ‘Fake News’ Wrath

CNN’s ratings are up and the network says it’s on track for a record profit of more than $1 billion in 2017, but this week it’s exactly where it doesn’t want to be: the object of President Trump’s “fake news” wrath, after CNN retracted an article and saw three veteran journalists resign. Plus, there is that video purportedly showing a CNN producer questioning the network’s pursuit of the Trump-Russia collusion story. Though the video is from a conservative group criticized for deceptive editing in the past, that didn’t stop Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders from encouraging “everyone across the country” to look at it.

The True Lines of Power at the DWP

The L.A. City Council is expected to approve a new five-year contract with the Department of Water and Power’s largest union today. Mayor Eric Garcetti is pointing to $4 million a year in savings from the elimination of two nonprofits that never demonstrated they were achieving their goals of improving employee training and safety. But the savings are more than offset by an estimated $56 million in raises and other perks the deal provides. Why is this generous pact sailing through City Hall? Columnist Steve Lopez says it’s the work of Brian D’Arcy, “the baddest union boss in Los Angeles.”

How Will L.A.’s Tallest Building Fit Into the Landscape?

The Wilshire Grand is Los Angeles’ newest and tallest skyscraper. For architect David Martin, it’s the pinnacle of his career — and a chance to redraw downtown’s skyline, much as his grandfather did with City Hall and his father with the Department of Water and Power and the Arco Towers. But, as reporter Thomas Curwen writes, how it will fit into the fabric of the city is still open to debate.

At 1,100 feet tall, the Wilshire Grand is the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

MUST-WATCH VIDEO

-- “Can we go back to watering our driveways now?” and other things to ponder before the next drought hits.

-- Authorities in Brazil are forcing addicts out of an area known as “Crackland.”

-- Chef Daniele Uditi explains his “neo-Neapolitan” pizza style at Pizzana.

CALIFORNIA

-- L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck says investigators have identified more cadets who may have taken rides in stolen police cars, beyond the seven who have been arrested on suspicion of the thefts.

-- Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens says she won’t seek reelection. She’s faced questions over her department’s handling of a jail snitch scandal and an escape by inmates at the county jail last year.

-- Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill to shake up the California Board of Equalization, stripping most of the powers from the embattled state tax collection agency.

-- It’s been three weeks since Jimmy Gomez won an election to represent L.A.’s 34th Congressional District, but he still hasn’t taken the oath. What’s the holdup? House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy wants to know.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce its newest class of members this morning, as the academy continues to emphasize increasing its diversity.

-- “Okja” proves that Bong Joon Ho is one of the world’s most exciting filmmakers, according to The Times’ Mark Olsen. The film’s title character? A CG fantasy mix of pig, puppy and hippo.

-- Times film critic Justin Chang gives Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver,” a new “vehicular-action-thriller-jukebox-musical-romance,” a rave review.

-- Stephen Colbert is back from Russia, where the late-night host announced his 2020 White House bid and, he says, intelligence agents “followed me everywhere.”

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Rod Serling, who died at age 50 on this date in 1975, was known for his dramatic work on “The Twilight Zone,” “Night Gallery” and “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” among many other TV shows and films. In real life, he was a practical joker who enjoyed making his daughter laugh. She shared memories of her dad with The Times in 2013.

NATION-WORLD

-- An officer with Venezuela’s leading law enforcement agency hijacked a helicopter and hurled grenades as it flew over Caracas’ presidential palace, Foreign Ministry and the Supreme Court building.

-- Ukraine suffered the worst of a cyberattack that rippled across Europe and beyond. But why?

-- Three Chicago cops have been indicted in an alleged cover-up of the details in the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald.

-- A huge wildfire in Utah has become political, with the Republican governor blaming “the bird and bunny lovers and the tree-huggers and the rock-lickers.”

-- Chancellor Angela Merkel surprised Germans and her own conservative party by abruptly signaling her support for same-sex marriage. She says dinner with a lesbian couple who are caring for eight foster children changed her mind.

BUSINESS

-- The cutthroat world of Southern California supermarkets is getting even more intense with the arrival of discount Aldi stores and Amazon’s planned acquisition of Whole Foods.

-- The main ingredient of the weed killer Roundup will be added to a list of chemicals that California believes are linked to cancer, but Roundup maker Monsanto vows to continue its fight.

SPORTS

-- Is this the year the Dodgers can return to the World Series? Columnist Dylan Hernadez says the team’s brain trust ought to make moves to ensure it will be.

-- A glimpse at the close relationship between boxer Canelo Alvarez and promoter Oscar De La Hoya.

OPINION

-- A Manhattan Beach writer says preventing pedestrian deaths is more important than your speedy morning commute.

-- Michael Hiltzik: That new Seattle study is a big problem for fans of a higher minimum wage. Or is it?

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- A fake Time magazine cover featuring Trump, decrier of “fake news,” has been displayed in his golf resorts. (Washington Post)

-- Serena Williams gets the Vanity Fair cover story treatment, complete with Annie Leibovitz photos.

-- Meet the “container spotters,” those who hunt for globe-trotting metal boxes the way others might track rare birds. (Wall Street Journal)

ONLY IN L.A.

Dearden’s furniture store is a classic L.A. story that, after 108 years, is coming to an end. Englishman Edgar Dearden founded the company in 1909, and while dozens of other stores on furniture row on downtown L.A.’s Main Street folded, it kept going for decades as a small chain with a clientele of mostly Latino immigrants. Now, it’s closing its doors. “Other places may not have treated them with the respect they deserve,” said Chief Executive Ronny Bensimon. “Here, we always catered to them and made them feel like kings.”

Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj.

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