Newsletter: If you like your healthcare plan ...

The Democratic presidential candidates differ on “Medicare for all” and whether Americans must lose their current health plans.

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If You Like Your Healthcare Plan ...

Take this job-based health coverage and shove it? Proposals pushed by three of the four leading Democratic presidential candidates — Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California — differ in their particulars but would all end the job-based system that provides coverage to more than 150 million people in favor of a government-run plan. But that’s a hugely risky strategy with voters, as more-centrist rivals reminded the three senators during two nights of heated, sometimes confusing, debates in Detroit this week.

More Politics

— Trump announced in a tweet that the U.S. is putting a 10% tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods starting Sept. 1, another indication that a resolution to the ongoing trade war between the two countries is anything but imminent. On Wall Street, stocks dropped sharply.

— The Justice Department has declined to prosecute former FBI Director James B. Comey for mishandling confidential memos he wrote documenting his interactions with Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.

— Black women have long supported the Democratic Party. Now they’re making a strong drive to lead it.

The Not-So-United Kingdom

He was booed in Scotland. In Wales, politicians held him at arm’s length. And in Northern Ireland, there were rumblings of Irish unity — which could only come at the expense of its ties to the rest of the United Kingdom. Boris Johnson, the new British prime minister, presides over a country consumed by Brexit. But the early days of his tenure are also casting a harsh spotlight on the growing fault lines within the U.K., which he likes to call the “awesome foursome.”

The Man in Room 20

“Sixty-Six Garage” was the name on his hospital bracelet, the name on the door to his room, the name on the sign above his bed, the name the state of California used to pay the nursing home for his care. In 1999, he had been in a crash in the desert, somewhere near the U.S.-Mexico border. And for nearly 17 years, he’d been kept alive with tubes. Who is he, and is it possible he’s conscious? That’s the mystery explored in our Column One feature and a new L.A. Times Studios podcast, “Room 20.”

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

On this date in 1960, Vice President Richard Nixon traveled to Whittier to officially launch his presidential campaign after he had won the Republican Party’s nomination the week before. After greeting well-wishers at Los Angeles International Airport, he rushed to Whittier College to deliver a speech. Nixon would lose to Sen. John F. Kennedy but return eight years later to claim the Oval Office.

CALIFORNIA

— For all the criticism it faces at home for its handling of homelessness, L.A. isn’t considered a failure across the country. At a recent gathering in Washington, advocates held up the city, county and state as models of political will.

— The South L.A. strip-mall parking lot where Nipsey Hussle died is now surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence.

— A Cedars-Sinai Medical Center division director and UCLA instructor has pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges. Guido Germano faces up to three years and eight months in prison if convicted.

— The Gilroy Garlic Festival gunman didn’t appear to target people of a particular race, an FBI official said. Racist comments posted on the gunman’s Instagram account have prompted speculation that he was motivated by white supremacist beliefs.

— The Cadiz water project faces a new hurdle: a just-signed law forcing it to undergo scientific study and get State Lands Commission approval to pump and market water from beneath the Mojave Desert.

YOUR WEEKEND

— “The pastry kitchen used to be very polite. Now it’s just bad-ass”: How women are leading the baking revolution.

— Restaurant critic Bill Addison gives you seven restaurants that remind us why the L.A. food scene is amazing.

— On a weekend trip to the town of Lee Vining in Northern California, hiking, birding and more await.

— These six things can stave off weight gain, even if your genes boost your risk of obesity.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— Insatiable appetites for scripted shows have brought a much-needed Hollywood production hub to a decidedly un-Hollywood part of L.A. The result: a sprawling new $30-million sound stage facility next to a mobile home park in Pacoima.

— It’s not just his family taking umbrage at how “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” depicts Bruce Lee. His former training partner says he wasn’t arrogant and ungracious as he’s shown.

— A federal judge has rejected half the claims in Woody Allen‘s $68-million lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract.

NATION-WORLD

— A federal judge has overturned the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of plans for a new copper mine in southeastern Arizona. The decision comes amid a larger battle across the West over the use of public land for mining.

— China’s powerful military has issued a stern warning to protesters in Hong Kong, vowing to defend the nation’s sovereignty and maintain stability against what it called “intolerable” demonstrations. Meanwhile, China has suspended independent travel by tourists to Taiwan.

— Against the backdrop of China’s rising economic and military power, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo arrived in the Thai capital of Bangkok this week with a difficult mission: Try to win back lost ground in Southeast Asia, a region once dominated by the U.S.

BUSINESS

— The rich are getting richer, locking up their fine art and borrowing against it, using Basquiats and El Grecos as collateral for nine-figure lines of credit from private banks. Think of it as a high-end pawn shop.

— In his new history of American labor, Steven Greenhouse details the Los Angeles group that championed America’s broadest living-wage law. He also builds a persuasive case that workers’ inability to engage in collective bargaining has fueled inequality, Margot Roosevelt writes in our review.

SPORTS

— The NFL’s best player of 2019 is Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, his fellow players say. The league’s two-time defensive player of the year ranked first on their ballot.

— Friday night lights dim: Far fewer high schoolers are playing football, and not just because of the risk of injury.

OPINION

— A homeless domestic violence victim’s fruitless hunt for a shelter bed shows that Los Angeles must better deploy the resources it already has, editorial board member Carla Hall writes.

— The nationalism buoying Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems rooted in nostalgia not for wartime glory but for his country’s postwar economic miracle and the future it promised, and it’s made him surprisingly pragmatic, Waseda University professor David Leheny writes.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— One big U.S. city’s plan to make housing affordable: End single-family zoning. The plan, which has drawn interest in California, is intended to boost density and raze racial inequality. It’s also pitting young against old. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

— West Virginia wants to become a powerhouse of plastics and politics. Its tools: vast natural gas reserves, Trump’s help and plans for a $10-billion underground storage complex so big it could house the entire U.S. Capitol. But there are serious questions about its viability, and the trade war with China doesn’t help. (ProPublica/Charleston Gazette-Mail)

ONLY IN L.A.

With its doo-wop vocal borrowed from Lou Reed, the new single from the three L.A. sisters known as Haim might recall a certain other American city. But with its Canter’s cameo and P.T. Anderson pedigree, the video is pure L.A.

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