CHICO, Calif: Bernie Sanders first touched down in California 10 months ago, and close to 28,000 people filled the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena to see him. Just two staffers made the trip. There was something dreamlike about the crowd, and something promising, too.
"By December, when we were looking down the road, California stuck out as a place to compete," said Sanders's campaign manager Jeff Weaver in an interview.
Today, Sanders travels around California in a caravan of SUVs and campaign buses. The Secret Service guards his hotel rooms and scans the lines where people wait up to six hours to hear the senator speak. And at long last, his crowds look just like the electorate of the state he is trying to win - young and racially diverse - and they howl with approval after every sentence of a speech that has hardly changed since Iowa.
Sanders is in striking range of a victory in the nation's largest state thanks to an early decision to play here and a long campaign to convert nonwhite voters that has taken root here in ways that it didn't in other states that front-runner Hillary Clinton won. The principal reason? Young Latinos and Asian Americans, who have registered in huge numbers here in part to oppose Donald Trump, and who seem to be coalescing around Sanders.
It may be too late for Sanders. He could win California Tuesday and still effectively lose the nomination the same day, when five other states will also hold primaries. And the campaign worries that Clinton's virtually insurmountable delegate lead could lead television networks to call the race early and depress late-in-the-day turnout on the west coast.
But in the Sanders stump speech, and in his interactions with voters, there are clues to how he broke through with non-white votes. Immigration is now an issue of morality and workers' dignity; gone are the days when, in sync with some labor leaders, he said that only people like David and Charles Koch wanted "open borders." At a Thursday rally in Modesto, Sanders promised to legalize workers by executive order if Congress did not pass "comprehensive" reform.
"Today, there are 11 undocumented people in this country, and when you are a worker, and when you are undocumented, you get cheated and you get exploited every single day," he said. "What your employer can do to you if you are an undocumented worker is a disgrace."
One day earlier, at a forum for Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in Palo Alto, Sanders traded the microphone with activists who raised specific concerns about racism and job security. As he has long done at forums like this, Sanders pivoted with every answer to talk about the larger systemic problems with the country.
But that changed when one voter brought up immigration. She asked Sanders about the "two million plus" people deported under the Obama Administration, and about deportations to come. He started his answer with a story about his parents, immigrants from Poland. Then he described his visit to Friendship Park, along the U.S.-Mexican border, one of the events meant to penetrate Spanish-speaking media.
"Anyone been there?" he asked. "It's a beautiful park, right on the ocean. At that park, there is a fence - a very heavily screened fence - and as I understand it, on weekends, for a few hours, people from both sides of the border can get through the border and talk to each other."
The room was cramped, and hot, with a few open doors doing little to air it out. Sanders did not usually get this personal.
"Literally, because of the nature of the screen - which is very, very tight - the only physical contact that husbands and wives and children can have, is literally putting their pinkies through their fence," he said. "No hugging. No kissing. That's the kind of contact they have. And what a tragedy that is."
Since the start of primary season, Sanders has struggled to earn the support of minorities. The main barrier has been black voters, who overwhelmingly rejected the self-described democratic socialist and handed Clinton her still-strong delegate lead in a string of southern states. Sanders had hoped to do better with Latinos, but his ability to do so seemed shaky after he lost the Texas primary to Clinton back in March.
But California offered a unique opportunity. According to a January 2016 study by the Pew Research Center based on tabulations of 2014 Census data,, eligible voters who are Hispanic skew younger in California than elsewhere in the country, and make up a larger slice of the state's Democratic electorate. As another Pew study from 2011 noted, the average age of Latinos born in California was just 18; the average age of white Californians was 44.
There was also hope for Sanders in polling. A Field Poll of the Democratic race last May put his overall support among likely Democratic voters at 5 percent. By the end of the year, he had climbed to 35 percent overall, and to 32 percent among nonwhites.
"That was even though he'd barely campaigned in California," said Weaver. "We hadn't even advertised here. There was just a tremendous movement with Latino voters."
The Clinton campaign watched this happen all year, and at key moments, like Nevada's caucuses and Illinois's close primary, it appeared to hold off the tide. In 2008, Clinton won California's Latino voters by a 35-point margin over Barack Obama. Among Latinos younger than 30, she won by 30 points.
Yet in this week's final pre-primary Field Poll, Clinton led with Latinos by just four points. The Sanders campaign believes he has progressively sliced into her numbers by winning landslide support from younger voters, including Latinos.
Sanders sees these gains as evidence that early losses with nonwhite voters were tricks of the front-loaded Southern campaign schedule. In California, he proved that nonwhite voters could be won over if they simply learned who he was. In a telephone interview Thursday, he said his message is now resonating more with minority voters not because he's doing much differently but because of a greater familiarity with him.
"Let me give you my prediction," he said of his performance in California. "If there is a record-breaking turnout, I think we will win by big numbers."
"We focused on three things in California: Bernie barnstorming the state, outreach to new voters, and campaigning heavily among the Latino community," said Robert Becker, who served as the campaign's state director in Iowa and Michigan before decamping here. "The last poll has shown we're currently winning there, and that's not an accident. We've put a heavy emphasis in holding conversations with those communities."
In the first six months of 2016, 1.8 million new California voters were registered. Latino registration was up 123 percent compared to the same period in 2012. The rise of Donald Trump propelled that increase, but Sanders seemed to reap the benefits.
"We're doing very well with Latinos, in general, and very, very well with younger Latinos," Sanders told Rolling Stone last week. "What's been very interesting is that the demographic splits have been less white, black and Latino than they have been on age."
The support has gotten impossible to miss. Last week, at Sanders's rally in Ventura, some voters wore T-shirts portraying a young Sanders wincing as police wrest him away from a civil rights protest. The sound system, cycling through the usual mix of revolution-centric songs by Pearl Jam and Tracy Chapman, added Latin hits including "Lo Gozadera" and "Madre Tierra (Oye)."
One voter, 35-year old Guadalupe Potocacetpl, showed up in the "brown beret" gear of a Chicano nationalist group. He'd protested Trump at a Phoenix rally and started having conversations with fellow alienated activists who'd jumped aboard with Bernie.
"I met a lot of Bernie supporters, and I liked every single reason they were supporting him," he said. "At one point, I wasn't even going to vote because of the outcome of what Obama did - the deportations, the promises that didn't come through. But then I saw Bernie and he gave me a little bit of hope again."
Not far away, brothers John and Brian Meza, 22 and 19, were talking about the reasons they'd come to Bernie and the reasons their elders had not.
"I started finding news about Bernie on social media, and finding out about Hillary the same way - what she'd said, whether she had changed her mind," said Brian Meza. "The older people are getting their news from TV so they don't see that."
Sanders has not ignored TV. He was on the California airwaves, to the tune of $1.5 million, before Clinton was. More importantly, three months before the primary, his campaign shelled out to broadcast a short film called "Tenemos Familias" on Univision. It told the story of Florida tomato pickers, which Sanders had discovered while in his first Senate term, and which he had promoted from his Washington perch.
The ad did not make much of a dent in Florida, but the Sanders campaign could not focus on Florida as it could California. At the end of April, Sanders earned is-it-over headlines when early-state staffs were fired. But the plan was always to consolidate in California.
"I think you see on an overall basis that he does much better when he has been able to focus on a single state," said Weaver. "You can build on the rallies in single states, versus in multiple states, where the impact is diluted."
Has Bernie Sanders finally figured out how to appeal to minorities?
Has Bernie Sanders finally figured out how to appeal to minorities?

Panama wants ‘respectful’ ties with US amid canal threats

- The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance
PANAMA CITY: Panama hopes to maintain a “respectful” relationship with the United States, even as President Donald Trump has repeated threats to retake the Panama Canal, Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha said Saturday.
His comments came ahead of a visit next week by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a trip made more urgent against the backdrop of Trump’s threats and his allegations of Chinese interference in the canal.
“We discussed illegal migration, organized crime, drug trafficking and (other issues),” Martinez-Acha wrote on X of a call Friday with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “It was a cordial and constructive exchange.”
“I reiterated that all cooperation from Panama will take place under the framework of our constitution, our laws, and the Canal Neutrality Treaty,” he wrote. “Relations with the US must remain respectful, transparent and mutually beneficial.”
The US State Department said Landau had “expressed gratitude for Panama’s cooperation in halting illegal immigration and working with the United States to secure a nearly 98 percent decrease in illegal immigration through the Darien jungle,” an arduous path northward followed by many migrants.
The two officials also discussed the sale last month by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison to giant US asset manager BlackRock of its concession in ports at either end of the Panama Canal, Martinez-Acha added.
Panama’s comptroller has been conducting an audit of Hutchison since January.
Landau “recognized Panama’s actions in curbing malign Chinese Communist Party influence,” the State Department said.
The deal was set to close on April 2 but has been held up as Chinese regulators pursue an investigation.
The United States and China are the two biggest users of the Panama Canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, giving it vital economic and geostrategic importance. It was inaugurated by the United States in 1914 and has been in Panamanian hands since 1999.
Tens of thousands of Spaniards march across the country to protest the growing housing crisis

- The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent
BARCELONA, Spain: Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in protests held across the European country on Saturday in anger over high housing costs with no relief in sight.
Government authorities said that 15,000 marched in Madrid, while organizers said 10 times that many took to the streets of the capital. In Barcelona, the city hall said 12,000 people took part in the protest, while organizers claimed over 100,000 did.
The massive demonstration of social angst that is a major concern for Spain’s left-wing government was organized by housing activists and backed by Spain’s main labor unions.
The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent. Rents have been driven up by increased demand. Buying a home has become unaffordable for many, with market pressures and speculation driving up prices, especially in big cities and coastal areas.
A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home. High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m living with four people and still, I allocate 30 or 40 percent of my salary to rent,” said Mari Sánchez, a 26-year-old lawyer in Madrid. “That doesn’t allow me to save. That doesn’t allow me to do anything. It doesn’t even allow me to buy a car. That’s my current situation, and the one many young people are living through.”
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said on X that “I share the demand of the numerous people who have marched today: that homes are for living in and not for speculating.”
Lack of public housing
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter rose from 7.2 euros ($7.90) in 2014 to 13 euros last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.
Incomes have failed to keep up, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.
Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.
Spain is near the bottom end of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with public housing for rent making up under 2 percent of all available housing. The OECD average is 7 percent. In France it is is 14 percent, Britain 16 percent and the Netherlands 34 percent.
Angry renters point to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists. The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona’s city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.
Marchers in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods” and held up signs against short-term rentals. In Barcelona, someone carried a sign reading “I am not leaving, vampire,” apparently in a message to would-be real estate speculator seeking to drive him out of his home.
Authorities under pressure
The central government’s biggest initiative for curbing the cost of housing is a rent cap mechanism it has offered to regional authorities, based on a price index established by the housing ministry. The government says the measure has slightly reduced rents in Barcelona, one of the few areas it has been applied.
But government measures have not proven enough to stop protests over the past two years. Experts say the situation likely won’t improve anytime soon.
“This is not the first, nor will it be the last, (housing protest) given the severity of the housing crisis,” Ignasi Martí, professor with the Esade business school and head of its Dignified Housing Observatory, said in an email.
“We saw this with the financial crisis (of 2008-2012) when (a protest movement) lasted until there was a certain economic recovery and a reduction in the social tension,” Marti added.
US to revoke all South Sudan visas over failure to accept repatriation of citizens: Rubio

- South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
- Washington “will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” he added
WASHINGTON: The US said on Saturday it would revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders over that country’s failure of to accept the return of repatriated citizens.
South Sudan had failed to respect the principle that every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
“Effective immediately, the United States Department of State is taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders,” Rubio said.
It was the first such measure singling out all passport holders from a particular country since Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, having campaigned on an anti-immigration platform.
Rubio accused the transitional government in Juba of “taking advantage of the United States,” saying that “every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when another country... seeks to remove them.”
Washington “will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” Rubio added.
The world’s newest country and also one of the poorest, South Sudan is currently prey to tensions between political leaders.
Some observers fear a renewal of the civil war that killed 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018.
Protesters tee off against Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies across the US

- Over 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups
- Trump chided for “tearing this country apart” as he goes golfing amid tariff turmoil
Opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk rallied across the US on Saturday to protest the administration’s actions on government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues.
More than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The protest sites included the National Mall in Washington, D.C., state capitols and other locations in all 50 states.
Protesters assailed the Trump administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut federal funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in government downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, spoke at the Washington protest, criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of the LBGTQ+ community.
“The attacks that we’re seeing, they’re not just political. They are personal, y’all,” she said. “They’re trying to ban our books, they’re slashing HIV prevention funding, they’re criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives. This is Donald Trump’s America and I don’t want it y’all. We don’t want this America, y’all. We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us.”
Thousands of people marched in New York City’s midtown Manhattan. In Massachusetts thousands more gathered on Boston Common holding signs including “Hands off our democracy,” “Hands off our Social Security” and “Diversity equity inclusion makes America strong. Hands off!”
In Ohio, hundreds rallied in the rain at the Statehouse in Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
“He’s tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.
Archer Moran from Port St. Lucie, Florida, said, “They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security.”
“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it’s amazing how soon these protests are happening since he’s taken office.”
The president plans to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But the opposition movement has yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, D.C., after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women’s reproductive rights.
“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what’s going on today, what’s happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. “It’s disgusting and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They’re not listening to the people.”
“All they’re doing is making sure that they have a parachute for them and their rich friends, and everybody else here that lives here — that makes the gears turn for this country — are just screwed at the end of the day,” she said.
US starts collecting Trump’s new 10 percent tariff, smashing global trade norms

- Trump’s tariffs impact global markets, causing $5 trillion loss in S&P 500 value
- Exemptions include crude oil, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors
WASHINGTON/JUPITER, Florida: US customs agents began collecting President Donald Trump’s unilateral 10 percent tariff on all imports from many countries on Saturday, with higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners due to start next week.
The initial 10 percent “baseline” tariff paid by US importers took effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses at 12:01 a.m. ET (0401 GMT), ushering in Trump’s full rejection of the post-World War Two system of mutually agreed tariff rates.
“This is the single biggest trade action of our lifetime,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer at Hogan Lovells and former White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term.
Shaw told a Brookings Institution event on Thursday that she expected the tariffs to evolve over time as countries seek to negotiate lower rates. “This is a pretty seismic and significant shift in the way that we trade with every country on earth,” she added.


Trump’s Wednesday tariff announcement shook global stock markets, wiping out $5 trillion in value for S&P 500 index companies by Friday’s close, a record two-day decline. Driven by recession fears, prices for oil and commodities plunged, while investors fled to the safety of government bonds.
Among the countries first hit with the 10 percent tariff were Australia, Britain, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia despite their having goods trade deficits with the US last year. White House officials have said many countries would run larger deficits with the US if their policies were fairer.
A US Customs and Border Protection bulletin provided a 51-day grace period for cargoes loaded or in transit to the US before 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday. These cargoes need to arrive by May 27 to avoid the 10 percent duty.
Trump’s higher “reciprocal” tariff rates of 11 percent to 50 percent are due to take effect on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. ET. European Union imports will face a 20 percent tariff, while Chinese goods will be hit with a 34 percent tariff, bringing Trump’s total new levies on China to 54 percent.
Beijing on Saturday said, “The market has spoken” in rejecting Trump’s tariffs. China applied a slew of countermeasures, including extra levies of 34 percent on all US goods and export curbs on some rare earth minerals.
“China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close,” Trump said on Saturday on social media. “THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”
Shortly after posting the comment, Trump was spotted arriving at his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, reading a New York Post article covering China’s retaliation to US tariffs and the stock market fall.
Israel, Taiwan, Vietnam
“A trade war is in no one’s interest. We must stand united and resolute to protect our citizens and our businesses,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in post on X.
Some world leaders hoped to strike a deal with Trump and avert economic fallout while others weighed countermeasures.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to visit the White House on Monday, sources said, to discuss the new 17 percent tariff on Israel. Media reported Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan, which faces a 24 percent levy, was seeking a telephone conversation with Trump.
Vietnam, which benefited from the shift of US supply chains away from China after Trump’s first-term trade war with Beijing, agreed on Friday to discuss a deal with the US after Trump announced a 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese imports.
The head of Taiwan’s National Security Council was in Washington for talks that were expected to include the tariffs, a source said. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te huddled with tech executives on Saturday to discuss how to respond to the 32 percent duty imposed on its products.
Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti warned on Saturday against imposing retaliatory tariffs on the United States, saying at a business forum near Milan that doing so could cause damage.
US billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump adviser, told a political event in Italy by video on Saturday that he hoped to see complete freedom of trade between the United States and Europe, which he described as “a zero tariff situation.”
Canada and Mexico were exempt from Trump’s latest duties but still face a 25 percent tariff imposed recently on goods that do not comply with rules of origin under a North America trade accord.
While Trump’s order exempted 1,000 product categories from the new tariffs such pharmaceuticals, uranium and semiconductors, the administration is considering new duties on some of them.