Karen Bass, a Democrat, had never lost an election. Until now. It became clear on Thursday that Nithya Raman, also a Democrat, will be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Raman, who was born in India, graduated from Harvard University and is the mother of two children, will take the helm of the second-most-populous city in the United States, behind only New York City. She will be only the second woman to hold the office, following her predecessor, Bass, whom she defeated by a margin of 35,000 votes out of 824,000 counted. She will also be the first person of Asian descent, specifically South Asian, to serve as mayor of the city.

With 76% of ballots counted on Thursday morning, more than 36 hours after polls closed, Raman — a council member representing the Fourth District — held a commanding lead with 52.1% of the vote, compared with 47.9% for her opponent.

The results took time to emerge from an election night that also determined control of the federal Congress and saw Democrat Xavier Becerra elected governor of the state of California.

For several weeks, polls had projected Raman as the winner. Some showed her leading by only a couple of points, while others gave her an advantage of as much as 11. Yet just a week before Election Day, local media reported that Bass had closed the gap.

On Election Day, the race was effectively tied, and the gap between the two candidates remained razor-thin for hours. The final results, however, showed that Raman, as most forecasts had suggested, would ultimately prevail and take office.

Raman was virtually unknown outside local political circles until this summer, when she launched her primary campaign. But she steadily gained ground with voters through her ability to explain her ideas in simple terms and her focus on everyday concerns such as street maintenance, pollution and taxes. Some residents of her Fourth District, however, have criticized her precisely for what they see as a poor record on those bread-and-butter issues. When she entered the race, not a single member of the city council, on which she serves, endorsed her.

But Bass had been losing support after a difficult term, particularly because of her handling of the wildfires that swept through Pacific Palisades in January 2025. The blazes, which also devastated Altadena and Pasadena, although those areas are outside her jurisdiction, burned through 16,000 hectares, killed 25 people, forced 180,000 residents to evacuate and caused billions of dollars in damage, including the destruction of more than 11,000 homes.

“Where is our mayor?” That was the question Raman posed in a recent campaign video, underscoring her argument that Bass had failed to deliver on key promises, among them tackling homelessness.

On her first day in office, in December 2022, Bass made the issue a top priority, declaring a state of emergency and launching initiatives aimed at getting unhoused people off the streets and into permanent housing. But she failed to reverse the trend. In fact, the numbers have worsened in recent months: more than 73,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles, according to a report commissioned by the city. From 2025 to 2026, the homeless population increased by 3.4% in the city and 1.2% across Los Angeles County.

From now on, Raman will try to tackle those challenges, as well as the city’s housing crisis, a pressing issue in a place where the median home value stands at $928,000, according to the real estate website Zillow.

She has pledged to streamline the lengthy and cumbersome permitting process for new construction and create an office dedicated to protecting tenants. She has also promised greater transparency in the use of tax revenues, including the creation of a financial watchdog position that does not currently exist at City Hall.

The mayor-elect also plans to launch crews to repair streets and streetlights, hire more 911 operators, and expand the use of unarmed patrols and rapid-response teams to assist homeless residents and people experiencing mental health crises. She aims to open more parks, revitalize the city’s major thoroughfares, including the semi-neglected Hollywood Boulevard, and improve connections between Los Angeles and its main airport.

One of the biggest challenges Raman will face, and one that is likely to define her legacy, is the 2028 Olympic Games. The event will make Los Angeles a three-time Olympic host, the only city in the Americas to achieve that distinction.

In just 600 days, a sprawling and often chaotic city, with limited housing options, a deep reliance on cars, inadequate public transportation, chronic traffic congestion and poor links to its main airport, will have to welcome some four million visitors in need of accommodation and transportation.

How Los Angeles rises to that challenge will shape Raman’s tenure and may ultimately define it.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition

The aftershock of the political earthquake that shook the foundations of U.S. politics with the Republican Party’s crushing defeat in the midterms has hit the artificial intelligence industry. Voters have overwhelmingly decided to put the brakes on the sector’s most visible symbol: data centers.

The Democrats’ decisive victory threatens to usher in moratoriums and stricter regulations on these facilities. A growing chorus of critics accuses them of driving up electricity bills in the communities where they are built, consuming excessive amounts of water in drought-prone areas, lacking transparency in permitting processes and tax incentives, and creating other problems that have fueled NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) movements.

In Tuesday’s midterm elections, voters were not only choosing all 435 members of the House of Representatives and renewing one-third of the Senate’s 100 seats. They also voted on governors, mayors, a host of other public offices, and numerous local measures and ballot initiatives, including several aimed at restricting the development of data centers.

Of the 41 votes on data-center projects put to referendum across 10 states, only one passed, according to a Ballotpedia report. That was in Harwood, a town of just over 1,000 residents in North Dakota, where voters rejected a proposal to revisit requirements for industrial projects.

The Democrats’ victory gives them control of both chambers of Congress. The electoral shift opens a new chapter for the AI and technology industries, which now face a more challenging landscape in Washington. Technology stocks took a significant hit on Thursday in response.

Many companies in the sector invested heavily in supporting Republican candidates. Elon Musk, for example, poured away $474 million backing conservative candidates in Texas.

Opposition to data centers

Voters in California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, Nevada and Wisconsin delivered a strong rebuke at the ballot box to the construction of data centers in their communities. But three states have been particularly affected by the backlash against data centers, which have become a symbol of public anxiety over the rapid expansion of AI: Ohio, Texas and Virginia.

Half of the data-center proposals rejected in the midterms were in Ohio, where 21 projects failed to secure approval from local communities. The state’s new governor, Amy Acton, a physician, defeated Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Acton, who faced intense personal attacks during the campaign, supports a moratorium on new data-center developments until operators commit to covering the full cost of the public services they consume and allow workers hired to build these vast server-filled facilities to unionize.

Alongside Virginia and Texas, Ohio has become one of the industry’s main hubs. OpenAI has planned what would be the world’s largest AI data-center campus there, backed by a consortium of investment banks and Nvidia. According to CNBC, the project could ultimately exceed $500 billion in investment.

Newly elected Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio was among the most outspoken critics of data centers during the campaign. “I will always be on your side — always. I do not work for the utility companies. I do not work for data centers. I do not work for Wall Street. I work for you. I work for Ohio,” he said in his victory speech last Tuesday.

“With the continued contentiousness surrounding data centers, it is likely both legal and political action will continue in future years,” researcher Nicol Turner Lee wrote in a report for the Brookings Institution. “Organizers across the country have turned to ballot referenda, campaigns for public office, and protests designed to slow or stop data center development.”

This expert also pointed to the lack of transparency surrounding some of the agreements local governments have signed with data-center companies, concealing local or state tax exemptions, subsidies and other benefits from taxpayers.

“The widespread use of nondisclosure agreements between data center developers and local officials has fueled public opposition to data centers and encouraged suspicions of private deals benefitting insiders,” he said.

Coco Zhang, a researcher at ING Research, reflected on the impact that the Democrats’ landslide midterm victory could have on the expansion of data centers. “The data center industry is facing heightened local opposition. Recent polls suggest that around one in seven Americans is concerned about or opposes data centre development in their neighbourhoods,” she said in an ING report released Thursday.

UBS estimates that as much as 30% of the additional data-center capacity planned in the United States by 2028 could be at risk because of potential construction delays or disruptions.

Texas has become a magnet for technology companies and data centers relocating from California, attracted by lower taxes and generous incentives. The state hopes to become the world’s largest data-center market by 2030.

Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, moved the headquarters of his companies to Texas, a shift that other Silicon Valley firms have increasingly followed. But frustration over data centers, combined with growing concerns about the risks posed by AI, has fueled public discontent.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott went so far as to block the construction of data centers in an attempt to slow the rise of his Democratic rival, Gina Hinojosa, who ultimately won the governorship.

According to Zhang, “There is likely to be tighter data centre regulation. State-level policy will be more important to watch, as action is politically and practically easier at this level. The most likely approach is targeted regulation, much of which is already emerging. This includes data center-related taxes, reduced tax incentives, environmental standards, and requirements for developers to bear relevant cost increases.”

Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed: “Public policy is going to reflect public opinion, and there’s been a very substantial change in public opinion just over the last year.”

But the ING Research analyst argues that federal legislation targeting these facilities may prove difficult because U.S. President Donald Trump could use his veto power to block any such measures passed by Congress.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition

In Casavalle, one of Montevideo’s most vulnerable neighborhoods, Uruguayan priest Pablo Coimbra walks through a cluster of half-finished homes. The district, steeped in history, is set to receive Pope Leo XIV this weekend.

Built with solid foundations, concrete floors and aluminum-framed windows, the houses stand out amid the makeshift tin shacks and dirt roads that dominate the settlement.

“We have shown that it improves the quality of children’s education. Living without a bathroom, in a shack, is one thing; having a decent home is another,” Coimbra says ahead of the highly anticipated papal visit.

Coimbra has led Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish for the past six years. Founded in 1987, it belongs to the diocesan clergy. The community is now painting walls and preparing its facilities to welcome the pontiff during his visit to Uruguay.

The parish sits at one of Casavalle’s central hubs, behind a large modern square with skate ramps, playgrounds and sports courts. Around it are a police station, a school, a health clinic and a civic center housing a range of public services. The layout recalls that of old Spanish towns, organized around a central plaza where all civic life was concentrated.

But here, on the outskirts of Montevideo, opportunities and services are not always within reach. The presence of public institutions coexists with a reality shaped by poverty and violence: frequent shootouts, small-scale drug trafficking gangs battling for territory, contract killings, and children killed by stray bullets. These are the streets Pope Leo will walk through in Montevideo, where mud is a constant and sewage runs along the sidewalks.

The parish’s asymmetrical design breaks with the traditional image of a Catholic church. Its structure is defined by overlapping geometric brick volumes arranged on different levels, with sloping lines and staggered roofs. Inside stands an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that arrived after John Paul II’s visit to Uruguay nearly four decades ago. The pope gifted the image, and the clergy later donated it to this parish on the condition that the church bear the Virgin’s name.

From there, where he celebrates Mass for 200 people every Sunday, Coimbra speaks about the neighborhood’s challenges and explains what sets the Church’s work apart from that of public institutions. “I wouldn’t say the state is absent here, because that’s not true. The State is present. But it’s not efficient. The bureaucracy, the delays…,” says Coimbra, explaining that it is difficult for the state to meet the community’s pressing needs.

The difference, he says, lies in daily contact. “We live here, I live here. So we are constantly going out into the neighborhood, visiting people, getting to know them, having direct contact with families, with their problems, with the realities of daily life.”

For a few hours, the papal visit will place Casavalle at the center of attention. The parish’s work, however, continues every day. “People here feel very excluded, left behind, and that’s why they’re so excited about the visit,” the parish priest says.

‘When is the Pope coming?’

“Father, when is the Pope coming?” The question comes up again and again during the walk through Casavalle. “Not long now,” Coimbra replies.

Some residents stop to greet him; others take the opportunity to tell him about their problems. “The demands are constant, you need to have a strong character,” the priest says. It requires knowing when to say no and where to set limits.

Just a few yards from the parish, where a stage is being erected for the Pope’s address, work continues at a frantic pace. In the background, there is the sound of plena, the Afro-Caribbean-rooted musical genre that is a staple of Uruguayan culture, known for its danceable, percussion-driven rhythms. The music blends with the sound of the concrete mixer and the thud of wet cement against the walls. There is a rhythm to the work, but also a sense of urgency. Although several homes are nearing completion, there is still much to be done. The ramp the pontiff will use is not yet finished, and damp days, with the sun reluctant to break through, have not made the task any easier.

The homes vary in size and design. Some are intended for older adults, while others are designed for large families. Some measure 72 square meters, while the largest spans 84. Their layouts are tailored to the needs of the people who will live in them.

Selecting the families was a key part of the process. The criterion was not whether they were Catholic, Coimbra explains, but whether they genuinely needed housing and could contribute to a harmonious community.

The neighborhood itself has also played a role in protecting the construction sites. Security guards monitor the area around the clock, but, according to the priest, protection has not depended solely on them. When some people tried to make off with building materials, local residents intervened to recover them. Vigilante justice played its part in a country where church and state have been separate for more than a century, since the 1918 Constitution.

The parish’s social work extends well beyond housing. Each month, it distributes 100 food baskets to families in the neighborhood and operates a community dining hall that serves afternoon snacks and dinner to more than 60 people, mainly children and teenagers, from Monday to Friday.

The parish also has a grass soccer field, enclosed by fencing and equipped with floodlights, a striking contrast to the surrounding shacks, whose residents watch from what effectively serves as the stands. From Monday to Friday, it hosts a soccer school for children between the ages of six and 15. The facility also offers mixed volleyball and other recreational activities, alongside programs providing social and family support.

From accountant to priest

Coimbra decided to become a priest while walking along Sarandí pedestrian street in Montevideo’s Ciudad Vieja district. He was 28 years old. He had just stepped off a bus near the Gateway of the Citadel when he felt what he describes as a clear inner voice telling him: “I want you to be a priest.” He asked God for a sign, and as he continued walking, a television crew approached him with an unexpected question: “Would you become a priest?” He answered yes. Deeply moved, he walked to Montevideo Cathedral, where he felt his doubts disappear.

The calling, however, had begun much earlier. Born in Salto, a department in northern Uruguay, into a working-class family, Coimbra served as an altar boy from childhood. He recalls an image of Jesus bearing a phrase that stayed with him for years: “Come and follow me.” At 18, he moved to Montevideo to study accounting. He lived in a boarding house with other young people from the interior, worked while attending university, and, after graduating, joined the Social Security Bank (Banco de Previsión Social) in 1991, achieving what many Uruguayans consider a dream job: a position in the public sector. Although he never drifted away from the Church, for years he envisioned a very different future.

After his ordination, Coimbra hoped to work in a neighborhood parish and remain close to ordinary people. Instead, his first assignment drew on his training as an accountant. He was tasked with conducting an audit of Radio Oriental, a Church-owned radio station known for its sports and news programming that was facing financial difficulties. He later took over its administration and eventually became parish priest of San Pedro Apóstol in Buceo, a neighborhood that stretches to Montevideo’s waterfront promenade.

A survey showing a weaker Catholic presence in Montevideo’s peripheral neighborhoods strengthened his conviction that the Church should address both material and spiritual needs. Today, that commitment is reflected in his work as pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, in the heart of Casavalle, where he seeks to bring the Church closer to the daily life of the community.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition