Elections

Caroline Kennedy, who is seeking to fill Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate seat, has not voted in several elections, including at least one race for the job she's seeking. According to New York City records, she missed several Democratic primaries and two general elections, including in 1994 when Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was running for reelection for the seat she hopes to take over if Clinton is confirmed as secretary of State in the Obama administration.

Voters in four Southern California counties on Tuesday decided a number of candidate races and a range of tax measures for some cities and school districts. In Northern California, residents chose a replacement for former Bay Area Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who left the 10th Congressional District to join the Obama administration. For highlights, go to www.latimes.com. Complete local results can be found on each county's elections website: Los Angeles County -- www.lavote.

The man who replaced President Manuel Zelaya in a coup said Thursday that he would be willing to hold elections ahead of schedule if that would ease the standoff, which has left Honduras badly isolated. The offer from Roberto Micheletti came on the eve of a high-level visit by a delegation of the Organization of American States aimed at sealing Zelaya's return to office -- or deciding on sanctions to punish the impoverished nation.

As authorities in Tehran have blocked opposition websites, jammed satellite TV channels and banned foreign journalists from covering demonstrations against last week's disputed elections, Iranians living in the U.S. have rushed to fill the communications gap. Iranian students and exiles here are flooding Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their e-mail distribution lists with footage of bloodied protesters and other snippets gleaned from friends and relatives back home.

Back in the 1990s, when he was a television reporter who relished tweaking the government, Mauricio Funes accepted an invitation from the president to dine at his home and receive an award. Funes asked if he could tape the ceremony for his mother. The president, Armando Calderon Sol, consented. Then, at the moment of the toast, Funes launched into a scathing rebuke of Calderon and what Funes considered to be government abuse and corruption.

Salvadorans voted Sunday in elections that many believe will set the stage for the country's left wing to come to power for the first time -- a milestone in a nation still polarized after a civil war that ended nearly two decades ago. Most preelection surveys gave the overall advantage to leftist candidates in races to choose 84 legislators and 262 mayors. However, early returns indicated that the left would lose the major prize, the mayoralty it has held in San Salvador, the capital.

Mark Ridley-Thomas' election to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last fall already has spawned three special elections for legislative seats. And there will be a fourth if none of the six candidates on the Sept. 1 ballot for the 51st Assembly District can muster a majority. The field consists of five Democrats -- two members of city councils, a water board member who formerly served on a local school board, a 20-year-old making his first bid for elected office and a perennial candidate.

The cry went up loud and clear from the tens of thousands of people crammed together at the campaign rally. "Change! Change!" the crowd chanted. "With our hearts we vote for change!" Indeed, change has in many ways already come to Iraq's normally placid semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, the latest scene of a grass-roots movement demanding new leadership and political reforms.

Security was tight around the bare grave of Neda Agha-Soltan on Thursday. Militiamen and police stood nearby, witnesses said, and it was difficult for visitors to hold a conversation within sight and hearing of the glaring officers. But the visitors come nonetheless to pay their respects to Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by an unknown assailant during the protests Saturday over Iran's disputed presidential election.

After voters rejected ballot measures that would have restored state funding for schools, educators across California on Wednesday braced for $5.3 billion in cuts over the next 13 months. State and district officials predicted increased class sizes, additional teacher layoffs, more school closures and fewer arts and music offerings. Some districts could face insolvency.