A dispatch by Norimitsu Onishi from Richmond, Calif., reports that "left-wing anticorporate activists seized control of the City Council and mayor's office" and that similar candidates "candidates grabbed seats on the City Council."
This is a useful reminder that biased language in the news section of the Times isn't restricted for use only about right-wing groups. It comes into play whenever anyone is outside the Times' definition of the mainstream.
The mayor and the Council Council members, after all, did not "seize" or "grab" their offices. They won them in elections whose free and fair nature does not appear to have been questioned.