It’s not a tough call. LA County and other California jurisdictions should comply with the Trump administration’s reasonable request to investigate noncitizens on the local voter rolls.

There’s even a flash drive with the information on it, straight from the US Department of Justice.

But California Attorney General Rob Bonta disagrees. He had this to say: “I find it desperate. I find it embarrassing that this administration would engage in such conduct during an election.”

Really, Rob?

Well, this immigrant-turned-naturalized citizen has thoughts as well.

I found it embarrassing that no one ever wanted me to prove who I was in the good old days when Angelenos still voted in neighborhood polling places.

I find it rather desperate to claim that, although noncitizen voting is a crime, California — home to Silicon Valley and allegedly filled with top thinkers in every field — insists state and local officials can’t open a secure thumb drive with a list of alleged noncitizen voters.

I find it infuriating that the county of my birth, the island nation of Jamaica, is called “Third World” when it is capable of running elections quickly and efficiently. Jamaica also uses indelible ink and voter ID to ensure that no one is double-dipping into the electorate. (Maybe Rob doesn’t know that an estimated 90 counties have used this method.)

I also find it desperate to act as if a targeted, time-sensitive request, which is tied to specific ballots already in the pipeline under our universal mail-in voting system, is somehow akin to the Spanish Inquisition.

The LA registrar-recorder, Dean Logan, also issued a statement, saying, “We have not accessed the drive because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols. We do not consider the device a secure medium. … [A]ny action to remove a voter from eligibility must be based on verifiable information, not assertions of unconfirmed data matching.”

Really, Dean?

Our voter rolls are the fruit of a poisoned tree that starts with giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, then turns the Department of Motor Vehicles into a machine for automatic voter registration. The risks are compounded by turning government assistance programs — Medi-Cal, CalFresh, CalWORKs, WIC, General Assistance, and Covered California — into designated voter registration agencies.

We hand out voter registrations like lollipops at the pediatrician’s office.

It’s also hard to take claims about “verifiable information and data privacy” seriously when they come from officials in a state that has tolerated data breaches and widespread fraud.

I’m all for safe and secure elections, and as chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, this is extra personal to me.

It’s why I wrote an open letter to Attorney General Bonta, explaining that the mere appearance of shenanigans undermines democracy for all of us. Real investigations — even, and especially, those that reveal there is no problem — is the way to encourage confidence in the system, and voter participation.

It’s also why I enumerated several irregularities from our recent primary in a letter I sent to the Department of Justice asking for election monitors for this election.

People tell me every week that they receive excess ballots, thanks to California’s universal vote-by-mail system. California officials claim that excess ballots are very rare. In fact, they are common. (I always tell voters the same thing — to go directly to the registrar to correct the error.)

I am glad that the Department of Justice wants to clean our voter rolls. Dean Logan should open the drive, perform the review, and hold the questionable ballots as requested.

That would affirm the integrity of our elections.

Who wouldn’t want that?

In 1970, a 17-year-old black militant pulled a gun from beneath his coat at the Marin County Hall of Justice. He took control of Courtroom 3, distributing weapons bought by Angela Davis to three inmates, including one on trial for assaulting a prison guard. They took the judge, prosecutor and three jurors hostage. An hour later, the judge and three of the perpetrators were dead.

The vigilantes failed to break the legal system.

Today, a new crop of radicals in California is pursuing that goal by other means. These activists hope to infiltrate the judiciary and use the levers of power to upend American justice.

Los Angeles County is the seat of the revolution. Across two recent election cycles, hard-left activists spent nearly $1 million on a slate of judicial candidates, electing three judges committed to remaking the county’s criminal-justice system. For the ideologues behind the campaign, this the opening move in what they hope will be a national takeover of the judiciary.

One architect of the takeover is La Defensa, a “femme-led” advocacy organization whose founders want to end incarceration in Los Angeles County. The group says that it “belong[s] to” several “communities,” namely “Chicanx, queer, immigrant, undocumented, working class people with incarcerated loved ones.”

La Defensa was founded in 2020 by current LA council member Eunisses Hernandez and Ivette Alé-Ferlito, both of whom want to abolish prisons.

“Electing progressive judges serves as a harm-reduction measure that disrupts power, it can only be effective as part of a broader abolitionist strategy,” Alé-Ferlito wrote in 2023. “It will take collective action to end incarceration in all its forms.”

The group is becoming a powerhouse. Its political arm, Justice PAC, has received high-dollar donations from Liz Simons, heiress to Renaissance Technology founder Jim Simons’s fortune, and Patty Quillin, the wife of Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. La Defensa is linked to the Soros-funded Tides Advocacy network.

Many judges are former prosecutors who believe in punishing criminals. La Defensa wants to change that. As part of its “Defenders of Justice” slate, the group funded the judicial campaigns of six former defense attorneys and one civil rights lawyer across the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. Multiple candidates on the slate seemed to sympathize more with criminals than with their victims.

La Defensa’s PAC spent at least $910,000 on judicial candidates from 2022 through 2024. Their donations helped elect three former public defenders: George Turner Jr., Ericka Wiley and Holly Hancock. The new judges’ backgrounds and ideologies open a window onto La Defensa’s vision for the future of LA County’s justice system and beyond.

Turner is a committed radical. He studied race, class, and gender as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, before attending UCLA’s law school, where he studied under some of the founders of critical race theory, including Kimberlé Crenshaw. After graduating, he served as a public defender in Los Angeles County. He named his three sons after his “favorite revolutionaries,” including slave-rebellion leader Nat Turner, black nationalist Malcolm X and Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

Turner’s educational background and years defending accused criminals have apparently convinced him that America’s criminal-justice system is racist. He’s even come up with a novel analogy for a courtroom.

“It’s kind of like a slave ship,” Turner said on a podcast in 2020. “I see black men brought in in chains every day in a big wooden box and someone decides whether or not they’re going to be free or not. And it’s my job to do what I can to try to get them out.”

He and other candidates on the “Defenders” slate believe that crime is often caused by factors like poverty. The idea: If you provide housing, jobs and other services, crime will plummet.

“Circumstances are the reason why [most people] come before the court,” Turner said. “Putting folks in cages, it just doesn’t work.”

In keeping with that view, Turner centered his campaign on the fight against “mass incarceration.” He pledged to focus on applying laws “aimed at decreasing the number of those incarcerated” to “help create a more just and equitable society.”

Turner appealed to a broad coalition of left-wing voters. He was endorsed by supposedly mainstream groups like the LA County Democratic Party, the Public Defenders Union Local 148, California Progressive Alliance and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. He also won support from the Los Angeles County chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which said it backed Turner over “ghouls who built their careers throwing people in jail.”

Another “Defenders” judge is Ericka Wiley. She spent more than two decades as a Los Angeles County deputy public defender, handling cases ranging from traffic infractions to capital murder. Wiley ran for judge after attending La Defensa’s judicial leadership academy, which taught candidates how to campaign, raise money and reach voters.

She is aligned with La Defensa’s anti-carceral agenda. She has suggested that the violent crime problem in Los Angeles is “exaggerat[ed]” and called for the dismantling of “systems that . . . support mass incarceration.”

Holly Hancock, a former flight attendant turned public defender, won her judicial election in 2022. She thinks “diversity” will fix supposed problems with the criminal-justice system.

“Los Angeles County deserves diversity . . . diversity of race, diversity of ethnicity, diversity of gender, gender fluidity,” she said at a campaign event. “Background determines behavior.”

On a podcast in 2022, Hancock outlined her vision to “deconstruct” the justice system. She endorsed “sound healing” and healing circles that bring criminals and victims together to discuss crime. “I just want to get on the bench so . . . I can try all these crazy things,” she said.

We reached out to La Defensa, Eunisses Hernandez, and the three judges named in this story. La Defensa and Hernandez did not respond, and the judges declined to comment.

The three judges are variously assigned to children, family, small claims,and unlawful detainermatters, and likely aren’t dealing much with hardened criminals. But for La Defensa, this is only a start.

Alé-Ferlito believes Los Angeles is laying the groundwork for a national takeover. La Defensa endorsed a candidate for LA city attorney. Eventually, it seeks to overturn America’s entire 237-year-old judicial system.

“We’re actually clearing the path for judicial transformation,” she said, “all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution. Austen Hufford is a senior investigative reporter at City Journal.

California on Thursday asked a federal court to bar immigration agents from detaining people at state courthouses, filing its 100th lawsuit against the second Trump administration in less than two years.

In the complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Attorney General Rob Bonta said that immigration detentions at courthouses in California have spiked in recent months despite a court order in a different case barring the practice. Immigration violations are civil infractions, not crimes, and both common law and state statutes bar such arrests at courthouses.

“Federal officers are carrying out disruptive, often violent, civil immigration enforcement arrests without regard for the impacts on the administration of justice,” Bonta said in a news conference announcing the lawsuit. Scaring people from court

In one case, Bonta said, agents refused to show a warrant or let a man speak with his attorney, who was already present. In another, armed agents physically carried a man out of a Rancho Cucamonga courthouse and placed him in an unmarked Sport Utility Vehicle, the attorney general said.

“Federal agents have targeted and apprehended individuals in courthouse hallways, in lobbies, in parking lots,” Bonta said. “These are the kinds of tactics and practices they are engaged in.”

Such actions are scaring people away from coming to court, whether as witnesses, defendants or observers, Bonta said, and amount to a blatant abuse of power. More than one suit per week

Bonta has filed more than a lawsuit per week in the 90 weeks of Trump’s second term. Such actions have been expensive, costing the state more than $30 million last year and requiring a workload equivalent to roughly 99 full-time employees, according to a previous investigation by The Bee.

But the attorney general said the expenditures have been worth it, salvaging billions in state funding that the administration had sought to claw back, and protecting the rights of the state and its residents.

“These 100 lawsuits are a reflection of just how far our federal government has strayed from the principles on which this country was founded,” Bonta said Thursday.

Damage from a week’s worth of high surf and El Niño-related storms brought many warnings from officials. Beaches were closed. Homes were evacuated and red-tagged.

But one alert was targeted to a specific audience: owners of electric vehicles that were submerged by the flooding.

“If you notice smoke, hissing, popping or unusual heat, move away immediately and call 911,” the Laguna Beach Fire Department said. “Do not attempt to move the vehicle or extinguish the fire yourself.” It also warned that if the car had been partially submerged it shouldn’t be driven or charged, even if it appears to operate normally.

California is the epicenter of America’s EV market, representing about 19% of all new car sales, according to a UC Davis study. Now, California faces an exceptionally wet El Niño winter. Most forecasts say it could be the biggest on record, bringing rain and the potential for more flooding.

Experts say electric vehicles are susceptible to starting a fire when their batteries are inundated with salt water. During the weekend storms brought by Tropical Storm Rachel, floodwaters swept into Newport Beach’s Balboa Peninsula and exposed cars parked and driving through the area to standing water, which may have corroded batteries and created hidden hazards. Experts expect more coastal flooding as El Niño peaks in California this winter.

It’s not that EVs are inherently dangerous. But water affects them differently from cars with internal combustion engines. Gas-powered cars have their own problems from flooding, such as electrical system malfunctions, rust and mold.

The flooding challenges of EVs have already hit Florida, New Jersey and other flood-prone states.

Fires fueled by unstable, damaged lithium batteries spread quickly and are difficult to put out — and they can occur days or even weeks after saltwater exposure. Flood damage to not only electric vehicles but also hybrid vehicles and other battery-operated devices such as e-bikes, golf carts and electric scooters should be handled with utmost care, officials said.

If your car is caught in a flood, water may have reached its battery or electrical components, and fire officials recommend contacting your insurance company, arranging for professional towing and having your vehicle inspected by a mechanic qualified to service electric or hybrid vehicles.

An electric vehicle’s battery sits in a sealed box, but it’s not water-proof when submerged.

If the flooding was just a few inches and just brushed the underside of the car, it’s probably okay, said Patrick Durham, a volunteer fire captain in Michigan with a mechanical engineering and electric vehicle development background who now works as a consultant to various fire departments.

But if water breached the “rocker panel,” which in modern electric and hybrid vehicles serves as a structural shield protecting floor-mounted battery packs, that’s a clear red flag, he said.

In other words: “If your floor boards are wet, then you likely have a problem,” Durham said.

Any brand of electric or hybrid vehicle is susceptible, Durham said. Risk of damage depends mainly on how high the battery is located. But because lithium batteries are so volatile when damaged, he said the vehicle should be treated as a hazard if there’s even a question of water exposure and a professional inspection should be a priority.

“If it’s been submerged in water it’s bad. If it’s been submerged in salt water, it’s really bad,” Durham said.

Power drills, leaf blowers, personal electronics and other common household equipment also use lithium batteries, and although fires from smaller batteries won’t be as potent as those from electric vehicles, the devices should also be properly disposed of at household hazardous waste collection centers. (Do not throw them in your regular trash bin, Durham warns, with battery fires on garbage trucks and at recycling centers from improperly disposed gadgets becoming increasingly common.)

The issue of EV fire risks in hurricane- or flood-prone areas is a relatively new one, as such vehicles have become more common. And they have shown to pose potential dangers to passengers, emergency responders and storm recovery personnel.

When Hurricane Sandy floodwater receded from New Jersey’s Port Newark shipping docks back in 2012, 16 Fisker Karmas, which are luxury hybrid plug-ins, burned in a fire there.

Fisker Automotive said that an internal investigation supervised by transportation regulators found salt corrosion had caused a short circuit in the battery, leading to the fire, rather than a preexisting defect.

But the issue didn’t garner much notice until a decade later, after Hurricane Ian in 2022.

After Ian, 36 electric vehicles caught fire in Florida because of water damage, according to researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory collaborating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“In several instances, the fire erupted while the impacted EVs were being towed on their flatbed trailers,” the traffic safety agency stated in a 2022 report.

Last month, a dozen fires broke out on the New Jersey shore after severe flooding in the area due to the nor’easter storm along the Eastern Seaboard.

The trigger for lithium-ion battery fires is a process called thermal runaway, a cascading sequence of heat-releasing reactions inside the battery cell. Under normal operating conditions, there is a slim chance of a battery combusting. But the chance increases sharply if the battery is subjected to electrical or mechanical stress. When energy is left stranded in a battery that becomes submerged in salt water, that can lead to a short circuit and an uncontrollable increase in temperature.

The Idaho researchers studied water intrusion on several battery packs affected during Ian and found that some still hadn’t discharged even after about 10 months of storage.

Salty floodwater from Hurricane Helene in 2024 caused some 11 electric vehicles and 48 lithium-ion batteries to catch fire, according to one tally, with some fires spreading to homes.

Fresh water can also destabilize a battery, but salt water is more conductive — meaning an electric current can easily flow through it — thus strengthening the current that catches hold in the battery and its rapid corrosion, wrote Xinyu Huang, a combustion scientist and mechanical engineering professor, in a 2024 blog post at the University of South Carolina.

The National Transportation Safety Board warns that “batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles are highly corrosive and should not be exposed to standing water. Flooded vehicles lead to high-voltage shock hazards, which could lead to a fire. If your EV has been exposed to flood conditions and you suspect your battery is damaged, contact your dealer and/or emergency services.

Amid the strongest El Niño on record and with warming ocean waters helping fuel the activity, California probably will see more coastal erosion, flooding and damage this winter, especially during high tides. Car owners in flood-prone areas should take precautions ahead of time, such as moving vehicles to higher ground before a storm, Durham said.

Durham cautions evacuating drivers from plowing through flood water with an electric vehicle. If forced to leave an electric vehicle behind, do not leave the vehicle plugged into a charger, he said, and make sure it’s parked at least 50 feet away from any other structures or vehicles. And leave the battery at less than 30% charged, he said.

Here are additional safety tips, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency:

Notify your local fire department if you believe that lithium-ion batteries in your home or garage might have been exposed to flooding, particularly those in larger devices such as e-bikes, golf carts and electric vehicles.
Disconnect potentially flooded devices and vehicles from their chargers.
Remove vehicles from the building to an open space — at least 50 feet from any other structures or vehicles.
Flood-damaged lithium-ion-powered products should be disposed of properly and carefully. Place the products in metal or noncombustible tubs at least six feet away from debris and structures. Do not leave them with other storm debris for pickup, and never place lithium-ion batteries inside garbage or recycling receptacles.

As the Trump administration forces pediatric transgender facilities to close, a new reality is becoming clear: It’s a game of whack-a-mole.

In Pasadena, California, an infamous pediatrician named Johanna Olson-Kennedy who provides transgender intervention procedures for children was forced to close her medical office at the end of September (as The Federalist reported), after a pro-trans parent corporation read the political climate and switched to an adults-only operation. It was the second time in two years Olson-Kennedy was driven out of business, as Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles closed her first practice in 2025.

The Pasadena office reopened a few days later, at the same address, with a new sign on the very same front door. (If you need to use the bathroom, that patients-only sign about using the key has yet to reappear.)

This development comes at an unusually important moment, as California just changed the way it funds sex-rejecting procedures for minors, as of October 13. You can read a detailed discussion of those changes here, on the website of the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. Following recent federal guidance, California will no longer pay for pediatric gender mutilation through Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federally funded but state-administered Medicaid and CHIP.

Ending federally funded sex-rejecting procedures, California is switching to a more limited grant program funded only with state dollars. The state legislature has budgeted three pools of money, totaling $66 million, that can be used to pay for sex-rejecting procedures, with $10 million specifically designated for doctors who butcher children.

Defunded, pediatric transgender facilities are refunded. Closed, they reopen.

California has yet to distribute its new transgender funding, and is searching for a private third-party administrator to run the funding program. A spokesman for the California Department of Health Care Access and Information told The Federalist that Olson-Kennedy has not received any of the new state funding, because the program is not yet up and running.

Alongside the funding changes, the Trump administration is mounting an aggressive legal effort to close sex-rejecting facilities for children. That project follows President Trump’s January 28, 2025 executive order, “Protecting Children from Medical and Surgical Mutilation,” which committed the federal government to ending pediatric transgender procedures. Pressured, hospitals all over the country have agreed to close their pediatric sex-rejecting medical facilities.

Clearly, though, the example of Olson-Kennedy’s new Axiana Youth Care shows what happens next: Shuttered clinics that had mainstream medical ties just go independent, operating under the direct control of trans zealots who refuse to quit.

It’s unclear how any of that ends, and it’s unclear what transgender procedures for children Olson-Kennedy believes she can sustain in the current law enforcement climate. The Federalist asked the Department of Justice if it’s aware that Olson-Kennedy has opened a new facility, but hasn’t received a response. The Federalist also spent several days sending and resending a long list of questions to an email address on the Axiana Youth Care website, asking about topics like funding and the DOJ’s determination to close pediatric sex-rejecting centers. Axiana has not responded to The Federalist’s questions.

This will be the long moment when we find out if sex-rejecting medical procedures for children can be sustained or ended. What happens next?

Last month, while signing a bill to provide a tax credit for struggling local news outlets, Gov. Gavin Newsom reminisced about the days when reporters thronged around him when he was mayor of San Francisco — right around the time tech platforms swept into town and permanently disrupted the media industry.

“There’s not a lot of you,” he said to the assembled Capitol press corps, with whom he said he had enjoyed an “awkwardly healthy” relationship over two terms as governor. “There’s not enough.”

Left unsaid was how much he’s taken advantage of the industry’s transformation in his own political rise.

The past two decades of media contraction have allowed government officials in every town to talk less to traditional news outlets. Instead they talk directly with voters and constituents on their own platforms.

That allows them to dodge tough questions and independent media coverage where they’re “not controlling the narrative,” said Menlo College political science professor Melissa Michelson. Politicians have sought this for decades, Michelson said, but only in recent years — when over half of U.S. adults get news through social media — have they seen it as more important than traditional media.

Newsom has exploited the trend with unique energy, and is now preparing to leave office after eight years as governor as one of the Democratic Party’s most prolific communicators.

The potential 2028 presidential contender has been a Twitch stream guest, a Substacker and a podcast bro. He never stops posting. He picks fights, on X especially, with right-wing media, an industry he is both critical of and fascinated with.

Some of his communications are done on campaign accounts, but much of the jousting comes from his taxpayer-funded governor’s office communications staff, who have played a major role in casting Newsom as the leading Democrat pushing back against the Trump administration in areas well beyond the boundaries of state policy.

During his second term, the post-pandemic, post-recall election Newsom has grown his press and communications team into an around-the-clock, content-creating media operation, even as he rarely takes questions from the media in Sacramento and his agencies shun interview requests. He nearly doubled his communications staff since the pandemic, even adding a full-time photographer, making $212,000 a year, whose LinkedIn profile describes his job as focusing on the office’s “visual messaging, public perception and narrative development.” Doing it all

Newsom has 24 taxpayer-funded employees on his official communications team who are collectively paid at least $2.6 million a year, including staff who scout locations for events and camera operators who livestream them. That’s up from 12 in January 2020, a year into his first term.

The only other governor with a comparable communications staff was Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an international media sensation whose office credentialed 400 reporters in his first term and held weekly press briefings, said former spokesperson Margita Thompson. Today during one of Newsom’s rare Sacramento press conferences, between 10 and 20 reporters regularly attend. The office stopped issuing its own press credentials years ago.

Newsom’s office payroll includes several spokespeople, writers and researchers who explain state policy. It also has a four-person team of Tiktok- and pop-culture-savvy Gen Z digital staff who churn out a drumbeat of social media content on official accounts.

The size of Newsom’s communications operation reflects his “do it all” style of governing.

He won office with a long list of lofty priorities from expanding healthcare and universal preschool to fighting climate change, and created new state departments for issues previously left to other governments, like a homelessness agency and a state surgeon general’s office. He has expanded the size of the state government to an all-time high.

Newsom treats publicity as part of that public policy strategy, said Erin Mellon, a director of communications for Newsom from 2020 to 2024.

“If you’re not actually telling people about what you’re doing, then doing it doesn’t make a difference because they can’t take advantage of that” policy or program, Mellon said of Newsom’s thinking. “When someone had a problem with the state of California, even if it was a local issue, it reflected on him, on his role and his job as governor. He would insert himself.”

Her team had the inside joke “Everything is a comms problem” printed on mugs, Mellon said.

It’s a stark contrast from the lean, budget-cutting days of his Democratic predecessor Gov. Jerry Brown, who presided over the state’s recovery from the Great Recession. Brown, gruff and unpolished, ran a famously small press shop and often eschewed weighing in on issues. The office had eight staffers at its height — including interns — and borrowed photographers from other agencies.

“He was like, ‘I don’t have to have an opinion on everything that happens and I don’t want to,’” recalled a former spokesperson, Elizabeth Ashford. “I don’t think he was that interested in new media. Newsom is.”

Bob Salladay, a former journalist and Newsom’s senior adviser for communications, said most of his staff’s time is still spent responding to traditional media inquiries and explaining state policy to national reporters and a hollowed-out state press corps. The growth of the communications staff, he said, is “responding to the volume of work that the governor is doing.”

“You cannot overstate the difference between this governor and past governors in terms of what they’re involved in doing,” said Salladay, who makes $242,000 a year. “That generates a huge amount of inquiries into the office.”

The team also takes significant liberties beyond policy communications.

The digital staff’s output includes fan edits of Newsom set to Nicki Minaj and an X post of a pixelated image implying something tawdry about Trump’s chin flesh that got 30 million views. Newsom’s official accounts used a slew of memes and mockery last summer as they promoted both California’s resistance to Trump’s National Guard deployment in LA and Newsom’s anti-GOP gerrymandering initiative. His press office’s X account gained half a million followers last August alone, Newsom’s office said.

There is also more overt overlap with the political side of Newsom’s operation. Izzy Gardon, the spokesperson behind much of Newsom’s more combative public image, has accompanied the governor on his political travels to red and swing states ahead of a likely 2028 presidential run. This summer, Salladay said Gardon moved into a part-time role with the office, now making half his $185,000-a-year state salary and doing political work for Newsom during his unpaid time. Other staff take personal time to volunteer for Newsom’s campaign, he said. ‘If we were Trumpian’

The relentless drumbeat of snarky posts from the governor’s official press office and Newsom’s foray into podcasting and other media known to be frequented by young men online have gotten him plenty of attention ahead of his anticipated decision.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster who has worked with other politicians considering 2028 runs, said Newsom stands out in the party for his unique comfort communicating on platforms that tend to be dominated by younger, insurgent progressives or conservatives. She called his digital operation “very effective” and “one of the best out there.”

“He has mastered being able to set the agenda and being able to get other people to respond to him,” she said.

The strategies are not without criticism. Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who was once a spokesperson for Schwarzenegger, said Newsom has blurred ethical lines by using his office “to basically run a political account” in ways that mirror how the president treats his political opponents and the press.

Newsom’s office tells conservative writers they are not “real journalists.” The social media posts range from routine policy announcements to AI-generated memes boosting Newsom and sexualized taunts at Republicans. The account frequently engages in fights with the right, scorning them for their alignment with Trump, who is widely unpopular in California. In a recent flurry of posts, Newsom’s office called for California’s GOP congressmembers to condemn Trump’s declaration to “let (Iran) take out Los Angeles or San Diego.” When Republican-turned-independent Kevin Kiley responded that he criticized the comment, Newsom’s office wrote it was insufficient and replied, “You’re a weak little noodle.”

“Trump has changed the norms,” Stutzman said. “And Newsom, his operation basically adopted the Trump playbook.”

But for every alleged offense Newsom’s team points to a bigger one from the president, like his recent taxpayer-paid pro-Trump political ads. Newsom himself has attested to satirizing Trump’s rhetoric to to call attention to the president’s many disputes with California, like his withholding of federal aid in the wake of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

“These last two years with Trump are different than any other moment in modern American history, so you have to deal with it in different ways,” Salladay said. He added later, “If we were Trumpian, we would have cut off the California Post by now. But we work with them every day,” referring to the Rupert Murdoch-owned offshoot of the New York Post that started publishing in January. Countering the right

Two full-time staff members are assigned to “rapid response,” which involves fact-checking claims and misinformation about Newsom, his policies and his governance of California on four social media platforms, as well as pushing traditional media outlets to change things they deem incorrect.

The office boasts of requesting 453 corrections since 2024. Salladay said the rapid response operation grew out of narratives on right-wing media and social media about the Los Angeles fires, crime and the state’s business climate.

He denied that the effort amounts to using state funds to burnish Newsom’s political image. Misinformed notions of California, he said, could result in policy decisions that affect constituents, like the federal government withholding aid.

“When people tell you San Francisco is a hellhole or California is driving out businesses, that’s the propaganda we have to counter,” he said. “That is a state operation. We are defending the state and we have a right to do that, because the narrative can be incredibly damaging.”

In 2025, the Public Policy Institute of California found the number of business headquarters leaving California annually increased between 2011 and 2021, but found their share of all business activity was small, as was the overall effect on jobs.

But even as Newsom’s subordinates argue with and dismiss right-wing media outlets online, he maintains a fascination and friendliness with many of them. In 2025, in the wake of bruising election losses for the Democratic Party and young men tilting rightward hard, he shocked fellow liberals by launching a podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” featuring a string of conservative activists and media figures as guests.

Pitched as a way to have friendly debate with his ideological opposites and to learn from right-wing communications successes, he launched the show with Charlie Kirk. The conservative activist put Newsom in a defensive position with a string of questionable claims about California schools, asserting their libraries contained pornography and that they were teaching “against white people.” On the show, Newsom also agreed with Kirk that it’s unfair for trans girls to play girls’ sports, and laughingly helped Kirk analyze how a 2024 campaign ad about Vice President Kamala Harris’ support for gender reassignment surgery for prisoners was bad optics for Democrats.

It got Newsom a lot of attention and turned some heads on the right. Thompson, the former Schwarzenegger spokesperson, said she was alerted to the podcast a few months later by a conservative friend, who was surprised that in an episode with the conservative podcast host Shawn Ryan, Newsom talked of hunting and accepted a gift gun. (Earlier this year Newsom, in a financial disclosure, revealed he never took possession of the gun and his office would not say whether it’s in California.)

“I liked that he’s going places where he is unexpected,” Thompson said, though she was turned off by the “bro talk.”

Since then, the podcast, which is produced by iHeartRadio and for which Newsom is not paid, has taken a more expected liberal turn. Newsom has used it to promote Democrats, push last year for his successful gerrymandering initiative Prop. 50 and to discuss AI policy. But every few episodes, he returns to figures from the right, most recently Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony York said Newsom picks most of the guests from his personal contact list, calling the show “a reflection of who he is and his interests.”

Newsom said last month that he hopes to keep the podcast going after he leaves office in January.

Lake, the national strategist, said Newsom will have no trouble maintaining public attention.

“The race starts Jan. 1, 2027,” she said. “He’s set up the infrastructure to keep it going.”

We’re No. 4! We’re No. 4! We’re No. 4!

California’s lofty economic stature, as measured on the global stage, has been confirmed.

My trusty spreadsheet corroborated that the state’s ranking as the “world’s fourth-largest economy” narrowly holds after reviewing two sets of recently released stats tracking gross domestic product, a broad measure of business output and consumer spending.

Mid-year results from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis for the 50 states and the District of Columbia were compared with nation-by-nation estimates for 2026 from the International Monetary Fund. To level the playing field for this global scorecard, GDP is measured in US dollars and isn’t adjusted for inflation.

By this bragging-rights math, California’s latest GDP tally put it at $4.53 trillion, up 5% from 2025’s output. That was topped by only three other national economies.

The U.S., at $33 trillion and estimated to grow 6% this year, and China, at $22 trillion and up 10% this year, have long been the world’s top two economies. Germany, with $5.5 trillion in GDP, up 7% for 2026, became the world’s No. 3 in 2023.

Look, no matter what you think about the numerous quirks and challenges in the Golden State’s business climate, this vanity scorecard does help illustrate the scale of California’s economy.

Plus, who doesn’t like to follow an economic horserace? Tenuous spot

The Golden State’s perch at the fourth spot on the worldwide totem pole is tenuous.

California’s GDP is barely ahead of Japan’s $4.34 trillion economy, which shrank 2% over the past year. It was the world’s No. 3 as recently as 2022.

Next comes the United Kingdom at $4.27 trillion, up 6% in a year, and India at $4.06 trillion, up 4% in a year.

So, roughly half a trillion dollars, or 11%, separates California from these other top-ranked economies. It’s a good bet that the Indian economy, powered by 1.5 billion residents, compared with California’s 39 million, will surge up the global rankings some year soon.

By the way, after India on this GDP scorecard comes France at $3.55 trillion, Russia at $2.86 trillion, Italy at $2.7 trillion, Brazil at $2.65 trillion and Canada at $2.49 trillion. Caveats noted

Please note that 2026 isn’t over, so the full year’s economic results are yet to be tallied. And let’s simply say that in a year filled with wars – military and trade – uncertainty may be the global economy’s biggest certainty.

So, be patient. It will be April 2027 before we get the final picture on this year. That’s the next time the IMF updates its worldwide GDP figures.

Additionally, these GDP calculations are in U.S. dollars, so currency fluctuations can skew results. The American currency has appreciated roughly 3% against the rest of the world so far in 2026 – boosting the results of the nation and California.

Also, as is common with many economic measures, some noteworthy revisions have been made to historical GDP figures. As a result, California’s status was slightly diminished, ranking as the world’s No. 5 economy from 2019 through last year.

Previous data had placed California as the fourth-largest economy on the planet starting in 2024 – a distinction heralded by many, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.

So if the latest GDP math holds, 2026 will mark the Golden State’s first time in the No. 4 spot.

This change is not some revelation of an evil plot by California cheerleaders. Rather, it just shows how data science’s constant quality control works.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday at the California Economic Summit in Long Beach to celebrate two decades of the state's decarbonization framework under what's regarded as landmark climate legislation.

But not everyone is celebrating. Economist Wayne Winegarden told The Center Square that the Golden State has suffered from not-so-golden costs, and he noted other states have reduced greenhouse gases faster than the national average without resorting to California's regulations.

Signed by Schwarzenegger on Treasure Island in San Francisco in 2006, Assembly Bill 32 — the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 — established the nation’s first comprehensive program to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The goal was a reduction of emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

At the time of its signing, the legislation drew high praise from major environmental groups that sponsored it. Sheryl Carter, Western energy programs director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted in a joint press release that "the world is literally watching as we take this historic step against global warming," while Tom Graff, California regional director of Environmental Defense, called the enactment "a score one for humanity."

Reflecting on the anniversary, Schwarzenegger defended the state's pioneering trajectory and the creation of its carbon market, arguing that environmental regulation has coexisted with broad economic expansion.

"We have shown to the world what a subnational government, a state, can do," said the Republican, known for starring in movies such as the "Terminator" films and "Total Recall" before his venture into politics.

Schwarzenegger noted emissions reductions and regulatory certainty have helped drive business investment.

Newsom echoed those sentiments, pointing to the state's economic standing and positioning California's regulatory framework as a necessary counterweight in what he called the absence of federal leadership. The Democratic governor highlighted that the state has extended its cap-and-invest program through 2045 and pointed to surging investments in renewable energy and battery storage.

"We're proving the genius of 'and' versus the tyranny of 'or'," Newsom said, asserting that the state's climate policies have fueled job growth and technological innovation.

Newsom was mayor of San Francisco in 2006 and was there at Treasure Island for the bill signing.

According to the California Air Resources Board, the lead agency charged with implementing the law, AB 32 covers major greenhouse gases. That includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. CARB says the law relies on a multi-pronged approach of direct regulations, market mechanisms, and strategic investments funded through cap-and-trade auction proceeds.

However, critics argue that the political narrative overlooks the tangible financial burdens carried by everyday residents and businesses.

Winegarden, senior fellow in business and economics at Pasadena, Calif.-based Pacific Research Institute, pushed back against the celebratory narrative, emphasizing that the conversation frequently ignores the high costs imposed on Californians.

"The energy conversation doesn't seem to consider the costs Californians pay thanks to the state's approach to global climate change," Winegarden told The Center Square in an email Wednesday. "While emissions have declined a bit faster than the national average, residents are paying the price in terms of much higher energy costs. The success of a policy, or lack thereof, has to consider both the costs and benefits."

Winegarden noted other states have achieved greenhouse gas reductions faster than the national average without adopting California's specific regulatory approach. He said that fact raises fundamental questions about the program's overall net benefits.

Furthermore, Winegarden cautioned that current leadership conflates organic economic growth stemming from the state's legacy asset base — such as the tech sector anchored by Silicon Valley — with the outcomes of current public policy.

"Importantly, due to problems such as the lack of affordability in the state and stagnant job growth, people are leaving California on net,” Winegarden said. “So are many businesses."

Winegarden warned that as competing innovation hubs in regions like Austin, Texas and North Carolina's Research Triangle continue to develop, California's historical comparative advantages face steady erosion, potentially setting the stage for weaker economic growth ahead.

Ruling is huge setback to Gov. Newsom’s efforts to restrict federal immigration enforcement operations

By Katy Grimes, October 15, 2026 7:05 am The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled Wednesday in that California’s “No Vigilantes Act” identification requirement for federal ICE officers violates the Supremacy Clause and cannot be enforced by the state against them.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of 21 bills in September claiming they will increase state oversight of federal immigration enforcement, illegal immigrant detention facilities, and related law-enforcement practices inside California. You can almost hear Governor Newsom saying, “but California is the 4th largest economy in the world…”

Sacramento Democrats cannot regulate, harass, or endanger federal officers carrying out lawful duties. Illegal immigrants are subject to deportation, and it is the federal government’s legal responsibility.

Ostensibly, the new legislation was written to address the February 2026 Ninth Circuit ruling. The DOJ has said that California’s illicit laws discriminate against U.S. citizens and undermine federal law. They are correct.

In February of this year, U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder, a Bill Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction against the discriminatory mask ban, but split the difference allowing the name and badge number requirement to take effect. Wednesday’s ruling overruled her.

Gov. Newsom and the state’s Democrats have been trying to impose state oversight and regulations over federal immigration enforcement. They passed a similar law in 2025, but federal judge in February 2026 struck down California’s 2025 “No Secret Police Act” mask ban because it targeted federal agents while exempting state and local officers, finding it unlawfully discriminated against federal officers.

It would be laughable except Newsom and Democrats know what they are doing is unlawful.

Newsom called Trump administration immigration policies “Orwellian” and “totalitarian,” for focusing on strict enforcement and removal of illegal immigrants, resulting in historically low border crossings and a significant increase in deportations. (Pot, meet kettle). The Department of Homeland Security has emphasized the importance of border security and has implemented measures to prevent illegal immigration effectively, and for that, everyone in America is safer.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli warned Gov. Newsom in September that he was over his skis, after the governor signed the unconstitutional bills:

Governor, we’ve been through this already. If you want to regulate federal agents, you have to win a federal election. Until then, you have no jurisdiction. Accordingly, I have advised DHS to disregard your bill attempting to ban safe and effective less-lethal tools that agents need to escalate dangerous situations.

In United States v. California, a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court. It held that § 10 of the No Vigilantes Act “attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions” without congressional authorization, violating the intergovernmental-immunity aspect of the Supremacy Clause, Law&Crime explains. Here’s why:

The law “explicitly overrides the federal government’s power to determine whether, how, and when to publicly identify its officers” and thus regulates the manner and conditions of federal law-enforcement operations.
It is not a generally applicable rule that incidentally affects federal officers; it targets law-enforcement functions specifically.
Because Congress has not authorized such state regulation, the provision is void as applied to federal agencies and officers. The panel concluded the United States is “certain to succeed” on its facial challenge—no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid against federal officers

In an unmistakable reprimand, Ninth Circuit Judges Mark J. Bennett, Judges Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Daniel P. Collins said, “As before, we conclude that the United States is likely to succeed on the merits of its Supremacy Clause claim because §10 of the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions, and Congress has not authorized such regulation,” the unanimous 21-page opinion reads. “Indeed, we conclude that the United States is certain to succeed.”

Law&Crime explains:

The 9th Circuit ultimately found the law runs afoul of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine, which bars state or local rules that regulate the federal government or discriminate against it.

“In sum, if a state law directly regulates the governmental conduct of the United States without congressional authorization, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with such functions or operations,” the opinion goes on. “[The No Vigilantes Act] thus directly regulates inherently sovereign functions. Because Congress has not authorized such legislation, it is barred by intergovernmental immunity.”

Police officers vs. firefighters. It’s not the annual softball game. It’s a serious political fight over a proposed half-cent per dollar sales tax in the city of LA.

The LA firefighters union, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 (UFLAC), has put a 0.5% sales tax increase on the November ballot. The initiative is called Measure FD.

This is not about a union looking for more cash to benefit its members. The fact is that the LA Fire Department (LAFD) has been woefully understaffed and underfunded for several years.

Measure FD could raise almost $350 million each year — over a third of today’s firefighting budget — for equipment and services.

It should not be necessary. But the mayor and the City Council have mismanaged LA’s money and emergency services so badly that firefighters are reduced to begging taxpayers for help.

Now Angelenos could end up paying more taxes because their money wasn’t spent properly in the first place.

In the year before the Palisades Fire on Jan. 7, 2025, LA spent more on homeless services than it did on firefighting.

It’s one of the reasons that firefighters were not adequately deployed ahead of the fire: The LAFD brass allegedly didn’t want to pay overtime.

The lack of funds also likely affected the LAFD’s decision to roll up their hoses and leave the scene of the Lachman Fire on Jan. 2.

That fire erupted on New Year’s Day, just after midnight, allegedly after being set by an arsonist. The LAFD put it out within hours, but when firefighters came back the next day for “mop up” operations, they apparently left before the job was completely done, because of budget concerns.

You know the rest: The high winds of Jan. 7 reignited the Lachman Fire as the Palisades Fire.

And once the Palisades Fire was burning, the department was short of engines to send into the blaze. The LAFD chief, who was later fired, said that dozens of fire engines were down for repair, and that the department lacked maintenance staff.

In 1988, a Democrat, a Republican and an independent in the state Legislature co-authored a ballot measure to ban most political campaigns from using public money.

Their rationale? There was already too much money in politics.

“It certainly makes no sense to open the biggest money source of all, the taxpayers’ purses and wallets,” proponents argued. Nearly 60% of voters agreed.

Almost four decades later, some good-government groups argue that the state needs to do the exact opposite to counter the influence of money in politics.

They, along with the state Democratic Party, are backing Proposition 4 on the November ballot, which would lift the 1988 ban and authorize the state and most local governments to set up public campaign financing systems for state and local races.

Seven charter cities in California, including San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, were spared from the 1988 ban and already have public campaign financing.

To qualify for the funding, candidates must meet criteria such as proving they have a certain number of small donors or agreeing to cap how much they raise and spend on their campaign. Depending on the city, eligible candidates receive the funding as a grant, a matching fund indexed to their total donations, or a voucher voters can give to campaigns.

Proponents of Prop. 4 may face an uphill battle: Voters have twice rejected similar ballot measures to lift the ban, and public polling so far suggests voters are skeptical. What supporters, opponents say

Elections have gotten more expensive over the past three decades, both federally and statewide.

In 2000, federal candidates, parties and special interests spent $5.6 billion on congressional and presidential races. By 2020, that number had nearly quadrupled to $18 billion, according to OpenSecrets, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that tracks campaign spending nationwide.

In California, special interests spent $26 million running competing ads on redistricting last year, making it the most expensive ballot measure race in state history. This year, California had the most expensive governor’s race in U.S. history, with billionaire Tom Steyer pouring $213 million of his own money into his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid.

Supporters of Prop. 4 say public campaign financing is necessary as a check against that kind of unfettered private campaign spending, because candidates often must accept campaign spending limits to qualify for public funding. They say public financing will lead to more diverse candidates by attracting those who otherwise couldn’t afford to run for office.

“We need to change the way we finance election campaigns so candidates can run and win without having to raise big money, and they can spend their time listening to voters rather than their donors,” said Trent Lange, president of California Clean Money Campaign and co-chair of the Yes on Prop. 4 campaign.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-led state Legislature, which voted last year to place Prop. 4 on the November ballot, also support the measure. Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat and a co-author of Prop. 4, said it would help alleviate a “growing cynicism in politics” and allow candidates to spend more time developing policies instead of fundraising.

“To the extent that we can engage particularly small donors, that will … empower and also engage the body politic, particularly young people,” he said.

But opponents say politicians should not use taxpayer dollars to run campaigns. They argue the measure would force voters to subsidize candidates they otherwise wouldn’t support, and that fraudulent candidates could exploit the system.

Voters have previously rejected ballot initiatives that would have allowed public money to be used for political campaigns. Nearly two-thirds of voters shot down a 2000 measure that would have allowed candidates to tap public funds for advertising. In 2010, 58% of voters opposed a 2010 measure to lift the 1988 ban.

“The voters have been quite clear they don’t want taxpayer money being used for politics,” Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a San Diego Republican, said last year on the Assembly floor. “Unfortunately, politicians simply can’t take no for an answer.”

Critics also doubt the effectiveness of Prop. 4, arguing it is not specific enough to have teeth.

Prop. 4 offers only broad instructions to local governments and the state. It would ban candidates from using public funds meant for education, public safety and transportation. It would require candidates to prove they have enough public support and to agree to certain spending limits to receive funding, but doesn’t spell out how much. It would also ban candidates from using the money to pay for legal defenses, fines or personal loans to their campaigns.

The measure specifically exempts the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s campaign finance watchdog, from ensuring local programs are not exploited or abused, leaving it largely to local governments. But not every local government has its own watchdog agency, let alone an effective one.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, in opposing Prop. 4, argued that its rules “are only meaningful if they’re enforced by independent, nonpartisan bodies. And Prop. 4 offers no guarantee they will be.” Effectiveness debate

Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., offer some sort of statewide public financing for political campaigns, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Studies are mixed on the effectiveness of those programs.

Some, including one in 2003 by two University of Maryland scholars, suggest that candidates who accept public financing spend less time fundraising, freeing them up for other campaign activities.

Some researchers found that public financing expanded the pool of candidates running for office. A 2022 study of Seattle’s program, which gives each registered voter four $25 vouchers to contribute to the campaign of their choice, concluded that the program boosted the number of candidates by 86%. Another study of Arizona and Maine’s programs found that they “significantly increased competition.”

Others disagreed. The United States Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan research agency advising Congress, studied Arizona and Maine’s programs in 2010 and concluded there was no evidence that public financing led to more candidates.

There’s little evidence that public financing has curbed the influence of private donors, according to the Seattle study and the GAO report.

In California, few studies have examined the effectiveness of local programs. A 2023 San Francisco Ethics Commission study found candidates have increasingly tapped into the public funds and that third-party spending was “at near all-time lows.” But the commission encouraged a more comprehensive analysis. A 2013 study in Oakland found no evidence its program diluted the influence of wealthy donors, although it did seem to boost competition.

Researchers point to the difficulty of studying public financing programs, because most apply in only a handful of states and it is hard to measure what would have happened if the programs had not been in place.

The lack of compelling evidence makes Prop. 4 proponents’ claims shaky, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s editorial board argued.

“So Proposition 4’s only certain effect would be to create a new category of government spending that taxpayers could be required to pay for — one with no track record of delivering promised benefits,” it said.

The ballot measure should not be overly prescriptive, said Dora Rose, deputy director for the League of Women Voters of California, a co-sponsor of Prop. 4.

“Prop. 4 sets basic safeguards and then lets communities learn from the evidence and decide what works for them,” she said.

For now, voters appear skeptical. A September poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found 53% of likely voters would oppose Prop. 4, while just 42% would vote yes. Another poll by the UC-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows a tighter matchup, with 35% of likely voters supporting the measure and another 35% against it.

A federal appeals court ruled that California cannot force federal immigration agents and other federal officers to display identification during enforcement operations.

In a decision handed down Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 10 of California’s “No Vigilantes Act” violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling reverses a lower court and orders a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing the identification requirement against federal agencies and officers.

The law required non-uniformed law enforcement officers operating in California, including federal agents, to visibly display their agency and either a name or badge number while carrying out enforcement duties. Officers who refused could face misdemeanor prosecution by the state.

Judge Mark Bennett, writing for the panel, said the measure attempts to directly regulate the federal government as it performs its own functions, something a state cannot do without authorization from Congress. Because law enforcement is a core government activity, the court held the identification mandate is invalid in every application to federal officers acting under federal authority.

The panel did not stop at finding the federal government likely to win. It declared the government “certain” to succeed on its constitutional challenge.

California argued the law was permissible because it did not substantially interfere with federal operations. The judges rejected that reasoning, holding that even minimal interference is beside the point when a state directly regulates federal governmental conduct. The panel, which included Obama appointee Jacqueline Nguyen and Trump appointees Bennett and Daniel Collins, had already paused the requirement in April before Tuesday’s ruling on the merits.

California enacted the No Vigilantes Act in 2025 after federal immigration sweeps across the state, many carried out by masked agents in unmarked cars, drew objections from Democrat officials. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it alongside the No Secret Police Act, which restricts officers from wearing face coverings and was separately blocked by a district judge earlier this year. With the appeals court siding with the Trump administration, the state’s remaining options narrow to seeking a rehearing or petitioning the Supreme Court.

The ruling is already drawing strong reactions, reviving the fight between California and the federal government over immigration enforcement.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman will make their cases to downtown Los Angeles residents Thursday night during separate, back-to-back mayoral candidate forums, two days after trading sharp criticism over homelessness and public safety during a televised debate.

The forums will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday at Clifton’s Republic, 648 S. Broadway, and are being hosted by the Downtown Los Angeles Residents Association in partnership with the South Park Neighborhood Association, LA River Artists and Business Association and DTLA Proud.

Each candidate will participate in a separate 40-minute session, answering the same questions submitted by downtown residents.

The forums come after Bass and Raman exchanged harsh words Tuesday during a televised debate, criticizing one another’s records on homelessness, public safety and other issues facing the city ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

During the debate, Bass touted her administration’s efforts to reduce homelessness through her signature Inside Safe initiative and to encourage construction of affordable housing.

ALSO SEE: Bass, Raman swap sharp-edged allegations in televised LA mayoral debate

Raman, who represents the 4th Council District, countered that the city has made insufficient progress despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on homelessness programs.

“Under this mayor’s leadership, we have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into an incredibly expensive program, Inside Safe, which has been unaccountable to the public, for which she (Bass) has refused audits, and which has brought down homelessness a little bit, but at extraordinary cost,” Raman said.

Bass, meanwhile, criticized Raman’s leadership of the City Council’s homelessness committee and her opposition to expanding restrictions on homeless encampments under the city’s anti-camping ordinance, known as 41.18.

“If you cannot manage the work of your committee, how on earth are you going to manage the second largest city in the country?” Bass said.

Raman defended her record, pointing to a nearly 50% reduction in homelessness in her council district and her work on tenant protections.

The candidates also clashed over the leadership of Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell.

Raman said she would seek to replace McDonnell, arguing that he had lost the trust of Angelenos, particularly over the department’s response to federal immigration enforcement operations.

“I believe he’s lost the trust of Angelenos, especially in response to the ICE raids. It is not a unilateral decision by the mayor. It takes agreement with the police commission, even agreement with the council. I will work toward it while keeping the safety of Angelenos paramount,” Raman said.

Bass criticized the prospect of replacing the police chief as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Olympic Games, arguing that a change in leadership could destabilize the department.

The candidates also discussed officer-involved shootings, police transparency, housing and economic development.

At an economic forum Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted changes to the California Environmental Quality Act that he strong-armed through the Legislature last year. But he said the law’s “weaponization” still delays much-needed building projects.

“You’ve got to just move things,” Newsom said at the California Economic Summit in Long Beach. He cheered advancing projects like the Darden Clean Energy Project, a massive solar energy and battery storage facility under construction in Fresno County. “I’m just done with the litigation ... Years and years of B.S. We’re gonna get crushed, guys.”

Newsom went on to deride CEQA-related delays, including those that come through litigation, and said the permitting process shouldn’t take years to complete.

“Eight years to develop something? Give me a break,” he said.

The comments stood in stark relief to his silence on Proposition 45, perhaps the most significant CEQA reform effort on the table yet. Clean energy infrastructure like solar installations and battery storage facilities are among the projects that would receive shortened timelines under the measure.

As of Friday, Newsom had taken a stance on 12 of the 14 measures on California’s ballot for the November election.

Prop. 45 is one of two the governor has stayed silent on, despite his vocal CEQA reform push. The ballot measure did not come up at Wednesday’s discussion, a livestreamed conversation with his former economic advisor, Lenny Mendonca.

Newsom has also not taken a position on Proposition 41, a measure designed to cancel out the proposed billionaire tax, which the governor has vocally opposed.

Last week, a spokesperson for Newsom said he was still reviewing Prop. 45. On Wednesday, his office did not respond to a request for comment on his disposition toward the measure. But Newsom’s press office highlighted his comments on the social media site X.

“This weaponization of our environmental protections needs to stop,” the post said.

“We welcome the discussion and we think it’s a good example of why Proposition 45 is so important,” Amelia Matier, a spokesperson for the Yes campaign, told The Sacramento Bee.

The ballot measure has driven at times surprising splits in some California political camps. The California Democratic Party opposes the measure, but many of its leading officials have stayed silent.

Newsom hoped his likely predecessor, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, continued to push permitting reforms through the California Legislature, he told the California Economic Summit crowd.

“We’ve got to be in the ‘how’ business, and I just I pray when Becerra gets in there, that’s his mindset in terms of what he does day in and day out,” Newsom said. “And I think he has a Legislature right now that’s ready for that.”

Becerra has also not picked a side on Prop. 45, though the candidate has taken fewer positions than Newsom, weighing in on only half of the measures.

CalMatters and The Markup’s reporting has found that opting out of data sharing is much more difficult than it needs to be because deceptive designs or “dark patterns” make it more work to say no than to say yes. Research has found that when given the choice, people prefer to have more fine-grained control over how their medical data is shared or used.

In the last year, I registered as a patient at 25 clinics and hospitals across seven states and spent hundreds of hours reviewing consent forms, privacy policies and marketing forms to see whether I could actually opt out of sharing my data. Sometimes, opting out was simple. Other times — like in our most recent reporting on MyChart and University Hospitals in Ohio — the process was extremely convoluted.

For patients that are interested in opting out, here are my best tips to get started:

Get the forms in advance. A provider’s office will often send you a link 24 to 48 hours in advance of your appointment. Sometimes, you can download them off a hospital website. I usually search online for keywords like “consent forms + hospital name.” Getting the forms early means you can take many of the steps below at home, instead of under time pressure immediately before your appointment.
Nice to have: Keep a dedicated phone number and email address for health visits. It’s not always possible, but if you can, get a dedicated phone number such as through Google Voice’s free plan or the paid Burner app. Set up a new email inbox just for healthcare appointments, such as with Gmail or Proton Mail. When filling out contact information for appointments or creating a patient portal account, use your dedicated phone number and email address. This step makes it easier for you to track all the forms health providers send you, and potentially, to track your data trail in the future.
Use the screen recorder already installed on your phone, computer or tablet to record your screen as you read through the forms, so you have a copy of what you sign. Here are instructions for iPhones and tablets and Android devices. On a Mac computer, press Command + Shift + 5 and select the Record button (looks like a bullseye).
Read or skim for specific terms like opt-out, withdraw consent, restrict, refuse, responsibility, optional, authorization.
Read or skim the privacy policy for clues about what instructions to follow to opt out. Every healthcare provider should have a privacy policy. Sometimes, a privacy policy will give you the email address or phone number of who to contact to opt out of sharing your data. You can contact them ahead of your appointment to try and opt out.
Arrive early to your appointment. Like 45 minutes early. Politely request paper forms. On paper workflows, you can skip ahead without being forced to engage with voluntary forms that are bundled in with required forms. Many privacy-conscious patients also try to cross out terms they disagree with, which they date and initial. But keep in mind, some forms explicitly note that changes to those forms are not binding.
Take photos or videos of the forms you sign. And when you return the forms to a receptionist, politely ask them to provide you with a photocopy of your signed and completed forms. Keeping your own records is important, and sometimes obtaining them later can be a kafkaesque process.
If you are struggling to get a copy of a form you filled out, or if there are terms you’d like to opt out of but you can’t figure out how, try politely asking the front desk or a provider how to proceed. If they do not know, try the following:
    At a smaller clinic: Ask the front desk who you can speak to about “patient administrative records” or “clinic management.” They probably aren’t on site, but you should be able to get a person or a department’s name and an email or phone number.
    At a bigger clinic or hospital: Look for the “HIPAA Compliance” or ethics office or department on their website. When you find their phone number or email, call and leave a message (it is very unlikely someone will pick up the phone). By email, write to them about your concern, provide a copy of or describe what the terms are and explain that you would like to opt out, or ask them for the opt-out instructions.
If none of the above works, one more place you can try is the “medical records” department at many hospitals. That work may be outsourced to another company. Get the name and contact of the department or the company by asking at an information desk. Then ask the medical records contact how you can opt-out.
Email me if you get stuck, or have questions. I might not know the answer, but I might be able to help you strategize to get it. Or, if you figure something out that unlocks an opt-out, I’d be glad to hear about it! arosenblat@calmatters.org
If you think your rights have been violated, submit a complaint to the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Peter Swire, the White House coordinator for the HIPAA privacy rule under President Bill Clinton, recommends involving HIPAA enforcers to weigh in on practices. “You can bring complaints when you’re only 80% sure. A complaint is a complaint. Then, they’re supposed to look at it with their expertise,” he said. HHS can issue guidance or address enforcement concerns through their FAQ page in response.

Many of the flagged voters are in L.A. County. State officials say the federal data are unreliable and the demand comes too close to the election.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has alleged that there may be more than 190,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California.

The Trump administration on Thursday sued California over its handling of voter fraud claims, asking a federal court to immediately bar the state from counting ballots from about 20,000 voters statewide — many in Los Angeles County — whom the administration alleges are “likely noncitizens.”

The lawsuit is highly unusual, particularly given that California voters have already begun voting in the Nov. 3 midterms via mail ballots, experts said.

It’s also highly inappropriate and based on questionable federal data that have proved wildly inaccurate in other states, state officials said.

“This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X. “Courts have made clear the federal government has no role in running state elections. We will defend free and fair elections in the Golden State and call out every authoritarian attempt to undermine our democracy.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, in his own statement, defended the lawsuit.

“State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,” he said. “If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system and violated laws that protect our nation’s representative system of government.”

The lawsuit states that “as part of an investigation into unlawful voting,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted a “multiagency and multilevel review” of state voter and federal citizenship data and determined with “high confidence” that around 20,000 “likely noncitizens” are registered to vote in the state.

It then forwarded those names to Homeland Security Investigations, which conducted its own investigation and concluded the same, the lawsuit says.

“This means that, consistent with state law, nearly 20,000 noncitizens in California have been sent a vote-by-mail ballot to participate in the federal election (or will receive one), with many addresses listed in Los Angeles County,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit comes two days after Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter wrote to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, giving them 48 hours to set aside the same ballots in order to investigate those voters’ citizenship status.

McCotter had said the Trump administration would be forced to file for emergency relief in the courts if Weber and Logan did not comply.

The lawsuit comes about three months after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote his own letter to Weber, alleging that there may be more than 190,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California.

The lawsuit makes no mention of that prior estimate, or why Homeland Security’s initial estimate was so much larger than its current estimate. It does say that USCIS identifying with “high confidence” that a voter is a likely noncitizen “means that the match between voter information on the voting roll and USCIS’ internal records is strong and consistent based on multiple identifiers that support a strong identity link.”

It also said, “The Federal Government notified California months ago that numerous noncitizens may be registered to vote in California. Despite knowing that California must send vote-by-mail ballots to every registered voter, the State made no serious attempt to work with the Federal Government to determine whether noncitizens are registered to vote.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for more information as to how the 190,000 figure dropped to 20,000.

In a letter back to McCotter, Weber noted both figures and accused the Trump administration of pushing forward to disenfranchise voters at the last minute before the midterms based on shoddy data work and no certainty that those voters are ineligible.

“Nowhere has the federal government clarified the basis for suspecting — not even confirming with any level of certainty — the listed individuals are non-citizens. And as one court recently noted, the federal government’s citizenship records are ‘known to be unreliable,’” Weber wrote, referring to a case brought against the Justice Department by the organization Common Cause. “To give just one example, in a similar incident in the State of Nevada, DHS initially alleged that Nevada’s voter roll included nearly 16,000 potential non-citizens. However, after working with the State of Nevada, DHS officials failed to establish that a single non-citizen was on the voter rolls.”

Weber called it “remarkable” that the Justice Department would demand that her office “review and confirm the citizenship status of each of the approximately 20,000 individuals on the list on the eve of an election and within a mere 48 hours” despite providing no clear evidence that those individuals are wrongly registered.

“This is an emergency of the DOJ’s creation,” Weber wrote. “California’s election administration will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands.”

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the lead federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, posted about the lawsuit on X, noting the 48-window given to Weber and Logan had lapsed and writing, “Time is up for California.”

“This is not political or controversial,” he wrote. “We will not allow California to dilute the votes of American citizens.”

The Trump administration’s lawsuit says that while the U.S. “actively investigates and prosecutes incidents of unlawful voting,” it “is not practicable or feasible for the United States to investigate before the 2026 election concludes thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of individuals that two federal investigative offices identified on the California voter roster as likely being sent vote-by-mail ballots.”

Because of that, it argues, “California is thus knowingly imposing an obstacle on the United States’ ability to enforce [federal election law] by facilitating unlawful voting rather than working with the Federal Government to prevent it,” and the state is therefore legally barred from sending mail ballots to the 20,000 voters Homeland Security has flagged.

It asks the federal court in the Central District of California to declare the state’s actions — including providing and counting ballots for those 20,000 people — to be barred by law and in violation of the Supremacy Clause, and to issue an injunction barring the state from counting those ballots in federal elections “until those individuals’ citizenship status can be verified.”

The Trump administration’s attempts to use immigration data to reach conclusions about California voter rolls and intervene in California’s election is already being challenged in a separate federal case in the district of Washington, D.C., brought by attorneys with the UCLA Voting Rights Project on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, and a California voter named Pedro Trujillo.

The UCLA attorneys filed their own emergency petition Thursday to preclude the Justice Department from moving forward with such actions against California, citing the letters McCotter sent to Weber and Logan.

A judge in that case ordered the parties to meet and file a status report with the court by Friday as to when each side would be able to brief the court on the issue.

It was a crowning moment. Netflix appeared to have prevailed in an audacious $82.7-billion deal to scoop one of the industry’s most prestigious studios: Warner Bros. The move seemed to cement Netflix’s status as the ultimate Hollywood gate-crasher and its dominance as the leading new player in media.

Now, nearly a year later, the plotline for Netflix has dramatically changed. The streaming giant lost out to Paramount Skydance in its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and is facing headwinds on multiple fronts.

That was underscored this week when the streaming giant Netflix began shedding 6% of its workforce, or about 1,000 jobs — believed to be the largest layoff in the company’s history and exceeding the last round of job cuts in 2022, when it reported subscriber declines.

On Wednesday morning, Ted Sarandos and Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters sent a note to employees confirming the job losses, adding that the bulk of the cuts would affect the tech, product, legal and human resources teams.

“Our mission — to entertain the world — is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources,” wrote Sarandos and Peters in the memo obtained by The Times.

The cuts mark the latest reductions across the film and TV industry. Other entertainment and media companies have slashed their payrolls, including Walt Disney Co., Paramount and Sony Pictures Entertainment during a period of economic uncertainty in Hollywood.

But the scale of such downsizing is unusual for Netflix. Industry analysts and insiders chalk up the reversal of fortune to several factors. Although it still dominates the television business, the Los Gatos company hasn’t been able to produce enough new hit franchises to replace culture-defining shows from years past such as “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game.”

At the same time, Netflix faces rising competition from rivals such as HBO Max, Apple TV, Hulu and others that have upped their game. Free, ad-supported streaming platforms such as YouTube are increasingly taking a larger slice of consumer streaming hours. And Netflix’s efforts to diversify its business into new areas such as games have yielded mixed results.

The upshot: Netflix continues to be the dominant video subscription streaming player with more than 325 million subscribers, but the time that consumers spend on the platform is growing at a slower pace than what investors want. In the first half of this year, consumer watch time on Netflix increased only 2% compared with a year earlier, even as content spending increased 11% to $20 billion this year. Netflix also narrowed its annual revenue forecast last summer, disappointing some investors.

“Netflix’s layoffs show that even the top streaming companies are not immune to stagnation and financial difficulties,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst at research firm Emarketer.

Amid the sobering signs, investors have grown restless. Netflix shares, which closed at $70.57 on Wednesday, have plummeted 42% in the last year. Part of that decline was fueled by anxiety among investors over Netflix’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, but the share price hasn’t rebounded even after that deal fell apart.

“They need to better prepare their balance sheet and economics since engagement has plateaued,” said Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics.

Katz said that Netflix’s five most-watched English-language scripted summer movie releases in their first eight weeks posted the lowest average hours watched compared with the streamer’s top five summer releases in 2025, 2024 and 2023, citing Nielsen data.

Sarandos acknowledged concerns about engagement at a Bloomberg Screentime event Sept. 30.

“Overall we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster,” Sarandos said.

Netflix declined to comment on the layoffs.

“We’ll continue to invest aggressively in high-impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation,” Sarandos and Peters said in their memo to employees.

In some ways, Netflix has been victim of its own success. It has produced a string of shows and movies that have hit the cultural zeitgeist such as “KPop Demon Hunters” and “Squid Game.” But finding enough new popular shows that continue to drive subscriptions has been a challenge.

“A lot of these major hits are coming to an end at similar times, and they don’t yet really have heir apparents to replace them,” Katz said.

Sci-fi hit “Stranger Things” released its finale last year, followed by the young-adult drama “Outer Banks” and “Emily in Paris,” which ends this year. Netflix also announced that “The Witcher” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” will wrap after their next seasons.

What’s more, the second seasons of some shows with big followings have seen large view drop-offs compared with their first seasons. For example, the fantasy series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” season 1 debuted with 21.2 million views, but views for its second season dropped 59% to 8.7 million, according to Netflix data.

New series from Netflix also haven’t captured as much consumer demand as other competing shows from rival streamers, according to Parrot Analytics.

Last year, Netflix had just one show — the Japanese anime and manga series “Sakamoto Days” — that made it in Parrot’s top 10 list of first season original series on streaming platforms. Parrot’s ranking measures consumer demand in the U.S. and is based on digital interactions such as social media chatter and Google searches. By comparison, Netflix had three titles in 2022 alone: the true crime show “Monster,” the documentary series “Harry & Meghan” and the sci-fi mystery show “1899,” Parrot said.

Sarandos told investors in July that such declines are typical and that second season falloff is slightly improved this year. But popular shows on rival streaming services such as the medical drama “The Pitt” on HBO Max have not seen such declines. “The Pitt” drew even more viewers in its second season than the first.

To diversify its business, Netflix has expanded its programming offerings beyond TV shows and movies to include live sports, such as football and baseball games.

Although live programs have helped to spur significant subscription sign-ups, they still represent just 1% of watch time on Netflix while costing 5% of the company’s content budget, Sarandos has said.

Netflix also has added video podcasts that have helped to boost daytime viewing on the platform, and has made deals with YouTube creators to bring their content to the streaming service.

But some of the new content hasn’t clicked, particularly in games, analysts said. In August, Netflix shut down Hollywood-based Night School, the maker of supernatural adventure game “Oxenfree,” and said it was closing a Helsinki-based games studio.

“They are spending on a lot of things that haven’t necessarily proven to be effective yet,” said Rob Rosenberg, a partner at law firm Moses & Singer and former Showtime Networks general counsel. “It feels a lot like they’re trying to send a message to Wall Street that ‘we’re re-examining how we do business.’”

Meanwhile, Netflix continues to face more competition from rivals such as YouTube, which offers a free, ad-supported version of its video library.

Unlike Netflix, YouTube does not pay for the creation of many of the videos on its platform. Instead, creators or companies upload and produce the programs themselves and YouTube shares ad and subscription revenue.

YouTube’s share of streaming watch time in the U.S. on TVs has steadily increased. In July, YouTube represented 14.2%, compared with Netflix’s 7.8%, according to Nielsen.

The pressure to boost engagement on Netflix has caused tension within the company, particularly between the teams of people responsible for how programs are promoted on the platform and the employees responsible for bringing shows and movies on Netflix, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Some blame the content for not being enticing enough, while others contend that the programs could be promoted better on Netflix.

“It’s a bit of a quagmire,” said one of the sources familiar with the matter. “There is a tension when things aren’t working. People tend to point fingers.”

In their staff memo, Sarandos and Peters said Netflix is on track to deliver its full-year forecast and will continue to invest in areas that improve its service and drive growth and innovation.

“Doing that means making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors,” they wrote.

Despite the downsizing, Netflix remains highly profitable. In the second quarter, the company generated $3.4 billion in net income, up 9% from a year earlier. Revenue rose 13% to $12.6 billion last quarter, including double-digit revenue growth in all of its regions. Next week, the company will share its third-quarter results.

The streamer is expected to get a boost from new seasons of popular shows — including season 4 of the political drama “The Diplomat” and spy series “Lupin: Part 4,” as well as Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Day NFL games.

Having new seasons of popular shows such as “Lupin” and “The Diplomat” will help boost Netflix’s engagement, said Alejandro Rojas, vice president of applied analytics at Parrot Analytics.

“The new season is like a catalyst for people to watch the previous seasons,” Rojas said.

On the theatrical side, Netflix also has high hopes for upcoming movies including La Bola Negra, starring Penelope Cruz; and “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” featuring Brad Pitt. Next year, Netflix will release the Greta Gerwig-directed film, “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” on Imax screens.

Netflix has not signaled any changes to its strategy for releasing movies or TV shows. But some analysts said it could benefit from having more theatrical releases and by dropping episodes of shows once a week, instead of all at once, to generate more buzz for programs. They also expect that Netflix will be more disciplined in its content spending.

“While the company will expand its sports roles, it’s cutting back at a time when revenue matters much more than subscriber additions,” said Benes of Emarketer. “With pressure mounting, Netflix will look to turn the tide by getting a boost from low-cost content. The battle for top creators will become more pitched.”

LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman’s signature eviction-defense program is under fire after an explosive City Attorney report found up to $87 million in taxpayer funds unaccounted for in public financial records, the California Post learned.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto takes aim at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), a nonprofit providing free legal help to tenants facing eviction, in an October 9 report. Raman, the former housing and homelessness committee chair, helped direct millions in city funds to the group.

LAFLA received $157.1 million from the city and county between 2020 and 2025, but Feldstein Soto said between $55 million and $87 million could not be reconciled with the nonprofit’s public financial records.

Based on LAFLA’s tax returns, the report says the money “may well have been used for other purposes, most notably to fund litigation against the very City that provided the funds.”

Feldstein Soto is demanding a full audit and accounting.

Raman, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass for mayor this November, has repeatedly touted the city’s Right to Counsel program, which gives lower-income tenants a free lawyer when they face eviction.

Raman called her work on tenant protections probably her “biggest achievement since joining the council,” in a September interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Raman voted for a $177 million tenant-rights package that included $106.6 million for LAFLA over three years, more than half the total, in March of 2026.

Part of that money comes from Measure ULA, the “mansion tax” voters approved in 2022 on high-dollar property sales to fund affordable housing and prevent homelessness.

LAFLA has received $42.9 million from the tax.

ULA has been blamed for slowing LA’s real estate market. A May 2026 RAND study tied the tax to a 31% drop in high-value property sales and estimated it deterred construction of more than 9,000 homes, as the California Post previously reported.

The California Post has also reported on LAFLA’s lawsuits against the city. The nonprofit organization has challenged the city’s efforts to clear homeless encampments, remove abandoned RVs and seize property during sidewalk cleanups.

The findings also bear on the race to replace Feldstein Soto as City Attorney. Marissa Roy, a deputy state attorney general, is also endorsed by Democratic Socialists of America. The group’s LA chapter endorsed Raman for mayor in September.

Roy’s opponent, Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, criticized the LAFLA findings.

“This is an outrageous failure of accountability. Angelenos are watching their tax dollars disappear into a system that can’t adequately explain where the money went or what it accomplished,” McKinney told the California Post.

“Tens of millions provided to LAFLA remain unaccounted for in public records, while attorneys connected to taxpayer-funded organizations are helping finance Marissa Roy’s campaign,” he said. “The public deserves answers, not excuses. As City Attorney, I’ll be a watchdog over taxpayer dollars and make sure taxpayers come before special interests.”

LAFLA and Raman’s campaign and Roy’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The California Post.

A Southern California woman wanted for defrauding banks out of nearly $15 million, now believed to be in Dubai, has been added to the FBI’s “Most Wanted Fraudsters” list, the agency announced.

Mary Carole McDonnell, 75, is wanted for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in Orange and Los Angeles counties. With her name now on the list of most wanted fraud fugitives, there is a reward of up to $150,000 for information that leads to McDonnell’s arrest and conviction.

McDonnell allegedly represented herself as the heiress to the McDonnell aircraft family, falsely claiming she was related to the owners of the McDonnell Douglas aviation company, authorities said. She claimed she had $80 million in a trust in order to get a loan.

She is accused of defrauding a bank out of $14.7 million, which she still has not paid back, authorities said.

A federal warrant for her arrest was issued in December 2018 in Santa Ana.

McDonnell was the chief executive officer of Bellum Entertainment, a Burbank-based company that produced true crime shows, including “It Takes a Killer” and “I Married a Murderer.”

McDonnell, who also goes by Mary Carole Carroll, Mary Caroll McDonald, Mary C. Carroll and Mary Carroll McDonnell, is 5’7”, 145 pounds, and has known ties to Los Angeles, Montgomery, Alabama and Dubai, officials said.

The Bureau started the Most Wanted Fraudsters list, a separate list from the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, in June 2026 to bring attention to fugitives who committed fraud.

The FBI has captured six most wanted fraudsters from the list in recent months, according to the bureau.

With both the number of homeless people congregating on private property near Hole Lake and the frequency of complaints increasing, Riverside police and other officials moved 31 people out and cleaned up the land on Wednesday, Oct. 14.

The site of the operation was northwest of Van Buren Boulevard and Arlington Avenue. There is a residential area to the west, Van Buren Golf Center to the east, businesses to the south and Jurupa Avenue to the north.

Police officers and homeless outreach officials have in the past offered services to the homeless on the property, and some took advantage, Detective Steven Espinosa, a Police Department spokesman, said Thursday. But lately, neighbors have called with concerns about the dogs on the property, saying that they were fighting, he said. And more people were living on the land.

“There were enough calls that came in from the neighborhood that it was time to hone in on that area,” Espinosa said.

So Wednesday, police, including the Public Safety and Engagement and Problem-Oriented Policing teams, Parks and Neighborhood Specialists, Riverside County Probation, Riverside County Department of Animal Services and private contractors, showed up without prior warning, Espinosa said.

The 25 men and six women were cited for various violations, including trespassing, probation and parole violations, and drug-related offenses. They were all offered services, Espinosa said.

Police took personal property and stored it at the Police Department, and Animal Services took in nine dogs, Espinosa said. The owners can reclaim the items, he said.

Contractors then hauled away encampment materials, abandoned property, trash and other items.

Espinosa said he hopes the homeless people show up to their court dates. He said he didn’t know where they were going to go next. Police plan to monitor the area.

“We’re limited to what we can do,” Espinosa said.

Two candidates from opposite parties have announced proposals to do away with the state’s tax on restaurant meals and other prepared food.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, as well as Democratic candidate for the State Board of Equalization, John Pimentel, are campaigning on reducing costs on Californians. Their platforms include eliminating the states’ sales and use tax on food Californians buy when going out to eat or getting takeout.

“In the modern economy, more than 56% of the average California families’ food spend is outside of the house, meaning restaurants or delivered food,” Pimentel told The Center Square on Thursday. “I believe that we should eliminate the sales tax on food as a measure that could impact affordability immediately and leave one to two thousand dollars a year in the hands of families to pay their bills or otherwise make their ends meet.”

Pimentel said if he were elected to the Board of Equalization, he wouldn’t have the ability to institute this policy, but that it would have to be passed into law via the introduction of a bill or codified by a voter-approved constitutional amendment. Toward that end, he is pushing for a ballot initiative that is expected to save California’s taxpayers $10 billion to $15 billion a year, according to the ballot title and summary. It will be on the November 2028 ballot.

Hilton’s proposal, according to his campaign website, would repeal state sales tax on food served at restaurants, allowing Californians to save $4 for every $10 they spend on going out to eat. That would average out to saving California’s taxpayers $185 a year, or roughly $15 a month.

Hilton’s campaign did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment on Thursday.

According to a September 2026 report from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, California’s local and state governments charge a sales and use tax on goods, ranging from 7.25% – the state’s sales and use tax – to 11.25% in various parts of the state, depending on what cities and counties levy in the form of their own sales tax. California’s taxpayers pay more than $75.41 million in state sales and use tax alone, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. However, counting local sales tax in cities and counties that have their own sales tax, California taxpayers pay $10 billion to $15 billion in 2025.

A database maintained by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration shows that California taxpayers paid $80.2 billion in sales and use tax for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, up from $16.9 billion in fiscal year ending June 30, 2024.

Californians do not pay sales tax on food sold by grocery stores, according to the California tax code, except for hot prepared foods, according to the California tax code.

Parsing out how much money California taxpayers pay in sales and use tax on food and meals out is difficult, since the state doesn’t keep a database of how much sales and use tax is collected based on the type of business.

However, the state does separately tax alcoholic beverages. The sales and use tax charged for the purchase of alcoholic beverages generated $623.8 million for beer alone in 2025, more than $19 million for the sale of wine, $4.3 million for champagne and $71.3 million for distilled spirits. It is unclear how much of that tax Californians paid for alcoholic beverages at restaurants and how much they paid at grocery stores and liquor stores.

Officials with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the California Franchise Tax Board, the California Treasurer’s Office and the California Department of Finance did not make anyone available to answer questions for this story.

ISSUE | MEDI-CAL CHANGES: Advocates and legislators successfully held off changes to California’s Medicaid program — known as Medi-Cal — that were pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom during this year’s budget negotiations. Newsom wanted to lower the amount of assets that seniors and disabled adults can have and still be eligible for coverage from $130,000 to $2,000. Instead, the limit will now be $21,000 and won’t take effect until July 1 — as long as the next governor and legislators don’t decide to change it.

Newsom also wanted to increase the monthly fee undocumented people pay to keep receiving full benefits to $50 from $30. But the final budget said the next governor will need to put forward a plan in May that includes a fee no less than $30 but also no greater than $50.

In 2025, the Newsom administration had to borrow and ask the Legislature for billions of dollars to help cover costs for the program after eligibility was expanded to include more people, no matter of their immigration status.

Both changes proposed by Newsom would have saved the state hundred of millions of dollars. But they were seen as adding undue hardships to people who rely heavily on the care. The next governor will have a chance to continue down the path suggested by Newsom or come up with a new approach.

Here’s where the candidates stand. Xavier Becerra, Democrat: No details yet

Becerra, the former U.S. secretary of health and human services, has not yet decided how he wants to treat either the asset limit or the monthly fee, according to his campaign.

“Trump’s H.R. 1 has done real damage to California’s healthcare system, putting millions at risk of losing their coverage. Secretary Becerra’s priority as governor will be to protect access to care,” said campaign spokesperson Jonathan Underland, referring to the federal bill that Trump and Republicans in Congress approved that imposes requirements and cuts funding for medical care. Steve Hilton, Republican: Opposes asset limit cut, undocumented healthcare coverage

Hilton, in a statement, opposed the cut to the Medi-Cal asset limit saying: “Seniors and people with disabilities shouldn’t lose their coverage because they’ve managed to save some money. They’ve done the responsible thing. Why punish them for it?”

As for the monthly fee for undocumented Californians, the Republican said he would end the coverage altogether.

“California spends billions on healthcare for people here illegally,” he said. “Charging $30 or $50 a month doesn’t make that a sensible use of taxpayers’ money.” Why it is significant

California has faced significant budget deficits in recent years and the next governor is likely to need to dig out of future ones.

Medi-Cal covers more than one-third of California’s population so the eligibility and fee decisions made by the new state leader could lead to savings, but will also be closely watched by legislators and advocacy groups that will be ready to push back on changes they see as too severe.

The next governor will also need to decide on what to do with a proposal to tax corporations that don’t offer healthcare for their employees and who have workers that rely on Medi-Cal. If implemented, money from that tax could be used to offset Medi-Cal costs.

Two new laws will change how Californians get change.

Both laws will round cash transactions up – or down – the nearest five cents as the nation moves away from use of the penny.

One of those laws, Senate Bill 1005, introduced by Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced County, allows local government agencies to round cash transactions for fees, fines and bills to the closest five cents. If city and county government agencies opt to enact such a policy, taxpayers paying bills to a government agency could have their payment or refund rounded to the closest five cents. This means a payment for $10.08 could be rounded up to $10.10, according to a legislative analysis of the bill. SB 1005, which passed the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is already in effect.

Caballero declined to comment for this story.

Assembly Bill 1793, introduced by Assemblymember Christopher Ward, D-San Diego, would do the same thing for businesses. This new law allows merchants to round up or down to the nearest five cents for cash transactions, and would not apply to purchases made by California customers’ debit cards, credit cards or electronic transactions, according to the bill analysis.

Ward told The Center Square via email on Thursday that his bill is not meant to generate additional tax revenue. This law will take effect in July 2027.

“AB 1793, the California Common Cents Act, is designed to provide a fair, practical approach to cash transactions as we move away from the penny,” Ward wrote. “By rounding transactions both up and down to the nearest five cents, the impact remains neutral for businesses and consumers. This is not a mechanism to generate additional revenue for businesses or the state.”

Both new laws are a response to the U.S. Treasury ceasing production of the penny, which cost more to make than their monetary value, according to legislative analyses of both bills. In the last 10 years, production of the penny has risen from 1.3 cents to 3.69 cents per penny, costing American taxpayers $56 million in immediate savings with the cessation of penny production, according to the U.S. Treasury.

The U.S. Treasury stopped producing pennies as of December 2025, and almost a year later, Americans are already experiencing a penny shortage. U.S. Treasury issued guidance late last year that merchants should round up or down to the nearest five cents for cash transactions, but that businesses should continue to accept pennies and provide pennies in change for cash transactions as long as pennies are in circulation. Non-cash transactions, including for payments made by debit card, credit card, or check should still be processed to the exact cent, according to U.S. Treasury.

There are still roughly 114 billion pennies in circulation, the U.S. Treasury reported.

“[California Department of Tax and Fee Administration] expects minimal impact from Assembly Bill 1793 on taxpayers,” Genette Brookshire, information officer for the department, told The Center Square via email on Thursday. “Assembly Bill 1793 reiterates the common practice of rounding cash transactions as the penny is phased out.”

The January 2027 debut of Los Angeles International Airport’s long-delayed automated train system is again in peril as “multiple technical challenges” now threaten the finances of the $3.3 billion project, a new report says.

The Oct. 8 report notes that target testing and certification for the Automated People Mover ahead of passenger use on Jan. 6 is “at risk of further slippage.” Further delays could mean a possible default on bonds needed to pay for remaining work.

The challenges highlighted in the report — prepared by the London-based advisory firm Infrata Ltd. for lenders and Fitch Ratings — include litigation filed by the People Mover’s contractor in a dispute over $800 million for work associated with the solar system that will power the train.

That litigation, filed in July in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, stands to delay the train’s startup until claims are resolved and a solar power agreement with the city is signed.

Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that oversees LAX and the Van Nuys Airport, is not commenting on the litigation.

The contractor, called the LAX Integrated Express Solutions or LINXS, is a private-public partnership formed in 2018 to build the airport’s 2.25-mile train service, which is also known as SkyLink. In September, LINXS said it wouldn’t make its Oct. 6 startup deadline.

When complete, the fully electric transportation system will connect six stations across the airport and the Metro rail system, bringing all rental-car companies together at a single off-site facility. SkyLink expects to eventually remove up to 3,200 shuttle trips from the central terminal area every day.

The LINXS team consists of Texas-based Fluor, London-based Balfour Beatty, Florida-based ACS Infrastucture Development, and the German firm Hochtief PPP Solutions.

A fifth equity member is Quebec-based Bombardier Transportation — bought by France’s Alstom in 2021 — which is providing the operating system for the People Mover. Alstom also provides maintenance work for Metrolink in Southern California. The region’s train service has been making service cuts due to budget funding shortfalls.

A grand jury report last year faulted the contractor for the People Mover issues. Blast damage

Other problems identified in the October report include expansion joints on the structural path of the elevated train that accommodate movement from temperature changes, seismic activity and “normal structural behavior.”

Damage to the power rail and guide beam for the train system during a late September ramp-up ahead of testing also is stalling the train’s progress. “Blast incidents” occurred at three locations on the guideway, the report states. The cause is unknown and investigations are ongoing.

“The power rail and guide beam were damaged. The guide beam has been repaired, but power rail reassembly is ongoing with no confirmed timeline,” the report states. Layoffs rescinded

The stumbles in testing are creating ripple effects elsewhere at the airport.

A parking lot contractor at LAX also told the Southern California News Group on Wednesday, Oct. 14, that it is rescinding a notice to layoff 247 workers at the end of October due to a further delay in the startup date for the airport’s train service.

The parking lot contractor that filed a notice with the state’s Employment Development Department to layoff 247 workers at LAX parking facilities at the end of October is preparing to withdraw those plans because of the People Mover delays.

“The WARN letter is being rescinded due to changes in project timelines,” said a spokeswoman with LAZ Parking, which has workers scattered across the airport who stand to lose their jobs when the people mover goes into operation. “This will give LAZ the opportunity to reposition more employees. Layoffs will not happen this month.”

The EDD filing in August was made as part of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — commonly referred to as WARN, which are required when an employer lays off more than 50 employees. January 6 start?

The train service is now set for operation by Jan. 6, according to a public filing made by LINXS with the Electronic Municipal Market Access website, a repository for municipal securities disclosures. During the 83 days left before startup happens, the train must go through 30 consecutive days of testing, and receive an independent overview and an assessment by LAWA.

If all goes smoothly, LINXS said in the filing that the People Mover can begin operation.

“SkyLink is construction-complete and technically ready, and we are taking every step possible to achieve passenger service availability,” a LINX spokesperson wrote in a statement provided to SCNG. “Importantly, once our 30-day system demonstration is complete, LAWA must still fulfill a series of obligations before passengers can board these trains. The timeline to service rests solely on how quickly LAWA can complete those obligations. Nonetheless, LINXS remains committed to working with LAWA to successfully deliver the Automated People Mover and provide a world-class transportation system for the Los Angeles region.”

Separately, bondholders for the project recently agreed to consolidate an Oct. 8 deadline for bond payments to Dec. 8, and if LINXS fails to adhere to it, LAWA could replace the contractor. LINXS said in its filing that they believe the additional time would be granted beyond the December deadline to work on the project if claims with LAWA are resolved.

In July, Fitch Ratings downgraded the California Municipal Finance Authority’s $1.2 billion in bonds for the People Mover project to default territory. Fitch dropped the bond ratings to BB from BB+ with the bonds placed on a negative watch list.

Fitch wrote the downgrade reflects heightened risks due to multiple delays and “rising discord between the project parties over outstanding claims and oblgiations, even though the project is 99.6% complete and both parties have economic incentives to complete it.”

Shannon McCue, director of global infrastructure and project finance of Fitch, told the Southern California News Group in an interview on Oct. 9 that the downgrade highlighted the project’s vulnerability to default but that the new deadline would give it more time to test out the system in time for the new year opening.

“That was important because that could have been a technical default, so they avoided that,” McCue said. “But now they have to (meet the new deadline) by December 8 in order for them to be operational in January of 2027.”

LINXS is no longer nearing an initial breach of contract, she said.

“There’s a window of time between now and December 8 to try to meet the requirement of getting all that testing done, getting it certified and ready to be signed off on, which is required for the system to start accepting passengers,” she said. ‘Finish the damn job’

Last June, L.A. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez requested that LAWA officials report on the “current delays and cost overruns” on the People Mover — which they still haven’t done.

“They need to finish the damn job,” an irate Rodriguez said in an interview with SCNG about LINXS. “The fact that they still cannot complete a straight 30-day trial of operations without any errors is not a reflection of issues with the city. It’s them. Very simply, what are they not doing, or how is their system that they built unable to maintain a 30-day test period without any errors. It’s very simple.”

A new law taking effect in 2027 will cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually to keep convicted sex offenders incarcerated longer.

The law is Assembly Bill 2727, which was introduced in the California Legislature this year after two convicted sex offenders over age 50 - but younger than 65 - became eligible for the state’s elderly parole. Under state law earlier this year, California inmates were eligible for elderly parole if they reached age 55 and had served at least 20 years of their sentence, or if they reached age 65 and had served at least 25 years of their sentence.

Under the new law, inmates have to be at least 65 years old and have served at least 25 years of their sentence, making those in their 50s ineligible for elderly parole.

The earlier law was passed after overcrowding in California’s state prisons prompted lawmakers to find ways to let nonviolent offenders out of prison, according to the original 2017 bill that established the elderly parole program.

“Protecting our children and our communities has been at the heart of this bill from day one,” said Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, the author of AB 2727.

“When someone has been convicted of some of the most serious sexual offenses, especially crimes against children, we have a responsibility to make sure every safeguard is in place before they are released back into our communities," Nguyen said in a press release sent to The Center Square.

Nguyen did not respond to The Center Square's request for further comment.

According to the bill analysis for AB 2727, California’s taxpayers pay $138,000 annually to incarcerate convicted prisoners in California’s prison system. Every year an older individual is incarcerated costs an additional $138,000, ultimately costing millions of dollars more to keep sexual offenders in prison for longer.

Taxpayers would pay roughly $4.13 million each year to the Department of State Hospitals to expand screenings for inmates who are being evaluated as sexually violent predators, and an additional $10.23 million to $20.46 million for treatment for those individuals, according to fiscal comments included in the legislative analysis of the bill.

Additional costs to taxpayers is one of the main concerns Prison Policy Initiative, which opposed the bill, has about implementation of this law.

“This law expands the resource expenditure that California is burdened with in order to release certain people from its state prisons,” Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for Policy Prison Initiative, told The Center Square on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, two convicted child molesters - David Allen Funston, 64, and Gregory Vogelsang, 57 - were eligible for elderly parole. Funston was granted elderly parole and was immediately re-arrested by Placer County authorities upon his release on new charges from another child sex abuse case from the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty in that new case. Funston is in county jail in Placer County, according to county records.

Vogelsang was considered for elderly parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings and was ultimately not granted elderly parole, according to previous reporting by The Center Square. He is incarcerated at Valley State Prison in Sacramento County, according to the California Incarcerated Records and Prison Search database.

During a March press conference in which lawmakers called attention to Vogelsang’s potential release, Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez, R-Indio, told reporters that public safety considerations were more important than the cost of keeping sex offenders in prison for longer.

“I don’t give a damn about the rising costs,” Gonzalez said. “I give a damn about these victims. When we say ‘What about the rising costs?’ that is so disconnected from the pain that we are feeling. That is so disconnected from the problem that we have. The rising costs are not a factor here.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment before publication time. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as well as Democratic and Republican lawmakers on public safety committees in the Legislature, also did not respond to The Center Square.